board games & card games for all ages

board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 24th August 2006

Unlucky (for some) 13 people in this week, with a couple of new faces yet again! Both guys who have discovered our little group through The Cast are Dice too, which is great news.

Players:

Andy, Dave (2), Jen, Kev, Kev J, Mark L, Mitch, Nick, Russ, Steve, Sue, Susan, Tim

Games Played:

Aquädukt

The first to arrive were sat down at the table, as I quickly explained how this one worked. Sue was the only person who'd played the game before.

Sue:    26
Susan:    25
Andy:    24
Dave:    23

A pretty close game, this one. Interestingly, Dave was the first player and also placed the last canal, giving all three other players the chance to throw some last-minute houses onto the board, two of whom did so and overtook his score! A good win for Sue (who didn't get any extra houses at the end) ... a vast improvement on last week!

Blokus Duo

While that aqueduct-building was going on, Mitch rolled in and so I challenged him (knonwing what I was letting myself in for) to a quick game of Blokus Duo ...

Mitch:    -13
Nick:    -27

He murdered me. I was pretty much on the back foot from the first turn, and then was just fighting for my space on the board. Mitch turns evil when you let him play Blokus ...

The World Cup Game

All of a sudden, we were up to 13 people. The quickest thing to do was ask who didn't want to try the World Cup Game. They all went upstairs, leaving us with a healthy 7 players. After the initial deal of teams, Mitch and Nick had the weakest teams and took another one from the bag. Sue and Kev J then got the remaining extra.

Semi-Finals:

Nigeria (Mitch)    0
Senegal (Steve)    2

S. Africa (Nick)    0
S. Korea (Sue)    0    (South Africa won 8-7 on Penalties) 

Final:

Senegal (Steve)    4
S. Africa (Nick)    3

(Mark takes last place by not reaching the quarter finals)

Another really fun game of the World Cup Game! I had the weakest mix of teams, and was quite happy just to get two of them through to the second round (by taking 1st and 2nd in the same group). Mark was the first to fall by not reaching the quarters. Five of us had one team in the quarter-finals, while Mitch had three, although two of them were playing each other! By the semi-finals, Dave and Kev J had also bitten the dust, with four of us fighting it out for the places. Loads of fun and tension, as per usual with this excellent game.  

Maestro Leonardo

After the excitement of the World Cup, it was time to stop and think .... and invent stuff. Mitch had to leave us, and Sue sat out, leaving us at the maximum for this one.

Dave:    57 Florins
Nick:    33
Steve:    31
Kev J:    28
Mark:    27 (Disclaimer: We found out after the game that Mark should have started with a Mechanical Man, which we didn't give him!). For this I award him an extra half a point, sadly leaving him in last place :-)

This was a great but tough game. We played the basic setup, which starts each player with a different set of stuff, and Dave was the fourth player (who gets extra cash .... which he used to great effect!). I think in the future, we will start with the "advanced" rules, where each player gets the same, and then adds on what they want. I really like this game ... it reminds me a lot of the "deeper" games in my collection. A good one to get your teeth into, and full of tough decisions.

Dune

And all this time, upstairs, the remaining six Shire Gamers were trying to get through a rather long game of Dune!

Andy
Sam
Susan:    Formed an Alliance and won.
Jen
Kev
Russ:    Formed an Alliance and lost!

I know absolutely nothing about this game, apart from the fact that everyone staggered downstairs afterwards looking a little relieved that it was over! Apparently, all the worms were shuffled to the bottom of the deck (whatever that means), which meant that the game went on longer than normal! In the end, the players split into two groups and finished things that way.

And that game of Dune took so long, we didn't even get time for our usual ending game of Saboteur! thanks to everyone for coming out once again.