board games & card games for all ages
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Monday 8th March 2010
Again, just six gamers in this week. Although a slightly different six .....
Players:
Darren, David F-F, Haydn, Nick, Rachel, Sue
Four of us were in nice and early .....
No
Thanks
(Points - Chips)
Rachel:
(34 - 19) 15
Darren:
(36 - 15) 21
Nick: (51 - 8) 43
Sue: (51 - 2) 49
This is always a fun little opener, full of horrible decisions. Sue threw a bit of a spanner in the works by running out of chips on a few occasions, causing cards to disappear when we thought they might come round again! Darren picked up a few consecutive even numbers, hoping to join them all up (which he almost did) while Rachel grabbed the 31 and 35, with a fair number of chips on them, and then within the next four or five cards managed to join them up, giving her a pretty good lead! Darren did his best to stay in touch, but Rachel had the win with a few points to spare.
(Path + Stones + Bonus)
Nick:
(13 + 6 + 10) 29
Darren:
(7 + 2 + 6) 15
Rachel:
(15 - 3 + 2) 14
Sue: (1 + 3 + 1) 5
This was much better. Darren and Sue spent the whole game turning over tiles that weren't any use to them ... And I took a gamble and started four colours very early, mainly because I kept finding the tiles with 3 bonus points on them. And then, as the end got near and I hadn't picked up any stones, suddenly stones were appearing on tiles that only I could take! Not that this game is all luck or anything .... More "calculated risk-taking".
And then Haydn appeared .....
We decided to play as many rounds as we could fit in before someone else appeared, which turned out to be just two ....
Darren:
(29 + 27) 56
Rachel:
(20 + 24) 44
Sue: (24 + 19) 43
Nick: (16 + 22) 38
Haydn:
(10 + 16) 26
One day, we'll get this game out and actually play the suggested number of four rounds. I'm usually red hot in rounds three and four. A good win for Darren here, as he beat the rest of us quite comfortably.
And then we split into two groups of three, and went for two games that took up the rest of the night .....
(Points + Cash + Bonus - Loans)
Darren:
(160 + 34 + 0 - 0) 194
Haydn:
(128 + 14 + 16 - 0) 158
David:
(140 + 0 + 18 - 7) 151
Sadly, I don't have much of a clue as to what happened in this one. I did
spot at least three of the "new" special cards, but I don't know if
anyone made any use of them. Darren had a fair-sized navy going by the end of
the game, which I think was supplying all of the food he needed, whereas David
was forced to take a loan in the final turn of the game, dropping him seven
points behind Haydn in second place.
Sue:
17 (2)
Nick:
17 (0)
Rachel:
16
And this was pretty close throughout the game. Rachel and I nudged a little ahead about halfway through the game, but we'd both had to take loans to do so, meaning we were actually one point further back than it looked. When we got to the final turn, Rachel went before me and managed to get herself up to 17 (really 16). I then went next and got up to 18 (17), which was annoying for Sue, as she was on 15 and only thought she could earn one point in the final round. However .... Sue had the Con Man (I think that's the one) that allows her to use a Helper from another player who has already played, and nabbed a helper from me that gave her enough money to buy that extra point! The annoying thing, of course, is that I could have just ditched all my helpers on my turn, and then Sue wouldn't have been able to do that! Grrrr.
And that was all we managed to get in this week. Thanks to those who came along.
