CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 01/12/2011

1.       9 players showed up tonight. To start on table 1 Geoff led a group of 4 playing “OREGON”, the game about settlers making their way across Oregon, which has been reviewed before. The winner was Kevin, with Rob a resounding last.

2.        Table 2 saw Tony leading a group of 5 players in the game “TIME PIRATES”. In this game players move around time zones and collect tokens in 5 different colours, representing continents. They eventually trade these in for larger scoring tokens and return to their time travels. However whenever a player chooses to re-stock a Time zone by drawing tiles from the bag there is the risk that the Time Police will turn out to chase the explorers. If players are in the same zone as the Police at the start of their turn they have to give up any ‘joker’ tokens and one from their biggest collection of tiles. Eventually 8 Police tiles are drawn and the round ends and scoring occurs. This process is repeated a further 2 times to determine a winner. Poppy and Jerry collected sets readily and exchanged them to gain control of some continents, which scored them good points in the first 2 rounds, with Tony, Mike and Roger trailing badly. In the final round Poppy secured an extra 2 bonus points for a continent, which was enough to give her victory over her Dad, a fitting result on the eve of her 11^th Birthday. Many happy returns Poppy!!“

3.       With the arrival of Jeremy Table 1 saw 5 players involved in a game of “INCAN GOLD”, much to the delight of Rob once again, as this is a game he rarely loses, and this proved to be the case once again, with a comprehensive victory.

4.       On Table 2 Mike led a group of 5 in the quick card game “5 ALIVE!”, in which the aim is not to play a card that would put the total over 21, as if you do you lose one of your 5 lives. There are many ‘modifier’ cards in the special pack, which change direction, reset the running total, make players miss turns and even a killer card, which causes all other players to lose a life if they don’t possess a zero card in their hand. Much laughter was generated as Mike was first to be eliminated, quickly followed by Poppy, then Roger. Tony and Jerry fought out the final duel, again to a backdrop of laughter, and Jerry was the eventual winner. A lightweight family game which gives a lot of fun.

5.       On table 1 Geoff led a group of 4 playing “TOBAGO”, which has been described before. Jeremy was making his debut in the game but quickly picked up plenty of high-scoring treasures, which led to a clear-cut victory by 10 points from Rob, with Geoff 3^rd and Mike 4^th

6.       The remaining 3 players played “GALAXY TRUCKER” as an introduction to the game of many pieces. Players use ‘pipes’ to construct their spaceships to their own design, equip it with batteries, boosters, weaponry etc and then move around space collecting cargo and fighting off meteor storms and pirates. Due to time constraints the game had to finish early but Tony, with his prior knowledge , was declared the winner. 

Games played and Winners were:

Oregon- Kevin Ward;

Time Pirates – Poppy Jabelman;

Incan Gold – Rob Piesse;

5 Alive! – Jerry Jabelman;

Tobago – Jeremy Hurault;

Galaxy Trucker- Tony Simons.