We were pleased to meet two new families at today’s event, as well as seeing some familiar faces.

We played a selection of ancient games (Picaria, Five Field Kono), 1980s classics (Space Faces, Stay Alive, Rubik’s Race), and modern games (Ghost Blitz, Rainbow Rage, Acquisition, Spot It Jr.! Animals, Frog Rush).

All these different types of games were popular, some for the speed of thought processes, some for working out the best strategy, and some for grappling with the luck of the dice.

This was a successful event, with all the families telling us how much they enjoyed the chance to play games new to them.

Today at our Adult Board Games Club we played an ancient game new to us – Moving Tigers, from Nepal, where it is called Bagh Chal. This is an asymmetric abstract strategy game. It is asymmetric in two ways: the players have a different number of pieces, and a different way of winning. One player has four tigers, which start on each corner of the board. The other players has 20 goats, which start off the board. The tigers win by capturing five goats. The goats win by blocking the tigers so they cannot move. The goats do not capture: they move around the board trying to block the tigers. The game board is identical to Alquerque.

The goats are placed on the board one by one wherever they choose. In between, the tigers move around the board, in any direction, to the nearest available intersection. Once all the goats are on the board they can move to the nearest available intersection. Tigers capture in a way similar to draughts – they jump over a goat in a straight line and land on an empty intersection.

We played two games, swapping roles between tigers and goats. In both games the tigers won. I have won this game in the past playing goats, but today I was not able to fully implement my goat strategy: I missed a crucial opportunity, starting losing goats and was then doomed to lose.

Other games played today were Foxy, Brainline, Draughts, Push and Picaria Quad.