Glen More II: Chronicles

My first encounter was with the base game alone, and it left me cool. It felt like a more involved Isle of Skye, minus the little spark the auctions bring. Glen More II: Chronicles was not bad. It simply gave me no reason to ask for another go.

At its centre is Kramer’s clever rondel: what you take from the circle sets your pace, so you are weighing the immediate opportunity against the one you may leave for later. The second edition stretches that frame to four rounds rather than three, and adds a research board for clan actions.

The Chronicles are where the game changes its face. There are eight plug-and-play modules altering rules, goals, and the shape of the session; on the later play we used the third Chronicle, with its whisky barrels. The source of player friction was not some grand table-flipping conflict, but a rules mistake was quite enough for clan McCuttleFish to profit handsomely. Give people a gap and someone will bring a trolley through it.

The real snag is getting in. Assembling the modules and setting up the first game is confusing when you have just opened the box — a brisk B-minus for the rulebook there. Once we had worked out what belonged where and got past that clumsy first teach, the game ran far better. It did not suddenly become the game I would choose for every table, but it rose considerably in my estimation.

Updated session

The later play does not contradict the first impression of an awkward setup; it explains it. With Chronicle 3, the game was plainly more enjoyable than its bare base framework, even if a rules error tilted things a little.