board games & card games for all ages
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
Thursday 7th February 2008
A dozen gamers in the shop this week ....
Players:
Darren, Dave F, James, Jonathan, Mike, Nick, Phil, Rachel, Rich, Roj, Sue, Tim
Games Played:
This was the first game played downstairs ...
(Cheques + Cash)
Roj:
61
Nick:
55
Rachel: 51
Phil: 43
James:
42
Any games that Roj wins tonight ... It's because we all let him win, as it's his birthday. Actually, this was a fun game, and very close. I felt like I really got done over on a couple of cheques, and yet still managed to come second, so I guess it was happening to all of us (apart from Roj, of course .... we're letting him win, don't forget!)
Meanwhile upstairs, five others were off trying to cope with a year full of disasters ....
Dave:
111
Darren:
101
Mike: 85
Jonathan: 76
Tim:
62
Tim played this for the first time on Monday night and did quite well. He was eager to repeat that success, but sadly things must have taken a turn for the worse this time (isn't that the theme of the game?). In a high-scoring game, this looks like a pretty good win for Dave, with Darren seemingly his only real competition for top spot.
After buying houses, we all decided that a bit of surfing would be a nice way to relax ....
Phil:
65
Roj:
57
Nick: 56
Rachel: 56
Rich: 51
James:
40
This one fell flat with all of us. I'm not sure if it is the theme, the gameplay (which could improve on further plays) or what, but none of us could get very excited about the game. Phil won quite nicely, but we were all quite relieved when it was over! I have a feeling we should have used the "advanced rules" in the book, which were quite possibly the designer's intended rules, before the game was simplified for family play.
After that one, a quick re-arrangement and there were six of us ready to go racing and have some fun ....
Roj:
$480,000
Nick: $440,000
Phil: $420,000
Sue: $390,000
Rachel: $290,000
James: $260,000
This was a load of fun. We played the first two races on either side of the board, with the owner of each car being given that car's powerful +10 card. Then in the third race, we shuffled all of those cards into the deck and dealt them out at random. I must have had a fairly big cash-lead going into the final race, and - despite not being dealt any +10 cards - I was almost a third of the circuit ahead of the pack at the half-way point ... Which makes it all the more surprising that I came last in that race, as my car's power just died and its colour no longer appeared on any of the cards! My $10,000 winnings for that race was not enough to keep the cash lead, as Roj's third consecutive 2nd place gave him another $150,000 and the victory. But don't forget - We're letting him win!
After a couple of people left, those remaining went off to Renaissance Italy for some battles.
Mike:
4
Dave:
2
Darren:
0
Rich: 0
This looks like it was a little one-sided, with Mike romping to a victory while a couple of the guys hadn't even claimed a single territory!
In an effort to get all the games to end at the same time, the four guys upstairs had a quick game of this excellent abstract ....
Dave:
+15
Rich: -12
Mike: -17
Darren: -18
A very good win for Dave here, as he managed to get all his pieces on the board, while catching everyone else with a handful!
We changed things round a little, and decided to go with the two Beowulf games to bring the evening to a close ....
James:
24
Nick: 18
Darren: 17
Phil: 17
Dave: 5
This was a load of fun, as it always is when you have five people (don't play it with less than that though!). We were all taking loads of risks (and mainly getting away with them), which is what makes this game as much fun as it is. Dave and entered the very final encounter both on three wounds, but I was lucky enough to have the most cards left over (about three), which meant I could heal one of my wounds and not suffer the 15-point penalty that hit Dave! James got himself a good win, which made a nice change!
I don't know much about this one ....
Rich:
214
Roj: 191
Rachel: 183
Sue: 178
This is the second game of this one that we've played, and both times it has produced a pretty close result. I think it's better than its predecessor (Kingdoms), as there seems to be more ways to catch the leader and keep things tight.
As we had decided to take next week off (Valentine's Day), we decided to stay a little later and finish with "the usual":
Nick:
9
James:
8
Roj: 6
Sue: 3
Dave: 2
Rachel: 1
Darren: 0
Woohoo! I never win this thing, as I'm usually the subject of everyone's "broken tool" cards. Of course, this still happened, but for some reason I managed to persuade people to fix my tools, which made a nice change.
And that was everything for this week. We're in the pub on Monday (11th Feb), but won't be in the shop on Thursday 14th.
