The Yellow Meeple...Starts a Board Game Group at Work - Week 1

After struggling to find a very local game group to our new house or my workplace I finally took the plunge and decided to start a work game group. I’ve been wanting to do this since starting my job there 9 months ago, but lunchtimes never worked out because everyone is so busy and with a long commute I really just wanted to head home straight after work.

Our recent move means my commute is better and so I decided to advertise my new board game group for the after work slot. I’d like to start writing about the challenges and successes to try and help others starting new gaming groups. Spoiler alert – after the first week, I think it is definitely worth it for anyone thinking of starting a new group when there’s no-one else doing it!

Week 1

Number of Attendees: 11

Games Played: Dobble, Looney Quest, Exploding Kittens, Secret Hitler, Jamaica

Thoughts from the Yellow Meeple:- Mice and Mystics

Game: Mice and Mystics

Publisher: Plaid Hat Games

Designer: Jerry Hawthorne

Year: 2011

Mice and Mystics isn’t a game that I would normally gravitate towards, but after finishing our campaign of Pandemic Legacy I was interested in another co-operative game that the two of us could share as an ongoing experience. Mice and Mystics appeared to be very popular and I managed to get my hands on a nearly new copy pretty cheaply when the game was out of print and in high demand.

Mice and Mystics is a tale of the quest of a group of loyalists who were turned into mice when their king was overthrown. They now find themselves on quests through and around the castle, fighting off other small creatures, such as rats, centipedes and Brodie the cat. The game is a dungeon crawl style where you explore different tiles on the board, taking on enemies as you progress to your goal, perhaps to capture a kidnapped mouse or discover some secrets.

Pantries and Pussycats:- Mice and Mystics

Game: Mice and Mystics

Publisher: Plaid Hat Games

Designer: Jerry Hawthorne

Year: 2011

The hallway echoed with the scratching of claws on hewn stone, a volley of needles flew overhead, Nez glanced back long enough to see one collide with Colin’s button-shield. Nez raised his hammer as he ran, the combination of a twig and a small rock, but dangerous enough to the rat archers that he was charging. He brought it down and was met with a sickening, though oddly satisfying, crack of a Rat’s head collapsing in on itself. The other rats started to run, but Lily’s needles were faster. Colin looked up through the drainage grate to the castle corridor. “We’re nearly outside” he squeaked “For the king!”. Colin rushed ahead, his mousy compatriots racing behind him. The hallway echoed with the scratching of claws on hewn stone...

Mice and Mystics is a 2-4 player dungeon-crawler in which you take the role of one of a group of 6 mice who must fight their way through armies of cockroaches, rats, spiders and centipedes in an ongoing campaign. The game is very much a lighter dungeon crawler, there are only  handful of map tiles that are all the same size and shape (though the terrain on them isn’t), there are only a dozen or so enemy types and the rules are simple enough to explain relatively quickly (though like many dungeon crawlers learning the rules from the rulebook is a struggle).

The Yellow Meeple’s First Impressions 2nd – 14th October

A few new games have hit the table this week, although we’ve also bought a couple of new games, so we’re only maintaining the status quo with our unplayed games pile. Our gaming success for the last week was introducing some new games to some friends last weekend – who particularly loved Looney Quest. The new board games we’ve tried have mainly just been with the two of us playing at home and one return visit to a gaming group on Wednesday.

Here are Yellow Meeple’s first impressions;

Thoughts from the Yellow Meeple:- Animals on Board

Game: Animals On Board

Publisher: Pegasus Spiele

Designer: Wolfgang Sentker and Ralf zur Linde

Year: 2016

Animals on Board is a game that I think it is fair to say doesn’t have a lot of shelf appeal. The only reason it was on my radar is due to some quite relentless publicity by Stronghold Games. I actually happened across the original Pegasus Spiele printing on a Facebook group and thought it was worth a punt at £10 or £15. So is Animals on Board the Spiel des Jahres weight game that Stronghold Games claim?

In Animals on Board you are trying to populate your ark with a group of ten animals who will score you the most points. Unlike traditional ark builders like Noah you don’t want pairs of animals – ideally you’re looking for large groups, but single animals can be worth points too, varying depending on their maturity.

Hey, hey it's the monkeys!:- Animals On Board

Game: Animals On Board

Publisher: Pegasus Spiele

Designer: Wolfgang Sentker and Ralf zur Linde

Year: 2016

Remember the fable of Noah and you’ll go far in business! Noah had a good thing going, rescuing 2 of each animal, a breeding pair! He was clever; he patented his Ark-based animal survival techniques quickly. But like any good product low-quality copies quickly sprung up. Oh sure, they could save 1 of each animal on an ARK half the size for half the cost, but you soon found out that the Ark was leaky, the zebra was a painted mule and the lion was paper-Mache! And then there were the extravagant opportunists, the ones who could build bigger arks with more animals, they were stylish, but impractical and no-one could afford them. So be a good businessman, innovate, design, patent and corner the market with quality goods that do what people need at a price that you can sell to everyone!

Animals on Board is a 2-4 player set collection game in which you try to collect the best animal sets to take away on your ark. Much like the Ark of biblical fame you have to rescue animals before the great flood. However you don’t want people to think you’re just copying Noah, you’re far too cool to copy that schmuck! So instead you are saving anything but 2 of every animal, pairs are sooo B.C.!

The Yellow Meeple’s First Impressions 24th – 30th September

It seems like a long time since the two of us have sat in a board game cafe and dedicated a few hours to trying new board games, but last weekend we had a few hours at Draughts in London and did just that. It’s not my favourite place to play games due to the really bad acoustics of sitting under a railway arch, but the library is pretty good and they’re kept up with enough new releases to keep me satisfied.

Here are Yellow Meeple’s first impressions;