Chippenham Board Games Club - 27/05/2010

There were 7 of us to play this week. We were able to get a couple of games with all of us together as well as splitting into a group of 4 and 3.

The evening was started with a game of Heck Meck with 4 players while the others waiting for the others to arrive. Heck  Meck is a game of Die and Dominos. The aim of the game is to win as many worms as possible. Worms are found on the Dominos and are won by rolling die (numbered 1 to 5 with a worm on the 6^th side) to get as high as score as possible to take the Dominos from the middle or to steal from another player (but beware, you must roll at least one worm otherwise the turn is lost).  This is a short fun party game where every roll of the die could potentially have an impact on all players!  This game was won by Robert, after playing a vindictive game against his brother (there is always intense, but good natured, rivalry between these two!)

After this everyone had arrived so we decided on another quick game, this time Heimlich & Co. This is a slightly older game of detective work and deception. A bunch of robbers move around a circular street trying to get to the highest scoring house before the Safe is cracked. Beware, you can overshoot from a maximum 9 points to a minus 3 in the space of one move! Each player is rooting for one particular colour to get to 42 points first, but all players can move all pieces, so try not to give the game away!  It was a tight race all the way to the end as no-one wanted to let one colour get too far ahead. The eventual winner was Christopher with the Red. How he managed to get his Red Robber home first without hardly ever touching it we’ll never know!

We decided to split up at this point, with 3 going to the classic, Settlers of Catan and the others going for a long game of The Pillars of the Earth.  Settlersof Catan is a game about building up settlements by resources connected by roads. By careful placement of settlements and a certain amount of luck you can be sure of a chance of winning.  I don’t know how the game played out as I was in the other group, but I do know Robert managed a second win of the night. Since the other game was longer, there was a chance for a quick game of Penguin Parade and also Coloretto. Geoff was the lucky winner of both of these.

In the meantime The Pillars of the Earth is a game based on the Best Selling book by Ken Follett. It is game of resource management where players are attempting to win the most prestige by adding the most to the building of a Cathedral.  Workers are placed in Forests, Quarries or Gravel Pits to gain resources, while Master Builders are used to choose which of the limited actions the players wish to do each round. Master builders are pulled out of a bag at random, but the first ones out also have to pay the most gold to place, and gold gets very tight in this game towards the end. With the help of special privilege cards, extra craftsmen and the market place points can be slowly accumulated.  Richard started the game with an aggressive move, blocking out Christopher from taking an important action, both players are experienced players, so alls fair in love, war & board games! Christopher never seemed to recover from this move as luck seemed against him early on and then a stupid move mid game put the final nail in the coffin.  Richard managed to play with a successful wood strategy, with an ideal pair of craftsmen for this. Roger was going for metal strategy (a rare resource, but rewarded with lots of points at the end), and Tim went for  a Gold strategy (getting as much money as possible and then converting that to prestige points).  All strategies seemed to keep the players very close together right until round 5 of 6, when Richard pulled away a little. He was then able to massively cement that lead in the final round with what we believe is a record score of 103!

We got together for one more game together, the group favourite: Incan Gold. With so many players it was a low scoring game, but the final round required two restarts as we couldn’t get anything other than disasters collapsing the mine, before anyone had got any treasure at all!  A very close game this time, with Christopher getting a second win of the night.

To round out a game-packed evening, the 5 of us left at the end got in a game of Boomtown. A gambling/bidding game to try and take mine cards and produce gold. An interesting feature of this game is that players bid the chance to choose a card from 5 face up first, sending the bid chips to be distributed to the other players one way, and the choosing order going the other.  A players seating position can have a big impact in this game!  A good game to round out the evening with the Richard/Robert rivalry re-hashed, and once again Robert proved victorious with another massive score!

Well done Robert for making it a triple this evening!

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 20/05/2010

1.     As we were only 6 players we played 2 long games tonight. First up was the classic game of “ACQUIRE”. This game is about investing in chains of hotels and acquiring shares in them which hopefully will rise in value. Eventually 2 chains will merge and the shareholders of the chain taken over receive a bonus for the majority shareholder and for the minority share holder and they then have options to cash in their shares for money or swap them on a 2 for 1 basis in the new larger chain. Money becomes quite tight as the chains develop and the early lead was held by Tony and Richard. Roger and Mike were strapped for cash as they waited for their chains to be taken over to raise much-needed revenue. However the long-term strategy paid off as Mike’s shares in the largest chain earned him enough money to pinch a victory by a narrow margin from Geoff.

2.     Second game was “Jet Set”, a game of building routes around Europe, placing planes on them and then flying the routes to gain the matching flight card, which gives victory points in the end. There are many combinations of departure and arrival cities, making for some difficult decisions about which routes to go for, when to raise income, when to expand the routes etc. In another close finish Richard beat Tony by 2 points, with Robert just a further point behind.

Games played and Winners were:

Acquire Mike Oakes;

Jet Set Richard Piesse.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 13/05/2010

1.     We started with a 7-player game of “11 NIMMT”, a card game we had played before but we needed to introduce our new members to it.  Richard won the first 2 rounds and as Chris had arrived we called an early halt so that we could split into 2 groups of 4.

2.     On table 1 Mike introduced 3 players to a game called “Princes of Florence”, about building a suitable mixture of buildings and landscapes in your palace so that your personnel can create great works and earn you Prestige Points. The game involves an auction round to bid for the items you want to enhance your palace and then an Action Round when players construct their palace. The points generated by the personnel are recorded on a score track and at the end of just 7 turns the player with the most Prestige Points is the winner. The interesting part of the game is how you fit all the buildings and landscapes into your courtyard. There are many different ways to achieve this so the game bears thinking about. Alistair created 6 works in his palace which enabled him to win, just beating newcomer Lucy by 2 points.

3.     This group then played “Incan Gold” which is becoming a favourite in the club. The newcomers thought it was hilarious and it looked liked Lucy was going to win until Alistair had a great last round to snatch victory from her.

4.     On table 2 the group played “Puerto Rico”, a highly rated game, which Richard won.

5.     They then started a recent game called ”Tobago” which some had not played before. An unusual game about playing cards which give clues as to the whereabouts of hidden treasure. Once the treasure location has been determined players rush to pick it up and get a share of the spoils, and the player with the most treasure points wins. A neat game, in which Richard won again. 

6.     We finished with 8 players playing a game of “The Great Dalmuti”, a card game about getting rid of all your cards. The starting player lays a group of cards but each subsequent player must play the same number of cards but in a lower value, or pass. E.g. 3 x 10’s , followed by 3 x 7’s followed by 3 x 4’s. This continues until no player can play. They then start the next round until eventually all the players have emptied their hands and points are awarded. The sequence in which players empty their hands determines where the players sit for the next round, and this is important as certain players exchange cards before a round starts. Great fun and hugely enjoyed by all.

Games played and Winners were:

11 Nimmt Richard Piesse;

Princes of Florence Alistair Gittin;

Incan Gold Alistair Gittin;

Puerto Rico Richard Piesse;

Tobago Richard Piesse;

The Great Dalmuti Alistair Gittin.