Garforth Tabletop Gamers pt2

So Saturday I went to Garforth TableTop Gamers for the 2nd time and had a blast. Didn't really write much about it on Saturday as got home very beer'd up thanks to going out for a curry afterwards with a couple of friends.

First game played was the strangely titled O Zoo le Mio. Fun little game based around blind-bidding for titles to help you create a better zoo theme park than the opponent. My "Gorilla Villa" lagged behind as I paid out way too much early on leaving me in quite a weak position for the rest of the rounds, but I still enjoyed it. Be warned this game does punish you blowing your cash early!

Following that a quick round of No Thanks, a fiendish card game you definitely need to play more than once to really enjoy (you get trounced the first time), unfortunately we only had time for one game before other tables finished their games, giving us the opportunity to get into something a bit heavier, my first game of Imperial.

Imperial is a war game that isn't really a war game. You take the role of a financial investor out to make as much money as you can by influencing countries actions and movements to make yourself as much money as possible. The player with the most shares in a country gets to control it's actions (building factories, raising armies, maneuvering armies), but as other investor's invest money in the country they may get enough shares to take control themselves. In the space of one game at one point or another I had controlled the actions of Italy, Britain, and France (but rarely at the same time). It's pretty mind-bending to play a game where you have to get out of the mindset of "being" a country, and I constantly found myself thinking what I will do next with Italy well after I lost control of it! Definitely a game I'd recommend if you have a few hours to play as it's far simpler than it looks and very interesting to play!

Nearly time for curry by this point, but time for one more game. The bluffer's game Vabanque. The game is set at a casino, where you need to get as much money from the tables by the end of the 4th round. Each round the players determine how much the tables are worth by placing chips on them, place their action tokens on the tables, and move to a table to play at. The trick is the players action cards. One is a bluff and does nothing, one raises the value the of the table, one steals any players winners at that table. The catch is that you don't know which a player has played, making this a fantastic game of bluff and psychology. Great fun!

Looking forward to the next one :).