Gemblo

This is the first time that I have attended John’s weekly gaming group. Why? Well, because it is held during a work day. But, since the year is winding down and everyone is leaving for vacation. I figure that I can pick and choose which days I work and which I use for vacation. I figure I should use my vacation for something worthwhile.

We started out by playing Gemblo. This is a new Blockus-type game that uses hexagons instead of squares and is playable by six people. The only problem with it is that it is slightly harder to visualize how your remaining pieces fit in the remaining space on the board. What was amusing was that Mike was fustrated during the game since I did not move immediately. However, I felt vindicated since I won and Mike finished in last place.

Kaivai

And I found enough gamers willing to play a new, meaty game called Kaivai. Things were looking up for the day! I would classify it into a middle-weight meaty game. Play could even be sped up once people were familiar with the rules of it.

Lexio

And then we pulled out another game by the same makers of Gemblo called Lexio. It is a trick taking game that is played with big, thick, over-produced tiles. Well, Pagat would classify this game as a climbing game. It is very Tichu like. With a few exceptions. There are no partners. There are only four types of groupings for tile play (single; pair; set; or 5 of a straight, flush, full house, four of a kind + 1, or straigh flush). And the 2 is the highest number. This gives an ordering of 3,4,5,…15,1,2 within a suit. The misery comes when the first person goes out. Then, each person has to pay the difference in the number of tiles between themselves and everyone else. The real misery is that having a 2 in your hand doubles the difference! This causes some real anxiety since you have to balance keeping a two in your hand to win a round or playing it early (and risk loosing the round) just to get it out of your hand.

The bonus is that it is possible to play Tichu with this game!

Caylus

Another quick game of Caylus. And this time I started second to last and had a hard time trying to get a grey cube in order to build a castle. This game also played differently, with very few buildings being built and no grey buildings were built until the last round.

Tichu

And after that lesser Tichu-like game, it was only natural that we play the greatest Tichu-like game there is. The ultimate Tichu-like game called Tichu.