board games & card games for all ages

board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 14th December 2006

The last games night before the Christmas Break! I was tempted to let everyone bring work in to do as it was the last one, but in the end we just had a regular games night :)

Players:

Andrew, Darren, Gordon, Jen, Jo, Mark H, Mark L, Nick, Rachel, Roj, Russ, Steve, Sue, Tim

Games Played:

Hey! That's my Fish!

The first two through the door (well ... I was already through the door) decided to play this as it was being put away from the display table ...

Mark L:    54
Nick:    46 

A fun little opener as always, Mark successfully managed to disable a couple of my penguins early on, and it always looked like I was going to struggle from there. And I did.

Taluva

A few others wandered in, and this lovely-looking almost-abstract game got its second outing in as many weeks.

Roj:    3 Temples    2 Towers
Mark L:    3 Temples    1 Tower
Steve:    2 Temples    1 Tower    16 Houses
Nick:    2 Temples    1 Tower    15 Houses

Despite Mark's best efforts, Roj managed to claim an early victory by building all of his towers and temples. Actually, it was only one turn early, as I would have had the final turn of the game after Roj (and avoided last place, honest) had it continued. It was a tight battle between the two of them, while Steve and I seemed to have trouble getting our settlements to grow.

Die Baumeister von Arkadia

As Taluva finished, we were now up to seven players downstairs (and 5 upstairs), and so we split the downstairs crowd into a four and a three. This was the game of choice for the four .... 

Roj:    107
Mark L:    105
Jo:    100
Nick:    88

This was the first outing of this one at Shire Gamers and it was enjoyed by everyone. Very much a learning game for all (as I think the next one or two might be as well), as the timing of when to use your pennants and when to place workers or buildings seems very important. A pretty close-run thing at the end, apart from my score, as I had five seals which were worth 15 gold as the final round began, but were worthless by the end of it!

Domaine

The group of three had a go at this remake of Löwenherz ...

Mark H:    35
Sue:    32
Steve:    22  

Don't know much about this one unfortunately. It looks like a pretty tight contest between Sue and Mark, although for all I know it was a one-horse race from the beginning and Mark was just easing up at the end!

Canal Mania

All this time upstairs there was a five player game of Canal Mania underway. It lasted from shortly after Taluva started until a little after Domaine finished!

Gordon:    80
Darren:    78
Andrew:    59
Tim:    57
Rachel:    56

I know very little about this one as well, apart from when I popped upstairs as they were approaching the end of the game, Gordon claimed to be not doing very well. Apparently, after I left, he completed a link to Oxford (or somewhere nearby), and it opened up a very profitable shipping route for him, and he sped along the scoring track and pipped Darren at the end of a pretty tight-looking race.

Blue Moon

Jen and Russ arrived a little later than the rest, and had a crack at this little two-player game while they were waiting ....

Jen:    3
Russ:    0

And that's about all I know about this one!

Fairy Tale

This quick filler was played while we were waiting for all of the gamers to finish up at the same time, allowing us to mix up the players a little.

Mark L:    44
Roj:    42
Jo:    40
Nick:    36

Another fun little game of this filler. We played the simplified version, as it was a first time for Roj and Jo. However, they both managed to beat me! I didn't seem to be having a very good night .....

The World Cup Game 

We split the group up, seeing how many wanted to go back to France 2002 for some footy. The answer was 9 players, with the remaining 5 players disappearing upstairs.

Mark H:    (Germany)    5
Mark L:    (Brazil)            3

I suppose it's a little unfair to put Mark L in red for coming second out of nine players, but it does save writing the results out in full! A few of us disappeared out of the tournament at the 2nd round stage, including Sue and I, who were the only two people who managed to get three teams through the group stage. Obviously, we both regretted not just concentrating on one team at that point, making sure we at least made the quarters with one team! A good win for Germany in the end, though ... and the first time we've seen the two highest ranked teams make the final.

Rum & Pirates

And for the non-football fans, there was a bunch of pirates wandering around the dark alleys of a town, looking for gold, treasure maps, etc....

Russ:    82
Jen:    80
Rachel:    72
Roj:    64
Andrew:    61

Another game I now nothing about, as I was too busy watching two of my teams go out on penalties in the last-16 stage of the World Cup downstairs. This one seemed to be a pretty tight fight between Jen and Russ.

And that was it for another night, and - in fact - another year. We are now on our Christmas Break, and will reconvene on Thursday 4th January 2007.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of the Shire Gamers!