A few souls decided to brave the heatwave and attend our July meeting. The day got started with tables diving into games of Unfathomable and Bretwalda, both of which ended up lasting all day. Meanwhile Benjamin returned to demo his game Detonation.

Unfathomable is a reimplementation of the classic Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game, set within the world of the Cthulhu Mythos. Players take on the roles of passengers and crew aboard the SS Atlantica as it sails to Boston. Their aim is to make it to the destination alive, all while the Deep Ones, monsters from the depths of the ocean, try to destroy the ship and kill everyone aboard. However one or more the players is in fact a secret traitor, who is working with the Deep ones to sink the ship.

On their turn players take actions in order to try to defeat Deep Ones, repair the ship, save wayward passengers or do other things that help them survive long enough to reach Boston. At the end of a players turn a Mythos Card is drawn which either presents the players with a choice, usually between two bad options, or presents the players with a skill test they must pass to avoid some kind of unpleasant consequence. The Mythos Card also causes existing Deep Ones to attack, new Deep Ones to spawn or causes them to directly damage the ship.

Skill tests have a fun little mechanic where players can either commit skill cards to the test face down, which add or subtract from the overall skill value, or chose not to participate in the test. This gives traitors the opportunity to negatively influence the outcome of the test by either deliberately contributing bad cards to the test or by withholding particularly good cards. In addition to the player's skill cards two random skill cards are added from a Chaos Deck and all the cards are shuffled together before being calculating the skill value, which is compared to the target required to pass the test. As there are always two random cards added to every skill test, players can never quite be sure if a bad card is due a traitor trying to sabotage the test or just down to bad luck.

Bretwalda is and area control game, where players control one of the four largest Anglo Saxon kingdoms as they vie to be crowned the Bretwalda, ruler of Britain. Each of the kingdoms is asymmetric, with its own set of rulers and kingdom tiles with unique abilities. In addition to their own units players are able to bribe neutral Anglo Saxon units and the Danes, to help defeat their opponents.

It's a game that blends worker placement with military activity as you look to build your economy to fund your war effort while staving off the rampaging Vikings; it's very evocative of the times and, as in history, it was the militant Wessex under Alfred that managed to defeat the Danes and claim the title.

Unfortunately the SS Atlantica was unable to reach Boston and was sunk by a couple of traitors, including the ship's very own captain!

Our next meeting is on 8th August, you can see our upcoming meetings on our calendar and our Aftergame page, look forward to seeing you there!