board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 1st March 2007

From being almost full in the last couple of Thursdays, we fell back to a slightly lowly 6 players this week!

Players:

Jon, Mark L, Mike, Nick, Roj, Sue

Games Played:

Serengeti

One of this week's new arrivals, and a good game to open up with ...

Mike:    (6 + 6 + 1 + 1 + 3)    17
Mark:    (6 + 6 + 3)    15
Sue:    (3 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 1)    11
Nick:    (6 + 3 + 1)    10

This is a great little auction game, which I did quite badly at! I did have a load of cash at the end, but sadly not as much as Mike, who got a huge payout on the very last auction as Sue managed to outbid me for the final lot, and then Mike claimed the full amount, stealing the win from Mark by virtue of the three bonus points for most cash.

Urland

We were up to five players, and decided to jump right into something longer, without waiting for a load of other to turn up (good job really!)

Mark:    33
Sue:    31
Mike:    27
Roj:    26
Nick:    16

This was the first play of this one for everybody (although I am halfway through a game online, although you wouldn't be able to tell!), and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. The theme is great and the artwork is a load of fun, so I can see this one getting quite a lot of play in the group. I lost an awful lot of my little guys by being weakest in several areas, which Mark made a couple of pretty good intuitive guesses as to what regions were going to be scored. A game which - due to the interesting scoring system - always looks like it's going to be fairly close, Mark edged this one due to having the most guys on land for the last two-point bonus.

Hick Hack in Gackelwack

We were now up to six players, and so we pulled out this fun little filler, which had also reappeared in the shop this week:

(Birds + Corn)

Roj:    (24 + 20)    44
Sue:    (10 + 27)    37
Nick:    (8 + 20)    28
Mike:    (9 + 16)    25
Jon:    (0 + 21)    21
Mark:    (0 + 7)    7

Roj was on a big fox strategy, eating an awful lot of chickens, hens, and pretty much anything else that moved. Mark & I were having real trouble getting our foxes to find anything at all, although I managed to grab a couple of plump hens in the final round, to drag my score into respectability. Roj had it comfortably though, and there was very little anyone could do to stop him.

Kutschfahrt zum Teufelsburg

Another good game for six, and one which is full of intrigue and hidden roles ....

Roj:    (declared the win)
Jon:
Mark:    All won
Nick:
Sue:
Mike:    All lost

This was actually a pretty close game. The game is a lot quicker with 6 than it was with 8, although it's still a little longer than a normal "filler" game. Our association (True Lies) managed to find each other much quicker into the game than the eventual winners, but sadly .... one turn away from declaring a fantastic victory - I had a goblet stolen from me by Mark, and we then realised that the other lot (Open Secrets) had all of the weapon cards, and began to slowly take us apart. By the time that Roj declared the victory, our hands had been taken apart, although we discovered afterwards that we still had enough for the win had we been brave enough to go for it.

Ra

With about 45 minutes to go, what other great way is there to end a night?

Mark:    38 (16 sun)
Roj:    38 (12 sun)
Sue:    33
Jon:    (22 + 5)    27
Nick:    (27 - 5)    22

Another very close game between Roj and Mark, finally being won by Mark on the tie-breaker. I rounded off a terrible night with another poor performance - 21 of my final 22 points coming from Monuments at the end. I ducked out of the first two rounds too quickly, and then they carried on for ages while everyone else bought loads of stuff. In the last round, my suns were so low that I had to wait to join in, but sadly the Ra tiles came flying out and I didn't buy a single thing, ending the round with what I started with! Jon took the 5 points for most suns from me, relegating me to another "red" performance!

And that was that for another fun Thursday night in the shop. Thanks to those that came along ... and good luck to Roj & his missus, who should have an extra little gamer by this time next week!