Board Games Night at The Great Indoors

I'm very lucky to have two local games clubs right on my doorstep, and on Monday night I popped along to the monthly Board Games Night at The Great Indoors club in Chessington, Surrey.

I counted something like 16-18 players in attendance with 4 tables running. Pretty good turn out for a very chilly Monday night in January.

First game up for me was Pandemic. This is a very popular cooperative board game with a number of expansions and even App versions available for gamers on the go. 

If your Pandemic board looks like this, things are going wrong!

We played the "Out The Box" version at the medium challenge rating. It felt liked the cards aligned for us and we successfully cured all 4 diseases in reasonable comfort; plenty of disease tokens left in the reserves pile and outbreaks on the tracker pile. The post game check of the player card deck however showed there were only 2 player turns left. Gulp! Perhaps not so close after all!

Lots of fun and I definitely want a replay at "Max" level soon.

Next up was a couple of rounds of Incan Gold. 

Ooohhh. Shinies!!!

This was the first time I'd played Incan Gold, and again, a game I enjoyed. The basic premise is that cards are dealt one at a time from a deck revealing either treasure (Victory Points (VP)), artifacts or hazards. VP from treasure are split equally among the players that are still "In" with remainders left (along with artifacts when they are dealt) in the play area until someone leaves and can pick them up. Hazards have no effect until an identical pair have been turned up and then the current round ends.

After each deal players, must secretly choose then reveal if they are delving deeper into the Incan Pyramid (staying in for the next deal) or returning to camp (ending their involvement in this round).

Players leaving can pick up and split any VP left on the cards in play. A solo player leaving can also pick up any artifacts that have been revealed. Once a player has left he can then bank his VP towards his end game total. Any player still "in" the pyramid when a hazard triggers loses any VP accumulated in that round. The game plays for a total of 5 rounds so your being behind or ahead in the later rounds can influence how daring or conservatively you play.

Simple mechanics, but the fun (& challenge) come from the bluffing before the reveal. A nice juicy artifact can make leaving tempting, especially if there are other treasures (VPs) to be picked up as well, but remaining "In" when the other players have left can bring out your greedy side; no need to share!

Incan Gold is easy to pick up and plays quickly; a game takes 20-30 minutes. This makes it a good choice as a filler or game to play with non-gamer friends and family.

I'm tempted to take something a bit more "serious" to play next time; I fancy a go at Lords of Waterdeep which I haven't played in ages. Looking forward to the next games evening in February.