board games & card games for all ages
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Thursday 5th July 2007
A bit of a busier night than we've had recently, with three simultaneous games going on for most of the night.
Players:
Darren, Jon, Mark L, Mark P, Mel, Mike, Nick, Rachel, Richard, Sue, Tim
Games Played:
Sue and I were a little late getting sorted this week, so for once the first game(s) didn't involve us!
Mark L:
89
Mike: 89
Rachel: 85
Darren: 72
Mark: Darren suffered due to not getting a set of booty to himself and having to share the Candlesticks with Mike. Mike managed to board a lot of ships late on, earning the money from them whereas I had picked up 4 chests early on for my final scoring boost.
Another four were now ready to go, and decided on this fun Ystari game ...
Richard:
58
Mel: 45
Sue: 40
Nick: 35
As usual, I got hammered in this one. Richard made pretty good use of Sir Brown early on, which allowed him to reserve three of the 5-point rooms in the museum by the end of the game. Mel and Sue had the other two, the majority of points went Richard's way. I spread myself too thin in the search for Sir Brown, eventually settling on collecting a set of five, but the bonus for that was nowhere near enough to help me out of last place.
The Buccaneering group now moved off to the circus, to try and time the game to end when ours did:
(sets + hand)
Mark
L: (30 + 43)
73 (0 deaths)
Darren: (20 +
51) 71 (2)
Mike: (30 + 30)
60 (1)
Rachel: (20 + 38)
58 (4)
Mark again: The scores on the pad pretty much tell the story of this one. I got fortunate by never losing a card from one of the action cards. The deaths after the scores are the times when a player overturned a matching colour and didn't get a card that turn.
As the poor timing continued, the downstairs guys had now finished their second game, and we were only halfway through Mykerinos. So off they went to Pompeii ....
Mark
L: 8 (4 in Volcano)
Darren: 8 (5)
Mike: 8 (6)
Rachel: 7
Mark: Pompeii was a tight game and although Rachel came last, she did manage to get 7 of the 8 guys that she'd placed in the city off the board. The Volcano erupted on the first card of the bottom 10 that it is shuffled into, so nobody really had lots of guys on the board, especially as people kept blocking the possibility for lots of relatives by placing the odd relative in final slots in buildings. A very close game.
Ra (1)
The game of Mykerinos was over, and - staying with the Egyptian theme - it was time for an old favourite to make an appearance ...
Nick:
49
Richard: 30
Mel: 28
Sue: 15
Sue had some terrible luck in this one, having trouble getting any worthwhile tiles at all. I grabbed an early lead for Pharaohs, which earned me 15 points throughout the game, sharing once with Richard. Richard meanwhile was going for a whole load of monuments, but he couldn't get enough to overtake me at the end, especially when I grabbed the 5 bonus points and he lost 5 for the suns, much to my surprise.
For Sale (1)
The bad timing continued as Ra was still going strong while Mykerinos had finished. As this group had increased to six players, a quick filler was in order to try and get all of us finished at the same time.
Jon:
$50,000
Rachel:
$43,000
Mike: $42,000
Darren: $41,000
Mark L: $40,000
Tim: $38,000
Mark: As good as ever, with the exciting moments being when a whole bunch of low houses came out like this 1,3, 5, 10,18 and the 26. Huge bids went in to avoid the lower values. Similar happened with the cheques where we had a $14,000 with 5 cheques below £10,000 including two £2000 and a void!
We finally managed to get everyone "between games" at the same time! With rumours of an 11th arrival nearing the building (Mark P), we split into two groups of 4 and a 3. This was the choice of one of the groups of four ...
Richard:
120
Sue: 99
Mel: 98
Tim: 89
I don't know a great deal about this one, although it was being played just next to our table. It was Richard's first play of the game, but it doesn't look like he had any trouble getting to grips with it!
This was the other choice ....
Jon:
66
Darren: 63
Mark L: 55
Mike: 49
Mark once more: Excellent game this one, with huge scores from Darren and Jon. Jon was getting lots of points from having 3 early Jesters and decent bonus cards to go with them, but pipped Darren at the end with his one prestige card of having the most Jesters whereas Darren had none. Darren scored a phenomenal 36 points from 4 works that he completed in the last two turns, jumping ahead of the field. I had two prestige cards that pushed me past Mike in the final scoring as he had none.
Rachel and I were intrigued by this half dexterity / half investment game, and volunteered to hang around for Mark P so that we could play it with the three of us (well ... it was his game after all!)
Nick:
$140,000
Rachel:
$100,000
Mark P: $80,000
This was a lot of fun, although playing on a wobbly table kind of added to the tension. It took us about half the game to realise the tactics ... get out of companies when they get too large, and go looking for one which might be in a good position (which seemed to be a height of 5-8) for your next move. Being involved in the company that plans a takeover at the end of the round can be a killer too!
For Sale (2)
The Portobello Market game was the first completed of the three above, and so this filler was revisited, to see if anyone else would be done soon ....
Sue:
$69,000
Mel: $67,000
Tim: $64,000
Richard: $41,000
This looks like a pretty close three-way battle, with Richard not really being in it (for a change!). Sue grabbed the victory from Mel by a couple of grand.
For Sale was possibly a little too short, as the same group found themselves without a game. They decided to go for something a little meatier ...
Sue:
135
Richard: 121
Mel: 115
Tim: 111
A very rare win for Sue at this one. She was obviously in a money-making mood, winning two auction games on the trot.
To continue the theme of bad timing, the Princes game was now over and - while we were still stacking dice downstairs - they decided that the three remaining players had time for a trip on the London Underground:
Mark
L: 62
Darren: 51
Jon: 47
Mark: I seemed to be very fortunate with where I built my track, with the stations coming up just at the right time, Just after I had built through them. Jon suffered by not connecting the objects where Darren and I had. The only circle line was made by Darren for 3 points.
Ra (2)
And now it was our turn to be out of synch with everyone else. A quick 3-player game of Ra was called for ....
Rachel:
57
Mark P: 49
Nick: 33
Rather worryingly, I managed to score less in this three player game than I did in the earlier four player game! Mark and I lagged behind a little with the Pharaohs, while Rachel made some pretty good bids with low value suns to grab vital tiles. I was left in on my own at the end of the game, but needed a miraculous mix of tiles to improve my position. As it turned out, I saw one tile (for 5 points, which I refused) before the game ended with the last Ra tile.
And finally .... we were down to six patient people who fancied a final game, What else could it have been?
Mark
P: 7
Rachel/Mark L: 7
Richard: 6
Sue: 6
Mel: 3
Nick: 0
The last thing you need when there are fewer players in a game of Saboteur is to be one of the Saboteurs three times in a row, which is exactly what happened to me! I did have a partner in crime for all three rounds, so I managed to drag a few people down with me! Rachel played the first round, but then had to leave and let Mark L take over her gold.
And that was it. A grand total of fourteen games played by eleven gamers. Thanks to those that came along, and we'll see you all next week hopefully.
