So before we got to recording we got to play some games at Adam O’s amazing nerd lair. (And boy is his collection a sight to see!)

When I arrived Chris was about finished teaching Adam The Great Heartland Hauling Co. so since I already had played it (At Gen Con), I was ready to step in.

It’s a fun light intro to pickup and deliver which you can play in about 15-30 mins. As always in it I finished in last but I do really enjoy the new game and think anyone should check it out (plug plug, it’s on kickstarter now!)

Then as Gyroplay arrived we got into a 4 player game of Divinare kind of a deduction game with some great screw your neighbor to it as you pass some cards around. It’s a simple enough concept. I will dumb it down and scrape off the theme to explain it quickly. There are 36 cards with 4 colors in the game. They are not even tho, as one color has 6 cards, one 8, one 10,and 12. You will take out 12 random cards and then deal each player 6 cards. Each color has an oval mat on the table which has the number track. It starts off at a lower number just above the minimum value (for example the green as in the picture has a 3/4) and then up to the max value (green 9/10).

(Image borrowed from BGG.com)

The first thing you will do is pick three cards from your hand and pass them to the right. So now you have seen essentially 9 cards to start the game. For the first 2 rounds you will take turns placing one of your cards next to the color wheel matching the color of the card. You then must take one of your tokens and put it on the oval score track of that color. You basically are trying to deduce what number of cards of that color will be played by the end of the round. The trick is this. Each time you place a card you HAVE TO move your token to a different number and you cannot be on the same number as an opponent. SO, there is a ton of room to screw your neighbor and planning is key.

A second twist is, at 4 cards left you pass two to the right, and at 2 cards left you pass 1 to the right. So you will have seen a ton of cards and will jockey for position constantly. Scoring is where things get a little easier. When all the cards are played, you look at where everyone is. If you were right on with your “guess”, you score 3 points. One away, 1 point, 2 away no points, and if you were 3 or more minus 1 point. If you happened to guess where there is a red dot all scoring is doubled. A red dot with a hole in it, tripled! So you can go for it all and win or lose big with gutsy guesses.

Check it out if you have the opportunity, we had a great time playing and also it was a lot better then I expected. I have to say, you can pretty much take almost any game and when you put it with our group we will turn it into a heckling screw your neighbor curse fest. Which is a GOOD thing. Simply a blast to be able to laugh and have a good time with a game that I wasn’t sure I would like but we had a good time after all. And as always I finished in last. This time tho, I knew it was quite the possibility. Not b/c I suck (prolly true also), but b/c I was going quite all in with my turns and taking some huge risks, which generally never payed off. Adam walked away with the narrow victory over Chris.

Finally Red showed his mug and we got into a nice meaty 5 player game of The Pillars of the Earth with the expansion. It’s simply one of my favorite games out there. Long and meaty worker placement goodness! (I won’t go into all the rules for this one b/c it would take entirely too long)

Chris was the only one who had never played it and IIRC Gyroplay had only played it without the expansion. BUT, it was easily explained and we were off and running. As it always seems to be Red’s master workers were picked out the bag first (or 2nd) in EVERY ROUND, which seems to be quite the theme for that game. Gyroplay had a nice size lead for nearly the whole game but a 17 point last round by Adam and 16 by myself pushed us over the top, and Adam (as usual) gets the win. I managed 2nd by 2 or 3 points (I think), but it was real close by all of us, and I think everyone had a great time.

I love podcasting 100% but TBH this was a day that I liked. Long day of gaming and ALSO getting in a podcast on top of it.

What’s some of your recent plays?

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