1. We
had a reduced attendance of 7 this week. On table 1 3 players tackled “CLANS”, a quick game of moving nomads
in groups around the mapboard, which depicts 4 different types of terrain. Players
are dealt a tile at the start which depicts ‘their’ colour and they keep this
secret as they try and move the nomads to form villages, which then score
points. The score for a village is equal to the number of huts in the village,
and this can be increased by a bonus score if the terrain in which it is
founded is favourable. However at certain times the terrain can be unfavourable
and the village just formed scores nothing. The strategy in the game comes from
moving the right group to the right terrain at the right time. This is not as
easy as it sounds and for a quick filler the game provides a reasonable test.
Despite playing it for the first time Kevin managed to win with 27 points, Tony
23, and Mike a miserable 15.
2.
Table 2 saw
4 players playing the trading game “HANSA”,
which has been played before, so is not reviewed in detail again. The game
finished quicker than expected due by the planning ( some might say luck) by Alister
to finish the game whilst he was ahead on points .
3.
The 3
players on Table 1 then entered their
main event of the evening, a game of “STEAM”, the simplified version of the classic “Age Of Steam”. In
each turn players choose 1 of the 7 roles on offer and then the game sequence
is followed in turn order. This covers Track building, Goods movement, City
Growth, Engine Upgrade, Urbanisation.
Players try to construct track between cities and towns with the aim of
moving coloured goods cubes from source to destination, for which they receive
a reward, taken in either money or Victory Points. The competition for routes
is fierce; players often have to take out loans to pay for their actions, so
planning is essential. Players are constantly evaluating their positions,
either to their own benefit or to the detriment of their opponents. Mike took
an early lead by having a neat earner in one corner of the map but Tony, being
the expert in this game, soon overtook Mike for the lead and built a powerful
engine to transport goods over his longer network, thereby earning plenty of
VPs. Kevin screwed Mike by building near his track and denying a good
link. When all 10 game turns had been
completed the players scored VPs for the number of links they have created and
surprisingly all 3 had built 14 links, so this did not alter the final
positions, which were Tony, Mike and Kevin. Although the game took nearly 3
hours all the players felt it was a worthwhile experience.
4.
Table 2 finished
with a game of “THURN UND TAXIS”,
which is becoming a club favourite and has been reviewed before. In a game in
which the cards were regularly ‘burnt’ players found it difficult to build long
routes and correspondingly the scores were low, and at the end 3 players tied with
25 points each, However Luke, with this 1 point token for ending the game, won
on the tie-break !!
Games played and Winners were:
Clans
Kevin Shaw;
Hansa
Allister Gittins;
Steam
Tony Simons;
Thurn
und Taxis Luke Williams.
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