board games & card games for all ages

board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 17th August 2006

In the aftermath of The Cast are Dice, we had ten people in this week. A nice even number, that split up quite easily all evening. New arrival this week: Andy B!

Players:

Andy B, Darren, Jen, Mark L, Nathan, Nick, Rachel, Russ, Sue, Tim

Games Played:

Rum & Pirates

First to arrive (and finish eating) were four of us. We'd all played this excellent and fun new game before, so we jumped straight in.

Nick:    94
Andy:    86
Mark:    71
Sue:    54

We had no idea who had it as we added all the points up, although the 31 points I got from treasure maps gave me the win in the end. Sue managed to clean out the employment office and play the final round with 15 pirates, but it seemed to be a little too late to help!

Wings of War

With all the piracy downstairs, four new arrivals went upstairs and had a quick dogfight (all the while trying not to fall off the table)...

Darren:    Victory
Rachel:    Last to die
Tim:    Second to die
Nathan:    First to die, in a ball of flames!

I don't know much about this one. It's a game I really must try one of these nights ...

Hacienda

We couldn't quite get either group to end games at the same time as each other tonight, and so the downstairs four went off to Argentina after their piracy, to hone their animal husbandry skills ...

Mark:    156
Nick:    154
Andy:    152
Sue:    110 

This was a great game, and one that we don't play nearly enough. As we were adding up the water scores, the whole thing could have gone to any of three of us. Andy and I had a little cash left at the end, but not quite enough to catch a skint Mark. Sue sadly was a couple of markets behind at the first scoring, which came back to haunt her again at the final scoring.

Starfarers of Catan

Staying in the air, the upstairs gang went a little higher and flew round space for a bit, trying to make friends and colonize planets.

Tim:    15
Nathan:    13
Rachel:    13
Darren:    11

Again, not much is known about this one, although it looks like it was a pretty close-run thing between everybody this time.

Ave Caesar

Meanwhile, the downstairs group expanded to 6 players, and - looking for something not too long to try and co-ordinate with the upstairs crowd - we all went off to Rome for some frantic chariot racing.

Nick:    (6 + 4 + 9) = 19
Andy:    (9 + 1 + 6) = 16
Jen:    (1 + 9 + 4) = 14
Mark:    (4 + 3 + 3) = 10
Russ:    (3 + 6 + 1) = 10
Sue:    (2 + 2 + 2) = 6

This was a lot of fun, with plenty of blocking and lead-changing throughout the three races. I was having a good night for a change, winning more than one game in an evening!

Eco Fluxx

Time was running out and we were down to six players. We should have jumped straight into Saboteur and had an early night, but we foolishly decided to have a "quick" hand of Fluxx, which has this knack of deteriorating into some minor form of torture ...

Nick:    Winner!
Jen
Tim
Russ
Andy
Sue:    All lost

Yet another win for me, thanks to having the right card in front of me when Jen was forced to play all of her hand. There was a time when I could have played the card that would have given Jen the victory but, despite all of us wanting the game to be over, I just couldn't bring myself to do it!

Saboteur

And finally ... just a quick trip to the dungeon!

Andy:    10 gold
Jen:    7
Russ:    5
Nick:    4
Tim:    3
Sue:    1

Fun and riotous as usual, this game is such a great closer for any evening. For the first time ever, I was an "honest" dwarf all three rounds. I had a lot of trouble not being an evil dwarf at least once!

And that was everything for another evening. Thanks to Andy for coming along ... it's always nice to see a new face!