Red Menace

Thursday night was boardgames night down at the cricketers again. It was another reasonable turnout with 3 different tables of games on the go, I saw lots of Dominion being played behind me as well as the classic Acquire and Cosmic Encounter from Richard.


Added to this fine pedigree of games was my own Twilight Struggle, which Colin and I had earlier arranged to play. Obviously we came in for some friendly banter for having a private 2-player game of our own, and to be fair we did shun the rest of the group whilst engaged in the race for global dominance.

I played as the Reds for both of the matches we played, with neither of us having a particular preference of sides. The first game lasted barely three turns, with Russia scoring heavily in Europe, Asia and SE Asia, thanks to these cards appearing in my hand early on.

Having played once before I think I had an advantage with understanding the significance of Military Operations, Coups and the DefCon track. In that I realised how they related and how the Russians could Coup first early on to force down the DefCon track and gain Military Operations advantages that resulted in a few VPs coming my way.

The second game ran out of time for a definite conclusion, but Colin was playing well and had a good board position as we finished about 1/2 way though the Mid War period. I felt I suffered from a poor hand at the start of the Mid War, but I definitely made a couple of mistakes with Headline cards and failed to take advantage of a really strong Red hand on the last turn.

I wasted the turn trying to wrest control of Asia from the greedy claws of capitalist pigs because I held the Scoring card. Instead I should have concentrated elsewhere, in locations where I could have made significant gains as Colin was already starting to establish a presence in South America and Africa.

It was a really enjoyable game to play and I'd certainly like to bring it along for more play.

In My Element

Friday night was a decent effort - Deano's mate, Jason, came over from Ireland and along with Kano we all got trolleyed out in joyous Southend.

Started off in Saks, which I think is a bit under-par, especially as it was crap music that was gearing up to karaoke.

Went off to The Last Post, mainly to illustrate to Jason how cheap booze is in England compared to Eire. We got distracted by the wallpaper, but bumped into Conner and his pals.

We carried on The Slug & Lettuce - next stop was supposed to be Bar29, but Dean's mate runs the S&L & he hoped to score a cheeky round. Fail.

After finally getting turffed out, we headed to Element, which I rate as a pretty decent club. Music was good and I managed to pour ots of gin into me, as well as do a fair amount of dancing around waving my arms about. I didn't even hit anyone!

Rebel Yell Silenced!

Last night I chose to skip the weekly SOSEMT CC nets session and instead went to the local SOS Wargames Group. I found them via Goggle as they've got a new Blog up and running, and they are very conveniently located on the Grainger Industrial Estate. I was surprised that they've been there for a decade and so close at hand.

As usual, a mix of youth and maturity amongst the gamers but they were welcoming, allowing me to join in with their trial of Warlord's Black Powder rules. We played a 25mm American Civil War scenario, which saw the Confederate attack on our Union town soundly repulsed, despite early weakening of our left flank.

The conflict of the club-night being on a Wednesday at the same time as indoor nets is annoying and will probably mean I don't revisit the wargamers until late April when the cricket season proper starts.