Saturday Gaming at Hawksbill's

The basic core of the Foot Foot Gamers got together last night over at Hawksbill's house. There are so many new games that we need to get to the table. Our friend Paul has about 6 games from an order he placed about 7 months ago, most of them are still in shrink wrap. Then the 2 of us placed another order in February for a bunch more games, and I've also come across 4 or 5 more games that were just discounted too deeply to not buy them. So we had to play something new last night.


I showed everybody Niagara and there was a pretty good amount of interest. The premise of the game is that you have a team of 2 canoes that you are trying to paddle up and down the Niagara river to collect gems. The really cool part about the game is that the game board really moves, after everyone has taken a movement action for the turn the plastic discs that form the game board slide closer to the waterfall with your canoes on them, and possibly sending your canoe over the fall. If this happens you have spend one of your gems to get it back, which are victory points. I rather liked this a game, it was quick to teach and to play, there was some fairly tough little math choices to make but for the most part you didn't stare at the board and agonize over what it was you were going to do. It has a really cool gimmick with the moving board and all. I gave it an 8 out of 10 on BGG. We ended up playing 2 games of it one with Paul, Hawksbill, Jake and, myself. The other with Paul, Hawksbill, Wedgehead and, myself. I won the first game by collecting a full set of all 5 gems, and Hawksbill won the second one by doing the same.


Then we played a game of Rat A Tat Cat, this a fairly chaotic little card game that is marketed mostly as a game for adults to play with children, but it also plays pretty well with all adults too, especially if there is alcohol involved because some of the cards in your hand are secret, and some you get to look at only once. So the more you drink the harder it is to remember what the cards are that you looked at. It was nice little filler type game that kept us occupied till Wedgehead got there at about 8:30. Paul said that this game felt more like a pastime than a game, I kinda agree, you don't have to think much about what you're doing and if you lose you fell like it really wasn't your fault mostly because of the chaotic nature of the game.

Then we played Taj Mahal, this is a game that I've been wanting for quite some time. I had to stop myself several times in the past from spending tons of money on the Alea version. I couldn't wait to play it, that feeling of excitement went away pretty fast though. I spent way too many cards during a battle in the 5th visit that I ended up losing anyway, after that I never really hand enough cards in hand to compete for anything for the rest of the game and ended losing by about 15 points. Paul ended up winning and Hawksbill was 1 point behind him with Jake being 1 point behind Hawksbill and think Wedgehead was only 2 points behind Jake. So pretty much everyone was able the wrap their heads around the game but me. I certainly learned a thing or two about the game though and expect to do better the next time we play.

All in all it was a good night of gaming, we played a nice variety of games and I think everybody had a good time. There was much talk about the August gaming retreat, I think people are already getting pumped up for it. As crazy as it sounds I have a list of games that I feel our group needs before the retreat comes around. I think that's going to be my next post. We need to play all the games that Paul and I have bought before I can buy anymore though. So we need more gaming and a new game needs to hit the table every time we play. I hope to place a nice size order a week or two before the retreat though.