board games & card games for all ages
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Thursday 28th June 2007
No Sue this week (off on a jolly), but we still managed to get a respectable nine gamers in for some fun ...
Oh ... by the way ... If anyone is actually reading this, you may be interested to know that we now have a forum dedicated to Shire Gamers (known as a "guild") on the BoardGameGeek. Access it here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/guild/275
Players:
Carolyn, Darren, Dave C, Mark L, Mike, Neil H, Nick, Rachel, Tim
Games Played:
This is a game I've been wanting for a number of years, and finally the reprint has made it to the shop! Sue and I took it home yesterday and played five fun games, so you would think my experience would show here ...
Mike:
4
Mark: 3
Nick: 2
Mike killed us in this one. The scores look a little closer than they really were, as I'm pretty sure Mark and I only had four pieces each on the board, while Mike was climbing steadily up every track. Mark and I shouldn't be allowed to play these games together, as we just try and outdo each other, causing us both all sorts of trouble!
Formula Motor Racing
We were now up to six players, and it didn't look like anyone else was imminent, so we thought we'd get a few races of this fun game under our belts (with the proviso that we'd stop if someone else came in).
Mike:
10
Rachel: 6
Mark: 4
Tim: (3 + 1) 4
Darren: 2
Nick: 0
A quarter of the way through the first race and Neil arrived, making this the only race. Which was bad news for me, as I'd already got one car out of the race and the other in last place! Mike made it two games out of two by grabbing first place, despite Rachel starting on pole.
With the arrival of the last two, we split into two groups. This was the choice of the group of four downstairs.
Mike:
10 (8 in volcano)
Mark: 10 (11
in volcano)
Nick: 8
Rachel: 7
I was hoping that there might be a "last one to visit Pompeii goes first" clause in the rules, but no such luck! This was an incredibly busy board, as the eruption card was right at the bottom of the deck. Mark had managed to get almost all of his guys on the board, which made him a good target to throw into the volcano and drown in lava, which we all did to good effect. Mike made the most of the neutral buildings near the volcano-end of the city, and clustered his peeps near the exit as the time ran down. With one more turn, Mike would have got an 11th guy out (he was the only one left when the lava ran out), but as it is it came down to a tie-breaker, where we all discovered just how many of Mark's little blue guys we'd thrown in there!
Meanwhile upstairs, the group of five played our favourite game of evolution ...
Darren:
34
Carolyn: 32
Tim: 25
Neil: 24
Dave: 14
I don't know much about this one (although I do know Darren was quite pleased to have won it!), but it went down very well (as expected) with everyone. It was a first play for Neil, Dave and Carolyn, and it looks like Dave got on the wrong end of some guesses, which can happen in this one.
Pompeii was over way before Urland, so the downstairs crew decided to re-visit the scene of Mike's earlier triumph ....
Mark:
3
Mike: 2
Rachel: 1
Nick: 0
OK ... I think I know what it is. I just try and push my luck a little too much in these sorts of games. I have a horrible feeling I'm going to love this one, but never win it! A tighter battle this time, with all of us looking good at different times in the game. I was right at the top of the 6, but as no one challenged me for it, I kept going every time I could have finished it, only to mess up somewhere else. Mark grabbed the 2's and 12's, winning in some sort of pincer movement.
Now Urland came to an end, and we were all still busy rolling dice, so the upstairs gang (well ... most of them) went ballooning for a little while.
Tim:
54
Carolyn: 53
Darren: 46
Dave: 33
Another one I don't know a great deal about. It looks like it was a pretty close game, though, with carolyn being narrowly pipped into second place for the second time tonight.
In an evening of poor timing, the downstairs guys were now done with dice while the Cloud 9 guys were still going strong. Picking up a loose Neil (if you know what I mean), the five of us went off to London ...
Mark:
38
Rachel: 37
Neil: 37
Mike: 35
Nick: 33
As always with this excellent game, it was a really tight game. I knew I'd dropped off the pace when my second line got blocked, but I managed to (almost) keep up with the pace thanks to my strong mini-circular other line. Neil was a little off the pace all game, but scored a massive 8 points in the final round to bring him right back into the mix. Rachel noticed after her final building turn that she could have got an extra point or two, which possibly might have been enough to nick the win off Mark (none of us could exactly work it out). A great game.
While we were finishing with the Underground, this was played (and very much enjoyed) by Darren and Tim. I have no record of the scores, though.
There was just five of us left and - seeing as Sue had snuck off with our usual closer and no one bothered to read that they needed to bring it in the guild (although to be fair no one knew what the heck the guilds was) - we plumped for Beowulf.
Tim:
(24 + 5) 29
Rachel: 21
Nick: (15 + 5) 20
Mark: 15
Darren: 11
This was a whole load of fun ... another game we should play a lot more often than we do. Tim managed to sprint away from us in the last couple of events, although I'm claiming to be a lot closer than it looks (I was victim of an unlucky risk when fighting the Dragon) - I need something ... this was my best placing of the night! Darren managed to save some embarrassment by winning the very last event, meaning he could heal a wound and avoid scoring a massive -4 points!
And that's everything for another week. Don't forget about the guild ... If you would like a particular game bringing on a Thursday or a Monday, that's the place to ask for it.
