board games & card games for all ages
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Monday 10th March 2008
Seven of us in the pub this week ... luckily we'd actually thought to bring along some seven-player games!
Players:
David F-F, Haydn, Lesley, Mark P, Mel, Nick, Rich
Games Played:
Rich and I were first in .... and this was a brand new two-player game, so we gave it a try ...
Rich: 15
Nick: 13
This is quite a neat little game, and doesn't take too long to play. We didn't really concentrate on the points we were going to win until the last round or two, by which time it as a little too late to do anything about it in some cases! The scoring is very interesting, as a large majority doesn't actually earn you many points in that colour, unless you have all the cards. However, a tight majority (5-4 for example) earns you more. In the end, Rich pipped me to the post by a couple of points.
Meanwhile, four more arrived and decided to give this 10-minute game a go ....
Haydn:
Winner!
Lesley:
Mark:
Mel: All lost
This looked like a fun kids game, and Haydn went first and turned out to be the winner. Everyone's watches were still working by the end of the game, so maybe those magnets could do with being a bit more powerful!
While waiting for any others, the six of us went mining ....
Mel:
24
Nick: 24
Haydn: 23
Mark: 22
Rich: 21
Lesley:
9
This was a fun (and funny) game, as always. The first couple of mines collapsed without anyone really earning anything at all, but then we left Rich and Mark in the third mine, and they scored a whole bunch of gems each, and basically made it a game between the two of them. They both then turned coward, and ducked out of mines 4 and 5 early, claiming a couple of gems each and sitting back to gloat, seeing which of them had won the game. Meanwhile, still in the mine, there were three of us (Lesley had left) with nothing better to do but stay in, as we only had about 4 gems each. And the mine just kept getting better .... there were gems all over the place, and we were picking them up faster than I've seen before! By the time we all quit (at the same time), Mark and Rich had been overtaken by the three of us.
David arrived and the seven of us went off to the Wild West ....
Mark:
Outlaw
Haydn: Outlaw
Lesley: Dead Outlaw
All won!
Mel:
Dead Sheriff
Nick:
Deputy
Rich: Deputy
David: Renegade All
lost
Lesley decided to declare her intentions early and - going second - had a pop at the Sheriff. When David, Rich and I had a go at Lesley in revenge, it became pretty obvious who the Outlaws were. Sadly (for us Deputies) the Outlaws were surrounding the Sheriff, and people kept stealing our long range weapons, which made it tricky to keep the Sheriff protected. Haydn decided to get some help from the Indians, but accidentally (he says) managed to kill his missus (and fellow Outlaw) in the process. I wasn't much help at all really, as my hand was full of missed cards and beer cards, and I couldn't get anyone to attack me! The Sheriff was a bit crap in the end, just sitting there getting shot, so we Deputies started fighting amongst ourselves and weren't that bothered when she died!
We decided to split into two groups, mainly so a few of us could have a go at this new auction game ....
Rich:
18
Mark: 14
Nick: 9
Mel: 0
This was a lot of fun .... a very clever auction game with a little bluffing and luck-pushing at the same time. Rich and Mark managed to grab most of the animals, which was interesting as Rich was without any for the longest time - just gaining stones. But Rich's 30-odd stones remaining at the end of the game gave him the extra points he needed to pull away. A special mention goes to Mel for managing to score zero in a game where I would have said it wasn't possible to do so!
Meanwhile, we sent the other three off to save the World (well ... someone has to!)
David:
(Ops Expert)
Haydn: Scientist
Lesley: Dispatcher: All won!
This looked like a nice, easy victory for the three of them, as I don't think they'd had a single outbreak by the end of the game! The were playing on the easy (4 Epidemic cards) level, however!
We had finished Lascaux (before David had finished explaining Pandemic, actually!), so we went chariot racing while they caught up ....
Mark:
(6 + 6 + 3) 15
Nick: (2 + 4 + 6) 12
Rich: (4 + 3 + 4) 11
Mel: (3 + 2 + 2) 7
Mark managed to sew this one up by the second race, thanks to two first places. Our only hope was to block him from the Imperial Alley in the third race and try and get him to score no points at all, but sadly he snuck by and threw in his coin. I managed to sneak ahead of Rich in the battle for second, and Mel continued her evening of misery.
We all got back together for another 7-player game ....
Rich:
56
Mark: 52
Haydn: 47
Nick: 41
Lesley: 35
David: 33
Mel: 21
This was a lot of fun, as always .... with the threat of several ambushes causing a few problems. Nobody managed to grab the two five-of-a-kind cards, although a few were very close by the time that the Sheriff (or is it King John?) made it all the way back to Nottingham. A good win for Rich.
And finally .... we dropped down to five players and decided to do our Reservoir Dogs bit ....
David:
$135,000
Rich: $90,000
Haydn: $65,000
Nick: $65,000
Lesley: Dead Cop.
For the second time tonight, Lesley died. It was the first time that Haydn and Lesley had played with the cop in the game, and I think he really needs the full six players to make it fair to him. We were all in the split for the first round, so one phone call was placed without anyone getting any nearer the identity. If anything, the third phone call was made a little too early, as that gave us more round to target Lesley. I took my third hit in the final round as well, but luckily could survive four. David had the ability to take several hits and only suffer once, but really won the game when he took a whole cut to himself in the third (?) round.
And that was that for another week. Quite a lot of games played, and lots of laughs.
