Some gaming - no really

There has been gaming, quite a bit actually. We started playing through the Harran scenario that James is putting on at Fiasco. He has written it up with nice photos so I won't say much except to say that I don't remember that fat, bald bloke being in the room. James rightly draws attention to my consistent rolling of ones and therefore my commands not moving very often. However, on the plus side the second turn ended on a tied dice roll after I had turned all my March cards and before Peter had turned his. In addition on the occasions my horse archers had a shot at his cavalry I rolled very well and he rolled very low and they basically disappeared so I think the luck has evened out so far.

Brigantes, dozens of 'em

One major learning experience from C&C Napoleonics in the wargaming annexe has been that cheap and cheerful prototyping can be an effective way to experiment. I have therefore set up my long-planned, but never played, 'Romans in Britain' version of Pony Wars. The main problem is the lack of ranged fire, but I have some ideas for making melee bloodier (for the Brigantes at least) which I have been trying out with a mish mash of terrain. I think that they will work, but it has thrown up problems with trying to merge the original rules relating to movement in the wild west with my vision of what Wharfedale would have looked like a couple of thousand years ago. Nothing insurmountable though.

Civilians wait at the villa to be rescued

And then boardgaming. Games played were Mystery of the Abbey, Takenoko, Skulls & Roses and Coup: Reformation. The first is essentially a jazzed up version of Cluedo, but was very enjoyable if confusing. Once again Templars reared their heads and once again I fingered the culprit without being entirely sure how. I also won Takenoko, a very nice little game about growing bamboo for a panda owned by the Emperor of Japan. However I was undone when it came to the two bluffing games that we finished with; I just look too shifty. I'd never played Skulls & Roses before, but enjoyed it despite being bad at it. It is very easy to pick on the weakest player and humiliate and destroy them; I like that in a game. I've played Coup before and found this expansion which introduces factions to be even better. Confusingly, in different printings of the game one faction is alternately named 'Catholics' and 'Loyalists'; not sure which one is aimed at the Ulster market.