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Freddie Foulds
United Kingdom
Durham
Friendship is Love without his wings!
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After last weekends gaming, I had some high hopes for this weekend, and was not disappointed. A few friends of mine had agreed to meet up at our local gaming club and then head to mine afterwards to continue playing into the evening. Arriving at about 11am, I first sat down to a game of Saboteur, something that I've been trying to get my hands on for a while. And I really enjoyed it too! If anyone knows where I might be able to get a copy relatively cheap in the Uk, then please let me know. Next up was an extended 6-player game of Power Grid, which came down to a tie settled on money, resulting in a win for me
 We followed this up with a quick game of Finca followed by Alhambra. After this, things were kind of winding down, so we finished up with Keltis: Das Kartenspiel and Lascaux, which I bought a while back and hadn't played yet. I enjoyed it for what it is - a simple bidding game that is fairly quick. Beyond this though, it is a little limited, but was good for whiling away the last 20 minutes before we had to pack up and leave.
From the club we headed back to mine, bought in some pizzas and snacks, and settled down to Samurai at about 7pm - a game that had been a big hit with the three other players when I had brought it down to the club last week. From there we played Strozzi, which my BBG Secret Santa bought me. I was glad to get this played in order to compare it to Medici, which I played in the flesh the week before and have enjoyed on my iPhone previously. Strozzi was good, but not spectacular, and didn't have the same feel as Medici overall. The other players seemed to feel that it was ok, but not the best game of the day by far. The removal of the bidding mechanic and replacement with the ship tokens is a little too simplistic, and the tension of the bidding is lost. However, we soon got over this with a rapid and fun filled game of Bohnanza and finished off the night with The Settlers of the Stone Age, which brought us to about 1am, by which point I was knackered (I'd been woken up at 5am by my fiancé who was heading down to London for a conference that morning).
Sunday brought with it work - first planting seedlings out in our new propagation frame, as well as some potatoes that had decided to sprout in our kitchen storage. We'll see if anything comes from that in future months  Then I had to write up feedback for the undergraduate essays I had been marking, which I did while watching Battlestar Galactica (N.B. I am doing a PhD in Archaeology at the moment and as a consequence currently tutor several undergraduate classes, which results in a little class time every term and, every so often, a large pile of essays being dumped on my desk that require some form of feedback that will encourage the student to pull their finger out and improve!). However, all this flew by as that evening held the promise of Battlestar Galactica. Having taught it to my fiancé and a friend last week, they were so taken with the game that they demanded to play again. We were joined by another friend, and Battlestar veteran, for a 4-player game that resulted in a Cylon sympathizer and, unfortunately, the destruction of the human fleet by a massive Cylon assault - humans lost through population loss from destroyed civilian ships. The game was over quite quickly though - approximately 2 hours - so I got to play another game of Finca at my fiancé's request. Once again, everybody seemed to enjoy the game and are looking forward to our next game night with anticipation. Maybe I can get Arkham Horror on the table again 
Finally, my Dune Express PnP project is going well. I've finished the dice and sprayed them with sealant, as well as finishing the tokens (soooo many stickers!). The board has been made out of hardboard, backed with black card and the playing side formed out of label stock and then stuck down. This was then coated in sticky-back plastic to preserve the playing area. The house cards were printed on label stock as well and then stuck to mount board, cut out and covered in sticky-back plastic too. The tokens are nearly finished, but I messed up the snooper token set (they shifted when I glued the two sides together, resulting in wonky tokens), so I am in the process of re-doing them. Once they are complete, I will spray seal them to prevent the ink being worn away and the set will be complete. I'll post pictures of everything once it is complete! I also ordered a few more blank dice and made up an Agricola Express set on Saturday morning prior to heading to the gaming club. Again, pictures in due course, but I will finish this blog by saying that I am really enjoying this print and play lark and am looking forward to starting some new projects in the future 
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