1.
With 12 players in attendance tonight we
split into 3 groups. On table 1 Geoff led 3 players in a game “STEEL DRIVER”, a railway building game
that is more about getting shares in the 6 companies in the game for money at
the end. A neat mechanism exists whereby each turn the companies are up for
auction and players bid cubes to gain control. The amount of the bid is important
as these go into the companies coffers for use in the building phase later on.
In build order, which varies each turn, players controlling each company build
connections of routes between a series of cities on the American map board and
they gain share value by doing so. Each company is valued and players receive
money for their current share holding. The game last just 5 turns of this
auction/build sequence until the game end is determined. At this point a load
of coloured cubes are placed upon cities on the board and then, one by one,
players take turns to pick up a cube from a railroad line that they control and
place it in that company’s box. They are trying to get cubes of different
colours as they will form a higher value final dividend for that company. When
this is complete the players receive final dividends for each share they hold
in the various companies. A highly interactive game which is interesting once
you have grasped the sequence of play. Alister managed to squeeze a close
victory.
2. Table
2 saw 3 players on “SETTLERS OF CATAN –
TRADERS AND BARBARIANS”, which was played recently. Jerry and Poppy, who
known the variant well, soon upgraded their caravan movement to a higher value
and were able to deliver goods quicker than Mike, who concentrated on building
roads between the 3 cities on the board for use later on. Mike’s progress was
further delayed by the others placing barbarians on his routes when he did
eventually move commodities. Jerry delivered the most commodities and by
upgrading his settlements to cities he was soon able to reach the target of 13
points, with Mike on just 8 and Poppy on 7 points. A clear-cut victory.
3.
On table 3 Tony
led a 6-player game of the ever-popular “POWERGRID”,
in which the target was to power 13 cities. Players who were experiencing the
game for the first time really liked it but experience told in the end and Rob
was the eventual victor.
4.
Table 3
reduced to 5 players so they played the Reiner Knizia title “MEMBERS ONLY”. The game is a betting
game about predicting how many of the 5 specific events will occur at the end
of each round of play. Players are dealt a hand of cards and they will try to
predict a number for one of the events and place one of their betting tokens on
the board. As an example they could predict that there will be ‘6 or more Cups
of Tea’ at the end of the round. They will then play 2 cards to the table
display. In this way the other players will have more information of what the
probable outcome will be and they will bet accordingly. To add a twist some
cards have a “NO !!” icon and if played they negate the category already
played, so in our example other players could reduce the ‘Cups of Tea’ count to
below 6 and the bet would be lost. At the end of each round the winning bets
are scored and marker moved down a scoring track. All losing betting tokens are
lost so the players have less to bet with next round. In a final twist the game
ends when at least one token has passed the 5 marker in all 5 categories and
then only those tokens values at 5 or higher count for scoring. So a player
could have 2 token scoring 10 each for a total of 20 but no others below the 4
line and they would be beaten by a player with 3 tokens on the 7 line, giving
21. This means that players need to spread their winning bets on the 5
categories to increase their chances of winning. After a slightly barren spell
Lucy got back to winning ways and emerged the winner.
5.
Table 1 and
2 combined to play the quick filler “BALLOON
RACE”, a lightweight game about getting balloons to the finishing lines and
having the 3 colours on your cards amongst those. Plasters keep their objective
secret and they throw the dice in turn and they can move ANY balloon they want. Most spaces move the balloon forward but
some move it backwards so giving you the chance to stuff a balloon you are not
interested in. Some squares cause balloons to be struck by lightening and
return to the start, whilst others cause the balloon to deflate and they cannot
move at all until resurrected. To the great surprise of all Mike won the game
so a replay was immediately ordered.
6.
The second
game of “BALLOON RACE” was much more
competitive with many setbacks incurred on the various balloons but the
eventual winner was Alister for his second win of the evening.
7.
This final
group played “BATAVIA”, which
Alister and Roger were playing for the first time. An auction for new cards is
conducted each turn and the winning bid is distributed equally between the
losing players, so money never leaves the game, it circulates. Thereafter In
turn players play cards of one of the 5 nations in the game to gain control over
that nation. They then have 2 choices of action, they can either pick up 2 more
cards from the deck or move their explorer to a tile of a nation they control which is face-up on the board and pick it up.
This gives 2 benefits; they place a commodity crate of their colour in the
warehouse of the goods picked up( of which there are 5 spaces in each), which
will be used for game end scoring purposes; they also have the chance to cash
in the tiles in exchange for Victory points if they are of different nations,
i.e 2 different = 2 pts, 3 different = 6 points, 4 different = 10 pts etc. The
number of cards played is the choice of the player but they have to beware of
the total cards in play at any one time, as once this reaches 25 the pirates
attack and ALL cards of ALL Players of the numerical highest
nation at that time are lost and they lose control. An important factor is that
once a player has moved their explorer to pick up a tile they cannot go
backwards along the display , so they have to look ahead to try and get control
of a nation that has the commodity in which they are trying to get control for
game end purposes. During the game it is difficult to predict who is winning,
which makes for an interesting game, especially as there are several was to score.
At game end there are 4 types of scoring these being a) the warehouses for the
commodities are evaluated and the controlling player receives the victory
points, with ties being shared. b) the player who reached the end tile first
receives 4 points. c) the player with the most money in hand receives 5 points. d) players receive 2
victory points for each nation they control at game end. Roger reached the end
tile first and Geoff had the most money. Mike had cashed in a few sets along
the way and controlled some of the cheaper warehouses but his total was passed by
Alister, as he controlled the warehouses which gave the highest victory points,
and he controlled more nations. This completed a treble of wins for Alister, so
he voted himself “Man of the Match”.
Games played and
Winners were:
Steel Driver –
Alister Gittin;
Settlers of
Catan – Jerry Jabelman;
Powergrid – Rob
Piesse;
Members Only –
Lucy Newbury;
Balloon Race
Game 1 – Mike Oakes;
Balloon Race
Game 2 – Alister Gittin;
Batavia –
Alister Gittin.
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