board games & card games for all ages

Monday 26th February 2007

Another good crowd at the pub this week ....

Players:

Darren, David F-F, Faye, Gordon, Jen, Mark L, Neil, Nick, Rachel, Rich, Russ, Sue, Tim R

Games Played:

California

Here's a great opener that we hadn't seen for a while ...

(Floors + Gifts + Bonuses)

Mark:    (7 + 3 + 10)    20
Nick:    (8 + 2 + 5)    15
Gordon:    (7 + 2 + 6)    15
Rich:    (9 + 2 + 3)    14
Sue:    (8 + 2 + 3)    13

As usual, this was a fun little game full of frustration and forgetting to grab your extra point when furnishing your mansion! Mark ended up grabbing way too many of the bonus tiles, giving him a comfortable victory.

Pickomino

The next few to arrive also went for a quickie to get things going. It was "that worm game" again!

Rachel:    10
David:    8
Darren:    6
Faye:    0

Ten is a pretty impressive score in this game, so Rachel must have had the dice on her side to gather those 4 or 5 tiles that she needed to score that much! It looks like Faye may have had one or two stolen from her though ...

Medici

The same four players went from worm-roasting to trading goods at the harbour:

David:    135
Darren:    133
Rachel:    101
Faye:    95

One of my new favourite games (and rapidly becoming a regular of the Gamers), this looks like it was a really tight battle between the boys (for 1st place) and the girls (for 3rd!). A good win for David.

Ostia

Also off to the harbour, but this time in Rome rather than Florence!

Nick:    12
Gordon:    11
Mark:    10
Sue:    10
Neil:    9

This was - and looks like it always will be - a very tight game, with everyone in with a shout of winning until the very end. Neil suffered slightly from taking an early lead, making it more expensive to buy goods as your bids seem to get overlooked! Something I also discovered in the final round, but luckily I snuck a couple of extra points in the final count ... more by luck than judgment, though!

Aquadukt

The Medici guys were done already, and decided to play this fun quickie while everyone else caught up.

David:    31
Darren:    30
Faye:    28
Rachel:    22

Another close-looking contest here, by the look of it, and another slightly less-than-comfortable win for David!

Thurn and Taxis

Meanwhile, on the third table, it was a rare appearance for the 2006 Game of the Year:

Russ:    17
Jen:    12
Tim:    12
Rich:    10

I don't know a whole lot about this one, although it looks like Russ had things pretty much under control here!

Vegas Showdown

All thirteen of us were finished at the same time, and there was just enough time left to rearrange the groups and grab three more "bigger" games for the last ones of the night. This was the choice of the group of five.

Faye:    55
Mark:    49
Sue:    48
David:    36
Rachel:    34

This one sounded like a lot of fun, with some pretty close auctioning and bargaining going on. Mark tried to upgrade a room that he didn't actually own, but noticed his own error, which put him at a slight disadvantage for a while. It looks like Rachel may have taken one too many "for the team", hurting her own chances in the process.

Hacienda

With our online tournament starting up pretty soon, a few people wanted to try their hand at this excellent game of cattle-ranching ...

Gordon:    97
Tim:    88
Neil:    77
Rich:    72

This was the first game for all the players in this one, but it looked like they picked up the game pretty quickly. Time was definitely going for as much water as he possibly could, while Gordon managed to pip him to the post with one very large tract of land, with a few lakes strategically placed.

Die Baumeister von Arkadia

And the final game for the remaining four of us was this excellent new one from Ravensburger, soon to be released in the UK by Rio Grande ...

Jen:    103
Darren:    94
Nick:    92
Russ:    76

And this was an excellent win for Jen, who grabbed a very early chance to sell a load of black seals for 5 each, and never looked back after that, although I think the rest of us were slowly catching up!

And that was the lot for another fun Monday in the pub. Thanks to all who came along, and we hope to see you all again next week.