2/12/2025 – Berkshire Gamers Session Report #25-06
-
- 21
15 at the UNO Park Community Center for an animal themed evening (and a couple of non-animal games to conclude the evening)
Our February 19 session will be a request night. Kindly include any requests of games you’d like to lead and/or play on the RSVP link for that session and kindly be prepared to start the evening off, pairing up with short 2-player games until most have arrived and we can accomplish our ‘great divide’.
Amy will be leading Obsession on 2/19 (Zach is already in) We have room for up to 4 players – so claim your seat if interested – first come first served.
Amy expects a playing time with rules explanation of 2 to 3 hours. See links to rules and a playthrough video below.
2/12/2025 @ UNO Community Center
IN: Steve & Sandy, Sean, Wendy & Quinn, Ethan & Amy, Tony & Rachel, Tim, Armando, Zach, Nicole, Reimi, Julie
ON OUR TABLES:
Bunny Kingdoms (led by Wendy) 2017 Richard Garfield (Magic the Gathering, Robo Rally) design featuring drafting, area control and card combos. Players lead their clan of rabbits to glory by gathering resources and building new cities across the land by drafting cards and picking the right ones to position their warrens on the 100 squares of the board, providing resources to their colonies, building new cities to increase their influence, and planning their strategy to score big at the end of the game. Settle in lakesides or fields to collect water and grow carrots, gather mushrooms in the green forest, and climb the highest mountains to discover rare and precious resources… Secretly rally rabbit lords and recruit skillful masters to make cities and resources even more valuable at the end of the game.
https://www.boardgamegeek.
Cafe’ Baras (led by Tim) 2024 card drafting, tableau-building game by the creative team behind Creature Comforts. Players are coffee shop owners trying to put together a delicious menu and decorate their shop to capture the perfect aesthetic. Each turn, a card is played from everyone’s hand, either buying it as a food, drink, or decor item for their café or serving the customer on the card and earning money. If players meet a customer’s needs completely, they become a Regular and earn extra end game VPs!
Honey Bears (led by K-ban) 1998 Knizia bear racing card game later rethemed as Bucket Brigade. The crux of the card play is that the same card used to move the bears in the race to find honey are also needed to score victory points. One round gets played per player with scores added up.
A Feast for Odin (led by Zach) 2016 worker placement game that is a saga, reliving the cultural achievements, mercantile expeditions, and pillages of those Viking tribes. At the end of each round, players will need to fill a feast table with food, alternating between plants and vegetable matter. Players will also have a chance to lay the valuable green and blue tiles into their main hall. The configuration of these tiles must follow certain requirements, but the main goal is to both cover up a line of coin icons to increase one’s income, while otherwise encircling certain printed icons to generate those. Players will build their engine over time, following an alternating pattern of outward expansion and hunting against development and cultivation. It all comes down to how much players are willing to take on at any one time, and what risks they’re willing to set themselves up with for their rewards.
Our intrepid trio covered two tables with both the base game and the 2018 Norwegian expansion that added even more animals (horses and pigs) to the mix as well as more exploration boards, buildings and VP tokens.
Zoo Vadis (led by K-ban) 2023 re-theming/revision of Knizia’s 1992’s negotiation game, Quo Vadis, from the Roman Senate to zoo animals taking things over and campaigning to be the star attraction. The addition of Peacocks who roam the grounds (and can be bribed for their support), asymmetrical animal powers that can only be used to help opponents and a two-sided board to accomodate 3-5 or 6-7 players vastly improves this classic game that finishes in 30-45 minutes. The production is drop dead gorgeous, especially the 3D wooden animals and the coins for the deluxe edition.
Caldera Park (led by Nicole) Kramer/Kiesling revisited and revised Savannah Park in 2022, changing the terrain, placement/tile selection mechanism while retaining the herd multiplied by water hole scoring but adding geyser, waterfall, river and terrain bonuses. The two designs feel different enough to own both, but Caldera Park will appeal more to gamers while Savannah Park will appeal more for casual and family gamers.
Harmonies (led by Rachel) 2024 abstract pattern game, with simple rules, and a beautifully implemented nature theme. Players optimize by synchronizing, but at the same time try to outbalance luck by diversifying their scoring options, while growing a beautiful 3D habitat in front of them. Landscapes are built by placing colored tokens and creating habitats for their animals. To earn the most points and win the game, players must incorporate the habitats in their landscapes wisely and have as many animals as they can settle there.
The Gang (led by Armando) 2024 co-operative version of Texas Hold’em where players bet on how good they think their hand of cards will be relative to the other players, then try to make their predictions a reality. Early in a round, without talking to each other, each player chooses a chip indicating how good they think their hand is. Then they begin dealing cards into the middle of the table and have a chance to reassess their hands as more cards are revealed. At the end of the round, players see whether they correctly evaluated their hand. If all players did, you get to open one of the bank vaults! If not, you trip the alarm! If you manage to open three vaults before you trip the alarm three times, your gang wins!
Palast Gefluster (led by Armando) 2007 single deck card game where a player’s goal is to play six different character cards to their tableau, while other players are trying to get them to bust, as playing a duplicate character card gives everyone else at the table a point. Each character card has an ability to exchange cards with the deck or other players, or return cards to their hand. A hidden gem. The Japanese import edition was used.
Steve
15 at the UNO Park Community Center for an animal themed evening (and a couple of non-animal games to conclude the evening) Our February 19 session will be a request night. Kindly include any requests of games you’d like to lead and/or play on the RSVP link for that session and kindly be prepared to start…
15 at the UNO Park Community Center for an animal themed evening (and a couple of non-animal games to conclude the evening) Our February 19 session will be a request night. Kindly include any requests of games you’d like to lead and/or play on the RSVP link for that session and kindly be prepared to start…