board games & card games for all ages
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Monday 30th April 2007
Another gorgeous evening outside, but that didn't put 10 gamers off from making an appearance this week ...
Players:
David F-F, Faye, Gordon, Jo, Mark H, Mark L, Mo, Neil C, Nick, Sue
Games Played:
Those that weren't eating decided to jump right in with a game that we had all played together online quite a bit, but the four of us had never met face to face ...
Nick:
31
Neil: 28
Mark L: 27
Sue: 22
Yet another fun outing for this very light-hearted area majority game. I was scoring quite nicely early on, but slowly losing all of my little guys from the board, whereas Neil and mark got themselves some pretty lethal combinations of genes and were slowly reeling me in. In the end, it was a 50/50 shot which of the final 2 regions would score: One would give me the win, and the other would put me in deep trouble! For once, the randomness gods were on my side as my number was pulled and I crept across the line.
The remaining players were ready to start something, and we realised that 6-player games were a bit thin on the ground tonight, but luckily Mark H had brought this fun little abstract puzzler ...
Faye:
300
David: 250
Mark H: 230
Jo: 160
Mo: 160
Gordon: 130
A game that, sadly, I don't know too much about. I'm pretty sure it was the first time playing for Mo, David and Faye, which means that Faye's win was a pretty good achievement. Gordon came away complaining about bad tile draws, so we'll put his position down to misfortune!
Sternenhimmel
In a classic case of poor timing, the four Urland players were now waiting on the others! So ... we went for an older game that I'd picked up recently (something to do with the constellations that make up the zodiac:
Nick:
45
Mark L: 40
Sue: 30
Neil: 27
This is a fun little game of half-blind, half-open tile placement, with a little bluffing involved as well. It was enjoyed by all, and was a lot of fun in quite a short time. I felt I was miles ahead at one point during the game, and so was quite surprised that the scores were as close as they were. Still .... at least I managed to stay out in front!
Notre Dame
Finally we managed to all be finished at the same time, and so we split into two groups of five.
Mark
L: 62
Mark H: 56
Nick: 50
Gordon: 46
Neil: 41
This was the first time we'd played this excellent new game with the full five players, and it was just as successful as it has been with four. Mark L managed to get a whole load of his little guys in the building that earned you victory points, and made some huge gains before the rats started to gnaw away at his supply. We all went for coaches early on, grabbing the most convenient messages before concentrating on other stuff. I was the only one to completely avoid the plague although I think I overdid it a little, ending on a grand total of 2 rats!
Coincidentally, the other table was also playing a Stefan Feld game from the excellent Alea series of games:
Jo:
61
Faye: 58
Sue: 58
David: 55
Mo: 52
Definitely a victory for the girls in this one, as they claimed the top three spots. This looks like it was a very tight game, with only nine points separating first place from last! A good win for Jo here.
Notre Dame was done a little before Rum & Pirates, and so we broke out this quick bidding game ...
Mark
H: 16 (9 cards)
Mark L:
16 (7 cards)
Gordon: 8
Neil: 7
Nick: 6
This was a very close game, with Mark L getting the three bonus points for "most cash" at the end of the game to tie the score with Mark H, only to learn that the tiebreaker was the total number of cards bought, which the latter Mark had by a couple of points. I was never in this one, thanks mainly to making silly low bids when I knew I couldn't win an auction, and then remembering that I could have passed and taken a couple of coins! Gordon was the only one to forget the bidding restrictions and spend a coin on a false bid, which - in the end - didn't cost him any places.
And finally ... the favourite Thursday night closer has now infiltrated Monday nights as well!
Neil:
10
Nick: 7
Mark L: 5
Sue: 5
David: 4
Faye: 3
We like to pride ourselves on being pretty experienced Saboteur players, considering it makes an appearance almost every games night! However, we played four rounds of this one tonight and the only person who hadn't played the game before managed to take the rest of us to the cleaners! I think Neil was an honest dwarf on all four rounds, successfully picking up gold three times, and connecting himself on a couple of occasions. David and I seemed to be the most common Saboteurs, and spent much of the final round not able to do anything, as people had got sick of us trying to do our thing and broke all of our tools!
And that was that for another fun evening in the pub. Thanks to all for coming out once again.
