Professor Rob

Cardhu's a decent one to try if you're just starting out, and the Gold Reserve bottling tends to always be on offer in one supermarket or another – usually about £25 (down from £42).

Amazing:

Nice one. I had planned on popping in on Saturday but didn't get chance in the end. Cheating Moth's not a bad little game – I got it (well, Mogel Motte) from a charity shop a while back.

Snowdonia please.

Ooh - for some reason I thought it was later on in the year. I’d be up for it.

The Kickstarter for Aftershock, Alan Moon's new game being published by Stronghold, has been cancelled, and seems to have been a bit of a disaster. First off, it was brought to their attention that there's already another game called Aftershock, an educational game used to raise awareness of the humanitarian crises that invariably follow natural disasters. That's fair enough, but Stronghold started blocking anyone on Twitter who pointed this out to them, no matter how reasonably and politely they did so. Then people started grumbling about the eye-watering shipping to costs to anywhere outside of the US, and then to add that, the "deluxe" version components were considered a bit of a rip-off. Shipping: Some of those prices are astonishing. BGG threads: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2140791/aftershock-live-kickstarter/page/1 https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2141048/aftershock-name-confusion/page/1 Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strongholdgames/aftershock-deluxe-edition

Looks Creepshow-y.

Ditto.

Favourites (at the moment, at least, and in no particular order): Rodenbach Grand Cru Alaskan Smoked Porter Timothy Taylor's Landlord Young's Waggledance Duyck Jenlain Pete's Wicked Summer Brew Duvel Budvar

I was a fan when it first came out, but it's very much of its time. Being 28 at the time, I probably appreciated it more than would a six-year old. It was only later that I found out that he'd stolen his entire act from Bill Hicks. Shameful.

Sidereal Confluence sounds good - looking forward to it. I’ve also arranged to play Village with Andy, so I’ve been reading the rules for that. I should be coming to the next one, all being well, but I’ll let you know if I can’t.

Had another great time at Beyond Monopoly at the weekend, and got to play quite a few games I'd not played before. First up was Karuba, a fun little tile-laying game. You draw tiles and place them to try and get your explorers across uncharted territory to the temples. Each tile has a different configuration of paths on it, and can be used to either extend your paths on the board or to move your explorers. There are gems to collect on the way and bonus points for being the first explorer to reach the destination. I lost spectacularly, but quite enjoyed it. It has more depth than it first appears. Next came Troyes, a solid Euro game where you use a pool of dice to place workers in different parts of the city, to gain influence and special abilities. Each turn, there's an external threat that you have to join forces to fight against, and these continue to affect each subsequent turn until they're defeated. It took a short while to get the game running smoothly (lots of rules), but after that it was fine. I liked it. Think I came second (four player game). Imhotep was next, a game where you're building structures in ancient Egypt. Each turn you can choose to take stone from your quarry onto your wharf, move stone from the wharf onto a boat, or drive a boat to one of five different locations to contribute to different buildings. Each building scores in a different way, and the trick is to maximise your points and minimise your opponents' (boats will have other people's stones on besides your own). I already own this and always enjoy playing it. Medici: I really enjoyed this a lot, and would say it was my favourite game of the day. It's a deceptively simple auction game where where you're bidding on cargo to load onto your boat. For each consignment that comes up, you only get one bid each, with it then going to the highest bidder. You get points based on the tonnage (each cargo tile has a weight), and on how many of each type of good you have. Money is points and points are money, so you're reducing your final score with higher bids. It makes for a very tight, very tense game. Came second, I think. I think I'll probably get myself a copy of this. Last was Isle of Skye, where you lay tiles to build terrain in a very similar way to Carcassonne. As we were pressed for time, we played a simpler variant where you draft tiles rather than buy them at auction. It was quite good fun, but I think I prefer the elegant simplicity of Carc. Had a lovely time, and look forward to going again. My only regret was not being free at the right time to join in with Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, a game I'd really like to try. Maybe next time.

What was this, as a matter of interest?

I don’t remember him ever asking for a Coke. I’m quite certain he doesn’t, unless it’s in a deleted scene or something.

I wasn't even sure what accent he's meant to have. It's all over the place.

I've backed it. Looks lovely.

Pretty good (and pretty comprehensive) Christmas buyers' guide from Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/12/ars-technicas-ultimate-board-game-buyers-guide-2018-edition/

Mine's been changed to 14 Dec.

I snagged mine around 5pm yesterday, and it says it's arriving on 21 December.

As per this thread on BGG: something weird has been going on with the price of Concordia on Amazon over the past week or so, in that for short periods of time (15 minutes or so), it randomly plummets to around £15-16, then goes back up to full price again. If you check regularly, and are quick off the mark, you might be able to snag a bargain. It's apparently legit – people have been receiving their copies, and they're not counterfeit.

Oh, I’ll definitely be back as often as I can make it. I was sat opposite Jim for Auztralia, and playing Twilight Struggle next to your Le Havre. I’m afraid I didn’t get the guy’s name I was playing TS with, but he was very helpful. I didn’t really mind missing the bus, as I didn’t want to duck out of a game part way through and spoil it for everyone else. Though I was a bit worried that the car park would be locked. Were you the chap carrying Lords of Xidit when you left?

It doesn’t seem to be included in Prime.

Well, I had a lovely time - really enjoyed it. Very friendly and inviting bunch of people. Started off being invited into a game of Castles of Burgundy (I lost by a mile), then played Twilight Struggle with a very patient and helpful chap (I lost, but didn’t do as badly as I expected, given that I’m rubbish at Twilight Struggle). After that got invited into a game of Auztralia, which was good but ran quite long so I ended up missing the last bus back to the park and ride. Had a splendid day.

I'm quite excited – for the first time in literally years, I have a weekend to myself which happens to coincide with a meeting of Beyond Monopoly in York. Really looking forward to it.

Shamelessly stolen from a thread on BGG, there are some pretty good deals in the Thirsty Meeples clearance sale: https://thirstymeeples.co.uk/collections/clearance-games