board games & card games for all ages
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Thursday 23rd August 2007
A dozen of us crammed into the shop tonight ....
Players:
Andy F, Darren, Dave C, Gordon, James R, Jon, Mark L, Neil, Nick, Phil, Philippa, Sue
Games Played:
The first four in decided to kick things off with this fun little game ...
Phil:
93
Sue: 80
Nick: 79
Mark: 69
And Phil opens his Shire Gamers account with a resounding victory. We'll soon put a stop to that. I think we all let him have too many "points for worms" cards, especially as he was sitting there with a dozen worms most of the time!
Time Pirates
The next four in brought this one with them ....
Darren:
59
Jon: 54
James: 53
Philippa: 32
I have no idea what this game involves as it was played upstairs. Looks like a pretty close one between three of them, but for all I know 5 points could be a lot!
In a desperate effort to get all games finishing at the same time, the upstairs mob had a quick game of this filler ....
Darren:
9
Philippa: 7
James: 4
Jon: 0
Darren makes it two in a row with a fairly impressive 9 worms in his hands at the end of the game.
The timings were still off, but with seven players now downstairs, a quick game of this was in order ...
Mark:
55 (from 4 cards)
Sue: 55 (from 4 cards)
Neil: 50
Gordon: 47
Nick: 46
Dave: 40
Phil: 30
This was a load of fun, as usual, although we saw fewer ambushes than we normally do (I think only two of us fell foul of the ambushing tactics - Gordon and I, if I'm not much mistaken). Mark and Sue both managed a pretty healthy 55 points, and the tie-breaker (number of scoring cards) couldn't separate them. Nice to see Phil come down to earth with a bump! :-)
We were now up to 12 people, and split into three groups of four for some "meatier" games ....
Mark:
40
Gordon: 33
Darren: 32
Dave: 27
This was the choice of the first group. They chose to go for the "shortened" version of the game (skipping one stone from each row of the Cathedral), and it was over pretty quickly! Mark's experience at the game showed through a little here, I think.
The four upstairs went off animal herding ...
Jon:
131
Philippa: 107
James: 96
Neil: 92
Don't know a whole lot about this one, although Neil seemed fairly ashamed with his last place. Jon's online practice seems to have paid dividends, as that is a pretty big lead!
And the final group of four went off to Paris to build a different Cathedral (and avoid the rats) ...
Nick:
51
Andy: 48
Sue: 48
Phil: 45
This was a really tight game, and no one could really tell who was ahead. I got two guys in the park quite early on, and then started to take points wherever I could. Andy was actually ahead on points going into the last round, but was suffering a little from rats in his harbour, and had to use the final round to pay the doctor, while we all bribed a different guy for 9 points each (plus an extra one for me!). Enough to give me a very close win.
The numbers dropped to eight for the last two games of the evening. The downstairs group decided to try and build Venice ....
Nick:
48
Phil: 46
Darren: 45
Andy: 30
Another tight game, although Andy seemed to fall a little behind thank to the three of us not letting him help build a Church. Timely use of the gold seems pretty important in this one, as you can save a few spaces by leaping other people at exactly the right moment (or getting away when you think they are going to do the same to you!). A lot of fun, and a quick game as well!
And finally, the upstairs group went exploring all over Europe and Africa ...
(Artifacts + Exhibitions + Congress + Knowledge)
Neil:
(36 + 0 + 6 + 5) 47
Sue: (35 + 4 +
1 + 5) 45
Dave: (34 + 4 + 0 + 5) 43
Mark: (17 + 4 + 6 +
10) 37
Another pretty tight game, although all the grumbling makes me think there were a few bad digs going around. Despite some excellent knowledge, Mark ended up playing in the sand, so decided to try and grab points in all the other ways. Neil managed to hang on to the lead thanks to his third congress card, otherwise Dave and Sue were both ready to pounce with extra points from their exhibitions.
And that was that. Quite a busy night, and a lot of good games played. Thanks all for coming.
Don't forget: No "official" Shire Gamers on Bank Holiday Monday!
