board games & card games for all ages
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Monday 4th August 2008
Seven of us in the pub this week ....
Players:
David
F-F, Gordon, Jonathan, Neil C, Nick, Rich, Sue
Games Played:
The first four of us decided to start with this quickie .....
Neil:
(11 - 6) 5
Rich:
(10 - 6) 4
Sue: (6 - 4) 2
Nick: (6 - 7) -1
Always a fun little game. Perfect to open up with, as it never lasts more than 10 to 15 minutes.
We were quickly up to seven players, but decided to play another quickie to see if any more were coming ....
Nick:
19
Sue: 19
Gordon:
16
Jonathan: 16
Neil: 13
Rich: 4
David:
0
Sue and Neil took an early lead, and then tried their hardest to stay ahead by chickening out of the other mines when they thought it was worth enough. The rest of us were forced to stay in as long as possible and go for glory. I pretty much got all of my gems from one mine (the 4th I think) and then joined the cowards for the last mine ... leaving one step ahead of David, who overstayed his welcome in the mine for the 5th consecutive time!
We split into two groups, with three of us opting for this brand new offering ...
Jonathan:
33
Neil:
19
Nick: 19
This was definitely a learning game for all of us, as it was brand new. A few of the rules were a little vague, but we got by ok, I think. Jonathan got himself a lot of income early on, while Neil and I went for other things ... and it seems that income is very, very important! Neil and I were relying on the King coming round and throwing us a few coins every now and then, but Jonathan was getting cash from investments, which allowed him to afford all of his special actions every turn, while Neil and I were selling ours to the highest bidder. A good game, which we really should try again very soon.
Meanwhile, the other four were off to Austria to see if Sue could escape the Austrians .....
David:
Gordon:
Rich: Won as the Austrians
Sue:
Failed to escape
This was the longest game of this one that we've seen so far, mainly because it went the full 30 turns, but sadly Garibaldi was still a few steps away from freedom at this point. The hunters struggled to find any trace of him at all, but slowly closed in with a pretty effective net, and then slowly wandered backwards, allowing Sue to trail them towards the exits, but never get the chance to break through their "wall" and make a dash for it.
While we were waiting for Garibaldi to escape, we had time for a couple of quickies ....
Nick:
12 ($80,000,000)
Jonathan:
9 ($85,000,000)
Neil:
34 ($67,000,000)
This was a fun game, which ended before we'd even got halfway through the deck. Neil had grabbed both of the multipliers that we saw, and I'd taken the only bad card (the other two were on the bottom of the deck), which happened to be the red one. So Neil was miles ahead, but luckily for Jonathan and I the game ended before we had the chance to spend any more money!
And then this one ....
Nick:
(9 - 2) 7
Jonathan:
(15 - 11) 4
Neil:
(6 - 10) -4
Another fun little dice game, which we persuaded Jonathan to end, assuming that his large stack of tiles was a winning hand. Surprisingly, my 2 scoring tiles earned me more points than Jonathan's five!
And we decided to end on this one, which we had just re-acquired thanks to our sale ....
Sue:
7
Neil:
5 ($18)
David: 5 ($11)
Nick: 5 ($9)
Rich:
3
This was a very good game, although it was almost new to all of us. Neil had played a couple of times before, and Sue and I had played a two-player game once about four years ago! Sue decided to keep her eyes on the winning conditions and not get too distracted with collecting loads of cash, like the rest of us. I was the only one who managed to select an impossible action and give everyone else a couple of rupees, but it became pretty clear who was stretching out ahead, and yet no one could do anything about it! I think the game only lasted for seven turns (maybe eight), as it felt like Sue was able to build a palace every single turn!
And that was all we had time for this week .... Thanks to all those who came along.
