Boardgames #3

So following up from my defeat at my son's hands in Twilight Struggle we thought we'd go for something that brings all the family together in a spirit of goodwill and harmony...Kingmaker!

We last played this a couple of years ago but it involves roping my wife into a game and, to be fair, she's not overly keen on Kingmaker.  She does however have a knack of disarmingly insisting she doesn't know what she's doing while hoovering up Royal family members and seizing castles left, right and centre.  This game was no exception where she immediately up-scaled Percy (already one of the most powerful nobles) into some kind of uber-Lord who could easily take on everyone else single handed!  My son and I were had more balanced forces but he was slowly outstripping me and eventually (after 3 sessions of the game...it isn't something that can be played out in an evening) I'd managed to take down Percy by combining everyone against him but realised I was still outgunned and conceded the game.

I played a lot of Kingmaker in my uni days and those games would go on for weeks (and involve tantrums... and chair throwing on one memorable occasion!!)  so this was relatively speedy by comparison!

Somehow we managed to lure my wife back for another game but only after we'd promised it wouldn't be Kingmaker.  This time we decided to go for Settlers of Catan.  I bought a set of this a year or 2 ago but hadn't actually played it...in fact I've never played Settlers despite it being one of those seminal games that everyone seems to play.

Game #1 was very much a case of us all trying to work out what we were doing...despite the rules only being 4 pages long there still seems to be a bit of thinking involved.  As expected I was duly handed my arse to play with by my wife who pretty much wiped the floor with my son and I ...the revenge game is planned for this evening....

...UPDATE... I won!!!