board games & card games for all ages

board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 12th January 2006

Another chilly Thursday night, but a pretty good crowd for the evening ...

Players:

Gordon, James, John, Jon, Kev, Mark, Mitch, Neil, Nick, Philippa, Sam, Sue, Tim 

Games Played:

Breakaway Rider

As quite often happens, the first three in were Sue, Mark and Nick. We decided to play a stage or two of this little card-based race game, agreeing to call it the last stage as soon as more arrived.

Nick:    2
Mark:    0
Sue:    -2

This was our second game of this, and I managed to win both legs by keeping a Hill Climb or two in my hand for the end of the stage. I'm beginning to wonder whether it should be illegal to win a race with a Hill Climb card (I mean, who plans a bike race to finish halfway up a mountain?).

Diamant

By the end of the bicycle race, we were up to 7 players ... and then an 8th walked in as well! As we were still expecting more, a quick visit to the mines was in order.

Sue:    24
James:    19
Philippa:    19
Nick:    12
Mark:    10
Gordon:    7
Jon:    6
Mitch:    0

Wow! Is it tricky to get gems when 8 people are in the mine! With an awful lot of gems being dropped on the floor as we ran round, there were a lot of early exits from people who were trying to clean up .... The highlight of the game (for all apart from Mitch) came in the third mine, as he was left in by himself and stumbled across 15 gems; much to everyone's surprise he decided to stay for a little while longer, and the whole thing collapsed around him!

Pirate's Cove

We were now up to 11 players, and so we split into three groups. The group of three took the room upstairs and sailed off to Pirate's Cove for some much needed cries of "Aarrrr!"

Mark:    34 + 6 = 40
Philippa:    36 + 0 = 36
James:    34 + 2 = 36

Looks like a really close game, with Mark collecting enough bonus cards to give him the win at the end of the 12 months.

Caylus

Still a big favourite among the Shire Gamers, this one got a four-player outing tonight. Three players had played the game before, but it was new to John.

Sam:    70
Gordon:    62
Sue:    61
John:    43

A good win for Sam in the first game I've ever seen that wasn't ended by the Bailiff! Three players seem to have concentrated on building in the Castle, while Sue had just done enough in the castle, but owned almost every single building on the board! The only Residence was built in the very last turn, and not one blue building appeared at all.

El Grande

Another personal favourite, I really fancied a good game of El Grande, and we were about to start a 4-player game before Neil showed up and gave us the full complement of 5 players. Kev and I had played before, while the game was new to the other three players.

Kev:    132
Nick:    124
Mitch:    91
Jon:    88
Neil:    82

An excellent game, although a little unusual as it split into two races very early on. Kev and I managed to stretch out a lead from the pack and it was pretty much a game of two groups from that point on. An excellent win for Kev, especially as I benefitted early on from a very lucky card at just the right moment, giving me an extra 18 points!

Emerald

The first game to finish was Pirate's Cove, and so the three pirates quickly donned their armour and went after the Dragon's treasure instead ...

(treasure cards + gems + gold + bonuses)

Mark:    (10 + 4 + 34 + 4) 52
James:    (10 + 10 + 12 + 8) 40
Philippa:    (0 + 6 + 13 + 4) 23

Another win for Mark .... it must have been time to drag him downstairs and try and beat him at something!

Boomtown

A few people departed, and one arrived, leaving us at 9 players and just enough time to play a 5 player game of Boomtown and a 4 player game of Ra. Quite obviously, this one was Boomtown:

(cash + mines + mayors)

Tim:    (41 + 33 + 10)    84
Sam:    (49 + 30 + 5)    84
Mark:    (32 + 38 + 10)    80
Jon:    (9 + 36 + 0)    45
Sue:    (3 + 31 + 0)    34

A tie for the win between Tim and Sam, with no tiebreaker mentioned in the rulebook!

Ra

And for the last game of the night, the remaining four of us were off to Egypt for some bidding and invoking of teh Sun God.

Nick:    49
Gordon:    35
Neil:    32
John:    30

I managed to grab a bunch of Pharaohs in the first round, giving me the majority twice, which was nice. Neil grabbed a major haul at the very end of round three (something like 15 points' worth!), but sadly it wasn't enough. Gordon never seemed to get the tiles he needed, and John had managed a creditable 7 monuments, but couldn;t find that elusive last one.

And that brought us once again to 11.30pm and hunger got the better of us. Thanks to everyone for coming out once again ... it was a very enjoyable night.