The quiz picture this time is an oldie but not from my collection, I was lucky enough to see this last week and took a picture of the board.

The last quiz photo was guessed as Tier auf Tier which is almost correct except that the butterflies mark this as Tier auf Tier: Klein, aber oho!.

I missed the club two weeks ago so here is a list of what was played Zombie Dice, World's Fair 1893, Tiny Epic Galaxies, Captain Sonar and Scythe. I have changed the format for reporting slightly as I do not have much spare time in the build up to Essen.

Potion Explosion is definitely at the lighter end of the gaming spectrum, the idea is to complete potions using coloured marbles (elements), they are placed onto potion boards which when completed score points and give a one-off benefit. The mechanic is to remove a marble from the dispenser, this causes marbles to roll down the ramps and should two marbles collide you remove all adjacent marbles of that colour, this is repeated for every matching collision.

Flasks - the one on the left is completed giving 10 points, the right 2 flasks show what marbles are required.

It is a fairly light pattern recognition game and mainly about making the most of what you see on your turn. There is a small amount of strategy in picking your future potion flasks (you are only permitted 2 at a time) and in using the one-off benefits to best effect, there is also an element of set collecting too as you get bonus points from sets of flasks. If you like light games this is quite a good one to pick.

Via Nebula is a game in true Euro style, the board shows a hex grid where each hex is either a cloud, building site, blocking site or a resource site, the idea is to develop the board collecting victory points as you do so. On a turn a player gets 2 actions from a selection which may be repeated. The options are 1) Open a resource site, the player takes a token from the board (which has 1 or 2 victory points marked on it) and replaces it with resources. 2) Move a resource from an open resource site to one of your building sites along a clear path.

A player board at the game start with the actions listed in the middle of the board

3) Clear a cloud space to create a clear path. 4) Place a building site token on a building site hex. 5) Claim a building (victory point) card, to do this you remove matching resources from one of your building sites and replace it with a building, an excess resources you have go into your penalty box and score -1VP each, the buildings when built give a one off bonus. The game is nicely balanced with a pleasant mix of construction, route laying and resource management.

World's Fair 1893 I have not played yet but I have had it described to me as a nice light game.

The board and some of the cards in Worlds Fair 1893

Landgang is a great little game from Reinhold Wittig, the theme is that players have a team of pawns which they move round a board trying to get into public houses, the timer for the game is a policeman who walks around the pubs and ends the game when he reaches the last space at that time players score up. You get 6 points for being alone in a pub then 2,3,4, points for 2,3,4 pawns in a pub but any pub with 5 or more scores nothing, the policeman moves by expending wasted pips on the dice and every time a pawn jumps another pawn.

This is a nice filler game playing in about 20 minutes, it is a “dice roll fest” but can be tactical as you can deprive someone of points just by joining them or suddenly run the clock down by not moving at all.

Colt Express is a game that has been covered before. Our game was interesting, I lost my bag of loot in the first turn and played most of the game without any loot at all, the suitcase grabber held onto it until near the end of the game where it was nabbed from him in the last 2 rounds. I have since found out that the Stagecoach expansion does add an extra bit of fun so I will be trying that next time I bring this game to the club.

Three gunmen on the roof, which one will get the gem

The Marshal near the front of the train guards a gem and some cash bags

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a little outside my comfort zone this game having elements of role-play, I think I have covered it before but basically it is a game of exploration until a trigger point is reached then one of the players is declared the “traitor” at which point the traitor plays out a scenario in one booklet whilst the rest of the players seek their goals in their book. All I can say is that it is surprising how mean people can be to a character just because they are the traitor, and there were signs of “mob mentality”. The game works well but it will never be a one I would choose to play.

The exploring has stopped and the traitor discovered

Near the end of the game this character took careful aim and repeatedly shot the little 8 year old girl

Medway Area Boardgamers