Totnes Board Game Group

Last Friday saw me attending the Totnes Board Game Group for the first time, set up and run by Ross fromWishing Tree Toys in Totnes, although not actually held in the shop itself by very nearby.

First up was King of Tokyo which although I own it myself, I have never played it before, its a cool dice based game featuring godzilla-esque monsters competing to be king of the monsters in Tokyo.

Each turn you roll the custom dice and choose to keep all re roll the results, you can re roll twice.
The results either give you energy to buy power cards or remove some game effects, hearts replenish your health, attacks launch attacks at other monster or monsters depending on if you are 'in' Tokyo or not and finally there are three numbered sides to each dice from 1 to 3, these give you victory points, you must roll at least 3 of one number and you get that number in victory points, so roll 3 lots of 2's and you get 2 victory points.

During the game you are either in Tokyo or outside Tokyo, only one monster can be in Tokyo, the benefits are your attacks will damage all other monsters and you gain victory points for entering and staying in Tokyo, the downside is you cant heal and all other monsters attack you.

Its a quick playing game fast and furious, with clever management of the dice and your location will see you to victory. We played a couple of two player games with my monster being Cyber Bunny,while awaiting the others to arrive and then one four player game, alas victory was not mine in any of these games.

Next up was Dixit an interesting game of describing and guessing, that when it was being explained peoples faces were 'mmm not sure about that' but a couple of rounds in and it was an enjoyable game, made even more enjoyable by a close victory to me. Choose a card in your hand then either describe it with a word or sentence to the other players, they then choose a card in their hand to match, all cards are placed face down, shuffled then revealed, players then each choose which card was originally being described. The trick is you want players to pick your card on your turn, but not all the players, you only get the points if only some pick your card. As I said it was a fun game to play and would suit a family gathering.

Next up it was Munchkin, I have heard of it before of course but never played it, after a quick refresh of the rules we were off and away, its a quickish, fun, screw you type game. As a filler or one off game it was enjoyable and fun to see the different weapon and monster cards, but I get the feeling it would wear off pretty quickly. The chance of Victory was very close between all the players.

The other table was playing Settlers of Catan at this time.

We then settled into a late night game of Dominion Prosperity, a deck building game.
Again my first time playing it for real, I have the unofficial app on my Ipad, but only played it the once, the app dosent really explain what is going on and why, but after a couple of rounds on Friday we were all quickly up to speed, and through a judacious use of the goons card, our host for the night Joel was victorious, I came a close second. It was after midnight so we called it a night.

A fun enjoyable night, next time we have a Descent campign game starting and many more games available to play as well.