board games & card games for all ages
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Monday 4th June 2007
A total of 12 gamers in the pub this week, although we were 11 for half the night, and that can be a tricky number to split up successfully. But I think we got away with it ....
Players:
Darren, David F-F, Faye, Gordon, Mark H, Mark L, Mark P, Mel, Nick, Rachel, Rich, Sue
Games Played:
The first three in were myself, Sue and Mark L. We decided to play this quickie to see who else was going to turn up ...
Nick:
20
Sue: 14
Mark
L: 12
This really was a quickie, with Sue choosing to end the game about half way through by completing her third Pyramid. Little did she know that I had more points than anyone else at the time! Nobody managed to get started on their Sphinxes, as the feet and the bodies were in the hands of different players!
Still just the three of us, although others had arrived and were grabbing some food first, so there was just time for another quick one:
Mark
L: 32
Sue: 31
Nick: 21
This was a pretty close game, as long as you weren't me! Mark and Sue looked pretty close all the way through, and that's how it finished. My canals kept being diverted by someone who shall remain nameless (Mark), and I spent too many turns trying to get them back, and placing extra springs for no apparent reason. Always a good game though: short, a little bit of luck, and a fair amount of screwage!
Mark P and Mel had been promised a game of Vikings, and that is exactly what they got ...
Rich:
74
Mel: 41
Nick: 36
Mark P: 35
Another pretty close game, if you don't count one person! But this time, that person was a runaway leader instead of a runaway loser. Having said that, Rich actually spent most of the game at the back of the scores, but we let him pick up far too many fishermen, so that - come the end of the game - all of our Vikings went hungry, costing us some points, while Rich had 15 extra fish for an extra 30 points! I think before the "fish" scoring, there was a few points between us all. An interesting tactic, as once Rich had got the first three fishermen, each extra one was basically 10 points in the bag! This is one of those games that plays very differently every time we play it.
This one made its second appearance of the night, as there were four more looking for something quick.
Faye:
35
Rachel: 34
Darren: 19
David: 17
The girls taught the guys a bit of a lesson in this one! I have a sneaky feeling there was a little war between David and Darren, which seems to have harmed them both and left the girls to battle it out for the win, which Faye grabbed by a single point.
And the third group of four players went off to Russia ...
Mark
L: 98
Mark H: 86
Gordon: 66
Sue: 63
Mark L managed to grab a couple more aristocrats than anyone else thanks to good use of his Observatory, and that proved enough to stave off the opposition in this great little game: Gordon and Sue only managed four apiece, which Mark H had got five, but Mark L's seven guys were enough to pull him away from the chasing pack.
We had promised ourselves a game of this new arrival, which occupied five of us for a little longer than it said on the box ....
Mark
L: 32
Rich: 29
Darren: 27
Sue: 24
Nick: 20
This was an interesting game, which is supposed to be very similar to Scepter of Zavandor, but without some of the fiddliness which makes Scepter go on a little sometimes. And that's pretty much what it was. It was a tricky first play, as none of us really knew which cards were coming up in the future, and therefore which ones to save up for. I suffered from never getting the buildings that let you increase your hand limit, and so I started having to throw money away. Once I found those buildings, I also improved my income, so that problem never got better! Mark did a pretty good job of staying tucked in behind the leaders, and then pulled away thins to us letting him have both of the "City Centre" cards, giving him huge discounts on the cards with all the points on them!
Detroit - Cleveland Grand Prix
This meant that the other group was a six, and rather than split into two threes, they stayed together and went racing ....
Mark
H: $510,000
Gordon:
$500,000
David: $430,000
Faye: $350,000
Rachel: $350,000
Mel: $340,000
It looks like the guys got their revenge against the girls in this one! A pretty close result between Gordon and Mark, with the three girls fighting it out not to come last! I'm saying nothing ....
Carcassonne + Inns & Cathedrals
A few people had to leave us, and so the remaining four went off to Carcassonne while the Phoenicia game wrapped up ....
Rachel:
105
David: 61
Mark H: 60
Faye: 58
I don't know anything about this one really, but looks at those scores! I don't know what Rachel's strategy was, but it was a good one! My guess is Rachel had some pretty big farms at the final scoring stage .....
And we still had time to squeeze in three rounds of Saboteur ...
Faye:
6
Mark H: 6
Mark L: 6
Nick: 6
David: 5
Rachel: 5
Darren: 3
Sue: 2
As usual, a load of fun. No one managed to get three victories, and no one suffered three losses either, making the scores pretty close. I had won in the first two rounds, which made me a target for broken tools in round three. Each time, there were only two saboteurs, making it very difficult for the evil ones, and resulting in three successful mines.
And by then it was 11pm, and time for the pub to close and everyone to go home.
