CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 10/03/2011

1.     10 members attended this week, so we played on 3 tables. Table 1 started with 5 players in “JAMAICA”, the game about pirates sailing round a 1-lap course, attacking and plundering as they do so. The game has been reviewed before so will not be repeated here. Despite stating throughout that he was doing badly Paul was the eventual winner from Allister.

2.     Table 2 saw 4 players playing “ABER BITTE MIT SAHNE”, a family game about slicing up a pie into several portions, all of which are not necessarily of equal size! The pies consist of several different ingredients and players are trying to get the most of a type of ingredient for scoring purposes, and the player who’s turn it is ‘cuts’ the pie to make the various portions attractive to their opponents, hoping to keep the piece that suits themselves, but this does not always happen. A lightweight game of fun for which the eventual winner was Luke.

3.       Table 1 then played “ATTILA”, the area control game based upon the invading hordes from Northern Europe trying to take control of regions around the Mediterranean.  An interesting little game that plays in just over the hour. The owner of the game, Geoff, was the eventual winner, having played the game more times than the others.

4.       Table 2 played “MARAKECH”, the carpet market game that Jerry introduced a few weeks ago. The game was won by his daughter Poppy.

5.       On table 3 Mike led a game of “SYLLA”, a game about using influence in ancient Rome to gain tokens in the 3 colours used in the game. The game is played in 5 phases, each phase consisting of 7 action turns. The turns provide the chance to elect a First Consul, recruit workers, construct buildings, gain money, vote on which events are prevented, construct Great Works and deal with famine. The tokens represent health, leisure and civic spirit and the value of these tokens rise and fall on a score track, depending upon which nasty events occur. Players study the layout for a particular turn and then have to decide how to use each turn to their advantage… do they go for buildings to increase their wealth or do they recruit Vestal Virgins and and Legionaires to influence the voting in later stages.  There are several sub-systems at work here and it’s difficult to decide which strategy to adopt. Kevin found the constant evaluation of the pieces in play each turn somewhat irksome and there is a lot of analysis going on, so he was not hugely impressed with the game.   Roger led from the outset by having protection against Famine which the others did not have, Ben moved up in the penultimate turn and by design he became very wealthy. This almost gave him victory in the last turn but Roger held on by a couple of points, with Kevin a close third with a late surge and Mike a distant fourth. The general opinion was that players needed to know the effect of all the cards and combinations to get the best out of the game. It may make another appearance if the same players can be persuaded to try it.

Games played and Winners were:

Jamaica Paul Gulpin;

Aber bitte mit Sahne Luke Williams;

Attila Geoff Williams;

Marakech Poppy Jabelman;

Sylla Roger Scull.