board games & card games for all ages
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Thursday 11th February 2010
A nice, round, even ten of us in the shop tonight. The perfect number for playing two five-player games ... What a shame we'd pre-arranged a couple of four-player games !
Players:
Andy B, Darren, Mary, Neil C, Nick, Rachel, Rich, Richard, Sue, Tim
Games Played:
As we waited for everyone to appear, we managed to get in a quick game of this fun little opener ....
Darren:
(33 - 6) 27
Rachel:
(44 - 15) 29
Richard: (61 - 12) 49
Sue: (72 - 22) 50
Nick:
(52 - 0) 52
Hm. I used to be the king of this game. Not sure what happened there ... Early on, I was avoiding everything, and it did get to the point where I was forced to take the odd card or two, which is a situation you really shouldn't get yourself into! Darren took a couple of cards early on, and then got a very nice "connector" late in t he game which managed to reduce his score and just push it under Rachel's!
There were nine of us in at this point, and so we split into a couple of groups ....
Kingsburg & Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm
Andy:
48
Richard:
48
Rachel: 45
Rich: 39
Mary:
37
I'll
hand this one over to Andy (grabbed from his website):
Although in the mid game Andy and Mary were out in the lead and it looked
like no-one would catch them, Richard caught up late in the game and took the
lead, while Mary dropped back due to only tying battles instead of winning them.
In the last year, the event forced us to use solders greater than 0, which meant
Richard had to waste his 4 and score his zero... Andy scored his 4 and caught
up, and because he had 1 more building, won the tie-breaker.
And downstairs, it was time for the new Alea game:
Neil:
56
Darren:
54
Nick: 53
Sue:
44
Sue and I had played this during the week, with just the two of us, and I had thought that it wouldn't change a lot with four players. But it turns out the battle for turn-order becomes pretty important, as I was in either third or fourth all game, and come the end I was picking up loads of cards that were no good to me at all! Darren and Neil battled for first position, while I was trying to stay in front on the scoring track, as I was earning an extra point every time I did so. I love the new dice mechanism in this game, although I'm always taking the big numbers, and setting myself up for the future, rather than grabbing whet I need at the time. I think I had the most activated cards with a few round to go, but could not then add to those in the last four turns, as everyone else was activating theirs and getting their penalty points down. I ended up with the largest penalty of minus fifteen! An excellent game, and one that will get a lot of play I think.
The upstairs group finished before we did, and had grown to six .....
Richard:
60
Tim:
54
Rachel: 53
Rich: 51
Andy: 40
Mary:
33
Over
to Andy again:
Rich was first to break the 50 mark and trigger the end of the game, however
Rach, Tim and finally Richard were all able to hang on and land safely in the
last balloon and overtake him. Despite an excellent run where Andy scored 25
points thanks to a couple of wild cards, he struggled to catch up at the end,
finishing fourth, while Mary, who was new to the game, finished last.
And then for the last two games, we mixed the groups up slightly, as Sue went off to do some work ....
Dominion & Expansions
Cards
in play were:
Moat; Pawn; Lookout; Feast; Throne Room; Cutpurse; Bureaucrat; Tactician;
Torturer; Nobles
Rachel:
37
Mary:
29
Tim: 28
Andy: 22
Rich:
11
Again,
I was downstairs not hearing anything, so over to Andy's website:
Rachel was the first player to buy a gold, followed by Rich, however it was
Tim that was first to buy a province. Andy managed to get 1 province, while Mary
and Rich managed a couple, and Rach and Tim had about 5 each, however Tim had
trashed all his estates cards, and still had some curses, and Rach, Mary and
Andy had each bought a number of nobles.
Nick:
97
Darren:
86
Neil: 82
Richard:
78
I had been working on the translation for this one all week, and had spent all day working on a player aid so that everyone could understand the little bits of German text on some of the cards. So there was no way we weren't playing it after all that! Again, Sue and I had played this during the week, but I had a feeling this one was going to be radically different, and it was. All of a sudden nothing was easy to come by, as there were four of us fighting over the action spaces and cards that bring food and increase the strength of the workforces. I made sure I was at the Sphinx every round, which gives you cards that get you points at the end of the game, and managed to pick up a few useful ones. Richard was getting a couple of extra cards to look at each turn, but was a little unlucky with the ones he had to choose from. Also, Richard had decided to go all out for food, which made it particularly difficult for the rest of us! Luckily my teams were eating rocks, which saved me a few penalty points that Darren and Neil had to take. All in all, another excellent game, and one I wished I'd translated a couple of months ago!
And that took us to about 11.30 and the end of the night. Thanks to all those who came along.
