The anniversary of the Beeching Report brought 2 train games out tonight, plus a Spanish Conquest game.
Tony (perhaps unsurprisingly as he does like his train games) beat Freya, Paul and Matthew in their game of
Steam.
Richard, Donna, Roger and Mike took part in the second outing of
El Grande
in as many weeks. Mike took an early lead, but was overtaken by Roger.
Richard and Donna then started to close up but with some late scoring in
the Castillo Mike managed to just catch Donna on the final scoring
round. No more than 10 points between first and last.
Richard, Donna, Roger, Mike, Matthew played the second train game of the evening
Ticket to Ride Europe.
3 players fought over the western part of the board, whilst Mike plied a
solo effort in the north east. As Mike was building a long route west
to east Roger tried to stop him linking up. Fortunately, Mike just
managed to secure the 3 reds he needed to perform the link. However
Roger built the 8-length tunnel (21 points) in the north to race into
the lead. Richard tried to extend his line in the south east and in
doing so he cut Mike off from a link to Sofia in the south. Donna was
building strongly and challenging Mike for the longest route but with
his cards no longer able to be used where he wanted Mike was lucky
enough to add a 4-length extension to his route. This gave him the
longest route over Donna by 2, so the bonus card enabled Mike to
overtake Roger and win by 4.
Games played and winners were :
Steam - Tony Simons;
El Grande - Mike Oakes;
Ticket To Ride Europe - Mike Oakes.
3 years ago this week Tony introduced some lucky people to the delights of Small World...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 Scull;
Razzia game 2 - Richard Piesse.
