board games & card games for all ages
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
Thursday 25th February 2010
We thought we were eight, then we turned out to be nine this week ... but still an easy number to split up!
Players:
Darren, Dave F, Jahaan, Mike, Nick, Rachel, Roj, Sue, Tim
Games Played:
Oddly, we all kind of appeared at the same time this week, so we didn't bother with a little starter, and jumped straight in to the main courses .....
Mike:
85
Roj:
78
Sue: 69
Nick:
68
Once more, the latest Alea game hits the table. I think this must be four or five games nights in a row when it has been played, but I also think this was the first time it was played by four people who had all played before. We're starting to see the game speed up a lot now, as it was taking a couple of hours when we were first playing it, and is now comfortably at the 90-minute mark. A solid win for Mike, who started to creep ahead about a third of the way in, and was then earning several coins each round to keep himself nicely out in front. Sue was miles back at the halfway stage, but then recovered quite well in the second half, and after I took my punishment markers, managed to nip in front of me by a single point! Grrr.
Meanwhile upstairs, they were about to play World Without End when they became five players, almost went with Small World, but then settled on ....
Darren:
44
Dave:
42
Tim: 39
Rachel: 27
Jahaan:
25
Darren was (I believe) the only one who had played this before, so this was a bit of a learning game for everyone ... And five players is probably the toughest way to play this one! I don't really know anything about how the game played out, although Dave did mention later that he was busy trying to get as much firepower as possible, and then trying to steal his way to victory by fighting everyone else, which looks like it very nearly paid off!
The downstairs mob were done first, and jumped straight into another four-player game in an effort to get it finished in time ....
Mike:
140
Nick:
121
Roj: 106
Sue:
96
This was another very enjoyable game, and Mike was pretty dominant in this one too! Both Mike and I started by getting a second Ziggurat going as soon as possible, but he managed to get ahead of me by building a couple of wells in the first reign, when I was busy building other stuff. There is definitely a trick to getting wells as close to the river as possible, so that your river huts are still earning the camels before the flood comes. Roj and Sue were concentrating more on points from wells and huts, but the Ziggurats paid off in the final rounds of the game. Another very good win by Mike, who was on a bit of a roll tonight.
And finally upstairs .....
Darren:
25
Jahaan:
26
Rachel: 35
Dave: 93
Tim:
117
This game lasted for four rounds, as Dave seems to have set out with the sole purpose of seeing how quickly he could pass the 100-point mark! Darren, Jahaan and Rachel were all taking it seriously, while Dave was collecting flies faster than a turd in a bowl of sugar. But then in the fourth round, Tim decided to try and out-fly Dave, and managed to go from a reasonably respectable 58 points after three rounds to 117 after four, more than doubling his score! This one sounded like a fun game to end the night.
And those four games were all we had time for again this week. Thanks to those that came along ... see you all next week.
