At Thirsty Meeples in Oxford last night:
We started tonight with current hotness Courtisans (at least it’s being talked about here). Six families are seeking favour at court, and your faction wants to be in charge; so each turn you split your three cards between the Queen’s table (favour will end up positive, negative or neutral), your own tableau, and another player’s tableau. At the end of the game, each card in the tableau scores +1, 0 or -1 based on the family’s favour status. There are some complications (the assassin can remove another card in the same tableau, the spy is played face-down so that you don’t know which family they’re influencing) but that’s most of the game, and it was great fun. (Also a pleasing tapestry-style “board” for the Queen’s table, and foil in the cards, because I’m a sucker for that stuff.) Likely to buy.
The Grizzled next, which I hadn’t played for a while. Still very atmospheric; still very hard to win (and we didn’t). Not a game I want to own, but it’s good to play it now and again.
Next, a very shopworn copy of Chariot Race (the edge of each player’s card needs three clips, and we had a total of eight, of which one was broken). It felt to me like the old FASA Circus Imperium in miniature, though basically it’s dice manipulation. We had fun but I think didn’t love it; I would really like to try Rush ‘n’ Crush with these players, because I think it does the same thing (limited lane changes, trading off speed and damage) better.
Finally, Deadly Dowagers, a game of social climbing by nobbling one’s husband at the right moment (but avoiding too much Infamy). I fell for this one instantly; it’s quite explicit about its murderous approach and encouraged us to be similarly cynical (“I’m going to give the dear Baron a Natural Death, if you know what I mean”). Likely to buy.
