board games & card games for all ages
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Thursday 10th May 2007
A nice round ten players in the shop tonight ... However, we managed to get a load of games played!
Players:
Darren, Mark L, Mark P, Mike, Neil, Nick, Rachel, Richard, Sue, Tim
Games Played:
The first four through the door had a play of this fun little self-published card game, arriving here all the way from Australia!
Mike:
60
Mark L: 42
Nick: 42
Sue:
23
This was the first time we'd played the game with more than 2 players, and it was a lot of fun. There seems to be less luck with more players, which is quite nice, as sometimes in the two-player game the luck of the draw has a lot of impact! A good win for mike, who was the only one not to have played the game before, and he made pretty good use of the Master Thief!
Formula Motor Racing
We were up to six players, and decided to have a quick couple of races until others arrived. As it turned out, we only had time for a single race!
Rachel:
10
Sue: (6 +
3) 9
Nick: 4
Darren: 2
Mike: 1
Mark L: 0
One race is not really the best way to play this game, as a "short season" gives a much more balanced game! Mark saw his cars slowly drift backwards down the order, while I never actually managed to play a single card to advance my guys, relying on the other players to drag me up into fourth place! Sue was the only player to get both cars in the points, but it wasn't quite enough to catch Rachel in first.
We were now up to seven players, and we split into two groups.
Mark
L: 3
Rachel: 2
Nick: 1
Sue: 1
It was a long time since we'd played this one, although Mark had had a fair bit of practice over the last Christmas holiday ... and it showed! Mark went for a money-making strategy, upgraded his boats and went discovering. The rest of us were left doing a bit of everything, which doesn't seem to be the way to win this one! A fun game, nonetheless!
Archaeology
While the group of three were waiting for a fourth player, another game of this broke out ....
Darren:
71
Mike: 66
Richard: 44
I know very little about this one, but it looks a little closer than the earlier game, with Mike only being pipped by Darren by five points.
The fourth player appeared, and so this excellent new game made yet another appearance ....
Darren:
72
Richard: 66
Neil: 61
Mike: 34
This looks like it was a pretty close three-way battle, with only 11 points separating the first three players. Again, sadly I don't know much about how the game went, as it was going on upstairs while we stayed down below. Another good win this evening for Darren!
Meanwhile, the downstairs group had now become five, and this game was long overdue another appearance at the games night.
(Water Holes + Horses + Ovoos + Carpets)
Mark
L: (10 + 44 + 36 + 10) 100
Rachel: (12 +
6 + 0 + 64) 82
Mark P: (22 + 55 + 2 + 0) 79
Nick: (6 + 0 + 48 + 10) 64
Sue: (24 + 10 + 0 +
6) 40
This one was a lot of fun, as always. We really should play it more often! Sue suffered a little from "last position" syndrome, having trouble finding an offer good enough to get her promoted up the order, while Mark L seemed to always be in the first three! This was more evidence that Mark L was having a "good cards" night!
Wikinger
The Notre Dame crowd were finished running round Paris, and so went off to Scandinavia for some sailing and fishing ...
Mike:
58
Neil: 51
Richard: 49
Darren: 38
Another good win for Mike tonight! This was the "basic" game, which actually contains a lot of strategy all by itself. Darren's Vikings suffered from not getting enough to eat, but the other guys seemed to manage some pretty respectable scores!
We were now up to six players downstairs, and so this fun little card game got another outing ...
Sue:
13
Mark L: 12
Tim: 9
Mark P: 8
Rachel: 6
Nick: 4
This was a fun, chaotic game as per usual. I couldn't do anything right in this one! Apart from breaking flasks, all of my tasks required some red liquids, and the only one I managed to find was exploded by some clumsy chemist elsewhere round the table. We all though Mark L had grabbed another win here, as he kept picking up the perfect tasks for his cards, yet Sue managed to sneak through pretty much unnoticed and claim a good win!
A little shuffle of personnel, and a couple of people left, which meant we just had time for two quick four-player games. This one was upstairs:
Mark
P: 40
Tim: 28
Darren: 23
Richard: 21
A very good win for Mark P in this one, as he had almost a "perfect score", with just one tile in his barn taking a point away from his full enclosures. The battle for the places was won by Tim, with the other two languishing a little way further back.
Wikinger
And finally, the second game that managed two plays tonight.
Mark
L: 69
Nick: 56
Rachel: 44
Sue: 36
We had all played this game before, and so were keen to try it with the "advanced" rules. Wow, does that make this tough little game even tougher! Money became very tight (apart from Mark's cash, as he had "super Goldsmiths" earning him a small fortune), and there just seemed to be even more things to think about! There's a lot more strategy in the advanced game, as you need to pay attention to so many things when you're deciding whether to bid for start player, and where to place the guys around the wheel. Tough ... but a lot of fun.
And that was the end of the evening. Thanks to all who came along!
