board games & card games for all ages

Monday 19th February 2007

Our first Monday night in our new home, The Famous Lion pub in Stoke ... 

Players:

Andy F, Dan, Darren, David F-F, Gordon, Jen, Mark L, Nick, Pam, Rich, Sue, Tim R

Games Played:

Klunker

This one is becoming a popular opener for the group. The first three through the door gave this one another spin ...

Sue:    22
Nick:    19
Mark L:    18

As per usual, the game ended all of a sudden when we were least expecting it, and Sue managed to grab the one set of items that would have given my score a huge boost just before the end. A smart move, as this kept her out in front in a pretty tight game.

Ruse & Bruise

Suddenly we were up to six players, and it seemed a great time to bring this one out for another playing, the first time with it's full complement of players:

Rich:    (16 x 2) -2 = 30
Sue:    24
Darren:    22
Mark:    18
Gordon:    13
Nick:    12

This was a really interesting game the way it panned out. We all expected everyone to win one column per turn, but in fact there were some rounds where three cards were one by the same player, and then that player suffered and got none the round after! One memorable moment was when a single column had about 10 cards in it, but by the time the Wizard and Witch had done their thing, it was won with a tie-broken score of zero!

Salamanca

In the meantime, the next four arrivals grabbed this new one, battled through the rules and set off to Spain:

Andy:    67
Jen:    63
David:    55
Dan:    39

This went down very well with the guys playing it, which is interesting, as I had only played it with 2 or 3 (and was quite impressed), and it seems the game improves dramatically with more players. A pretty tight game, and a narrow win for Andy.

Medici

The six Ruse & Bruise players finished up and - as no-one else had turned up yet - jumped straight into another game which could cope with half a dozen ...

Nick:    118
Gordon:    109
Darren:    91
Mark:    79
Sue:    77
Rich:    67

I'm beginning to discover a new favourite game here. This is an excellent auction game, full of tough decisions and a little luck in the tile draw. Talking of luck, right near the end of the game, I had to pull a random tile from the bag to fill an order, and got the exact tile I needed, handing me a well deserved (ha!) victory.

6 Takes!

The game of Medici finished a little before Salamanca was expected to, so seven of us had a couple of rounds of this fun little filler while we were waiting to catch up ...

Pam:    (6 + 6)    12
Darren:    (10 + 7)    17
Mark:    (1 + 17)    18
Nick:    (31 + 1)    32
Gordon:    (3 + 31)    34
Rich:    (24 + 19)    43
Sue:    (32 + 17)    49

This was a load of fun as always, peppered with usual moans, groans and shouts as people narrowly avoided taking a bunch of points thanks to someone else!

Yspahan

Finally, eleven of us were all together at the same time, so we split into two fours and a three. This was the choice of one of the fours:

Rich:    75
Dan:    70
Tim:    57
Jen:    50

All four players were new to this one, but by all accounts a good time was had by all, but then that's pretty much expected from any game made by Ystari!

Fagin's Gang

Yet again, this fun new arrival got another playing ...

Mark:    3
Gordon:    2
Darren:    2
Andy:    0

Mark and Gordon had played before, whereas the other pair were new to the game, but the game was once again well received by all players, although Andy suffered a fair amount at the hands of the constables and other urchins! Mark is building up a fairly impressive record with this one.

Gloria Mundi

And finally the remaining three of us went off to Italy to run away from the Goths!

Nick:    Made it to Carthage
David:    Six spaces back
Sue:    Twenty spaces behind

This was a close-fought contest between David and myself, with both of us gaining a few paces, then catching each other again. I actually made good use of the "sell cards for steps" building, which I'd never seen used before. Sue suffered quite a bit at the hands of the Goth (encouraged by both of us), which made it tough for her to catch us up.

And that was the end of our first night at the new pub. Thanks everyone for coming along and making it a successful start in our new second home, and we shall hopefully see you all next week for our next games night (no meeting this Thursday, don't forget!)