board games & card games for all ages

board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 17th November 2005

A very cold night with the temperature below zero. Lucky we got some heaters for the shop! Santa was in town turning on the Christmas lights, although we still managed to lure in a few regulars...

Players:

James, Jon, Mark, Mitch, Nick, Philippa, Sue, Tim

Games Played:

Mesopotamia

This new game arrived in the shop today, and so Sue, Mark and Nick decided to give it a run out before everyone else arrived. After one play, it seems to be a great little exploration game - sort of a cross between Tikal and Lost Valley. We all enjoyed it quite a bit, and it looks beautiful too! 

Mark:    All 4 offerings
Sue:    3 offerings (total 13)
Nick:    3 offerings (total 12)

I didn't manage to pick up any cards that gave me Mana, but I did have both of the "Mana stealing" cards played on me! Mark had trouble finding a forest, but once he did he was well on his way to a good victory. The game plays pretty quickly too, considering we were all learning it at the same time. 

Blokus

While we were in Mesopotamia, four more arrived and broke out Blokus, which went upstairs to the games room, and so I don't know how the game went ... just the final scores:

James:    -13
Mitch:    -14
Jon:    -20
Philippa:    -32

A very good win for James, and looking at those scores I'd say the game was a pretty vicious one!

Caylus

Tim arrived and we fiddled with the groups a little. Caylus hadn't been played for a couple of weeks and we were missing it, so it got another airing tonight...

Nick:    72
Sue:    66
Mitch:    59
Mark:    45

My second win at Caylus ... I would share my tips with anyone who would listen, but I really don't know what my strategy is! In this game, I was by far the biggest contributor to the castle, earning me several royal favours, and with the very last one I built an Architect, and the 6 points I earned there was enough to take the game from Sue. Mitch tried an interesting tactic of not bothering with the castle at all, and had set up the Jeweller just after the Bank, and was buying and selling gold like a madman, but we soon rumbled him and the couple of turns spent using the buildings for ourselves put a stop to that. Mark decided he'd already lost before the game really got going, and spent the rest of the time playing in silence, trying to depress us into submission!

Beowulf

While we were city building in France (is it France?), the remaining four players were helping Beowulf through his various adventures...

Jon:    28
Philippa:    26
James:    15
Tim:    1

No, that not a typo, Tim really got a single, solitary point!.

Cloud 9

The kids had to go home, and so the we decided to play the very grown up game of balloon travel!

Tim:    55
Mitch:    50
Sue:    40
Mark:    37
Jon:    29
Nick:    25

This was an odd game, as quite early on - thanks to some lucky dice - all 6 of us managed to get to the top cloud without much effort, considerably shortening the game! (Yes, I know they were the only points I got!)

Cloud 9 (again)

That last game ended so quickly, we thought we'd do it again ...

Mitch:    72
Nick:    65
Sue:    61
Mark:    55
Tim:    50
Jon:    41

Mitch won a game! Woohoo! In fact, I have a sneaky feeling that we'll all be sick of Mitch winning games before long, as he seems to have broken the curse now ....

Boomtown

Jon had to leave us, and so we thought we'd try and squeeze in another game before the end of the night. Five players, under an hour, it had to be Boomtown!

Mark:    96
Mitch:    70
Tim:    51
Nick:    43
Sue:    42

I was pretty sure I was going to come last in this one, as I spent most of the game with no cash. I think in total I had 6 gold earned from my mines throughout the game! Being skint does have it's advantages though, as at one point I opened up a concession in the Governor's town and paid him 7 less than I should have! Mark wiped the floor with us all in this one, which cheered him up a little.

Ice Cream

Well ... Boomtown plays much quicker than you'd think with 5 players who have played it before, and we were done in about 35 minutes. And so Mark opened up a new copy of this little card game, which said it would play in about 20 minutes (it lied .... but then we were all new to the game)!

Mitch:    23
Nick:    21
Tim:    20
Mark:    17
Sue:    16

There's more to this game than it first seemed. After the first round, we all saw what it was we were trying to do. In the second day, I had five gallons in front of me, but I just couldn't pull the cards I needed to make some exclusive combos. There seems to be a little benefit in having a really bad day, and setting yourself up for the next one.

Time for bed.

Thanks to those that appeared tonight.