board games & card games for all ages

Thursday 18th January 2007

With half of the town's roads shut down due to the high winds, we were lucky to get 9 players out this evening ... 

Players:

Alex, Darren, Malc, Mark L, Nick, Rachel, Roj, Sue, Tim 

Games Played:

Hey! That's my Fish!

Only three of us involved in packing this one away tonight!

Nick:    38
Mark:    33
Malc:    27

As per usual, this one is always a fun start to the evening while we wait for others to turn up. And a rare win for me in this one, as last week's result was reversed!

Portobello Market

A new arrival in the shop this week, we were all dying to try this excellent game. Sue and I had given it a try in two-player mode earlier in the week, but playing with four was very different indeed ....

Game One

Sue:    105
Mark:    89
Malc:    87
Nick:    79

Game Two

Mark:    109
Sue:    107
Nick:    97
Malc:    77

This is a fascinating game with four players. You really don't get many turns at all. It looks like a game that will take a few more plays before we discover how to play it well, as I think the role of the Bobby was definitely underused in the first game, and the fact that we scored 30 more points between us in the second shows that there's plenty of room for improvement.

Aquadukt

Four more arrived near the end of the second trip to Portobello, and so we sent them upstairs with a copy of Aquadukt to pass the time ....

Roj:    30
Darren:    27
Rachel:    26
Alex:    26

Another pretty tight game of this excellent little one, and one that turned out a little closer than Roj thought it would, when he deliberately ended the game. Something just occurred to me though ... I was watching the end of the game, and I don't know if the round continued to the last player after Roj ended it, which may have altered things slightly!

Justinian

All 8 players were back together, and so we split into two different groups of four for the next pair of games. This was the choice downstairs; a game that only Sue and I had played before, and not with four players.

Rachel:    192
Nick:    183
Alex:    155
Sue:    153

This was an excellent and very enjoyable game. I think that this game improves a lot with the full complement of players and the maximum number of tokens on the board. The changes are more dramatic, and the outcome is more unsure. After two rounds I was a long way ahead and very strongly positioned for the final round, but still got done over by some sneaky tile playing by Rachel. Of course, I eventually chose the colour that allowed her to score a hatful of points!

Yspahan

Meanwhile upstairs, this current favourite made an appearance ...

Mark:    89
Roj:    71
Darren:    66
Malc:    53

I know very little about this one, although I know it was a good game, as it's Yspahan ... and that's always a good game!

Kutschfahrt zum Teufelsburg

Malc had to leave us, but Tim turned up to keep us at 8 players. It was time for another new one ... The Coach Ride to Devil's Castle! Muahahahaaaaa......

Darren, Nick, Roj, Sue:    Winners with 3 keys
Alex, Mark, Rachel, Tim:    Not winners.

This was a very interesting game, which provoked a lot of talk afterwards about what everyone was trying to do and how well or badly they did it, which is always a sign of a game that has captured the imagination. l declared the victory for the Brotherhood, holding one key myself and thinking that Roj and Darren had the others. In fact, Roj had lost his (rather carelessly if you ask me), but luckily Darren held two keys, and so we still won ... or did we? Should I have known exactly who had which items?? Watch this space, as the result may get reversed.

UPDATE: According to the designer (what does he know?), we did in fact lose this game, as I named a person in my Association who wasn't holding an object! So ... the official result should actually have been:

Alex, Mark, Rachel, Tim:    Won by a loophole in the rules, despite the fact that they weren't even close.
Darren, Nick, Roj, Sue:    Were robbed of an impressive victory by some dodgy umpiring.

There. I'm glad that's cleared that up.

Tsuro

Deciding to stay with 8 players, a couple of games of Tsuro were called for ....

Game One

Rachel:
Roj:    Died at the end.
Alex:    Died in third position
Mark:
Darren:
Nick:
Sue:
Tim:    All died at the same time, at the hands of Mark.

Game Two

Rachel:
Darren:
Sue:    All died together at the end, at the hands of Rachel
Mark:
Tim:
Roj:    All died at the hands of Roj
Alex:
Nick:    First to go, thanks to Alex.

An odd couple of games, with neither of them producing one winner, and nearly all the deaths involving some sort of suicide. I'm not sure anyone managed to pick someone else off without killing themselves in the process. Kamikaze Tsuro!

Pickomino

And finally, with six of us left we just had time for another quickie, this time involving a lot of dice and worms ...

Roj:    13
Sue:    5
Mark:    4
Nick:    3
Darren:    3
Rachel:    0

this was a load of fun, although pretty one-sided! Roj managed to rack up a pretty impressive score as the worms started to disappear from the middle, and none of us could roll any of his numbers to stop him! A really fun way to end the evening!

And that was it for another week. Thanks to all those who braved the weather to come out.