CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 25/03/2010

1.     With 7 players tonight we played a ‘community’ game first and then split into 2 tables. First up was a re-run of “Turf Horse Racing”, the horse betting game which was played last week. Mike failed to score any points at all on the first race, after which Chris held a narrow lead from Geoff. This was reversed in Race 2 when Geoff had a good round and Chris fell back with the others closing up. Race 3 was highly competitive and Roger made a late run as Geoff failed miserably. Chris recovered sufficiently to steal the victory with 19 points and Geoff and Roger tied on 17 points

2.     On table 2 Tony introduced “Small World”, a game of controlling different factions attempting to civilize the world, all with different abilities and aims. Each player chooses a faction and grabs various territories on the board, after which they score victory points. If they decide the faction has served its purpose they send it into decline and choose another faction with which to score points. Players are constantly attacking each other to gain territories so the game is highly interactive. Tony and Mike did not employ their powers as well as Roger and Richard so it became a 2-horse race for victory and the game was tied when scoring was completed. Richard won the game on the tie-break by having control of more territories on the board at the end.

3.     On the other table the 3 lads played ”Space Junkyard”, a new game where Space has become a giant dumping ground for jettisoned components and derelict spacecraft.  Players navigate through a sea of asteroids and recyclable parts, collecting resources and salvaged ship modules in a quest to build the largest and most complete starship. Rob quickly grabbed the concept, being the youngest, and romped to an easy victory.

4.     Next game up was a 3–player game of “Montego Bay”, the game about players using their workers to obtain barrels of goods for loading on ships in the bay. The ships are of varying size and players will score when the ship is full and it sails. The victory points shown on each ship are allocated according to which players has contributed most to the completed cargo. The way in which the workers collect the barrels is quite thought-provoking and yet amusing at the same time. Instances can arise whereby players actually have to remove barrels from the ships of partially loaded ships, thereby reducing their chances of victory points. Chris gained a large lead early in the game and the other 2 never really got close to him.

5.     Table 2 finished their session with 2 games of “Razzia”, a card game about secretly sending gamblers to any one of 6 dens in the game to obtain the money that is there. However players also have coppers in the same colours as the dens and they might send a policeman to arrest any gamblers there. They are corrupt as they then take the loot for themselves. If more than one gambler or policeman are present at a gambling den the ‘strongest’ player present offers a deal to the ‘weaker’ player to split the loot.  If they accept no duel takes place; if they decline a shoot-out occurs with the winner taking all the cash.  “Razzia” handles up to 8 players and is a good interactive filler, so much so that we played 2 games before our finishing time.

Games played and Winners were:

Turf Horse Racing Chris Cook;

Small World Richard Piesse;

Space Junkyard Robert Piesse;

Montego Bay Chris Cook;

Razzia game 1 Roger Skull;

Razzia game 2 Richard Piesse.