1.
13 members attended this week, including Jerry
the visitor and his daughter Poppy . The bumper attendance meant that we were
able to split into 3 tables, with the ‘overspill’ room in use for the first
time, and a record number of games were played during the evening. On table 1 Tony
led a game of “TAKE 5!”, a variant
of 6 Nimmt, a club favourite. As in the classic game it is all about getting
rid of your cards and not scoring those with Ox Horns on them. With 5 players involved
scoring was close but apparently Geoff was lucky with the draw of the card and
fluked a win.
2.
Table 2 saw 4
players playing “GRAND NATIONAL DERBY”,
a horse racing game by Reiner Knizia, in which players place a bet in 4
separate rounds and play cards from their hand of 8 to the table in the hope
that the horses they have backed make it into the final 3. The game starts with
all 8 horses at the gate and in the manner described above players bet once and
place cards in a row against Fence 1. The cards show a horse name and a value
ranging from 0-9; there are also some ‘wild cards’, which can be used on any
colour. Once a row has cards on every horse currently in the race it is
evaluated and the horse with the lowest value is eliminated.
Therefore players must either play high cards on horses they have bet upon or
try to play low cards on hoses that their opponents have backed, with a view to
getting them written off. Play continues in this way for fences 2-4,
eliminating a horse each turn and then on fence 5 there is no betting but cards
are still played until the final horse is eliminated, leaving 3 standing.
Points are awarded to the players who backed the remaining horses, with the
bets scored at 4,3,2,1 starting with the first bet. Mike looked in a good
position but the group eliminated his horse on which he had a bet of 4 and 3,
so 7 points went with his demise! The
final winner was Lucy. This game has more depth than it indicates, as you are
looking for allies on certain horse or trying to get your opponents horse
eliminated but the situation is volatile each round so it’s not
straightforward.
3.
Table 3 saw
Richard and Luke in the 2-player game of
“TWILIGHT STRUGGLE”, which was
played and reviewed a few weeks ago.
Luke reported that despite taking an early lead the master strategist
Richard came back strongly and beat him comprehensively.
4.
After mixing
up the player combinations Table 1 embarked on a 3-player game of ”BRASS”, by Martin Wallace, a game based
upon the Industrial Revolution and using Canals, Cotton Mills, Coalfield and
Shipbuilding . In phase 2 of the game
the Railways arrive and this signals the decline in the Canal trade. A very
elaborate game with a lot of depth which provided 2 hours of fruitful gaming
experience. In a close finish the scores were Allister 136; Tony 141; Paul 146,
and it was enjoyed by all.
5. Table 2 played a game of “MARRAKECH” as Jerry the visitor had brought
it along, and Mike and Lucy had never played it. Players have a set of 10 carpets in their colour and they move
the market trader around the square board by means of a modified die. If they
land on a carpet of another colour they pay money to the owner of that colour
in accordance with the size of the adjacent total of squares covered by that
colour. They then get to place a carpet of their colour in one of the 4
cardinal points squares adjacent to where the trader landed. They can either
cover 2 blank squares or overlay an opponents carpets but only 1 square. In
this way they can either deplete the scoring ability of their opponents or
increase their own ‘empire’. Play was quick and fortunes ebbed and flowed,
Jerry and Poppy started well as they knew the game but Mike and Lucy closed the
gap. Eventually Jerry held out for the win. An attractive looking family game.
6.
Table 3
saw 4 players involved in the popular game of “POWERGRID”, the game about building Power Plants and a network of
cities that they will supply. Fierce competition for obtaining the resources to
generate from them, and extending the city network is the central feature of
the game , which has been reviewed before. Of the 4 players only Kevin had not
played it but he made it a winning debut and was praising the game highly at
the end, which is hardly surprising !!.
7.
On
table 2 Mike introduced 3 other players to “ON THE UNDERGROUND”, a game about building routes on the London
Underground map in lines of their colour , such that when the ‘Passenger’ goes
on a trip he uses their lines to scores points. There are other ways to score,
such as linking to Railway Stations, linking to Termini, connecting certain
stations which contain a pair of matching luxury symbols. Sometimes to score
points yourself you have to give points to your opponents as you travel over
their lines. Mike took an early lead but was soon caught by Lucy and Jerry and
those 2 battled it out to the end, with Jerry just able to overtake and win by
2 points from Lucy, with Mike third and Poppy a close fourth. A good game that plays in just around an
hour.
8.
With
the departure of Jerry and Poppy, and the other games still in progress, Mike
and Lucy played a 2-player game of “LE
HAVRE”, a favourite of both of them. The shortened version consisted of
only 8 turns but they certainly packed a lot in. As always with this game it
was difficult to generate enough food to feed your people at the end of each
round, and when trying to build other buildings there was often a shortage of
resources to do so. Lucy built more wisely than Mike (no change there) and Mike
had to pay heavily in Victory points in the final scoring round to feed his
people whilst Lucy had built 2 ships which gave her extra food so that made the
differential even bigger. The final score was Lucy 87, Mike 61, so once again
Lucy is Queen of Le Havre !!
9.
Table 3
finished their evening off with the quick dice-rolling game of “SUSHIZOCK IM GOCKELWOK”, a game about
obtaining sushi tiles and fish heads in equal amounts to end up with a good
score. Much swapping with the tiles and after 20 minutes the game resulted in a
tie between Roger and Richard.
Games
played and Winners were:
Take 5! Geoff
Williams;
Grand National
Derby Lucy Newbury;
Twilight
Struggle Richard Piesse;
Brass Paul
Gulpin;
Marrakech Jerry
the visitor;
Powergrid Kevin
Ward;
On the
Underground Jerry the visitor;
Le Havre Lucy
Newbury;
Sushizock Tie
Roger Skull & Richard Piesse.
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