board games & card games for all ages

board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 25th May 2006

Almost a dozen in again tonight, and a whole load of games played, most of which we managed to keep track of ...

Players:

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

Games Played:

Roma

Mark and Nick were first in, and had a couple of game of Roma while waiting for the masses

Game 1

Nick:    5
Mark:    0

Game 2

Nick:    32
Mark:    0

Mark struggled to get a footing in both of these games, playing catch-up most of the time. This game can play so differently ... from a 5-minutes rout to a half-hour battle. We love it.

The Hollywood Card Game

Sue arrived, and we had time for a couple of games of this lightning-fast game of making movies.

Game 1

Mark:    19
Nick:    19
Sue:    19

Game 2

Mark:    17 (Best Film: 9 points)
Nick:    17 (Best film: 6 points)
Sue:    9

The first game was a tie between the three of us, with us all having the same value best film as well! So we played another, and this time I was beaten into second by Mark, thanks to the tie-break. A fun little game ... and one that looks like it would always be close.

Bang!

We were up to 7 people when we decided to play Bang!, but by the time it started we were at 9. So we added an 2nd Renegade (thanks to Dodge City), and then I sat out and got some work done while the remaining 8 went shootin'.

(in order of deaths)

Darren:    Last Man Standing (Renegade)
Jo:    Sheriff
Mitch:    Renegade
Sam:    Outlaw
Mark L:    Deputy
Sue:    Outlaw
Neil:    Deputy
Mark H:    Outlaw

This was one of the longest games of Bang! I'd ever seen. Apart from the Sheriff, who started on a bizarre killing spree before calming down a little, no-one was willing to take a shot at anyone, in case it gave away their position and put a bounty on their heads. It eventually came down to the two renegades and the sheriff, with the sheriff not being targetted as the renegades battled for their chance of being the last one alive.

Roma

While Bang! was finishing up, the dead deputies went off to ancient Rome for the third time this evening.

Mark L:    29
Neil:    7

A good win for Mark, who ended the game by emptying the pool of victory points.

El Grande

Onto the main events for the evening. The 11 of us actually split into three groups, with El Grande being the four-player game:

Mark L:    107
Nick:    105
Sam:    95
Mitch:    90

This was a pretty tight game all the way through. Mitch leapt off to an early start thanks to the right card on the first round, but then the rest of us slowly reeled him in. About halfway through, there was only a couple of points between the lot of us, but Mark made best use of the 8-point mobile scoreboard to grab the points he needed for the win.

California

Meanwhile downstairs, it was time to renovate some Californian mansions.

Jo:    15
Darren:    14
Mark H:    14
Rachel:    14
Sue:    11

I know very little about this one, but it looks like it was pretty close!

Memoir '44

And that left two players, who were off to France for a WWII battle.

Neil:    (Allies)    4
Tim:    (Axis)    3

Again, I don't know much about this one, apart from the fact that it was the longest single battle in Memoir '44 that I'd ever seen! I guess if I knew which scenario it was, it would help to see who had done well here. Let's hope for Neil's sake it wasn't one of the scenarios where the Allies are a shoe-in!

Fluxx

After California, and with the other two games still going strong, there was time for the downstairs crowd to get a few games of Fluxx in:

Game 1

Rachel:    Winner by "Make Love not War"

Game 2

Jo:    Winner by "10 Cards in Hand"

Game 3

Darren:    Winner by "Night & Day"

Again, very little is known about any of these games, although I know that Rachel won the first game in the first round - before everyone had had the chance to play!

Cash & Guns

And finally, we were left with five players who - having already shot people in Bang! - decided to threaten more people in this new one:

Game 1 (no extra rules)

Sue:    $90,000
Tim:    $80,000
Mark L:    $70,000
Nick:    $65,000
Mitch:    Dead.

Game 2 (Undercover Cop)

Nick:    $90,000
Mitch:    $85,000
Sue:    $75,000
Tim:    $70,000
Mark L:    A Cop without reinforcements ($70,000)      

This is a great, fun and short game, which always provides some laughs. The first game was pretty close (unless you were dead), and in the second game, we successfully assumed that Mark might be the cop (after two of us were clear of suspicion) and made sure he couldn't make his last call for backup before time ran out for him.

And that was all there was. Thanks again for coming out, and we'll see you all next week.