board games & card games for all ages
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Monday 21st May 2007
A smaller crowd than usual in the pub this week ... I think it was the clash with the Ann Summers evening that put a few people off!
Players:
David F-F, Mark L, Mel, Nick, Rich, Sue
Games Played:
Mark and I were in early this week, so we decided to grab a quick two-player game while we waited:
Nick:
214
Mark:
212
This was a very tight game, and still a load of fun - We hadn't played this for a little while. I was quite surprised it didn't get a recommendation (let alone a nomination) for the Spiel des Jahres this year. I think I edged this one thanks to pretty much pulling the colour of customer I needed (almost) every time!
There were four of us by now, and so another fun and short game was on the cards while we waited for others to show ...
Rich:
30
Mark: 21
Mel: 18
Nick: 16
This is always fun, if a little chaotic. There's just something about chopping people's heads off which makes this enjoyable. Rich came out way on top, despite mislaying the odd head, while I was a poor executioner, coming in comfortable last. Mel was doing a pretty good job at killing the right people, but then got on the end of some rough play by Mark and ended up with too many innocent victims in her pile.
Still just the four of us, another quick filler was called for. This remake of Honeybears made its Shire Gamers debut, and was enjoyed by all ....
Mark:
(20 + 25 + 20 + 31) 96
Mel: (33 + 19
+ 16 + 10) 78
Rich: (15 + 30 + 20 + 5) 70
Nick: (8 + 29 + 19 +
7) 63
This was a fun little game, and quite tricky to score too highly, as we were all moving the firemen up the ladder fairly evenly. Mel reached the top in the first round to gain a huge score, but then got steadily worse from then on! The last round was very different, as Mark decided to race the yellow guy all the way to the top (with a little help from Rich), catching all of us with a bunch of minus points in our hands. Mark, in the meantime had four yellow cards left over, scoring a massive 31 points in the final round and racing to the win.
Acquire
We were now up to six players at long last, and Rich had brought this oldie which he had never played before ...
Mark:
$32,000
Rich: $30,200
David: $24,000
Sue: $23,800
Nick: $20,400
Mel: $19,400
This was a first play for everyone but Mark (although, he had only played it once many years ago). There was an interesting mix of tactics between the first two, as Mark was playing purely for the endgame, which he did pretty successfully with almost $15k in bonuses at the end, while Rich was buying shares, selling out, buying more shares, etc... So Rich spent the game with a heap of cash, but didn't earn a lot at the end, thanks to the two large chains being out of stock certificates by then! I was trying to gain stock in the two large companies, but didn't get anywhere near enough to compete. A good game ... and much simpler than the rules made it sound!
We decided to stick in a group of 6, which limited the game choices slightly, but luckily we had this fun game full of screwage ...
Mark:
27
Sue: 25 (1st
boat home)
Nick: 25 (2nd boat home)
David: 25 (3rd boat home)
Mel: 24
Rich: 7
This was a (if you don't count Rich!) remarkably close game. It was different to previous games, as most of the boats made it back to the islands quite safely. Rich had a few guys on the first boat to sink, which caused his low score. Meanwhile, a little back-stabbing went on, usually against whoever tried to rig the voting by making a sensible suggestion or two about which way people should vote! Quite a few of the Captain's Hats were wasted, but the last (black) boat was all in the sea by itself at the end of the game, and sadly it was Rich that jumped out, realising there wasn't another boat to swim to! And then he did it again! Lots of fun (for everyone apart from Rich, I guess)!
And finally .... our favourite "end of the night" game ....
Rich:
10
Mel: 8
Sue: 7
David: 1
Nick: 1
Mark: 0
We played four rounds of this one to take us to closing time (which makes a score of 0 all the more embarrassing). Rich was successful in the first three rounds (twice honestly, once sneakily), so there was absolutely no chance of him being left alone in round four! Mel grabbed second place with an excellent final round, where she single-handedly stopped the rest of us from finding the gold, although the fact that all the honest dwarves were busy breaking each others tools probably helped a little there. Mark, David and I all kept coming up with the usual complaint of having a perfect hand, if only we were on the other side!
And that was that for another week. Thanks to those who came along, and we'll see you all soon.
