board games & card games for all ages

board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 16th November 2006

Another evening at the shop with the radiators providing the heat and everyone surrounded by boxes of games (stocking up for Christmas, you know). Thirteen was the magic number for tonight .... 

Players:

Alex, Andy, Darren, Dave F, Jon, Kevin, Mark L, Nick, Rachel, Roj, Simon, Steve, Sue

Games Played:

Fiji

A new purchase for Andy, and a game that claimed to play pretty quickly, so the first five through the door gave this one a test drive.

Dave:    12
Mark:    10
Sue:    9
Andy:    5
Nick:    4

This was quite a lot of fun, although you could say it was a little random as well, as you're constantly trying to second-guess everyone else and come up with a unique number between 1 and 4, when there's 5 of you playing! Still .... another game laced with Friedemann Friese's bizarre sense of humour, and a good fun game to use as an opener.

Canal Mania

The next five through the door grabbed this one and took it upstairs.

Steve:    73
Darren:    68 (Engineer 4)
Alex:    68 (Engineer 1)
Rachel:    60
Kevin:    58

I don't know much about this game, although it was enjoyed by all. And it took them quite a while to reappear back downstairs, so it kept them quiet for a fair bit, which is always good!

Gheos

We now had seven players downstairs, so we split into two groups to see if anyone else was coming along. This was the choice of the group of three.

Mark:    97
Nick:    69
Dave:    69

Another good game of Gheos, but still the options on your turn are so mind-boggling, it can be tough to know what to do for best. Dave was leading by quite a way, but a couple of consecutive scorings when he was in a bad position helped Mark grab the lead, and helped me claw back from a distant third!

Blue Moon City

The group of four went off to Blue Moon City for some (semi-)cooperative building

Sue:    4
Simon:    3
Roj:    3
Andy:    3  

Glancing over, I could tell this one was a very tight game. It seemed that everyone was at 3 offerings for quite a long time, before Sue edged claimed the game by making her fourth. I am sure the next player wasn't all that far behind.

Nottingham

The upstairs gang looked like they were about half an hour from being done, so seven of us went off to Nottingham to collect and trade some valuables ...

Dave:    48
Roj:    46
Nick:    44
Andy:    43
Mark:    40
Simon:    39
Jon:    30

 This was the first game for everyone apart from Mark and Jon, and we all had a lot of fun with it. A clever little card game with just the right amount of screwage and luck. And a pretty tense "add 'em up and see who's won" ending.

Iliad

So now all 13 of us were free and looking to play something else. The group quickly split into three and this was one of the three games on offer.

Dave:    6
Steve:    5
Kevin:    1

I know absolutely nothing about this one. I was actually keen to give it a try, or at least see it being played, as I remember enjoying Condottiere a while back, and this is - basically - the same game, but without the board.

Caylus

Four players went off to the little French town of Caylus, intent on building the castle (or at least contributing slightly)

Mark:    92
Jon:    78
Sue:    72
Darren:    47

Again, I know nothing about this one, although it looks like a nice win for Mark.

Hermagor

The other game saw five of us off to Hermagor, as this game made an appearance for the third week running.

Simon:    120
Andy:    105
Roj:    99
Nick:    97
Alex:    80

Another excellent game of this one ... rapidly becoming one of my favourite games, although I seem to be pretty poor at it. Alex got a little mauled in the markets, ending up a couple of times with a limited range of products to sell. Simon played a pretty strong game, grabbing some early production buildings and dominating areas of the market as well. I made my usual schoolboy errors.

Masons

The crowd that played Iliad were the first to finish, and had enough time to sneak in another game, this time the excellent Masons:

Steve:    98
Kevin:    89
Dave:    74

I know little about this one, but it was bound to be enjoyed by all, as it is such a good game!

And - finally - that was the lot for another week. thanks all for coming once again, and we shall see (most of) you next week.