board games & card games for all ages
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Thursday 19th July 2007
A rather busy night, with fifteen gamers squeezed into the shop for this week (and that was with many of the "regulars" away!) ....
Players:
Dave C, Dave F, Gordon, James H, Mark P, Matt, Mel, Mike, Nathan, Neil H, Nick, Nikki, Roj, Steve, Sue, Tim
Games Played:
Yet again, this was the opener of choice for the first six people through the door.
Dave
F: 10
James: 9
Nick: 8
Steve: 8
Mike: 7
Roj: 4
This game started off pretty slowly (and nastily!). Of the first three coins in the game, two were immediately stolen by the dragon and the third started to make its way round the table as each player stole it from the next. For quite a while, it looked like this game was going to take forever, as no one would let anyone else hang onto a coin for very long at all. Then, all of a sudden, two major "treasure" routes were formed, and two groups of three started to race round gathering as many coins as they could. Dave was just that half a step ahead of the rest of us, as he grabbed his 5th token, giving him his tenth coin.
Four more gamers arrived while Drakon was in full flow, and rather than wait around, they nipped off to Russia ....
Sue:
38
Gordon: 37
Nikki: 35
Matt: 21
This looks like it was a very close game, with three people in the final money count. And it seems that Sue just had enough cash to keep her out in front.
We were now up to fifteen players, and split into a 4, 5 and 6. This was the choice of the 4 ...
(Artifacts + Exhibitions + Congress + Majorities)
Steve:
(30 + 0 + 28 + 10) 68
Mel: (36 + 4 +
0 + 5) 45
Nick: (34 + 4 + 0 + 0) 38
James: (22 + 0 + 3 +
10) 35
And the moral of this story is: Don't let one person collect 7 congress cards! Steve immediately started collecting congress, and - as we all had our own ideas - we kind of left him to it. I had an early 100% successful excavation in Egypt, but after that my luck turned bad, and most of my other excavations amounted to very little. James was consistently unlucky while digging, despite acquiring a lot of knowledge. Steve - once he finally decided to be an archaeologist - had a very successful dig himself, which at least meant he had something to show for his efforts at the end of the game! A great game, enjoyed tremendously by all of us, and a lot of fun (so far) with both two and four players.
The group of five were also in Egypt ....
Nathan:
38
Roj: 35
Mike: 34
Dave F: 28
Tim: 17
I don't know a whole lot about this one (I was busy digging up dirt and debris), but it looks like there are four adults who should be ashamed of themselves!
And this fun 6-player game made its second appearance of the evening ...
Dave
C: 11
Neil: 6
Gordon: 6
Sue: 5
Nikki: 5
Matt: 3
This one was over much quicker than the earlier Drakon game, which leads me to suspect that this was a very friendly game, where everyone helped each other to find coins! Unlikely though, really.
There was a bit of shuffling around, and a group of five went off to Rome to put on some shows for the Emperor ...
Matt:
70
Gordon: 69
Nathan: 62
Neil: 49
Tim: 49
Little is known about this game, as it was taking place upstairs while the rest of us were downstairs. Matt managed to snatch the win away from Gordon by a single extra spectator, after securing a deal with Tim that kept Gordon from grabbing the performers he needed.
Meanwhile, another four players were off to move in to Pompeii, and then move out again as the lava started to flow ...
Mike:
8 (4 people in the Volcano)
Dave F:
8 (6)
Dave C: 8 (9)
Roj: 7
This was a very close result, with three players tied for the win. Mike seems to have managed to fly under the radar a little, with hardly any of his little guys going into the volcano. Dave C, on the other hand, managed to get so many people into the city in the first stage of the game, he was bound to end up with a lot of dead ones!
A quick three hands of Lost Cities were played as timings sorted themselves out a little ...
Dave
F: 96
James: 39
While Colosseum was still going strong upstairs, the remaining nine players split into two groups ...
Roj:
57
Nick: 53
Mark P: 45
Mel: 41
Sue: 36
Roj grabbed a couple of Jesters in the first two rounds (which in hindsight we shouldn't have let him do) and never looked back from there. Mark and I had a couple of builders, which helped earn us some points for the buildings and save some cash, but we all felt that Roj was a little ahead from the outset. In the final round, I was unable to put on a work, and was quite surprised to be as close to Roj as I was (thanks to the 14 points from bonuses)!
The group of four went off to Scandinavia to feed their Vikings ...
Mike:
57
Dave C: 56
James: 55
Dave F: 49
I don't know anything about how the game went, but that's the closest Vikings score we've ever seen!
And as usual, four rounds of our favourite closer ....
James:
9
Roj: 8
Sue: 7
Neil: 4
Nick: 4
Dave F: 3
Gordon: 0
A close-fought battle between Roj, James and Sue, with James just grabbing victory by a single piece of gold. Oddly, the only times the Saboteurs succeeded was when there was only two of them!
And that's all we had time for this week. Thanks to all for coming along, especially the new guys ... we hope to see you again!
