No 1 son and No 1 son's sons are at fbb mansions for a few half term days, joined by Mrs No 1 son yesterday. They are all enthusiastic board game players, often visiting here ...
... namely "Thirsty Meeples" in Oxford. "Thirsty" fbb can cope with; but "Meeples"? Thankfully, the emporium itself offers some sort of translation.
The idea is that you can go to this cafe, enjoy a coffee or even an alcoholic bevvy ...
... plus a tasty snack; but the big difference is the you hire a table for e.g. three hours ...
... and play any of the games on the shelves. The cafe staff are on hand to advise on suitable games and deal with any debate on rules or playing strategy. Having played, you can also purchase the product. The venue is very popular and clients are advised to book their table in advance.
The outcome of a recent visit was a game ...
... made in Germany by "Days of Wonder inc". Called "Ticket to Ride Europe" ...
... its aim is superficially simple. You have to build rail links between cities. You have a bag of "trains" ...
... which you plonk on a stylised map of the railways of Europe. Game play is controlled by randomly collecting coloured "train" cards ...
... which match one-to-one with with route sections on the map. Likewise, route cards instruct you which routes to build. Sounds simple!
But it isn't. The strategy for an individual player isn't at all obvious. You get points for completing a link; more points for longer links; you pay a premium for tunnels and ferries and you get even more points for completing the the routes that you have acquired.
Above is fbb completing a four "train" route between Edinburgh and London for which he was awarded seven points, and for which he needed to acquire four orange cards, as pictured above. He was on his way to Marseille on completion of which he would gain a further 8 points.
Just to baffle the elderly, the colour of the plastic train pieces has no connection with the colour of the route; but as an intelligent reader, you knew that anyway (?).
Whilst awaiting his turn, fbb was musing over the pictures on the train cards. Clearly these are based on model railway wagons; note the very obvious standard European coupler, sometimes shown fitted inside an "NEM pocket".
The little box, suspended below the floor of the wagon, allows you to change the couplers for s different type; which then just push-fit into the socket.
Sadly, fbb has been unable to match the models exactly. But the "orange" card is a typical old-style baggage car with a similar Märklin model below.
Ditto a tank wagon in yellow ...
... and a flat wagon (sort of) in black.
The coaches were definitely an artistic fabrication. Whilst the bodywork has some links to model and full size reality, the very small spoked bogies were ludicrously inaccurate.
Doubtless a dyed-in-the-wool continental railway modeller will be able to "sort fbb out" factually!
But, despite this diversion into speculative fancy, the games proceeded ponderously, with the old(est) man being quietly proud of his chosen and (obviously?) winning strategy.
That was until the scoring at the end. Outright winner was No 1 son who, basically, slaughtered the whole field. fbb came a pathetic fourth out of five, followed only by Mrs fbb who admitted to having very little idea what she was doing.
These games are by no means cheap. "Ticket to Ride" is available from that well-known South American river trader ...
... for about £30.
But when fbb realised where the "Thirsty Meeples" shop was located ...
... he became much more excited!
Next Oxford blog : Sunday 19th February
If fbb has caught the bug for the game, then the national championships are held at the Games Expo at the NEC each summer, alongside lots of other board games. They do use the original USA version though!
ReplyDelete