board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 4th January 2007

The first Shire Gamers of 2007, and the first after our little Christmas break. 

Players:

Andy, Darren, Dave F, Kath, Mark L, Mike, Neil, Nick, Roj, Sue, Tim 

Games Played:

Yspahan

The first four through the door tonight quickly grabbed this excellent new release from Ystari and were off ...

Nick:    96
Andy:    85
Mark:    72
Sue:    60

What a great way to start the new year! I'm sure this is my first win at games night for several weeks, and it comes in one of my favourite games. I managed to build a crane very early on, and then spent the game populating as many shops as I possibly could, grabbing a huge lead at the end of the first round. By the end of the third round, everyone was starting to catch up and I thought I might be in a little trouble, but a few precious points in the Caravan kept me in front. If you've never played this game, grab a copy and do so now!

Drakon

The next three to arrive grabbed a copy of this one, which Dave had kindly brought with him.

Dave:    10
Mike:    6
Darren:    0 (died)

I know very little about this one apart from how little time it took to explain the rules, and how soon thereafter it was that Darren got up because his little guy had died horribly in the dungeon!

Tsuro

We were now up to 8 players, and - while waiting to see if any more were coming along - we grabbed this quick 8-player game from the bag ...

Sue:    Still alive!
Mark:    Last to fall
Nick:    Next-to-last to fall
Dave &
Mike:    Crashed into each other (thanks to Sue)
Darren &
Roj:    Crashed into each other (thanks to Mike)
Andy:    Left the board first (thanks to Mike)

This was a lot of fun and genuinely did play 8 players within 15 minutes! A great little game which gets more and more tense as the turns go by.

Gloria Mundi

All of a sudden we were up to 11 players with the arrival of Neil, Tim and Kath, and so we split into two groups and found two longer games to play. This was the game of choice for the group of 6 ...

Dave:    Made it to Carthage
Nick:    11 steps behind Dave
Sue:    9 steps behind Nick
Neil:    3 steps behind Sue
Darren:    1 step behind Neil
Mark:    4 steps behind Darren

This was another fun game of screwage and sneakiness as we all fled from Rome. Dave managed to get himself a very nice supply of green buildings, which helped him rush towards Africa as the game ended, thanks to the rest of us being forced to help him. Mark got caught early on without any farms, which cost him too much early on, and he just couldn't bounce back.

Princes of Florence

Meanwhile upstairs, the group of five went off to Florence to build some buildings, create some landscapes, and play with some Jesters ...

Roj:    61
Andy:    52
Tim:    51
Kath:    38
Mike:    37

I know very little about this game, but luckily - inspired by his victory - Roj has written a (not at all biased) session report of the game here: Roj's Session Report, which makes my job a lot easier!

Experiment

As Gloria finished a little way before Princes, the gang of six decided to break out this fun little card game from Belgium ...

Nick:    16
Dave:    14
Neil:    14
Mark:    11
Sue:    9
Darren:    9

Sue and Darren both fell fowl of the odd broken flask, which really can be a killer in this game. Sue also managed to cause an explosion which delayed all of us a little, and the Dave rather sneakily deliberately caused an explosion in the final round (when it didn't harm him at all!), which cost me 5 points and I thought might have cost me the game, but luckily I managed to hang on by a couple of points and sneak another win. My 2007 average looks pretty good at the moment!

Masons

And then the upstairs crown finished while Experiment was about half way through. Mike had to leave us, and so the remaining four players disappeared upstairs with this one, that Santa had kindly brought for Tim.

Andy:    81
Kath:    76
Tim:    73
Roj:    60

I know very little about this one, although it looks like it was a pretty tight contest, before Andy realised he was ahead and forced the game to end by throwing loads of towers onto the board! OK ... so I know something about the game.

Iliad

After Experiment, Dave had brought along this excellent little game, which also handily played up to 6 players, although we had to split into teams ...

Sue:    10
Mark:    10    =    20
Dave:    7
Darren:    5    =    12
Neil:    2
Nick:    2    =    4

This was a fun game to end the night, although Neil and I seemed to get the rough end of everyone else's aggressive tendencies! A good win for Sue and Mark, after Dave and Darren had shot off to a very early lead in the first battle and painted targets on their backs!

And that was that for the first Shire Gamers of 2007. Happy New Year to everyone!