I am almost too traumatized to report that Annie, Brekke and I played a game of Belfort while the Brewers won. I managed to come from behind and win the key to the city!
Pics from the game that preceded our awesome video.
I was in Erik’s neighborhood for a meeting last night and I was wondering if he was maybe up for building in the towns of Caylus, Troyes, or Belfort. He had no preference, I had no preference so Tom, who was also in the neighborhood, chose Belfort (because he thought it looked like a children’s game). When all the bags of components fell out and the multiple boards were laid out, Tom realized his first impression based on the game box was probably an incorrect one.
After a brief rules explanation we were off and walking. Erik built nothin’ but guilds early, I took the recruiting guild and a tower and Tom also snatched up a guild and had a building in there as well. I was very often without money but managed to take the early lead after spring scoring thanks to an uncontested district and points in all unit (race?) scoring. After summer scoring I maintained my lead (I went to the recruiter’s guild every turn) and shot further ahead while Erik and Tom were neck and neck. I snatched up the final Gnomes out from under Tom’s Gnose and held on to win the key to the city with over 50+ points.
Tom did a good job on his first trial although Erik did beat him. He said he felt like he had a much better grasp of what’s going on than he did playing Caylus. This was the first time there were any walls built and Erik managed to go through all of his property markers (the rulebook says this is a very rare case. Currently 1 out of 3 games for us). Erik realized that the costs of Gatehouses may not be all that worth it unless the situation makes them valuable. I also learned that having the 2 crest in a three player game basically means you’ll be spared the turn order battle for the most part. Or at least I didn’t bother to waste placements on turn order.
Good game, good times.
So Erik (not pictured as I am still failing at mastering photographic lighting technique) texted me that he was up for some games: “the gnome one” and even Troyes(!) because he felt he needed to avenge his loss. I looked around for a third for Belfort but was rebuffed—at least it was an excuse to try the two player variant.
Troyes started out relatively uneventful: we both had two meeples in each building. Erik started building cathedral and battling event cards (which, much to my chagrin, were not his character cards) and I tried to set up as many Monk/Merchant combos as I could to get the ducats (deniers? every board game currency is now ducats to me.) to rule the dice. I didn’t rule much of anything, as Brekke did, in fact, avenge his loss and won the game 43 - 40. He outscored me on the activity cards 14 to 7. Harsh.
I was a little nervous to put Belfort to the table with just two as the rule book recommends being “familiar” with the 3-4 player game before trying the two player variant. There was no need for nervousness (it’s just a little turbulence. name that song) as the added mechanics to compensate for two players are simple to learn—you basically control two dummy players who fill up some of the buildings on the board and count as having 4 elves/dwarfs for scoring. I rarely had any money and was worried I would have to lose points to taxes but I took the lead after Spring scoring and never looked back: Joe wins 46-35.
Finally, I wanted to link to another cool boardgame tumblr I found while boardgamegeek was down for a few hours today (the HORROR, I know). Everything I Played is kind of a better and more succinct version of what I try to do. Check it out but make sure to come back—that blog doesn’t have any cat pictures…
After an afternoon of volunteering at Second Harvest, Annie and I got some wine from Carcassonne and met up with Brekke to try out Belfort. When Annie heard I had a game that involved gnomes (well, another game that involved gnomes) she was desperate to give it a try. As it is a worker placement/area majority/hand management/resource management game with some cute graphics, I was similarly inclined to give it a try. Brekke is just a Mensch so was up for it as well.
A brief explanation of the rules by yours truly and we were off and running pretty quick. The player aids basically tell you everything you need to know anyway so not much in the way of formal explanation is really needed. The three of us took off in relatively divergent strategies: I built the wood resource guild early to make sure I had cheap access to wood and recruited at my Inn and the Recruiting guild very often (had Elf and Dwarf majority by end of game), Annie built strongly in two districts (never expanding beyond three) and upgraded many of her dwarves and elves (I never upgraded them), Brekke build many buildings (the most, I do recall) across four districts, never used a guild (I think he did use Merchant guild once and that was it) and had upgraded a few of his units. He also had Gnome majority.
Three different approaches led to a very tight game at the very end—nice to see that the many roads you can take a fairly well balaned. The three of us were all very pleased with the game and we left the table enthusiastic to try it again, and I left the table with the Key to the City! (Not pictured: awful picture of me holding the Key to the City)
I like games that allow you to bundle your actions together to make some interesting combos—like Le Havre and Troyes (two of my favorite games)—and this game has a little bit of that. I of course enjoy the multiple paths to victory and the fact that there are 12 different guild cards to choose from (re-playability, y’all!). Plus, cute art, relatively quick playing time (took us a little over an hour and a half with three), worker placement, awesome components, easy rules that progressively get more complex—pretty much a hit. I hope to play this again soon, maybe with some of the Interactive guild cards.
Hopefully Annie will chime in with her thoughts, as well (she did provide some of the pics! Speaking of pics, I’m still figuring out how to find the best settings for indoor low-light on my camera. Maybe Ludocrat Christina can help me…)
Some pictures I took during the day yesterday of Belfort while teaching myself the rules. Session report to follow shortly.
A sneak peak of the game I’ll be talking about tomorrow (and maybe playing tonight!) and a pic of the fire we had yesterday. It cold.
