2/5/2025 – Berkshire Gamers Session Report #25-05
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17 at the UNO Park Community Center for a request night. We celebrated the birthdays of both Tony and Tim.
Our 2/12 session will feature games about animals (no insects this time around) Expect to play from among: Finspan, Everdell, Ark Nova, Barenpark, Cascadia, Hare & Tortoise, Forest Shuffle, Snow Tails, Wingspan, Llama Land, Reef, Calico, The Fox Experiment, Honey Bears, Zooloretto, Caldera/Savannah Park, Camel Up… and more
2/5/2025 @ Uno Community Center
IN: Steve & Sandy, Sean & Wendy, Tony & Rachel, Ethan & Amy, Tim, Armando, Matt, Chris, Zach, Nicole, Rob, Julie, Kate
ON OUR TABLES:
2-Player Games
Everdell Duo (led by Sean) 2024 worker placement drafting game that can either be played cooperatively or competitively to earn the most points. Players accomplish this by placing workers to gather resources, then use those resources to play cards face up in front of them, creating their own woodland city. Cards may be played from the player’s hands or from the face-up area on the board called the meadow. However, only cards touching the sun or moon token may be played from the meadow, and players move these tokens each time they perform a turn. Therefore, planning for and timing which cards played are critical. Each game players try to achieve various events, the requirements of which differ from game to game, making certain cards and combinations more important to pursue. The game lasts for four seasons, then players add their scores to determine the winner. If playing cooperatively, players check the requirements for the chapter being played to see if they have won.
Flatiron (led by Tim) 2024 city building game where players participate in the construction of the iconic Flatiron building in Manhattan. Both players will need to develop their companies by adding new cards to their personal board that allow them to perform more and better actions on each of the surrounding streets. The ultimate goal is to earn more points than your opponent, primarily by undertaking construction tasks but also by maintaining an impeccable public image and adhering to the decrees of the New York City Council. When the roof is placed, and everything is ready for the grand opening, the game ends. Victory and recognition will go only to the player who has accumulated the most points.
Glasgow (led by Wendy) 2020 city building game that uses a rondel mechanic along with tile drafting. Players travel the city (in an abstract manner) to collect resources, take special actions, and most important of all construct buildings. Build a factory, and players will receive more goods from it when other buildings are constructed in the right areas in relation to it; build a train station, and players may or may not score from it depending on what else you build; build a monument, and you’ll merely collect a lot of points — and in the end, points are what matters.
LotR Duel for Middle Earth (led by Armando) 2024 two-player drafting game that re-themes the outstanding 7 Wonders Duel for Lord of the Rings by the same authors. There are multiple win conditions for each side and this version adds area control replacing the military track from the original. Instead of drafting Wonders upfront in the original, this version replaces them with 3 public landmarks on a first come first serve system. There is a tempo control in this game that’s not found in the original, an improvement, as it gives more tactical decisions – taken somewhat from Pantheon expansion.
Jaipur (led by K-ban) 2009 fast-paced card game, a blend of tactics, risk and luck. On a player’s turn they can either take or sell cards. If a player takes cards, they have to choose between taking all the camels, taking one card from the market, or swapping 2-5 cards between the market and your cards. If a player sells cards, they get to sell only one type of good, and receive as many chips for that good as the number of cards sold. The chips’ values decrease as the game progresses, so speed is of the essence. On the other hand, you receive increasingly high rewards for selling three, four, or five cards of the same good at a time, so patience can be rewarded with bonuses. Players can’t sell camels, but they’re paramount for trading and they’re also worth a little something at the end of the round, enough sometimes to secure the win, so use them wisely.
Lacuna (led by Tony) 2023 two-player 15-minute abstract with incredible table presence. 49 wooden flower tokens in 7 different colors are deposited on a square fabric board and spread fairly evenly to avoid clumping. The first half of the game consists of each player placing one of their 6 metal markers between two flowers of the same color (providing there is a clear line of sight) and claiming them. After each player has made their placements, the remaining flower tokens are claimed by whoever’s metal marker is the closest (a ruler is provided to measure). Victory goes to the player winning majorities in at least 4 of the 7 colors. Short, sweet and thought provoking.
Railroad Ink (led by Rachel/Amy) 2018 multiplayer puzzle game where the player’s goal is to connect as many exits on their board as possible. Each round, a set of dice are rolled in the middle of the table, determining which kind of road and railway routes are available to all players. Players have to draw these routes on their erasable boards to create transport lines and connect their exits, trying to optimize the available symbols better than their opponents. The more exits connected, the more points scored at the end of the game, but players lose points for each incomplete route, so plan carefully! Will you press your luck and try to stretch your transportation network to the next exit, or will you play it safe and start a new, simpler to manage route?
Multi-player Games
River Valley Glassworks (led by Wendy) 2024 drafting and pattern building game. This is a 30 minute family game, where players are collecting glass pieces from the river and lake to fill up their warehouse. VPs are scored at game’s end for both rows (only if unbroken from left) and one’s two highest columns. There are penalties for drafting glass that doesn’t fit in one’s warehouse. Beautifully produced and we’ll explore the 6 mini-expansions that came with the deluxe edition in future sessions.
Renfield (led by Tony) 1999 trick taking/gambling card game. Each card has 4 traits, rank (1-17), suit (tools, parts, stones), bugs (0-6) and a dollar cost (0-5). The game is played in hands of six rounds. Six cards are dealt to each player then setting the order of suit hierarchy is bid on. The highest bidder puts their money in the pot and sets the suit order. The top bidder then plays a card and everyone must follow suit if possible. The winner of the trick takes the cards and checks for dollar amounts which must be paid to the pot. He then leads the next trick. A player may fold instead of playing if they have won at least one trick with a bug and is out for the rest of the round and can not win the hand. After six rounds have been played the winner of the hand is the person who has taken the fewest bugs more than zero.
Finspan (led by Sean) 2025 reimplementation of Wingspan where players are marine researchers seeking to find and observe an array of aquatic life in the colorful Sunlight Zone, ghostly Twilight Zone, and pitch-black Midnight Zone of the world’s seas and oceans. The fish players discover over four weeks will generate a series of benefits as they dive deeper into the ocean. Each dive site specializes in a key aspect of expanding players research:
- Grow one’s collection of fish.
- Discover freshly laid eggs.
- Hatch eggs into young and consolidate young to form schools.
The winner is the player with the most points gained from fish, eggs, young, schools, and achievements.
https://boardgamegeek.com/
Intarsia (led by K-ban) 2024 Michael Kiesling (Azul series, Tikal, Caldera Park/Savannah Park) puzzle, pattern building and set collection game of designing the finest parquet floors for the Cafe de Paris. The wooden parquet pieces fit together in a unique way and the resource card system makes for an enjoyable efficiency puzzle to solve. If you enjoy games like Splendor or Bazaar give this a try.
The White Castle (led by Tim/Zach) 2023 resource management, worker placement and dice placement game. Over three rounds, players will send members of their clan to tend the gardens, defend the castle or progress up the social ladder of the nobility. At the end of the match, these will award players victory points in a variety of ways.
Rebirth (led by K-ban) 2024 Reiner Knizia tile laying game with a double-sided mapboard (for both Scotland and Ireland). Each turn, players draw a tile from their supply and place it strategically on the board. These tiles represent your clan’s contribution to rebuilding the land. The game rewards strategic foresight and clever tactical play, with tougher decisions emerging over the course of a relatively short game that tends to elicit repeat plays. Points are scored for chains of food farms & energy farms, residences, castles controlled, as well as private goals achieved through cathedrals. We played the Scotland side of the mapboard.
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!
Odin (led by Tim) 2024 shedding/ladder card game. Players are trying to empty their hands as quickly as possible, sending all their Vikings out into the world. The game lasts several hands, with each hand consisting of one or more rounds. The deck contains cards in six suits, each numbered 1-9, and each player starts with a hand of nine cards. The lead player for the hand lays a single card on the table. The next player either passes (but can play on a future turn) or plays the same number of cards (or one more than that number) with a higher value. When you play two or more cards, the cards must be the same number or color, and the value of these cards is created by placing their digits in order from high to low. When you play and are not the lead, you must take one of the cards from the previous play into your hand, then discard the rest. Play continues around the table until either a player is out of cards, which ends the round immediately, or all players have passed in succession. In the latter case, discard the cards last played; whoever played these cards lays a single card to start a new round. Alternatively, if the lead player has cards in hand of a single suit or number, they play all of these cards at once to end the hand. When a hand ends, each player scores 1 point for each card they still hold. If someone has 15 or more points, whoever has the fewest points wins.
Steve
17 at the UNO Park Community Center for a request night. We celebrated the birthdays of both Tony and Tim. Our 2/12 session will feature games about animals (no insects this time around) Expect to play from among: Finspan, Everdell, Ark Nova, Barenpark, Cascadia, Hare & Tortoise, Forest Shuffle, Snow Tails, Wingspan, Llama Land, Reef,…
17 at the UNO Park Community Center for a request night. We celebrated the birthdays of both Tony and Tim. Our 2/12 session will feature games about animals (no insects this time around) Expect to play from among: Finspan, Everdell, Ark Nova, Barenpark, Cascadia, Hare & Tortoise, Forest Shuffle, Snow Tails, Wingspan, Llama Land, Reef,…