Goodbye 2010...........

.
Players: Scott, Gareth, Barrie, Tonio, John B

Just 5 IBG'ers managed to sneak out between the Christmas and New Year's festivities, with Scott's presence making him, by my reckoning, the only 100% IBG attendee of 2010. Such dedication deserves an award of some kind!

Actually, in my absence, the award was to write up what happened during the gaming this evening, so big thanks to Scott for his stoical contributions once again...

Pinguin Party
A quick three player game between Scott, John and Gareth to start off the night, with Gareth’s shiny new copy. In brief, Gareth was devilishly evil and conspired to kill the other penguins to save his own, but it was close after three rounds where he just managed to empty his hand at the end.
Gareth 5; John 6; Scott 7

Saint Petersburg
With the addition of Tonio we had a go at Saint Petersburg for something most people knew. Tonio was the only newbie and was fortunate enough to be given advice, partly to help Tonio get up to speed and partly to stop Gareth running away with getting all the nobles like he usually does. In fact Gareth had trouble getting lots of nobles and switched to VP buildings before the end.
Everyone was trying to maximise everything but Tonio had ignored green money cards in favour of Orange Noble ones to also get him lots of money, this paid off in the end with the most different types of nobles as well.
Tonio 60; Scott 52; John 49; Gareth 40

7 Wonders
John kept the scores for this but there was another game in which Scott failed miserably again (hopefully this isn’t the start of a new trend) and John reigned supreme. Gareth did pretty well at his first game of it while Tonio and Barrie both seemed to provide much trouble to Scott who sat between them.


Pirates

To round off the night we had a quick game of Pirates, the rules to which being fairly simple of grabbing the pirates sitting in front of other people and trying to pay them as little as possible when you board a ship. Tonio and Scott spent much of the game recruiting each other’s pirates with Gareth and John doing similarly. Barrie would just ransack anyone he could.
Ultimately Tonio and Scott were not taking the best ships leaving Gareth and John’s little partnership to flourish, with a drawn out end game as no-one wanted to let someone else take the final ship when they wanted the prize for themselves. Gareth got the chance in the end though and was just enough to push him over the edge and win.
Gareth 78; John 70; Barrie 62; Scott 66; Tonio 59

As usual, Tonio was beaten at his own game, and deservedly so for locking up all my pirates....argh!!!



And that's the last gaming session of 2010. It's been great to see all the different faces that have turned up to the Isleworth Boardgamers in the last year, and we look forward to seeing many more in 2011.
 
I'd like to send out a big thank-you to all the IBG'ers who give up some of their time each week to write up reports for the games that we play. Looking back over the last year, it makes for a fascinating catalogue of game experiences, with certain IBG'ers developing their very own 'game personalities' and even catchphrases...
 
And I'd also like to thank those of you who are regularly looking in to this blog from further afield (in some cases, much further afield!) Our flag counter tells us that our blog has been visited over 6000 times by onlookers from more than 55 countries worldwide - so if you're one of them, thanks for looking in and feel free to leave us a comment any time!
 
So to all gamers everywhere - happy boardgaming, and a very prosperous and peaceful 2011 to you all......
 
Jon
.