board games & card games for all ages
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Monday 16th November 2009
Nine of us in the pub this week .....
Players:
Darren, David F-F, Mark P, Mel, Nick, Rachel, Rich, Sue, Suzanne
Games Played:
The first six of us thought we'd have a quick game while we were waiting ....
Darren:
355
Rich:
345
Nick: 268
Sue: 96
Rachel: 92
Suzanne:
0
Well .... This was by far the fastest game of this we've ever played. It lasted two rounds. And after the first round, no one had scored any points! Suzanne was start player and again scored no points in her second turn. Then Rachel scored 92 and banked, and then - going round the table - we all improved on the score until Darren, going last, had a 50/50 shot to win it, which he did!
So we had time for another quickie .....
Rich:
31
Rachel: 16
Nick: 13
Suzanne: 11
Sue: 10
Darren:
4
This is always a fun little game. Rich managed to get majorities in the top two animals (Monkeys and Hyenas, I think), which gave him a massive 19-point boost at the end, to add to his stack of twelve.
We then split into two groups .....
Darren:
17
David:
16
Rachel: 16
Nick: 14
Rich: 11
Suzanne: 10
This is definitely one of my favourites from those played so far from Essen. A lower-scoring game than we've had in the past, but then the first market distribution was so terrible that there were hardly any goods that people could make. In fact, I don't think anyone loaded any ships at all in the first round, and only a couple in the second. Also ... The "ships sail now" edicts came out in the first two weeks as well, which meant a bunch of ships left empty. And then the ending was quite funny: I chose to spend £5 sterling on a single point, rather than gamble that £5 would be enough for the 2-point bonus. And guess what? Darren picked up the 2-point bonus with £2, and then grabbed another 2-point bonus with a solitary €1 (I don't remember which currency it was) as none of us had any at all! So Darren - having decided he was doing terribly - wins the game by a single point, with my last round action unwittingly taking the game away from David or Rachel and handing it to Darren! Grrr.
Mel:
17
Mark:
16 (8 cash, 7 veg)
Sue:
16 (8 cash, 6 veg)
This looks like it was a very tight game, with Mel edging it for a single point. It was quite long, but I guess 3-player is going to be the longest version of the game (although I'm looking forward to a three-player game, as I can't decide if I like the "partners" idea in the 4-player version ... yet I understand how long a 4-player game will be if you play individually). Mark and Sue both started with Wheat in their home field, and Mel went (I think) with Pumpkins. After that, I didn't really pay much attention!
Nick:
17
Rachel:
16
Darren: 8
David:
6
This is a fun game, which is really a kids' game I suppose, but we all enjoyed it! I made very good use of my "swap two pans" coffee cup, as David was busy making a very posh recipe: He'd seasoned it correctly and was just one click of the dial away from finishing it, so I pinched it off him. He then had one attempt to sabotage it by over-spicing my pan, but - luckily for me - he failed to get any spices out of the jar. Of course, if you've not seen this game, you'll have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about! Rachel was the first to finish five recipes, but luckily mine added up to a point more.
And finally ......
David:
51
Sue:
54
Rachel: 57
Darren:
94
Nick:
114
This one was pretty much two separate two-horse races, with David and Sue fighting for the lead most of the game, and Darren and I fighting to be the first one to a hundred points! Rachel started off the game in Sue & David's group, then joined mine & Darren's for a while, but ended strongly and got back amongst the leaders in the final round.
And that was all we had time for this week. See you all next Monday, and thanks for coming.
