board games & card games for all ages
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Monday 29th September 2008
Eight of us in the pub this week ......
Players:
David
F-F, Gordon, Haydn, Mark P, Mel, Nick, Rich, Sue
Games Played:
We hadn't played this fun little opener for some time ....
Nick:
1
Rich:
3
Sue: 4
I think I got very lucky with where I started on the grid and the tiles that I drew. There was a spell where Rich and I were both waiting to fill the same spot, but luckily I got the required tile first and connected my groups before he could connect his.
Gordon arrived, and we decided to play another quickie .....
Sue:
(16 + 4) 20
Rich:
(12 + 6) 18
Gordon: (12 + 5) 17
Nick: (12 + 3) 15
This is definitely the closest game of Witch's Brew we've had. Also the first time we'd played with less than five, and the game didn't lose as much of the fun factor as I was expecting it to. Having the one "banned" selection makes sure that we still all pick similar cards to each other, making it risky to go for the "major" role if you're in first or second position. There was a lot of greed in this game, and not much mention of "so be it"!
Uptown (2)
Meanwhile, three more turned up while we were brewing ....
Mark:
1
Mel:
2
Haydn:
3
Mark managed what I did earlier, getting all his tiles in one large group.
David finally appeared, so we split into two groups.
Haydn:
127
Nick:
101
Mark: 88
Mel: 84
This was the first game for everyone apart from me. Mel jumped off to an early lead by mining a whole load of stuff in the first round, and getting some pretty good investments made. However, this left her mines a little short of resources. Haydn and I both had very good production in the third round when the prices were high, which gave us a boost, but eventually my bad prospecting when gambling on empty areas cost me dearly as Haydn earned big in the final round as well.
And the other four were farming ....
(Fields + Pastures + Grain + Vegetables + Sheep + Pigs + Cows - Unused Spaces + Stables + Rooms + Family + Cards + Bonuses)
David:
(1 + 3 + 1 + 4 + 1 + 2 + 2 - 0 + 1 + 0 + 15 + 2 + 5) 41
Sue:
(2 + 3 + 4 + 2 + 4 + 1 - 1 - 2 + 1 + 3 + 12 + 0 + 0) 29
Gordon: (-1 + 4 -1 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 2 - 5 + 1 + 6 + 12 + 5 +
0) 28
Rich: (2 + 2 + 2 - 1 - 1 + 2 + 1 - 4 +
1 + 3 + 9 + 5 +
0) 21
A pretty comprehensive win by David here. He had a bonus for keeping his house wooden, which freed him up to do other stuff instead. Sue seemed to have jumped off to an early lead, as when I glanced over her farm was the only one that looked developed. However, David collected a whole load of wood and completely fenced in his farm in one turn, saving him any lost points. Rich looks like he suffered a little with a small family.
Surprisingly, the farmers were done before the miners, so this one filled the gap ...
Rich:
(10 - 3) 7
Gordon:
(11 - 5) 6
Sue: (9 - 4) 5
David:
(2 - 11) -9
Rich did well to just sneak a tight game here, while David tied for the worst ever score with an impressive minus nine points!
Gordon left, so the seven of us remaining split into two groups again ....
This was the choice of the three ....
(Points + Resources + Symbols + Tools + Builders + Shamen + Farmers)
David:
(104 + 3 + 49 + 18 + 0 + 14 + 30) 218
Nick:
(127 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 48 + 0 + 0 + 0) 177
Sue:
(72 + 5 + 49 + 6 + 15 + 27 + 0) 174
Another good win for David, while Sue and I fought for second place. I grabbed the "triple builder" card early on and decided then to go for as many buildings as I could, but the builder cards suddenly disappeared! While David and Sue were grabbing as many cards as the could, I was trying (badly) to gather resources to build as many buildings as possible. In the end, their decks of cards proved so much stronger than mine, but my massive lead on the board kept me ahead of Sue, but couldn't compete with David.
And the gang of four - inspired by this game's recent appearance on Yucata - were off to Scandinavia ...
Rich:
51 (2 gold)
Mel:
51 (0 gold)
Mark: 42
Haydn:
29
A very close one this one, with tie-breaker rules having to be checked before giving Rich the win thanks to his two remaining gold. Haydn hadn't played the game before, and I think it's one of those where you definitely need a learning game to get close to people who've played a few times.
And that was closing time. Thanks for coming along.
