board games & card games for all ages

board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 14th September 2006

Down to single figures this week, with 9 gamers turning up in the rain.

Players:

Andy, Dave, Gordon, Kev, Mark L, Nick, Sam, Sue, Tim

Games Played:

War of the Ring

This was an early starter. Dave and Mark decided to meet a couple of hours early to get this game in before the crowds arrived! 

Dave:    Won, as the Dark Side
Mark:    Lost, as the Free Peoples

This game actually took most of the night, and it sounded like it was pretty close all the way through. The hobbits were only a couple of steps away from Mount Doom when the game was lost and Sauron triumphed.

Hey! That's my Fish!

Meanwhile,  the first four "normal" arrivals decided to try out this new shop demo copy of a very highly rated game ...

Nick:    33
Sue:    27
Gordon:    24
Andy:    14

Andy was the only one who'd played this before, so I think he was giving us a chance! The rules are dead simple and take two minutes to explain, yet the game is a lot of fun and quite tricky at the same time. You're always aware that everyone else can block you, and yet you can only do one thing at a time! A fun little game.

Glory to Rome

With the same four people, we decided to try out this other new arrival from Cambridge Games Factory.

(Influence + Bonuses)

Gordon:    (11 + 0)    11
Nick:    (4 + 6)    10
Andy:    (6 + 3)    9
Sue:    (5 + 0)    5

This is a fun little game, although it took a couple of rounds for everyone to get into the swing of it. Some roles weren't chosen as often as others, so I don't really know if we did as well as we all could have done. I am looking forward to trying this one again.

San Juan

With a few more arrivals appearing, we sent them upstairs for a quick game of San Juan.

Sam:    27
Tim:    26
Kev:    25

A very close game which I just saw the end of. Tim's bonuses brought him right back into the reckoning, just falling one short of Sam's total. Looked like a good, close game.

Shadows over Camelot

With seven of us now standing around, what else could we choose but this excellent game, made for that number.

Andy (Revealed Traitor):    12 Siege Engines on the board

Nick
Sue
Tim
Gordon
Kev
Sam:    All failed miserably.

This was a very strange game of Shadows. Partly because we'd all been playing a load of Saboteur recently, which meant that we were all accusing each other of being the traitor from the word go (in a fun way of course), and partly because of the way the cards came out: We finished the two (normally) tough quests - the grail and Excalibur - very fast,  but then their cards would just not stop coming out, meaning that we constantly had to battle to keep the Siege Engines away from Camelot. Even though we revealed the traitor to get us nearer the end (we were at 8 swords to 1), we couldn't get the other quests to finish (win or lose) to close out the game before the lawn filled up. A great game, which was a load of fun.

Ave Caesar

Finally, we were joined by the two guys from Middle Earth, and so dashed off to the Circus Maximus for a quick two races ...

Sue:    (6 + 2)    8
Dave:    (4 + 4)    8
Mark:    (0 + 6)    6
Nick:    (2 + 3)    5
Andy:    (3 + 1)    4
Tim:    (1 + 0)    1

As per usual, lots of moans, groans and laughs in this one. We cut it to two races, in order to get some mining in at the end of the night ....

Saboteur

And so to our usual closer ...

Tim:    6 Gold
Dave:    4
Sue:    3
Nick:    3
Andy:    2
Mark:    1

Tim was victorious in the first two rounds, as a Saboteur in the first, and then the connecting dwarf in the second, which guaranteed he would get picked on in the third round, whatever his orientation! As it turned out, the third round was a little vicious, with just Sue and Dave surviving with their equipment intact to share the spoils of honesty. Sadly, it wasn't enough to catch Tim's early haul.

And that was our lot for another week. Thanks to those who came out in the nasty weather. See you all soon.