Les ludochons

What is a "Ludochons" ? I asked myself this question again this evening. My attendance for the last few weeks has been spotty at best. My writing for the blog... Unmentionable. So it was with a fresh mind and thirst for games I arrived at our little club room. I awkwardly waited with Yo, awkward because of what happens when a young innocent fledgling Ludochons tries to converse with an old, wise Ludochons... Communications not completely falling into chaos and despair we were soon joined by other members until one finally produced the set of keys needed to enter the club room. That wait outside the door is a good time for us gamers to remind ourselves there exists an "outdoors" part of this world. Once inside though, smiles, greetings and games were being exchanged, bought (curtousy of our very own Father Gamesmas Zaggus) and prepared.

My first game was something new: "Last Heroes". Last Heroes has a heavy Comic book design to it that I found appealing and was instantly drawn to it. This meant I forfeited my spot for a game of "Fuji" Olivier will tell you more about that game. In "Heroes that come after all the others before there are no more Heroes" you play as a Gun-wielding nut-job that is fighting against the other nut-jobs for the most monster kills. Essentially a card game, the cards representing the guns and the ammo for said guns. Programming your turns to maximise victory point gathering whilst trying to limit what your opponents do is the key to victory. That and reading the rules before playing (more on this later). I loved the design and theme of the game, but it left me a little hungry for more...

Last heroes - Bim... bam... boum...

My second game was a little "digestif" whilst my good friend and wondrous person (not currying favour to my soon to be GM, nope!) Bertrand was waiting for his car pooling buddies to finish their game. Koryo is a lovely little card game, where one has to, in 8 rounds, tally the most victory points with the best "team" of characters (cards). The number of moves are quite limited as the game is very short, so each choice is an important one. I will blame my card draw here though, and say a rematch is called for! What is one supposed to do with 6 Barbarians...

My third and last game was the one where I remembered what a Ludochon is. Just a group of people who want to have fun. Here again we learnt that reading the rules is a pretty neat thing when you play a board game. A novelty, it seems, for our dear Yo. Still I must agree with him: "Tiny Towns" IS a simple and clear game. What's more, with a table of gamers like the one we were at for the game, it was bound to be an enormous mountain of fun. Tiny Towns is a board game all about trying to be the player that builds the most point scoring tiny town. Using a system, that I love more and more, of every players turn being one that is also played by all the other players, one gradually builds, in a small 4x4 grid, his or her town. The buildings come in various shapes and sizes and their effects are determined randomly at the start of the game by a draft of cards. So I doubly can't wait for the second game. I also can't wait for the second game where I will burrow the rules because seeing some pictures on the web as I write this little rant I notice something that looks incoherent with what was told to us... Anyhow! My town was second best with Olivier! Normandy must have high class architecture. The "best" town was an insane suburb of peasantry courtesy of mathematician and glorious gamer Raphael. I mean really... 27 points of cottages. That's just silly...

All in all, I had a barrel full of laughs and can't wait for the next chapter. Be it in minuscule villages, labyrinths of a Japanese persuasion (on fire no less! Fuji looks pretty nifty) or simply that thing about the apple. Game well and see you next Thursday!