board games & card games for all ages

board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 8th December 2005

With Sue away, we had another night with just 7 "regulars" ... to be honest, it's quite relaxing after a fairly busy day in the shop (but don't let that put you off coming to the next one)!

Players:

Cat, Kev, Mark, Mitch, Nick, Sam, Tim

Games Played:

Phoenix

Mark & Nick were first in as usual, and had a quick three rounds of this colourful little game while we were waiting for other arrivals.

Mark:    7 + 0 + 10 = 17
Nick:    4 + 7 + 0 = 11

A very odd game, with the initial setups accounting for rounds 2 and 3. The first round was pretty tight and went on for quite a while, then I completed round 2 in two moves and Mark did the same back to me in round 3!

Mensa Connections

Mitch arrived and the three of us embarked on a quick game of Einfach Genial/Ingenious/Mensa/whatever you want to call it!

Mark:    10 (11)
Nick:    10 (10)
Mitch:    9

A pretty close game, with the final result going to Mark with his second-worst colour a point better than my second-worst colour!

Ice Cream

Still just the three of us, we had a quick four days of ice cream selling as the others filtered in.

Nick:    41
Mark:    40
Mitch:    37

Another pretty close game. I was quite a way ahead after the third day, but only had one tub of ice cream to play with, while Mark and Mitch had a few. Luckily, I managed to make a grand total of two points in the last day, with another 3 coming from pulling duplicate tubs out of the deck (we all did that .... quite a lot), and that 5 points was enough to keep me one ahead of Mark.

Mensa Connections

While we were still selling our ice cream Cat, Kev and Sam arrived and had a game of this while it was still sitting on the table.

Cat:    11
Sam:    7 (12)
Kev:    7 (11)

Cat had this one nicely sewn up, and the real battle was for second place, finally going to Sam by a single point in his second-worst colour.

Hazienda

Cat had to dash off, but that left five of us. We had this one all set up and ready to go, but then Tim arrived which took the numbers too high for Hazienda. Rather than pack it all away, Mitch and Tim decided to have a game of Memoir 44 while we played a four-player game.

Mark:    136
Kev:    122
Nick:    115
Sam:    105

Mark took a very early lead in this one, and hung onto it throughout the game. I was the only player with no large land chain, as I went for three smaller ones, and I suffered on the Haciendas because of that! Sam and Kev put up a good fight, but couldn't get to as many markets as Mark & I managed. Another great game.

Memoir '44

Mitch and Tim were busy fighting in the forests (Scenario 7, I believe) with Mitch taking charge of the French Resistance...

Mitch:    5 Medals
Tim:    less than 5 Medals

Sadly, I know nothing about this game apart from the fact that the French won, although they made good use of the cowardly "run away and regroup" tactic!

Verflixxt!

And finally, the six of us managed to play something all together, and we went for this fun "roll-and-move" tile game. Completely random set up, with the guards on +7, +8 and the Shamrocks. 

Nick:    16
Sam:    13
Mitch:    9
Kev:    4
Mark:    4
Tim:    -1

This is a lot of fun with 6, although pretty chaotic at the same time! I was fortunate to pick up the last shamrock on my very last turn, which changed a -7 into a +7 and gave me a narrow victory. Tim missed out on a shamrock altogether, but I'm not sure who managed to pick up two of them - possibly Sam.

Boomtown

Kev had to leave us to dash off and get his bus, which left us with 5 players and about half an hour. It was a contest between Boomtown and Kuhhandel, but Boomtown won out as it had the added advantage of all of us knowing the game.

Mitch:    87
Nick:    71
Tim:    63
Mark:    57
Sam:    46

A pretty cutthroat game as always, with a lot of changing hands of the mayors. I managed to get the Governor, but sadly the income wasn't enough to give me the victory. Mitch only seriously bid for one auction, and tried to save all his cash, which seemed to work quite well!

And that was all for another night. A great set of games played with a nice crowd.