Wellycon Warm Down (23 January 2010)

It was a wet windy day at the end of January in the Metropolys of Wellington and the citizens were wondering when summer would arrive, so what better to do than go to the Wellycon Warm Down at Thistle Hall on Cuba St. When I got there Tony and Shem were looking for a game and agreed to my suggestion of Metropolys. Part way through the rules explanation Gynn joined us.

Shem played his top pieces early against advice from Tony and I -- and paid the price. Gynn got the difficult statue goal, which I think should be worth more points.

Ian  43
Gynn 26
Tony 23
Shem 16

In my humble opinion Caylus is a deep, tough game, where experience and planning pay off. It's been a number of years since I last played so I needed Gynn's excellent rule explanation as much as the people who hadn't played before. Gynn led until the final turn by building more buildings than other players. Andrew burst past him in the final turn by building the only blue building of the game for 25 points. Your's truly came last through dismal planning, especially were castle building was concerned.

Andrew 72
Gynn   63
Anna   55
Tony   45
Ian    43

Anna and Andrew were so taken by Caylus they did a trade for a copy.

Friends Nathan and Roland were looking for a game so I taught them Nexus Ops. There was a bit of wasteland between Roland and I so we tended to attack Nathan more. Roland was doing well and looked threatening with his dragons but I had a good last turn.

Ian    12
Roland  9
Nathan  4

Martin and Felicity were looking for a quick game before leaving and Stephen and John were at a loose end so I taught No Thanks! My prior experience paid off in the first game.

Ian      19
John     25
Stephen  27
Felicity 33
Martin   38

(Remember low scores are good)

One game is not enough. John grabbed a lot of cards (as an experiment) and it showed in his score!

Felicity 21
Martin   25
Stephen  26
Ian      30
John     39

Game 3 wasn't my game! But look at Martin's improvement!

Martin    2
Stephen   8
Felicity 27
John     28
Ian      40

Then John pulled out his New Zealand map of Ticket to Ride. It involved lots of tunnels and also some road links which involved playing wild cards. The South Island players did better than the North Island players for what it is worth. Personally I prefer the passengers of Märklin to the tunnels of Europe but I guess it is better to base an expansion on the cards available in the base game.

When we got back from dinner Anna and Andrew taught me this light dice rolling, push your luck game (Pickomino). It's all skill I tell you

Ian    12
Andrew  9
Anna    3

Valdora was by far the pettiest game of the day. A straight forward pick-up and deliver game. I didn't recognise it as a Michael Schacht game! Optimization is the order of the day. Andrew's prior experience paid off, having unboxed it and learnt it earlier in the day he was ready to teach it in the evening. He was doing 2 or 3 things a turn while we were doing one.

Andrew R 122
Anna     105
Ian       94
Andrew H  88

It probably wasn't a good idea to try and teach Andrew Rea a game during the last 45 minutes of a Wellycon event. It probably didn't help that Anna is not a fan of Chicago Express! But Tony nobly took over from Andrew when he got distracted by administrative tasks.

Though none of the above is an excuse for my score!

Red dead ended once its shares were held 3 ways. Green had the most enthusiastic builders and Black only other railroad to reach Chicago.

Andrew Hubbard  $62
Andrew and Tony $52
Ian             $41
Anna            $24

Games Played in 2009

This entry is based on something I wrote for BGG.

Normally I'd check out the Friendless Extended Boardgamegeek Stats Server for info about my plays for 2009, but it is not reachable at the moment .

So directly from my Boardgamegeek records I played 318 face-to-face games, made up of about 137 distinct games and expansions. Slightly down on 2008's 323 plays of about 140 distinct games and expansions.

• Expedition tops my play list with 33 plays - its been my "go to" gateway game for 2009 (and the second half of 2008).
• Chicago Express is second on 16 plays - this is my game of 2009. A share-buying, network-building railway game that plays in 60 minutes or less and which is more about getting others to help you more than you help them.
  
• 10 Days in Europe hit 10 plays, together with it's African cousin (6 plays) they are the most played filler games of 2009.
  

The nickels (fives) list is headed by Brass and On the Underground with 8 plays each.

• Brass was 2008's game, and I achieved the same number of plays this year (though twice this year I suffered the pain of coming second on the tie-break).
• On the Underground was Anne's Christmas present though many of 2009's plays were with Peter's copy prior Christmas. This train game is about gaining points through the often conflicting goals of connecting particular stations (or making loops) and meeting the needs of the travelling public.
  

I like card games almost as much as board games, I was introduced to climbing card games this year through Frank's Zoo and Tichu and if the player numbers are right Tichu may be a hit game of 2010. Other games I played for the first time this year, which will hopefully be back on the table regularly, are:

• Dschunke - A Michael Schacht game from 2002, it has blind bidding which is not my favourite auction form but I find this game intriguing
  
• Nefertiti - Another auction game set in, wait for it..., ancient Egypt
  
• 1960: The Making of the President and Twilight Struggle. These last two lent to me by different Andrews are the culmination of a quest to find a good game for me and Anne in the 1-3 hour category. Though we still haven't decided which one to buy.
  

I played 3 different prototypes this year: Andrew Rea introduced me to Dawn of Nations - a print-and-play dice game which is more interactive than Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age. Earlier in the year I played the latest versions of Jarratt's Age of Steam map and his Letter's of Marque.

There were a stack of game that I only played once. Many of which I'd like to play more, such as: Galaxy Trucker, Hansa, Modern Art, Patrician, Princes of the Renaissance, Sticheln and WildLife.

I regret not playing an 18XX game in 2009, not playing Stephenson's Rocket and playing far too little Age of Steam. On the other hand I did manage to reduce my unplayed games list to single digits.

My main gaming achievement for 2009 is establishing a regular gaming group at our place usually meeting on Friday nights.

The new gamers I played with in 2009 include:

• Andrew and Anna refugees from Brisbane and laid back Tichu fans who I met at Wellycon Warmup and are regulars on Friday nights
• Brandon a refugee from Auckland, introduced to me by Travis, and who has an unfortunate aversion to train games
  

For best days of gaming I'd have to choose between Wellycon Warmup, Wellycon Saturday, a couple of games of Die Macher and various birthday game sessions.

Thankfully I can report that I survived 2009 having been nagged into playing only 4 games of Dominion and 1 of Pandemic: On the Brink

Friday 1 January 2010

I thought I'd start 2010 as I'd like to continue it, by playing games.

In addition to the usual suspects, two Johns and Nigel, Nasia arrived from downstairs bringing her Christmas present, Tobago, and big plate of chocolate dipped strawberries. Tobago is a game where players play cards to narrow down the location of treasures on the island of Tobago, they also drive around the island in the 4WDs in order to be at the right spot when a treasure location is narrowed to one hex. We decided to split into 2 threes. With Nasia teaching John and John Tobago at one end of the table while I taught Nigel and retaught Anne China at the other end. China is a relatively simple game but with some important rules to remember. I don't think Nigel and Anne were concentrating as I explained the rules though Nigel blamed my explanation.

China results:

Ian   66
Nigel 53
Anne  48

Tobago results:

John R 44
John B 35
Nasia  27

There was probably enough interest in Tobago for another game with the same or different players but we decided to play a six player game and settled on Expedition for some reason. Nigel who has played often enough seemed to have trouble remembering rules. Somehow when we weren't looking John R was down to his last card, leaving some of us with rather too many cards in hand.

John R 13
John B 12
Nasia  11
Nigel  10
Ian     8
Anne    6

We decided to play again. This time Nasia got 5 points on her first turn, and she kept her lead for the win.

Nasia  16
Ian    15
John B 13
Anne   12
John R 10
Nigel   8

It was 11:30pm and we were looking for a short 6 player game (I probably should have pulled out For Sale, but it slipped my mind) and I suggested Hornochsen (the second Wolfgang Kramer game of the evening). John B played the "get out as quick as possible with a non-negative score" strategy while I played to stay in with more cards than other people to give myself options (which is risky but paid off this time). Anne started well with some good positive points but ended up with some bad piles. Nasia took no cards for a safe zero.

Ian     50
Nigel   16
John B   3
Nasia    0
Anne    -8
John R -16

The chocolate dipped strawberries were a great success and I think Nasia will need to bring Tobago back so more of us can try it.

Shipyard (23 December 2009)

Lance's new game, called Shipyard, has lots of bits and the setup instructions didn't seem clear. It is an extension of the rondel system four different rondels each with a single pawn give access to different resources or bonuses on future actions and there is a strange rondel inspired race track for the actions. The actions are tiles which sit on the race track and move to the front of the race each time they are executed. The player's pawns move backwards and forwards from action to action. Only one pawn is allowed per action, though you can execute actions other pawns are on for $6 (equal to your starting capital). Once you have moved your pawn to an action you collect a dollar for each other person's pawn who is ahead of you on the track and then execute your action.

You are building ships from hull bits (bows, sterns and middle bits), adding engines, sails, crew etc. A finished ship scores points and then goes for a shakedown cruise which can gain you more points. There are bonus points cards which give you more points at the end of the game.

It is a game about managing your resources efficiently. As we were learning we didn't concentrate on frustrating each other too much. We did find that with four players there were rhythms set up which meant that two players tended to get locked out of gaining income each turn if the other two players continually chose actions at the back to maximised their incomes.

Choosing the right bonus cards and working towards them can double your basic points as Jarratt demonstrated.

Jarratt 115
Lance    84
John B   79
Ian      64

Friday 18 December 2009

This was the last Friday night games at Hobson St for 2009.

John B and Carl said they would be an hour late so Anne decided we would play Expedition. The game was played almost entirely in red and blue. Yellow didn't get any further than Rome, before being turned around and going to Svalbard. I finished the game but Nigel won with a great score.

Nigel 22
Ian   18
Anne  18

John and Carl arrived as we were play the penultimate round of Expedition. I was keen to play Age of Steam after looking at my game played statistics and not seeing many plays. I made a plug for Italy as it was the only board out of the basic 9 that I had yet to play. There weren't any other strong opinions (apart from negative ones about other boards) so I got my way. Italy is an expansion without towns (and hence no Urbanisation), where you can only build one complete link per turn and where black cubes are used to reduce people's incomes. John, Carl and Anne had all played before and they offered various advice, such as:

• Sometimes it is worth taking shares just to build track (shares only cost 2 VP and are not limited to 15)
  
• The southern half of the board starts close to the top
• Beware the red-blue sink-hole of Rome
• People might take Urbanisation (which replaces 2 black cubes with random ones) just to prevent someone else taking it
  

In the first turn Anne built between Torino and Milano, Carl built from Roma to Firenze, Nigel between Genova and Milano, I built from Bari to Napoli and John who lurked at the bottom of turn order for free for the first few turns built Milano to Trento. John and Anne cooperated to link-up and deliver across each other's network. Anne, John and Nigel followed each other around the cities of northern Italy, while Carl and I built north to Bologna and Roma respectively. He then built east to Ancona (a link I had my eye on) so I went south to Brindisi.

Anne's track linked all the northern cities from Genova to Venezia, John built to Genova at one end and down to Verona and Bologna. While Nigel and Carl passed each other in opposite directions, Nigel going south via Verona and Livernoto to Firenze, while Carl built to Verona and Venezia. I built long links down to "verso la Sicilia" and up to Bologna. These links meant that I had a long lead up the share track, a lead I never looked likely to loosing (in fact I threatened to lap the more frugal players) .

There was tough competition for track around Bolognia and Verona. In there end we were running out of viable builds due either to the lack of entry points to cities and the lack of available complex track to build in the crowded north. The lack of a direct, or even a simple indirect, route between Genova and Bolognia frustrated most of us when we were looking around for cubes to move. Nigel and Carl grabbed entry points to cities I wanted to build to by being ahead of me in the turn order at the time. Anne annoyed Carl by moving a black cube four spaces across his track, but none of anyone else's. Otherwise people tended to share around the effects of black cubes.

Given that we are used to subtracting the shares issued from the income track to get an idea how well players are doing we found it more difficult to judge how well people were doing in Italy with its different formula for victory points. So I was surprised to do as well as third and see Carl come last.

I did feel some satisfaction as a railway builder to have built a track from the French border to the tip of the Italian boot and used one of the special complex Italian track tiles.

Nigel  black  93+22-18 = 97
Anne   purple 90+13-14 = 89
Ian    yellow 93+26-36 = 83
John B green  84+10-14 = 80
Carl   red    81+15-18 = 78

I can see that the rule that each person can only build one link tends to mean that everyone stays in lock-step on the Locomotive track and builds long routes rather than looping track (at least with 5 players). But I can also see that best play of the black cubes needs all players to have a good idea of how well the players are doing with respect to each other. Poor judgement could lead to someone being unfairly targeted. I am certainly keen to give this expansion another go.

Craig's BBQ Games, 12 December 2009

It had been Craig's birthday on Friday and he had arranged a BBQ for the Saturday, which was, typically for Wellington, overcast and windy. Mostly we ate and talked but a few games also got played. Initially once the food was out of the way Carl wanted to introduce his older brother to Endeavor. I started off with a Workshop and the #-zero Slave card to get me access to the level 3 buildings, but my strategy wasn't very clear beyond that point and my game didn't take off as expected. Carl chose a shipping heavy strategy with lots of culture and he got Governor card after Governor card. Rene had a more balanced strategy with plenty of culture, finance and politics.

Rene 60
Carl 60
Ian  55

After most people had left I taught Edel Stein & Reich to Leonie and Travis. This game turned out to be much more dynamic with respect to gem redistribution than Friday night's game, partly due to the event which made us discard half our gems. Craig's strategy of playing and loosing games on his birthday (as tradition dictates) paid off and he beat me by a $1,000,000.

Craig  66
Ian    65
Leonie 60
Travis 52
Anne   46

Leonie deserted us to play World of Warcraft and Jarratt arrived. There was a period of indecision about what to play which was resolved in favour of Timbuktu. Jarratt screwed up his information recording system on the first turn and lost 7 things in the first round, but then didn't loose anything else for the rest of the game. Craig lost the least on the first round but later caught us up. Water was least favourite commodity for the thieves to steal.

Jarratt 120
Travis   98
Ian      92
Anne     90
Craig    87

It's been a good week of gaming with three gaming sessions in the week.

Friday 11 December 2009

It's been two years since I last played Quo Vadis?, which is far too long for a game I enjoy though rarely do well at. It is quite a short game and we played it twice, and John won twice.

John B 24
Anne   19
Ian    18
Craig  16
Nigel  16 (not in Senate)

John B 26
Craig  21
Nigel  15
Anne   14
Ian    21 (not in Senate)

I then taught Edel, Stein & Reich (John had played before but had forgotten). This is an odd game where players must simultaneously choose their actions. If you are the only person to choose that type of action, you get to do it. If three or more people choose the same type of action then none of them get to do it. If two people choose the same type of action then they barter jewels with each other to choose which of them will do the action. At the three scoring points in the game there is a payout for majorities in each colour of jewels and then people who scored loose some of their jewels. The collecting of jewels became less important by the third round as the supply drained and majorities became entrenched.

Anne   64
John R 63
Craig  57
Nigel  45
Ian    26

Up to this point there seems to have been theme of psychological games, involving direct negotiation and/or bluffing, which makes a change from the more standard Eurogames we play. Craig went home (having won no games on his birthday) and we switched back to more orthodox gaming by finishing the evening with my new game of Nefertiti. I didn't get any Seals and missed a great play that would have landed me 4 out of 5 gold head-dresses. John did much better than any of us, with the only intermediate scoring and generally more stuff.

John B 139
Anne    77
Nigel   75
Ian     72

Wednesday 9 December 2009

Peter couldn't host his usual Wednesday night games and Anne was out at a peer review meeting. So on Wednesday night five of us sat down around my dining table to choose a game. We had almost decided when John R turned up to make the dreaded six and we split into two threes to play Samurai and Endeavor.

John and I gave Nigel a brief refresher on the rules of Samurai and we got started. Last time I played Samurai I chose to start with the 3 Rice Paddy, 3 High Hat, 3 Buddha, a Ship and either a Samurai or Horseman tile. This gave me flexibility but it also meant I couldn't easily specialise, which is problematic in a game where winning depends on getting majorities. This time I started with the intention of winning a bunch of Rice Paddies so I chose two Rice Paddy tiles (including my 4) and no High Hat or Buddha tiles. Unfortunately it looked like John had a similar idea and he started winning more Rice Paddies than me, Nigel wasn't winning much early on but he had his claws into Buddhas so I switched to High Hats. This paid off and I ended up not only with the most stuff but also the only majority. Nigel and I played regionally, he concentrated at the northern end of Honshu while I was lord of Kyushu (Shikoku was pretty much ignored).

At the other end of the table Endeavor was being played. Samurai is an intense game so I wasn't concentrating on what was going on at that end of the table, but I could see Andrew P had started with two workshops to rush up the top level buildings, he also picked up quite a lot of cards. I noticed that Andrew H was doing quite a bit of shipping. The final scores were reasonably close.

Andrew H 70
Andrew P 67
Anna     63

After our three player games the consensus was to play a six player game. We seem to have hit six players at our place disturbingly often lately. I know some people say you shouldn't play six player games but there are times when people want to play together for social reasons. We've tried: Expedition, Elfenland, Pizarro & Co, TransAmerica, Hornochsen, Stichlen, Mamma Mia!, Mogul, Chicago Express, Alhambra, Acquire, Bohnanza and Frank's Zoo (and that doesn't include Lance's Birthday). I think Expedition was the most successful of the easy to learn games, while Pizarro & Co., Mogul and Chicago Express would work better with more experienced players. I think Acquire was the least successful 6 player game.

Andrew and Anna vetoed Elfenland as they thought it was too long for not much game. By some process or other we ended up choosing Medici (yet another auction game). Most of us needed to be taught or re-taught Medici (and I didn't do a very good job). In the first round people were keen on auctioning off 2 or 3 cards at a time, but in later rounds the tactics around auctioning single cards became apparent. After the first round I was in the low 50s and well ahead of everyone else. After the second round I was in the mid 50s and most people were clustered just behind me. In the third round Nigel nearly bankrupted himself but he and John who had been lurking at the back of the pack, launched themselves into the lead, while I finished in the mid 50s again! I think people enjoyed themselves despite being confused at the start.

John R   75
Nigel    71
Andrew P 59
Ian      56
Anna     55
Andrew H 50

The Rio Grande edition of Medici is a masterpiece in bad graphics design. Badly organised rules where you can't quickly look things up. Player boards where you can't see the 5 card spaces. Cards where you can't read the numbers at a distance (and 3s and 5s look similar). It is difficult to match the commodity cards to the commodity tracks on the board and the score/money track is also hard to read and use (it only has odd numbers printed on it). I promised myself I would wait for a better edition but I finally caved in when Wargames Supply had it on special. From BGG it looks like some of the other editions are not perfect either. (I also noticed that some editions have bonus values of 5, 10, 20 on the commodity tracks and other's only have 10, 20. While the French version has multiple rounds of bidding and other rule changes).

Here is a variant that reduces the luck in 3 and 4 player Medici.

Anne came home and Anna and both Andrews left and Nigel suggested we finish with R-Eco (probably his favourite filler game). As usual I did badly, while Anne thrashed us.

Anne  16
Nigel  5
John R 3
Ian   -2

Saturday 5 December 2009

The Phoenix were playing at the Westpac stadium on Friday night, so I moved games to Saturday night. Anne went to Sydney for a wedding.

There were six of us and no-one had any strong ideas about what to play so we ended up playing a game we were all familiar with - Expedition. Craig and John got off to a good start while Andrew and Travis lagged behind. The blue expedition went in and out of North Africa before wandering all over Asia and then crossed the Atlantic to Central and South America where Travis was eager to take advantage of it but it looped and resurface heading for Australia before heading out across the South Pacific where it ended. So we had to turn our attention to red which had gone to Canada and across the Bering Straight and yellow which hadn't left Europe. The yellow expedition looped back and then headed for the USA before I fatefully took it to Africa playing into Craig's hands. Craig was happy with his win, which he regarded as redemption for his performance on Lance's birthday.

Craig  15
John B 14
Andrew 11
Anna   11
Ian     9
Travis  2

Staying with the route building theme we moved onto Elfenland, a game which I have almost never played with less than six people. I wonder if there is something about route building games that allows them to scale to lots of players better than other types of game. Expedition, Elfenland, TransAmerica and a few other train games scale up to 6 players better than many other games do. It is even practical to play Expedition and TransAmerica with 7 players. These three games have a cooperative element to their route building, though that doesn't make them 'nice and friendly' games! Unlike 'real' cooperative games, these are games where you want others to help you more than you help them.

This turned out to be a very even game where we played the traditional way by keeping our blocks until the last round. We tried hard and successfully to block Craig who only had three markers to pick up in the last round. Nobody got to all the cities but most people ended up on their home city.

Craig  19
Andrew 19
Ian    19
John B 18
Travis 18
Anna   17

At this point Andrew, Anna and Travis went home and I encouraged John and Craig to try my new purchase, Nefertiti. Andrew claims I have a "thing" for auction games. I think it is that game designers have a "thing" for auctions. I guess about 20% of the games I own involve auctions. But Andrew is right in the sense that auctions are a mechanic I like and there are some short to medium length games I enjoy that are pretty much all auction.

Nefertiti reminds me of the action (auction?) phase of Vegas Showdown except that everyone has 4 bid markers and you don't move your bid marker just because someone bids higher. Each auction (or market) contains 4 cards and a royal seal (which can be used to do a special action in a future turn). The winner of the auction will get either two of the cards or one card and the seal. Unlike most other auction games the other bids are not worthless. In bid order each player can choose to buy one of the remaining cards for the amount they bid or take half the money in market rounded up (this leads to a 'zero-sum' feature similar to Traumfabrik). The cards are gifts for Queen Nefertiti and at the end of the game the players earn points (kudos?) for the presents they have for the queen. For example necklaces are worth 14 points each if only one player has necklaces but 10 points each if they are split between two players and 7 points each if split between 3 or 4 players. Similarly harps are worth 9 or 7 or 5 points each depending on how many players have them. The conclusion / resolution of an auction is triggered by different conditions in different markets. In Luxor the resolution is triggered by a player throwing a particular dice roll, whereas the market in Abu Simbel is resolved when the sum of the bids reaches a particular number. The special action cards are all face up and each turn a player can spend a royal seal to take a card do the action and discard it out of the game. This seems better than drawing random power cards as you would in say Amun-Re or Tower of Babel.

John tried to hog all the money and at one point Craig and I only had one coin between us, but he couldn't hang onto all of it and money flowed back into the game. Craig and I took advantage of a couple of special actions to score some of our cards early, so we had around 55-60 points going into the final scoring but John's large pile of cards payed off and he over took Craig. John pointed out that in my final turn I could have traded to give myself even more points.

Ian    160
John B 126
Craig  119

Friday 27 November 2009

Brandon was torn between playing games and sailing. It was a windy evening so we weren't expecting him to turn up to games. In fact we weren't expecting many to turn up and we were pleasantly surprised when there turned out to be eight of us.

Brandon, Anna and Andrew were keen on Tichu and John B joined them as a fourth (I would have if he hadn't). From the other end of the table it sounded like Brandon was teaching the others Auckland Tichu playing habits. Anna and John lead from start to finish with twice as many successful Tichus and Brandon finished with the flourish of an unsuccessful Grand Tichu. From the score sheet it seems like the final score was too embarrassing to record ("995 + lots" to "405 - 200 and who cares").

At the other end of the table John R said he would be interested in learning Vegas Showdown (a game he has previously spurned for thematic reasons). I (accidentally) chose a green strategy by building lounges and night clubs. This meant that my income was low (by half way through the game I was on 7 while the others were into double digits) and I was taking Publicity quite often. John bought lots of red cornered buildings which he rearranged twice (and which scored him 10 points twice). Lance was the restaurant king, while Anne despite her income lagged a long way back on the Fame track. It ended up with a very close race between Lance and John.

Lance  74 + $4
John R 74 + $1
Ian    52
Anne   34

Both games finished at the same time and we swapped around to play a couple of Reiner Knizia games: Taj Mahal and Samurai. I think only John B had a good grip on the strategy of Samurai and Andrew took quite awhile to win any conflicts. I felt I was bumbling along and I let Lance win a pair when I could have easily taken one for myself (though in the final scoring it would have made no difference). In the end only John had a majority. In Taj Mahal Brandon took an early lead but the others closed the gap and John charged passed at the end scoring 11 with his final cards (compared with 3 each by the others).

John R  47
Brandon 38
Anna    35
Anne    31

Brandon, Andrew and Anna went home leaving the rest of us to play test "Dawn of Nations" a prototype print-and-play dice game I offered to play test on behalf of the designer. John R made a break for an early finish by finishing Exploring and Trading quickly and moving onto try and build a Wonder of the World. He proved useless at throwing ones. While the rest of us went on to go to War with each other and eventually most people were trying to build Wonders too (with much better scores in other stuff). I was left out of the Wonder race because I had no-one to Trade with. So I tried for Decline and Fall instead. I could see John B was getting ahead of me while I was still trying to throw a 4. Anne ended the game by finishing her Wonder. We spent a time afterwards discussing the game's weaknesses to provide feedback.

John B 131
Lance  120
Ian    117
Anne   113
John R  89

It was a good evening if your name is John.

Friday 20 November 2009

Lance turned up to Friday games for the first time, which was lucky as otherwise we'd be down to three. After John and I had piled the table high with games, we kicked off with Beowulf. This time John B threw himself into the game with complete disregard for his body taking 5 wounds during the course of the game (and healing one). The rest of us were more cautious and Anne even finished wound free. By the half way point John had massive hand of cards and, unlike Jarratt and I, he managed to significantly offset his wounds with enough fame for an moderate score. There were a couple of encounters which lasted many rounds including one in which Anne and I seemed to use up half the deck in taking risks before I came unstuck. Lance brutally put us all down in the anti-penultimate major encounter with the 4 axe card, the 3 axe card and the 3 helmet card.

Lance  25
Anne   24
Ian    21
John B 17

After the blood and gore of Viking life we move the peaceful world of the Mongolian Oasis. Lance started off with a little meadow which grew and grew. I started with some camels and later branched into a little meadow and some grey stuff. Anne had a bit of meadow, some steppe and a few camels. While John collected multipliers. About the halfway point he had more multipliers than the rest of us put together though they were multiplying roughly nothing. Lance and John joined Anne in hemming in my camel herd, but I started to collect ovoos (stone multipliers) and by the time I collected 6 I was less concerned about the lack of room for my camels. John started his meadow, steppes and stone regions and given his stack of multipliers he was eager for most things. Ultimately Lance's lack of multipliers let him down. In the first half of the game Lance was often alternately first and fourth, while John's stack of multipliers shows that there were plenty available. So why did John end up with so many multipliers? Luck or choice? On the other hand I ran my self out of cards at one point, which I usually consider the kiss of death but this time I came back without too much trouble.

John B 128
Ian    117
Anne    81
Lance   66

Our final game of the evening was Attika. John got off to an early lead in a slightly off central position and at one point both he and Lance were threatening shrine-to-shrine victories at the same time, but Anne and I threw ourselves in the way and the game continued. John finally built all his buildings, and we continued playing for the minor places. Anne finishing second then Lance third.

John B win
Anne   2nd
Lance  3rd
Ian    last

Anne had to catch a 7am flight so we didn't play until 3am as someone suggested we should.

At Peter's (Wednesday 18 November)

While we waited to see if Nigel would turn up we played the "On the Brink" expansion to Pandemic. This was the first game of Pandemic for John B. We started with a lot of red infections and some of us hurried off to Asia to deal with that. Things started to mutate soon after that and then red went virulent. We got cures for 3 diseases but couldn't get on top of things before the deck ran out, hence we lost. The final infection phase looked like the beginning of the end with out breaks spreading in a chain reaction from city to city across the world.

Our second game of the evening was Beowulf. Peter had amazing luck, taking risk after risk and he spent almost the whole game scratch and wound free. For some reason I found money hard to come by in this game. I found myself inadvertently playing a "Jarratt strategy" as gradually my scratches and wounds started to add up and a general lack of cards at some critical points meant that I was forced to take a couple of "-2"s plus wounds, including the infamous double wound. I managed to get rid of one wound at the cost of 2 points but was left with 4 at the end.

Peter  32
John B 28
John R 23
Lance  21
Ian     1

We finished with a couple of rounds of Coloretto. I played a greedy strategy while John R tried very hard to avoid collecting more than three suits. Despite the consensus of the table that I was doing it all wrong, I won.

Ian John R Lance Peter
30   33     31    27
35   26     28    33
======================
65   59     59    60

Friday 13 November - House of Pain

Anne was out for the evening and we were six, so I rashly suggested Pizarro & Co. a game where the players take the role of kings and queens who bid to hire the services of the best and most daring explorers. As the game progresses, competition for the explorers' services increases as each explorer has fewer and fewer expeditions available for investment. In the end, only one ship for each explorer will make the final trip. Perhaps Carl and I should have warned the newbies more diligently about the harshness of this auction game, where early decisions can have dramatic effects later on and certain combinations of explorers are powerful and others are weak. For instance once Carl had bought the first two Captain Cook ships it was worth it to him to spend all the rest of his money on getting the third Cook ship, because once a player has all three ships of an explorer then they have no competition in the next 3 auctions and three Cook ships were worth 35 points plus what ever points they have left on cards. It probably wasn't worthwhile for anyone else to bankrupt themselves to buy the 3rd Cook ship and stop him.

Everyone starts the game with 9 cards worth 45 gold which are also worth 18 points (if you managed to keep all your cards until the end of the game). In phase I 18 ships are up for auction (3 for each explorer). In phase II there are 12 ships up for auction (2 per explorer) and only those people who bought ships in phase I can participate. In phase III there is only one ship per explorer. At the end of the game you score depending on which ships you end up with (some are worth no points) and cards left in your hand.

Carl    46
Ian     36
Anna    35
John B  34
Nigel   29
Andrew  22

After the game there was some talk of playing again now that everyone understood the game better, but Nigel was visibly relieved when we decided to move onto a new game and said he understood why Anne hates Pizarro and Co. so much (I expect Andrew was equally unkeen on another play).

As an aside I think Pizarro & Co. is badly themed. I think a better theme would be film making (like Hollywood Blockbuster / Traumfabrik) with the players taking the role of film makers hiring film stars. The 3 phases of the game corresponding to the phases of the filmstars' careers. Early in their careers they act in a lot of films (well 3) and a later they get more choosy and act in fewer films per year.

In keeping with the masochistic theme of the evening I convinced the others to play Sticheln (aka Pain) a simple trick taking card game where each player chooses which suit they want to avoid taking cards in. Unlike other trick taking games you don't have to follow suit but any cards that are not in the suit led are effectively trumps.

We played three rounds, and could consider it a learning game, tending to play to maximise our own scores rather than dump too much on other people. While Andrew and Nigel showed a preference for negative numbers, I think most of us improved over the course of the game.

Carl Andrew Anna Ian John Nigel
  2    -26    5   7   14   -21
  8    -20   21   9   10   -43
 26    -16   31  18   10   -42

Anne got home at this point and Carl left. After touching the frying pan of pain we jumped into the fire of Mamma Mia! Armed with a handful of pizza orders and ingredients everyone is slamming stuff into the oven and hoping it will turn out all right when the oven is opened. Many of our customers went hungry as the pizza chefs stuffed up order after order. Consequently the final scores were fairly low.

Ian     4
Anna    4
Andrew  4
John B  3
Nigel   2
Anne    2

Licking our wounds we called it a night.

Tichu (11 November 2009)

This was the first game of Tichu for either John and game #3 for Carl and I. John R and I played against John B and Carl. John B and Carl started strong, while John R and I experimented with going backwards. Around hand 8 John and I got the hand of things. It felt like an epic game and included a bunch of interesting scenarios such as making enough points to offset a Tichu penalty, and 4 bombs played consecutively - but no-one brave enough to bid Grand Tichu.

(Scores below are given John R and I first, followed by John B and Carl)

Hand 1: -70, 70 (John R declared Tichu unsuccessfully)
Hand 2: -110, 10 (both John R and Carl unsuccessfully declared Tichu -- I can't remember how that happened!)
Hand 3: -65, 165 (Carl successfully declared Tichu)
Hand 4: -120, 210 (I unsuccessfully declared Tichu)
Hand 5: 80, 210 (John R and I do a 1-2)
Hand 6: 80, 510 (not be outdone John B declares a Tichu and he and Carl pull off a 1-2)
Hand 7: 80, 810 (Carl declares Tichu and he and John pull off 1-2 again)
Hand 8: 380, 710 (John R declares Tichu and we make a come back with a 1-2)
Hand 9: 370, 820 (John B and I declared Tichu, he succeeds while I don't, on the other hand John and I make 90 points to offset the failure)
Hand 10: 475, 815 (no Tichus, but John and I make 105)
Hand 11: 585, 805 (no Tichu, even more points)
Hand 12: 785, 705 (Carl's unsuccessful Tichu and 1-2 to John and I)
Hand 13: 985, 705 (1-2 again)
Hand 14: 1085, 705 (John R and Carl both declared Tichu, John R succeeded but we made no points! Whereas Carl and John got 100 points to offset the 100 point penalty!)

Tichu declarations:

Ian: 2 failures
John R: 2 successes out of 4 declarations
Carl: 2 successes out of 6 declarations
John B: 2 successes out of 2 declarations

1-2s:

John and I made 4,
John and Carl made 2

Friday 6 November 2009

We kicked off proceedings with Anna and Andrew teaching John B Dschunke (Junk in English) at one end of the table while Anne taught Pompeii at the other.

Dschunke is a game with 4 commodities: rice, fish, spice and veg (egg plants). Each turn the commodities can be sold for a profit worth between 1-4 Yuan or occasionally a special card - this reward only goes to the player who offered the most of that commodity (other player's offerings are discarded unrewarded). The special cards give you various advantages while there are other actions to give you instant money or more presence on the junks (which give you more of the the various stuff and money at the end of the game).
John quickly cornered the market in goods cards and he also dominated the special cards (he and Anna both had 4 income cards, but he had other cards as well). Andrew and I were left out of the cards (often having no cards) so we concentrated on taking the money action. Andrew was better at this and by the half way point had a substantial lead, with John trailing a long way back. But in the second half John and Anna's income started to show and they both made a come back.

Anna   52 Yuan + 1 goods card (winner)
Andrew 52 Yuan
Ian    46 Yuan
John B 44 Yuan

At the other end Melissa drew Omen after Omen and tossed other player's people into the volcano, but was no match for Anne's experience when it came to running away from the lava. And since the omen cards meant she got to place fewer of her people, there weren't as many of them running anyway.

Anne    saved 8 people
Moira   saved 7 people
Nigel   saved 7 people
Melissa saved 6 people

Anna was keen on Louis XIV, Anne was also keen so she and I swapped seats. This was another high scoring game of Louis XIV that I wasn't involved in. Anna and Andrew stuck close to Louis at all times, Anne blames her score on bad cards rather than lack of skill (it's called denial) and John just did it all better than everyone else.

John B 52
Andrew 46
Anna   42
Anne   42

At our end Moira was keen on a short game so we played R-Eco, where Melissa showed that she was the recycling queen.

Melissa 14
Nigel    8
Moira    1 (3 point bonus for not dumping offsetting the -2 points in tokens)
Ian     -1

Luke arrived to pick up Moira as we were playing R-Eco and after they left we taught Melissa the deceptively simple game of Coloretto

Ian     41 + 42 + 49 = 132
Melissa 36 + 27 + 48 = 111
Nigel   35 + 52 + 16 = 103

Nigel, Anna and Andrew went home leaving John, Melissa, Anne and I to play Expedition (twice). The second game being higher scoring.

John B  13
Ian      9
Anne     4
Melissa  3

John B  16
Ian     14
Anne    12
Melissa  9