Sunday 9 May 2010

When I arrived at Wargames Supply, Susan and Raymond were playing a game of Three-Dragon Ante, they were kind enough to restart and teach me. Basically each round the players are playing to win the pile of gold in the middle, by having the highest value set of three cards. Obviously playing high value cards is good, but to balance this if you play a lower value card than the previous player you get to do the extra power written on the bottom of the card. There are other complications and the deck has 70 cards mostly illustrated with dragons. Susan had the dragon's share of the gold when Raymond ran out of money (and I wouldn't have been far behind).

Lucy joined us for a game of Stone Age. Susan tried the othodox green cards strategy (getting 65 points worth). Lucy went after tools. Raymond and I aimed for lots of people (ending up with 9 each). Huts and agriculture were popular across the board, and we all ended up on 5 on the crop track. I think this was my first Stone Age win, and possibly the first where the green strategy was not successful.

Ian     172
Raymond 164
Lucy    152
Susan   152

In the final few minutes Susan taught us all Merchants: Lords of the Sea (a Reiner Kniza card game with a box that looks like a PC game). It is a game to earn the most money playing cards to match the goods on your ships, but everyone else also earns for the goods that match your cards. Raymond and I helped each other but not enough to beat either Lucy (who came second) or Susan (who won).

Susan   55
Lucy    46
Ian     39
Raymond 35