board games & card games for all ages
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Thursday 5th June 2008
Double last week's attendance as a dozen of us were in the shop this week ...
Players:
Barrie, Darren, Dave C, Dave F, Mark P, Mel, Mike, Nick, Rachel, Richard, Roj, Sue
Games Played:
One of our traditional openers for the early birds this week .....
Roj:
11
Mike:
9
Rachel: 7
Darren: 4
Dave F: 2
As is often the case, I have no idea how this first game went. It looks like it was a pretty close battle in the end between Roj and Mike, with Roj just getting that fourth coin (for a total of 11 ..... pretty impressive) just ahead of Mike (who probably had four coins himself!).
All of a sudden we were up to 12 players, and decided to split into three groups, rather than hunt around for two six-player games.
Sue:
40
Rachel:
32
Mel: 23
Barrie: 8
Wow ..... This is a fair spread of points. This might be one of those games where it helps to have played before, as experience seems to have come out on top here. The trick to it is to get your first five scores on as soon as possible, even if they're only small, and that way you can then start to empty those features and add to them, scoring them again. A good win for Sue here, but we won't talk about Barrie's score.
The second group - me included - were desperate to be off to Ancient Rome .....
"Pecunia non Olet" scenario
Nick:
4 Goals (32 points)
Darren:
4 Goals (28 points)
Roj: 3 Goals
Richard: 2 Goals
This looks like it's going to become a firm favourite. Nothing to do with the fact that I won, of course! I was the first to declare the completion of the four goals (5 Factions, 10 Laurels, Favour of the Gods, and the obligatory 30 Denarii), and Darren soon joined me (although he had the legions, but not the Gods). However, on a count of the scores, my couple of extra Laurels and the 2 points for triggering the game's end was enough to edge the win. Roj was a few coins short of joining us in finishing at the same time, but also would have had 28 points in the tie-breaker. I like the fact that you can choose the goals, and therefore the length, of the game (this was a medium-length game), although some of the longer scenarios involve an obligatory Tribune marker - something that none of us got!
And this was the choice of the other group of four.
Mike:
Three explorers home
Dave
C:
Dave F:
Mark: All lost.
I know nothing about this one, as it was happening in the other room. Judging by the length of time it took, there may have been more than a little "screwage" in the game and - possibly - a little "Analysis Paralysis" as well. I'm not saying they were slow, but the rest of us did manage to get through a number of games while they were busy :-)
The Hanging Gardens crowd had time for another while waiting for the Romans .....
(Tickets (rd. 1) + tickets (rd. 2) - Incompletes + Bonuses)
Sue:
(42 + 65 - 6 + 33) 134
Barrie:
(27 + 58 - 0 + 39) 124
Rachel: (56 + 33 - 27 + 8) 70
Mel: (24 + 53 - 26 +
15) 66
Barrie made a huge comeback in this one, looking at the positions after the first round, but it wasn't quite enough to catch up to Sue. Mel and Rachel were heavily punished for incomplete tickets, taking them out of the running.
We all had a bit of a shuffle round, and this excellent new game came out again ....
Barrie:
33
Richard:
29
Rachel: 18
Mel: 15
Barrie wins this one yet again ..... I'm pretty sure he is undefeated at it. We'll have to make sure he gets in a game with Sue, as she beats me at Lost Cities every single time ....
The other four (Ice Flow was still going on) were off to the Stone Age ....
(Points + Resources + Symbols + Tools + Builders + Shamen + Farmers)
Nick:
(99 + 2 + 9 + 2 + 5 + 70 + 8) 195
Roj:
(121 + 0 + 25 + 0 + 35 + 0 + 0) 181
Sue: (86 + 9 + 4 + 72 + 0 + 0 + 3) 174
Darren: (86 + 3 + 16 + 0 + 10 + 0 +
32) 147
This one was a load of fun, as always. Darren seemed to get all the rotten dice (including the spectacular total of 5 when hunting with four dice), while I - unusually - scored pretty well from my dice rolls. I was allowed to grab all of the Shamen cards, which meant that I had to make sure I had all 10 people by the end of the game. Sue managed to get all 12 tools (which we'd never seen before), but 6 toolmakers just wasn't enough (I had taken 2 toolmakers earlier in the game, just to stop her getting it, and it looks like the 24 points I stopped Sue from getting kept her behind me). Roj had scored well during the game, building a couple of strong huts in the final round, but just didn't have enough of the bonuses at the end to stay ahead.
Stone Age was still going on, but the glacial Ice Flow had finally ended, and so those 8 gamers split into two fours again
Barrie:
9 Escapees
Rachel:
8
Mike: 7 (3 in Volcano)
Richard: 7 (10 in
Volcano!)
That is the most people from one player that I've ever seen thrown in the volcano .... I think there was a lava war between Barrie and Richard. A good win for Barrie, who seems to have been having a good night.
And the other four were out in the West .....
Dave
F: 103
Mel:
77
Dave C: 68
Mark: 64
A pretty comfortable win for Dave F in this one. I know nothing about the game, but that's a pretty decent score.
Die Kutschfahrt zur Teufelsberg
There was 8 of us left, and we had a little too long remaining for a game of Saboteur, and so decided to go for a coach ride .....
Nick
Rachel
Roj
Sue: All won
Barrie
Darren
Dave F
Richard: All lost
This was a bit of fun, although it looked like it was going to go on for quite some time, as it was all attacking and defending, and very little swapping of stuff (which is how to get more cards). Eventually, as we slowly worked out who was on who's side, we started to gather the right equipment. I had a goblet in my hand and passed one to Roj, so I was pretty sure I knew where our stuff was. The only gamble came when Roj swapped a card with Sue, then Sue gave one to Rachel, and then Rachel gave me back a goblet which, for all I knew, was the one I'd passed to Roj (are you still with me?). Anyway, I decided to go for it, naming Sue as the person who had the rest of our stuff, and - extremely luckily - she did have it! In fact, she had both of the other Goblets, so me naming either Rachel or Roj would have lost us the game!
And that was all we had time for this week. Thanks all for coming along.
