board games & card games for all ages
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Thursday 12th June 2008
Just hit double figures this week, with a nice round ten of us in the shop. We're not all nice and round. Some of us aren't very nice at all :-)
Players:
Dave C, Dave F, James, Mark P, Mel, Neil H, Nick, Richard, Roj, Sue
Games Played:
There were five of us in nice and early this week ....
(Medals + Fruit)
James:
(57 + 0) 57
Roj: (44 + 3) 47
Nick: (46 + 0) 46
Sue: (38 + 3) 41
Dave F: (32 +
3) 35
This was a pretty interesting game. it has all the looks of a kids game (large, brightly coloured components), but there's definitely a lot more to it than that. It could work equally well as a family game as it did with the gamers tonight. James had the smart idea of hogging the start player marker (which seems to be vital), and none of us were smart enough to figure out we could have moved it away from him pretty easily. For the same reasons, Dave and Sue got caught in a routine of either going 4th or 5th and struggled to get out of it. Roj made pretty good use of the bonus tiles, although we had trouble getting the truck away from Sue. James ended up being the only player who managed to grab four medals, which Roj and I had three each, and Sue and Dave picked up a couple.
Ticket to Ride - The Card Game
The next three through the door were upstairs playing with trains ....
(Tickets + Bonuses)
Richard:
(123 + 33) 156
Mel:
(76 + 37) 113
Dave C: (74 + 20)
94
I don't know a whole lot about this one, and with no breakdown of complete/incomplete tickets, I think we'll just have to assume that it was on the incomplete routes that Dave and Mel got hit worse than Richard (although I'd be surprised if he had any).
The upstairs group were now up to five, so we sent them to Cuba .....
Richard:
88
Mark: 80
Neil: 76
Mel: 72
Dave C: 70
Again, sadly, I was too obsessed with fruit to notice what was going on in this one (plus, to be fair to me, I was on a different floor). That seems to be a decent spread of points between first and last, with the guys that had played the game before (albeit a while ago in some cases) coming out on top.
The five others went off to Rome after they were done picking fruit ...
("Alea Iacta Est" scenario)
Roj:
4 Goals (Markers, Legions, Laurels, Cash)
Nick: 3 Goals (23 points)
James: 3 Goals (20 points)
Dave F: 2 Goals
Sue:
0 Goals
Despite playing a "long" game (according to the card), this was over in five rounds, with each of us only being the start player once. Roj was off to a flying start and never really looked back from there, grabbing three legions in the first round alone. I felt like I was struggling all the way through, but managed to grab the bonus laurel in the final round, giving me my third goal while at the same time denying James his fourth! Sue struggled to get going, and sadly scored a duck at the end, being 1 denarius short of the cash target!
We were down to seven players. A great chance to play this excellent game before the expansion comes along ....
James:
King Arthur: Won as the Traitor
Dave
F:
Neil:
Nick:
Richard:
Roj:
Sue: All lost (as the other knights)
This was an excellent game, with James - the only player not to have played the game before - selected as the traitor. In fact, that probably worked to his advantage, as he could act all innocent when he forgot to pass cards to players, or made sub-optimal moves (however, the rest of us had no excuses!). We set off pretty well, getting six white swords on the table before the first blacks even turned up. When it was eight-two to the good guys, we started getting in some problems in the siege-engine department. The traitor revealed himself (if you see what I mean), and things started to take a turn for the worse. In retrospect, at this point all we needed to do was lose a quest and fill the table, but we had to keep an eye on the Picts and Saxons, as they would have brought two rather important engines with them. Still ... we should have abandoned all other stuff and stayed at the castle fighting off attacks, but we were still struggling to finish the Grail quest. Neil was the first to die. Sue should really have gone next, but chose (rather selfishly, we all thought) to stay alive and draw a card, condemning us all to a defeat which we may never hear the end of. This is what happens when you don't put Agricola in the bag to keep James quiet.
And that was it for another week. Thanks to those who came along.
