1. We
had 7 players in total. On table 1 a group of 4 played “SHEAR PANIC”, a game with lovely plastic pieces representing sheep.
There is even a black sheep in the set!! The sheep move around the 4 fields on
the board so that they are in the right place to mate, then fatten up, then get
sheared. Lots of foul play, with sheep being herded around to somewhere they
don’t want to go and overall a really enjoyable fun game. Lucy was in great
form yet again and won the game.
2. On
Table 2 the remaining 3 players played “TOWER
OF BABEL”, in which players collect cards depicting different types of
building cards which they can use later to construct one of the 8, yes 8,
Wonders of the World. They do this by visiting a Wonder to try and build it ,
and attracting offers of help from their opponents. They can accept this help
to build it but at a cost, or they can reject the offers and build it
themselves. They record their effort by placing pieces onto the wonder. When a
Wonder is completely built it scores points and these are distributed in
accordance with who has made the biggest contribution, so this facet is
constantly changing. There are action cards to be gained by completing a Wonder
and this adds the chance element to the game. This brief review cannot fully
describe the constantly changing of the balance in the game, and the multiple
ways to score. Furthermore there are 2 ways in which the End of Game is
triggered so players have to keep an eye on that. A highly interactive game, in
which Richard took an early lead and by scoring many second places when Wonders
were built he maintained this advantage
until the end for a clear-cut win.
3. This
same group then played “ATTILA”,
introducing it to our guest player Rob. Players play cards represent one of the
6 tribes in the game invading Europe and they gain influence over that tribe
for doing so. Other players do the same and the influence chart which shows all
6 tribes is constantly changing. Once a region on the board has 4 pieces in it
peace treaty negotiations take place and the ‘weakest’ tribes(s) are thrown out
and the victory points awarded to whoever has the most influence over each
tribe. This continues over 4 epochs with the influence track playing a bigger
part as the board gets crowded with the tribes expanding their empires into
further regions and causing more scoring. A neat game that plays in under the
hour and once again Richard was in good form by establishing a sizable lead which
the other players could not peg back for his second win of the evening.
4. On
table 1 the group of 4 played “HAMELN”
a family game about players buying houses in the town of Hamlyn,
marrying, having children, and generally making a good life for themselves.
However this idyll changes once a plague of rats arrive and players try to
protect themselves from the vermin by employing the fabled Pied Piper….if they
can find him! Players score victory
points for their houses, influence , money and possession of the cat. However
they should try not to lose children to the Pied Piper, as this scores negative
points. An attractive looking game which was won by Lucy, yet again…this girl
has to be stopped!!
5. Table
2 played a quick card game called “HATTRICK”,
in which tricks are played 2 at a time from a deck of 60 cards, 1-20 in 3
colours. Players are trying to gain as many cards in ONE colour but as few as possible in the other colours, as their
score at the end of a hand is 1 point positive for each card in their longest
suit and minus 1 point for each other card they have won. Its sometimes difficult to avoid picking up
unwanted cards if you are collecting say Reds as your long suit and have say a
15 Green left in your hand and you pick up 3 or 4 of the blighters!. Richard
completed his own ‘Hatrick’ of wins by scoring 10 points to Geoff’s 9.
6. All
7 players came together for the final game of “6 NIMMT”, a game about getting rid of the 10 cards dealt to you by
placing them on a grid of 4 rows. The player who places the 6th card
in a row wins the other 5 cards in the row, which will count as penalty points
against them. The winner is the player with the lowest score when the game
ends. So you need to play cards which avoid completing the row, not easy when
the grid is constantly changing. We were desperately trying to stop Lucy
winning her third game of the evening and only just achieved that by ganging up
on her. To much ‘friendly cheering’ from the others this happened and Tony
scored 20 points to Lucy’s 24, so objective reached. A really classic end of
evening game.
Games played and Winners
were:
Shear
Panic Lucy Newbury;
Tower
of Babel Richard Piesse;
Attila
Richard Piesse;
Hameln
Lucy Newbury;
Hattrick
Richard Piesse;
6
Nimmt Tony Simons.
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