board games & card games for all ages
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Monday 14th May 2007
Another fun night in the pub this week, despite having the unofficial "most awkward number of players" with seven of us in attendance:
Players:
David F-F, Mark L, Mel, Nick, Rich, Sue, Tim
Games Played:
For the second games night running, this fun little game from Australia was the opener of choice:
Mark
L: 79
Nick: 61
Sue:
51
Sue got off to an unlucky start in this one, being lucky enough to find the master thief, but before she could afford to pay him! Mark got off to a great start, closely trailed by me, but sadly I made the mistake of not stealing a key from him, and then watched him steal my own key on the very next turn! A good win for Mark at this first game, with Sue still looking for her first win at this fun little game!
Hick Hack in Gackelwack (Pick Picknick)
By now there was five of us in the pub, and so we thought we'd play this fun little game of second-guessing, foxes and poultry...
(corn + poultry)
Sue:
(30 + 9) 39
Mel: (24 +
14) 38
Rich: (26 + 3) 29
Nick: (6 + 21) 27
Mark L: (21 + 4) 25
This is a fun little game, full of groans and cheers as your foxes either go away empty-handed or find a couple of ducks to munch on. Rich went all-out for corn, while I managed to grab a few juicy birds, but failed to find any corn at all. A couple of times, I got in a squabble over some corn, but lost out due to the fact that the dice turned against me (not for the only time tonight). Sue and Mel both grabbed a whole load of corn in the last few turns, with Sue just edging the battle of the birds (see what I did there?) by a single point.
We were still waiting to see if anyone else was coming along, so the five of us grabbed this quickie, which is a forerunner to Reiner Knizia's Colossal Arena.
Mel:
7
Rich: 7
Sue: 7
Mark: 5
Nick: 3
This was a new game to all of us, and a lot of fun it was too. However ... it really could do with a tie-breaker, as three of us (and I use "us" a little loosely) tied with the same score. Mark and I kind of knocked each other out of the race, and I think my big mistake was not betting on the horse that I had a load of cards for, but ultimately it was a good win for everyone else apart from us two!
We were now up to six players, and this is a great game for exactly that number ...
Mark:
65 days
Nick: 71 days
David: 72 days
Rich: 73 days
Mel: 75 days
Sue: Stuck in New York (after 68
days)
This was a great game (that we really should play more often). Rich shot off to try and get back to London first, hoping that the time penalties suffered by the rest of us would give him an advantage, however, we all managed to get back only a couple of rounds later, which was quicker than he really wanted - add that to the four days he spent with the detective, and it put him out of the reckoning. Mark had an excellent final leg from New York to London in only seven days, which sealed the win for him, as I had to use two different boats to get there before it was too late. This was the other game where the dice decided to mess with me, losing me three days sue to a very dodgy balloon. And it was Sue that ended up stuck in New York with the detective, as the rest of us had a cup of tea and put our feet up.
By now we were seven players, and so had to split into a three and a four. After some deliberation, this was the choice of the three players:
Rich:
101
David: 73
Tim: 71
This was a little one-sided once the final round was counted up, with Rich owning all of the shops in the poshest district in the neighbourhood. A pretty close battle for second, though, with David just edging Tim into the red!
The gang of four decided to give this excellent game another playing.
Nick:
75
Mark: 74
Mel: 56
Sue: 48
This was a first game for Mel, although the rest of us had played quite a few times before. Mark and I were pretty close all the way round, although I thought he'd won it comfortably when I discovered he was intending on building a residence, and then immediately bulldozing it to make way for a Theatre (I think) in the last turn. However, I made a bit of a friend of the King in the last round by helping out in the castle as well as building him a statue, and so I managed to buy my way into a single point victory!
Meanwhile, the Yspahan game was over, and the same three players went building canals instead ...
Tim:
38
Rich: 35
David: 30
I'm pretty sure that this was a first play for both Tim and Rich, although I assume David was too busy teaching them the game and making sure they knew what they were doing to concentrate on his own game. Or something like that ....
Archaeology
And finally, the three became two and ended the night the same way it started ...
Tim:
123
David:
109
The two-player version of this relies more heavily on luck of the draw than the three- or four-player version, however both players seemed to enjoy the game, which was another good win for Tim to round off the evening.
And that brought us quite nicely to closing time. Thanks all for coming along.
