board games & card games for all ages

board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 30th March 2006

As predicted, the weather has warmed up a little, and our numbers are increasing. Up to a quite healthy 12 people this week (well, 11 of us were healthy anyway! Jo had a bit of a cold, bless her) ...

Players:

Darren, Jo, John, Kev, Mark H, Mark L, Mitch, Neil, Nick, Sam, Sue, Tim 

Games Played:

Blokus Duo

Mark L and I were first in, and so I thought I'd let him beat me at Blokus Duo.

Mark:    -13
Nick:    -24

As you can see, he did exactly as predicted, and possibly more comfortably than I'd have liked!

Die Dolmengötter

Mitch and Sue had arrived/returned/come back from the dead, and so a quick game was in order before more turned up.

Nick:    72
Mark:    59
Mitch:    55
Sue:    39

For some reason, I always seem to be the first person to get rid of all their Dolmens in this game, which gives me a distinct advantage, as I have more on the board to score!

Royal Turf

We quickly found ourselves up to 11 people, and so six of us went upstairs to try this little betting game, while the other five remained downstairs playing trains.

Sue:    £2,550
Mark L:    £2,300
Tim:    £1,800
Nick:    £1,600
Darren:    £1,250
Jo:    £800

This was a fun little game for six, and we played with the "0" bet and all bets played face-down. There would obviously be less room for bluff the other way, although the game would be a lot louder, as you could happily cheers on your horses!

Ticket to Ride: Märklin

And downstairs, it was train rides round Germany ...

Sam:    151
Kev:    146
Mark H:    123
Mitch:    114
Neil:    44

I don't know much about Sam's victory in this one, although it looks like it was quite a tight game. The only thing I do know is that Neil was banking on several long tickets into Austria, and failed to get there by a single train, giving him a score in the minus 60's for his tickets! It's pretty tough to win from that position!

Tower of Babel

The groups were tinkered with a little. Three of us went cycling in the cobbled streets of Europe, whilst four other went off to help build the Wonders of the World. Bizarrely, none were built, but there still turned out to be some scoring in the game:

John:    44
Darren:    33
Jo:    32
Sue:    30

I know absolutely nothing about this one, having never played it. However ... by all accounts, it was a little odd for none of the buildings to get built! I'm only guessing that highest score wins - if they don;t then I apologise to Sue for putting her last when she came out on top.

Um Reifenbreite

While all this was going on, Tim, Mark L and I got hooked on a new arrival in the shop, and an old Spiel des Jahres winner from 1992. This is a fun bike-racing game, which is quite dice-dependent, but does a really good job of recreating the tactics in a Tour de France-style bike race.

The first game we played included the rules for different terrains and two pretty severe climbs:

Nick:    50 + 26 + 22 + 20 = 118
Mark L:    40 + 30 + 28 + 18 = 116
Tim:    35 + 32 + 24 + 16 = 107

This first game was pretty tight, and it made us immediately want another! As the other four players that were still here had started a game of Mesopotamia, we decided to do just that, this time we took out a mountain range to give us a slightly shorter course, but included a couple of sprints to make the scoring interesting:

Tim:    (50 + 14) + (40+11) + 26 + 20 = 161
Nick:    35 + 32 + 30 + 16 = 113
Mark L:    (28 + 20) + 24 + 22 + 18 = 112

Tim absolutely wiped the floor with us in this one, thanks to his 1-2 finish, and a fair number of sprint points. I didn't manage a single bonus, but pipped Mark to third due to my team sticking together and getting three of them in before Mark's failing sprinter. We won't talk about my last guy, but he had a lot of trouble staying on his bike in the mountains.

Mesopotamia

And finally, while we were mucking around on bikes, the four other players still here were making offerings to the temple in Mesopotamia:

Neil:    7 + 6 + 4 + 2 = 19 offerings
Sam:    6 + 7 + 2 = 15
Sue:    4 + 2 = 6
John:    2

I don't know a lot about this one, although I heard that Neil snatched the victory away from Sam by making two offerings in the final turn to sneak in in front.

And that was it. A busy evening, and a lot of fun was had by all I hope.