board games & card games for all ages
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Thursday 22nd October 2009
Seven
of us
in the shop this week, with Nick away at
Players:
Alex, Darren, David C, Jahaan, Rachel, Roj, Sue
Games Played:
Four of us were in nice and early ....
Grudge!
Whilst the
boss is away in
Alex:
25
Darren:
19
Roj: 6
Rachel: 0
Sue:
0
Jahaan:
0
In Grudge! each player is a dwarf vying for power whilst nursing a secret grievance against their sworn enemy. Action cards help the players steal gold and affect the prestige positions. It was a slightly odd game as it was the first outing. However we did let Alex hang on to being king for too long, she defended her position well with lots of gold and won. I went to the dungeon (probably deservedly for making everyone play).
(Cards +
Nuggets + Money + Sheriff)
Sue:
(12 + 16 + 2 + 5) 35
Roj:
(22 + 5 + 4) 31
David:
(29 + 0 + 1) 30
Rachel: (11 + 8 + 8)
27
Moving swiftly from Dwarven halls to the Wild West,
four of us loaded our six-shooters and met at high noon. David seemed to be the
latent gambler nearly always rolling 4 of a kind and cleaning up on
‘claims’. Rachel met with David quite a bit in the saloon (!) as they
swapped cards incessantly. I did what I would probably do in a gunfight and
dithered. Sue did a lot of digging for gold early on and remembered the sheriff
in the last round, securing a good win in a close game.
Meanwhile, the others were off to travel the world and trade… a little
like Nick at
Alex:
58
Jahaan:
55
Darren: 51
“I know
absolutely nothing about this one” – I’ve always wanted to say that.
However, it’s worth noting that Darren was teaching and helping, so his score
almost certainly reflects the fact that he was being generous and
cooperative…as indeed he usually is.
Downstairs,
wild west segued into the ancient Greek civilisation with…
Roj:
20 (27)
Sue:
(30) 18
Rachel: 16 (27)
David: (27) 12
Once again
we established that gamers should really not attempt to establish and
lead civilisations from the dawn of time. Put simply, we just let too many
people die. I’ve wanted to play this for a few weeks and really enjoyed it. At
first glance it looks long and complex, which is great. But it plays really
quickly and you have to keep on your toes. As with most ‘civ’ games balance
is the key and I think I won because I tried very hard to keep my population
expanding at the same rate as my buildings. David suffered from lack of money;
Sue and Rachel a bit from lack of food. As is usual with Peloponnes the
disasters all came close together near the end.
Did you
know that the real area of Peloponnes has been inhabited since prehistory and is
named after the legendary hero, Pelops? It’s an unfortunate name that sounds
like a nasty disease, but his mother didn’t know he’d be a hero when she
named him. His father wanted to call him Gerald, but that would have made the
game Geraldonnes, which is just silly.
Now the
traders were done trading, and the civvers were done civving…get your rocks
off…(Well, that’s how the song should go.) So we shuffled the groups up and
several folks went in search of raw fish.
Alex:
26
David:
12
Rachel:
9
Jahaan:
9
David said
that this game made him hungry and we had to physically restrain him from going
to find a sushi bar in Stoke’s ‘Cultural Quarter’ (and I use the term
advisedly). He probably would have found raw flesh, but not the sort he was
after! I know very little about the game except that Alex seemed to have cleaned
her plate and Rachel (who was teaching) was clearly being as generous as Darren
had been earlier.
Three of us
downstairs slaughtered cows, baked bread and also occasionally ate raw fish
in…
(Buildings + Ships + Cash)
Sue:
(98 + 8 + 51) 157
Darren
(114 + 28 + 5) 119
Roj: (42 + 52 + 7)
101
Darren and
I spent most of the game scrabbling around for food, as you tend to in Le Havre
and Agricola. Sue rustled all the cattle and reaped all the grain early on, at
one stage slaughtering a massive 12 cattle in her Abattoir. Consequently, Sue
rarely struggled for food and was able to build ships and buildings at will
later in the game. Darren and I were in and out of debt and although I managed a
luxury liner it was too little too late. By the end of the game Sue was casually
turning goods into money with some of the lesser used buildings, securing a good
win.
Come back, Nick, my name doesn’t look good in red!
Whilst we
finished
Game 1
Rachel:
26
David: 16
Jahaan:
-1
Alex: -11
Game 2
David:
20
Jahaan: 15
Rachel:
4
Alex: 3
And
that’s all for this week. Do join us again next week when Nick will be back
from Essen with loads of games to play, stories to tell and free prizes to give away!
Let’s hope he leaves the pony behind.
