board games & card games for all ages
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Thursday 17th May 2007
Eleven of us in the shop this evening, and an entertaining time was had by all ....
Players:
Darren, Dave C, Dave F, Mark L, Mark P, Nick, Rachel, Richard B, Roj, Sue, Tim
Games Played:
The first six in the shop quickly grabbed this fun auction game:
Mark
L: 123
Nick: 102
Dave C: 94
Rachel: 88
Darren: 84
Richard:
59
This was a great way to start the evening, and the decisions, as always, were agonising. Mark went for the free "gamble" of tiles in the first round, and found a very useful last one for his boat, putting him into a lead which proved impossible to rein back in. Only three players were specialized enough to reach the top of one of the pyramids (Dave, Mark and Rachel), which was possibly my downfall, as in the second round I managed to fill my ship with "one of each".
A Shire Gamers debut for the older Days of Wonder game, which was chosen by the three people to arrive after Medici had already got underway
Roj:
(60 + 180 + 50) 290
Dave F: (80 +
60 + 40) 180
Sue: (80 + 20 + 0)
100
This looked like an interesting set-collection game, with several twists in it! Roj had a massive second round, which put him out of sight from the others, who were left to battle it out for second place.
Bohnanza (with High Bohn Plus)
With nine players now in, the group split into a four and a five. This was the four-player option.
(Buildings + Cash + Bonus)
Mark
L: (10 + 16 + 4) 30
Sue: (11 + 11
+ 1) 23
Rachel: (8 + 11 + 3) 22
Dave C: (9 + 8 + 0)
17
I know very little about this one, although by the sound of it a good time was had by all involved ... This had the expansion in the game as well, which gives the players various buildings whenever they sell beans, which add special powers (and extra cash) to any future sales of the same variety .... Mark kept his winning run going by another fairly healthy margin.
And this was the choice of the group of five:
Dave
F: 89
Darren: 74
Richard: 73
Roj: 71
Nick: 69
El Grande with 5 is always an excellent game, and this was no exception. I made the grave mistake of nabbing a few early points in round one, which then made me a target for a few rounds. The Castillo was in fairly heavy use throughout the game, with stacks of little guys causing havoc when they spread themselves round the board every third round. Dave was edging ahead all through the game, getting some extra points from his home region on many occasions, and then in the final round, four of us all poured out of the Castillo into the same province, which became a wasted move for both Roj and I. Otherwise we might have had a shot at second place ....
Meanwhile, the Bohnanza players had become six, and they decided to go racing for a change of pace ...
Mark
L: $2,100
Sue: $2,000
Rachel: $1,700
Tim: $1,700
Dave C: $1,200
Mark P: $700
I know very little about this one, although it looks like a pretty close run thing between Sue and Mark. Mark P looks like he may have suffered a little at the hands of absolutely everyone else!
The El Grande game was over, and so the same group of five went from controlling Spanish provinces to controlling islands in the prehistoric ocean ...
Dave
F: 31
Richard: 30
Nick: 26
Darren: 19
Roj: 18
Another very fun game, as always with this excellent game. By the second epoch, it had developed into a neck and neck race between Dave and Richard, and Dave was busy assimilating whenever he could, while Richard had missed out on any genetic modifications until the third auction. In the end, It was Dave who triggered the end of the game, with Darren stealing the three point bonus from Richard (who had looked good for it for most of the game), and Richard taking the two points, leaving him just one short of Dave!
The upstairs crowd dropped down to five players (as Dave C had to leave us), and decided to see if they could fit a game of Hermagor in before closing time ...
Mark
L: 133
Mark P: 119
Sue: 116
Tim: 90
Rachel: 87
Mark managed to keep up his winning evening with a fairly comfortable victory, in a game which went on a little longer than any of them were expecting it to. The endgame looked a little rushed because of this, but I don't think it would have affected the outcome any if people had had a little longer to think!
While we were waiting for the guys upstairs to finish their game, the three of us sitting downstairs went running round the dungeon looking for gold ....
Dave
F: 10
Nick: 8
Darren: 6
This is a fun filler, which only takes 20 minutes or so to play. Dave and I set up a good supply of coins pretty quickly, while Darren sent the Dragon towards us before realising he needed cash as well. I managed to send the Dragon at Dave to steal one of his coins, but unfortunately he only took a "1" off him, while at the same time moving him nearer to a replacement coin! This was enough for Dave to get there one step ahead of me!
And that was everything we managed to play on this fun night. Thanks to all for coming!
