Friday 30 April 2010

Frank's Zoo
Last week we planned to play this again.

I handed Anna 5 points in the first hand by playing 3 lions on Nigel's 2 lions. Anna played 3 Elephants and no-one could top that. So she got off to a good lead with 9 points. On the second hand Nigel jumped into second place and from there he caught up with Anna, dropped behind and caught up again, using a Hedgehog strategy (getting all the Hedgehogs on one hand). I pretty much ignored Hedgehogs and Lions, aiming to go out quickly but I wasn't overly successful.

This time Nigel did make up for previous games and won on the tie break (which is the player who made the most points on the last hand).

Anna   9 12 13 17 19
Andrew 5  4  7 11 17
Nigel  2  8 13 15 19 (winning on tie-break)
Ian   -1  3  7 10 10
Anne   2  3  2  4  8

Rheinländer
We fulfilled another promise to ourselves by playing this again. I grabbed a lot of castles (again) and also tried for churches but Anne was always one step behind me and I was never Archbishop long enough to use the power. I lost 3 of my Dukes at the end. Nigel had by far the biggest Dukedom but size doesn't matter as much as how many Dukes you finish with.

Andrew 41
Ian    32
Anne   27
Anna   25
Nigel  24

We played again. This time I went for 3 and 4 point cities. There was quite a bit of aggression in this game, which Andrew survived the best. While Nigel went on a religious kick and became the unchallenged Archbishop and won the game. The scores were close this time.

Nigel  33
Andrew 30
Ian    30
Anne   29
Anna   28

China
China and Rheinländer are both 45 minute games where you play card(s) to get your pieces on to the board in order to gain majorities. In both games the cards have two uses: an obvious use and an alternative one. In Rheinländer you can play a knight onto empty space who's number matches your card, in China you can play in a province whose colour matches your card. Alternatively in Rheinländer you can use any card to extend a region, in China a pair of cards can be used as a wild card. In both games you end your turn by refilling your hand. In addition to the mechanical similarities both games have traps for beginners. In Rheinländer, unlike what the theme might suggest, expanding or attacking is more often than not counter productive. In China the importance and timing of Emissary placement is hard to get right.

I enjoy this quick area/majority control game, probably because it is more about opportunistic moves than deep strategy. I think most of the others had only played once before and need a rules refresher. The game started in an unorthodox fashion with everyone starting in a different region. When you start a region you only get to place one house in it, while on other turns you get to place two pieces. So often players are reluctant to start regions because it often helps the player to their left. Perhaps it is in the way I explained the game or may be it is better with fewer players but no-one else enjoyed it.

Ian    38
Anna   33
Anne   27
Nigel  25
Andrew 24

It was Nigel's night with two wins.