board games & card games for all ages
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Thursday 13th March 2008
Nine of us in the shop this week .....
Players:
Darren, James, Mark P, Mel, Nick, Rachel, Roj, Sue, Tim
Games Played:
The first six of us decided to have some fun at the races ....
Mel:
$2,050
Darren:
$1,900
Mark: $1,850
Nick: $1,150
Sue: $900
Rachel: $750
Mel made huge profits in the first couple of races, which made her a pretty big target in the third, but sadly it seemed to be too late to do much about it! This was a three-horse race (ha ha!) pretty early on, while Sue, Rachel and I were fighting not to come last!
The three others arrived and disappeared upstairs for half an hour or so .....
Roj:
40
James:
39
Tim:
27
I don't know anything about this one, although apparently Roj was very lucky to get the win. That's what James said, anyway. It looks like it was a very close thing, though.
We split into a four and a five, with this being the choice of the four:
(Development + Colonies + Cards + Cash + Plantations + Bonus Tiles)
Nick:
(27 + 10 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 0) 39
Mel:
(19 + 10 + 2 + 0 + 3 + 1) 35
Mark:
(21 + 6 + 0 + 3 + 2 + 2) 34
Rachel: (18 + 6 + 10 + 0 + 0) 34
This was a lot of fun, and we all enjoyed the game. I was given the start player tile a lot (although I kept having to spend cash to do it; but when you're start player, you have a second source of income), which meant that I had improved on the development board a lot more than the others, thanks to all those extra actions. Mel and I were the only two who managed to found all four colonies, although all four of us had our fair share of failed expeditions to found these colonies! Rachel picked up four matching symbols on her cards quite early on, and then sat with her hand over the limit, but quite legally thanks to never drawing more cards; those ten points brought her right back into contention. Mark was buying bonus points where he could, but fell a few points short at the end.
Meanwhile - fairly predictably - five went farming .....
(Fields + Meadows + Grain + Veg + Sheep + Pigs + Cows - Empty spaces + Stables + Rooms + Family + Cards + Bonuses)
James:
(1 + 4 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 3 + 3 - 3 + 3 + 4 + 12 + 9 + 2) 42
Roj:
(-1 + 4 + 1 - 1 + 3 + 1 + 1 - 3 + 2 + 12 + 12 + 5 + 0) 36
Darren: (3 + 3 + 4 + 2 + 2 - 1 + 3 - 2 + 0 + 6 + 9 + 4 +
2) 35
Sue: (2 + 4 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 3 - 3 + 0 + 3 + 9 + 2 +
0) 30
Tim: (1 + 4 + 2 - 1 + 2 + 2 + 3 - 5 +
3 + 0 + 9 + 1 + 0) 21
I know nothing about this one, although apparently James was very lucky to get the win. That's what Roj said, anyway. In fact, looking at the scoring, what gave James the win was the number of points from the cards that he'd paid for, and the fourth family member. Sue and James were the only two who managed to get "some of everything" and avoid the minuses, but Tim seemed to suffer for not using enough of his land, and still living in a wooden hut by the end of the game.
Goa was finished downstairs, and so we thought we'd have another go at Lascaux ....
(Animals + Cash)
Mark:
(12 + 4) 16
Nick:
(12 + 1) 13
Mel: (5 + 1) 6
Rachel: (0 + 0) 0
I totally take back what I said on Monday about it being hard to score zero in this game. It's obviously easier than it first appears to completely stink at this one .... If you're a girl. Mark and I were pretty close on the animals at the final count, but he's been a bit more frugal with his cash, and the extra three points was the difference between first and second.
The numbers dropped down to seven for the last game of the evening .....
James:
20
Sue:
19
Tim: 17
Roj: 12.5
Darren: 12
Rachel: 11.5
Nick:
6
This was a fun game, and the extra player really doesn't make any difference to the game, or noticeably slow it down much at all. We had a prototype of the expansion in the game, which was interesting: At first it seemed a little under-powered, but as Tim was saved a couple of times from explosions, we began to realise the power of the empty flask. I was never in this one, and picked up (at least) a couple of broken flasks to make my job harder! In the end a good win for James in a three-way fight for the win.
And that was all we had time for for another week. Thanks to those that came along.
