Boardgame session: 21Apr19

Elaine and I have been playing a range of 2-player games during the last few months. This has allowed us to get some under-played games off the shelf. One game I contemplated playing was ‘Key to the City of London’ but I (surprisingly) found in a charity shop a mint condition copy of the original ‘Keyflower’ game for only £2.50! So, I bought it and found it to be an excellent game (better than ‘Key to the City’). This Sunday Val and Chris came over, so I decided to give it a try using a higher player count. It works just as well with more players, the nasty plays are more spread out, and the play time is still fast. Both Val and Chris took a bit of time to get into the game the rules and structure (probably my poor explanation), but they managed to come in 1^st and 2^nd, so they clearly got the gist of the game. There is a surprising amount of thought required with each play you make, and I struggled because I could never get the number of meeples I required to make things happen. I think I prefer Keyflower to Key to the City, but I am motivated to try the London game soon.

Elaine and I visited Thirsty Meeples in Oxford recently and bought the ‘Herb Witches’ extension for Quacks of Quedlinberg, and have played a number of 2-player games using it. We could now try out the extension with Val and Chris. The new ingredient books are fine, the addition of the locoweed is OK, the Herb Witches are good, but my favourite addition is the orange ‘6’ tile. I seem to be lucky with this expensive tile, it always seems to come out of the bag each round! Now we have 6 books for each ingredient, it allows a simple D6 roll to be used to randomise the ingredient books, and this nicely improves the game replay ability. Overall I am happy with the extension; the price (£15) was OK and it does add some nice options for the game without slowing it down. The 5^th player board will also be convenient when Gill, Erin and Paul visit.