"Loitering within tent"

A Select company of games tonight.

Terra Mystica

This was my second game of Terra Mystica, both with the same five players- me, Scott, Michel, Gareth 1 and Gareth 2. In this second game Gareth 1 suggested we call him by his middle name to avoid confusion- so he will be known as Spencer for this report. Scott has played about 5 or 6  games as various different races and so is the most experienced

The previous game had seen Fakirs, Alchemists, Dwarves, Giants and Witches, which had been chosen more at less at random. This time we followed the rulebook and choose in turn order (the order listed above).

I chose the Nomads because I wanted to try the other side of the Fakirs board and their power seemed fairly straightforward. I hadn’t noticed, but there were some good red cult/brown cult round bonuses available which favoured the Nomads starting position.

Scott picked the Auren and Michel the Mermaids, my two opposite terrain types. Spencer picked the Halflings which was less convenient and Gareth chose the Dwarves.

I placed my first settlement on the middle continent, next to green, brown, red and black spaces. Scott promptly occupied the Green space next to me. Michel chose a  blue space on the eastern edge of the continent. Spencer and Gareth landed on the Eastern continent, which is most convenient for tunnelling Dwarves, with Gareth also taking a spot on the Southern and Spencer on the Northern  continent. Michel’s second placement was next to Spencer in the North, Scott’s on the Eastern continent a little way from the others. My 2nd placement was on the Eastern Continent next to Spencer and Gareth and on the Northern Continent next to Spencer and Michel.

For the first turn the round bonus was 5 VPs for a town and something for every 4 spaces on the Grey track- everyone ignored this. The second turn bonus was for Level 3 buildings and one worker for every 2 spaces on the red track.

I used the first turn to upgrade my central settlement to a Stronghold and turn the black space adjacent to it to Desert with the Stronghold power, building a settlement there. Because I was adjacent to every other player, I accrued power rapidly, especially as the others (apart from Michel, who did not build a stronghold yet) proceeded to build their Strongholds adjacent to me (although taking care to wait until round 2 for the bonus points).

I also sent a priest to the red track, can’t remember whether I took the priest starting tile or the priest special action- did burn 3 power that turn so probably the latter. Scott passed first, making me last for turn 2.

This enabled Michel, who had taken the shipping starting tile, to pre-empt me by settling the blue tile on the central continent, between my previous terraform and a nice piece of desert. I therefore turned round and terraformed in Scott’s direction, building up to a Temple. I chose the two red spots temple power, which allows towns with only 6 worth of buildings. Later on in the turn I sent another priest to the red track, putting me on tier 8 and getting me 4 workers at turn end.

In round 3 I completed the first town, with a Stronghold, two settlements and a temple- I didn’t need that temple power after all...I chose the extra power key and used the power to take a spade action, settling the space east of my settlement on the Northern continent. This had the effect of cutting Spencer off by limiting him to three spaces- he was blocked on the other side by Michel. Since he had already been confined to three spaces in his other settlement area- hemmed in by Gareth (who had tunnelled underneath him), me and Scott, he was not best pleased! I then upgraded the two northern settlements to trading posts.

In round 4 the round bonus was one money for every space on the brown cult track, which I had already begun to advance up.

I terraformed two more spaces in a line east from my northern trading posts, bringing me a second town, for which I picked the priest key. Everyone else was finishing towns about now- Spencer by building a Sanctuary on the eastern continent and Michel by use of his special mermaid power. I think Gareth and Scott also eventually managed two towns. I also built a Sanctuary around this point. I managed to get up to the 9^th space on the Brown cult track, for 9 money...

Going into round 5, which gave points for settlements and 4 power for every 4 spaces on the red track, I picked up the special power which gave points for settlements. However, Spencer had been working on his shipping and was able to block me in the North by terraforming a nearby desert. He also built a bridge to another desert but failed to Terraform it and, after upgrading my shipping, I was able to take that space. Meanwhile Michel had been trying for a second town and terraformed two spaces to swamp with the two spades power action. The space he left unbuilt on would be a convenient connecting location for my settlements, meaning I would just need shipping level 2 to connect them all, so I used my stronghold action to take it.

I had taken the starting bonus which gives 4 VPs for each level 3 builidng and I hung on to it until everyone else had passed, before taking the starting bonus which gives 2 VPs per trading post.

In the final round I was able to build the 3^rd and 4^th Trading posts and upgrade my shipping to level 3. I had definitely won most connections (Gareth taking 2^nd prize) but the cult tracks were more fiercely contested, with Scott motoring up three of them and overtaking me on the red track to claim 10th tier. I secured 10^th tier on the brown track, leaving Scott and Gareth to fight it out over the blue track and Gareth to take the Grey track more or less uncontested. Spencer had been able to use his Shipping to break out of his straitjacket and terraform some more spaces. For my final move I burnt enough power to buy the terraforming upgrade for 6 more VPs, which was about the distance between me and Gareth on the final scoring. Scott was close behind, with Michel and Spencer following more distantly.

We now move to a rather less complex game.

Diamant

A nice 8 player game of push your luck to (almost) round off the evening. I stayed in longer than anyone else on the first mine, emerging with a decent haul before the final disaster could be drawn. Then I legged it out the second mine as fast as I could, which turned out swell when the mine proceeded to collapse in on the others. My choices in the next three mines were fairly conservative, maintaining my clear lead. I think Tom made most of his points on the 5^th mine, but I could be wrong.

Phil 29 Tom 16 Jon 14 Dan 12 Gareth I 8 Gareth II 8 Scott 5 Woody 5

One push-your-luck game leads to another...

Nanuk (thanks Jon)

There was still time for one more game, so a welcome return to deer and fish hunting in polar regions….

Woody managed to pick the wrong side on just about every occasion, and his game-end spoils reflected this. No-one trusted Gareth I of course, but Scott, Dan, Jon and Philip ended up on the most successful hunts. Scott’s judicious selection of the Nanuk cards was enough to tip the balance in his favour for a good win.

I still think that a more streamlined scoring system is needed, as the current method seems to take far too long. Any ideas anyone???

Scott 12; Dan 10; Jon 9; Phil 8; Tom 6; Gareth II 6; Gareth I 4; Woody 1

A quick trip  back to the beginning of the evening...

Verrater (thanks Jon)

It has definitely been too long since this was played at IBG – maybe because it needs exactly 4 players to work well. The game was new to Tom, but he picks things up quickly so we were soon underway. Woody and Tom gained the first major spoils, mainly because no-one turned traitor during the first round. However, Jon quickly changed all that, by defecting soon after. Tom found himself in the minority and found it hard to score many points, but when Woody jumped ship, the sides again evened up.

Jon was scoring consistently by picking the Strategist. This didn’t leave him with many cards or much influence, but a regular 2 points can often be very helpful. All the other players had used the builder a couple of times during the game, and when the final scoring came, they maxed out on 6 points each. This made the final scoring pretty close, with Jon’s unspectacular progress being enough to just win the day.

Always a fun game – let’s hope that it comes out again soon…

Jon 24; Tom 22; Dan 20; Woody 19

More from Jon...

Palastgefluster (thanks Jon)

This was turning into the evening of small box games, as Tom brought out this card game. The idea is that each player has 7 different character cards, which are all shuffled together and then dealt out. Each character has a different ability which is used when the card is played into a player’s own tableau. The goal of the game is to put down 6 characters without being forced to play a duplicate. This, as we found out, is harder than it sounds!

Jon and Tom managed to screw up a couple of times, and were forced to play illegal characters (initiating what Tom thematically described as “dark whisperings…”) It was soon becoming obvious that playing 4 or 5 cards was a risky strategy, and it was often better to try to trap someone else. This was Dan’s plan in the final round – Tom was looking like a dead duck, so Jon stepped in to try to save him and elongate the round, but only succeeded in giving himself a couple of rubbish cards that resulted in him losing the round instead. This was enough to allow Dan to reach the magic 5 points first, although “start player ‘cos I’m the oldest” Woody was very close behind.

This was actually a fun little game (once you had deciphered the unhelpfully coloured and illustrated cards), and definitely one to try again soon.

Dan 5; Woody 4; Tom 3; Jon 2

 

"Loitering within tent" is a quotation from "Jingo" by Terry Pratchett. It is also of course, what nomads do.

December, when frosts chill us to the bone, ghost stories become rampant and the excesses of food and drink are to the fore. Out on the damp street a lone Frenchman is making his way to the Apprentice, a car pulls over, ‘excuse-moi monsieur!’, and he’s in the warmth of the vehicle, but not for long. He climbs out by the Thames and looks up into the first floor windows. It is then he is struck dumb. His eyes widen in fear and uncontrollable shivering envelopes him. He has seen ‘the strangers’, they are led by a mysterious German, Stefan Seagal who is ruled by the Mayan Calendar. From the ground floor up the realm is doomed, like the fantastical dominion of Discworld, full of characters like the hideous hunchback from his home country capital. He will stay here for several hours, and eventually, maybe, they will let him go…

The Frenchman; Michel

 

The lumberjack; Woody

The outbacker; Paul A

The tartan army; Scott

The easy rider; Keith

The hunchback, with some slippage round the front; Neil

The wicker man; James

The tutor; Jeff

The historical monolith; Philip

The mad doctor; Noel

The mad doctor’s madder associate; Leon

The one they call the architect; Gareth

The latecomer; Mary

The hound of the latecomer; Chris

Sieben Siegel (thanks Philip!)

We started with a quick round of this trick taking card game. My hand contained 1 trump (Red), a long blue suit with some high blue cards, and short suits elsewhere. Following my usual inclination and given my blue winners could easily be trumped, I picked the Saboteur. The bidding was fairly conservative, with several seals left in the middle of the table and nobody taking a white or a blue seal.

This made my job fairly easy as people quickly found themselves taking tricks they hadn’t bid for and thus black seals. I ruffed a purple early, led a low blue, and watched it go round. Later I won a trick in yellow and repeated the process. Keith had the best trumps and handily won the red tricks he had bid for, while others struggled. At the end of the day there were four or five black seals out, fairly evenly distributed, making me ahead on points. We stopped playing then as other players had turned up. Unfortunately I don’t have the exact scores- nor do I remember exactly who was playing!

Discworld: Ankh-Morpork (Collector's Edition, with poster no less!)

THE game of the month – even if it’s only a two-week month – attracted a strong three of Gareth, Philip and Neil. Strong in that we’d all played it before, not much granted, but enough.

With our hidden characteristics looking pretty similar from my early viewing of three of the unused four characters it was eyes down for five areas of domination.  Gareth picked up an early building costing a ‘wapping’ seventeen dollars, only for Philip to destroy it almost immediately. With them two concentrating on revenge I thought I’d build away to victory. But, as ever, gaining control of four areas is a piece of cake, a fluffy Victoria sponge one at that, but – can you have two ‘buts’ in one sentence? – gaining the fifth, and the holy grail of victory, is nigh on impossible. Round after round I could set myself up with five, never six though, areas, only for it all to fall apart due to some ridiculous twist of fate.

It was only later we found out that Philip had been stopped in his tracks by a true freak of play, well done Gareth! Philip had swapped his character for the fellow who needed a presence in ten areas… and he sat there comfortably but for a last second gamble from Gareth who, to be fair, was still on the revenge track.

So, all the characters came and went, spilling their evil throughout us, and Vimes had won… but no, Vimes was the fourth man I hadn’t seen earlier… so, time to count the points up. Bugger, fifteen point penalty for me on the back of an earlier loan left unpaid. Despite having four buildings, pretty much for the majority of the game, they were all cheap brothely ones and so victory went to Gareth. A good close game, as ever, and all keen to play again next week.

(And no I haven’t read any of the books, and nor am I likely to.)

Notre Dame 

Joined by the pallindromedary twins, Noel & Leon it was then off to Paris to see if we could keep the rats at bay. Philip had somehow missed this game, and Leon was completely new to the geek-world of games. Basically a worker placement game with your actions determined by yourself and one other player each round. I’m sorry Gareth, really I am, if I could have passed you anything better I would have done… 

Noel was in pretty determined mode and picked up additional workers to help him through. Gareth followed suit while Philip and I started taking a shine to Victory Points. Early on the rats were dozing somewhere and so several forgot just what sort of impact they can have.  

Some hefty carriage movement from Noel and I saw VPs heading their way. Gareth profiteered at the Cathedral – see, not every card I gave you was useless! Philip and Leon were picking their way into the game by now. Just in time for the rats to come bounding out. Leon and I got savaged by the little devils, all those precious VPs being nibbled away. Philip also struggled for a couple of rounds and thus the race for the line was handed over to Gareth and Noel. 

It was tight, it was close, it was Noel! How apt for this time of year I hear you say.

Scores; Noel 55, Gareth 54, Neil 38, Philip 28, Leon 16

horablog 4, stardate 28.11.2012, frost, full moon, new peoples; mary, chris. welcome, we look forward to seeing you again! old peoples; philip, james, gareth, scott, jon, dan, tom, noel, alex, james II, paul a, gareth II, tara, michel, david, neil. played; carcassonne, coup, court of the medici, fury of dracula, mamma mia, quarriors, railways of europe, resistance; avalon, terra mystica, tzol’kin: the mayan calendar. go.

Coup

cards, not many, two at a time. each card a life, lose both you dead. each card a character, each character does something. choose one card, bluff and act. they call your bluff, go all laissez faire, screw you fellow! good game, quick, simple, handsome. they’d played one round before me, don’t know result. oos at guru. second round, me.

Love Letter (Thanks Jon)

This had been played a few weeks ago at IBG – and received with resounding indifference. However, Scott convinced us that we may have played a rule wrong, so we (James, Scott, Philip, Jon) tried again.

The result? With Jon being eliminated before he’d played a card, simply because he picked up a certain character, the omens weren’t good for a positive experience. Scott probably still likes it, Philip won it (I think), James didn’t seem over-keen and Jon’s only positive comment was – “At least it was over quickly”

Court of the Medici (thanks Tom!)

Tom taught Jon one of his favourite 2 player offerings: Court of the Medici. Despite Tom's usual breathless rules explanation, Jon picked it up quickly and promptly beat Tom at his own game. Literally - as Jamie Redknapp would say.
Jon - Wins. Tom - Loses (an unfortunate theme for the rest of the evening).

Railways of Europe  (Thanks Jon) 

Ah – the trains. This time it was Noel that brought along the heavy box of train delights. Originally it was just 3 players, so the England map was out on the table, but with David arriving, Europe was quickly rescheduled.

Noel started out in Western Europe, and was largely unhindered all game (apart from Jon ‘stealing’ a Major Line from him. Tom began his network in Spain, which worked out well for him in the main, apart from finding the eventual lack of cubes to be a problem. Jon started with a novel strategy of taking the card that meant that no-one else could build into Prague, which he hoped would put anyone else off from building south from Berlin. Unfortunately, David hadn’t read the script and promptly built there anyway. He also built south into Italy, cutting off Jon’s other option, and putting him well behind and well in debt.

With Noel starting to get in Tom’s way in Southern France, it was time for a break-out to the East. Jon made a run for Constantinople, and managed to eventually pick up the largest Major Line bonus. David had finally stopped stealing Jon’s cubes (!) and decided to branch out towards Moscow.

The 13^th empty city marker appeared, signalling the imminent end of the game. Noel had saved up enough ‘sure thing’ deliveries to have a comfortable last round, whilst the other players picked up what they could (a nice couple helpfully-coloured random cubes giving David a welcome bonus).

The result wasn’t really in doubt, but the scores were remarkably close. Another fine evening of track-laying enjoyment.

Scores; Noel 50, David 46, Tom 42, Jon 42

Tzol’kin: the Mayan Calendar 

James had been to Essen, did we know that, had he mentioned it? This year’s Essen seems to have produced some appealing games, the IBG has got well behind Keyflower, Snowdonia, Terra Mystica, Fleet (to some extent), and the chance to play Tzol’kin was one I was very keen to take up. 

The geekiness of the boards, those, geeky cogs, that turn round and geekily spin other cogs, and you place your workers on them and they move with the cogs, becoming more valuable. It’s a dynamic mechanic according to the BGG, and I have to say it was tops. It really works well, great interaction and stymieing, all very clever. The rest of the board works too, there are temples to the gods to climb up, a technology track, monuments to collect, buildings too. Some good other components too, really nice skulls, the gold resource cubes could have been golder, I’m being picky, it was great! 

The ‘starting wealth tiles’ were interesting, you got to choose 2 from 4 tiles thereby selecting start resources or positions in the temples or on the techno track. It was good that we each had a different starting point. On your turn you either; place one or more of your workers, you only start with three, and you have to pay in corn for doing so. You can always opt to be start player, possibly picking up extra corn if you’re lucky. Your options are certainly reduced if you go last too often; or; you take your workers back from the cogs effecting the actions reached. Once each player has had a turn the calendar cog moves forward one day and off you go again. It played pretty quickly and only James had played before. (I won’t even mention that we had to unravel two turns as the rules had been slightly forgotten.) 

Anyway, James and Paul got stuck in agriculturally picking up the always useful corn and wood. I opted for VPs and went with the skull cog. Tara picked up some useful other resources, stone, wood and gold. This lead her to move steadily up the temples. Paul and I moved along the technology park and James and Paul also went into building. And then it was feed time. Now this is expensive if you haven’t been hording some corn, certainly cost me on the second feed and you know how much I love my food!  

Extra victory points are dished out half way through depending on how you’re doing with the temples. I was hoping my lead was going to see me through to the end as I’d picked up some good skull based VPs, but then latterly so did James and Paul. James also cashed in big time with more buildings. And before you know it you’ve reached the end of time. Final scoring saw a pretty close finish, we all had made a few errors of judgement at crucial points, but that’s half the fun of it. A cracking game, one I’m very keen to have another go at asap.

Scores; James 67, Neil 63, Paul 59, Tara 34

Resistance: Avalon (thanks Philip)

Gareth was just leaving when I spied this in his bag. “Shame you’re going, we could have played your new resistance game”. Well, he couldn’t resist that...and soon we had a nine player game going with 2 people watching. As several people were new not just to this variant but to the whole concept of resistance, Gareth kept it simple and just added Merlin. Merlin is a good guy (=resistance member) who knows who the bad guys are, but, if the bad guys guess who he is at the end of the game, they win!

The first game was a cake walk for the good guys- they picked a team of 3 without any evil people in it, then picked an extra person who also happened to be good, then picked that same team for mission 3- home and dry. Except for the bad guys guess as to Merlin. Now, Merlin hadn’t given a single clue to the good guys, they just got lucky. But this time it was the turn of the bad guys to get lucky- I, as the Assassin, thought it was James - but which one? I put this theory to my fellow bad guys. James I spoke up - James II didn’t. So I plunged my dagger into James II - who was indeed Merlin.

The second game (with eight players) sort of mirrored the first. Three straight wins for the bad guys. No way around that for good. Main problem was that Alex and James II were at each other’s throats all game- and both were good guys!

Mamma Mia  (Thanks Jon)

There was a time when the good gamers of IBG played this nearly every week, but such pizza-based delights haven’t been seen for ages. However, Tom requested it and Jon obliged (and Scott helped with the rules explanation!)

Neil made a rubbish chef, constantly not having enough ingredients to fulfil his orders (probably because there were no eggs on the cards…), but not quite as rubbish as Tom. Jon and Scott used their prior experience to dump a number of recipe cards down each round, and when the flour-dust settled, Jon had just pipped him to the post. Definitely a filler to bring out again in the near-future for the hungry folks of IBG.

Scores; Jon 7, Scott 6, David 5, Neil 3, Tom 2

‘Wot, no eggs!’ the sympathy for Jon’s plight,

being too unwell to come along to games night,

and then of all the games to be played;

‘Last Will’ pops up, and the wreath was laid. 

 

Attending the Wake; Philip, Woody, Scott, James, James II, Gareth II, Alex, Keith, Michel, Jeroen, Mark, Andy, John, Alistair, Tonio (yes really!), David, oh and me, Neil.

 

Entertainers were; Monster Factory, Terra Mystica, Troyes, Last Will, Fast Flowing Forest Fellows, Bohnanza, Lancaster

Fast Flowing Forest Fellows 

Two games of Mr Friese’s F F F Fantastic race game. The stats were on my side; played 6, won 6. My first opponent, Alistair, new to the game, to the club in fact; it was tense, competitive, close; played 7, won 7. Joined by David, another new game for him, for the second race. Closer, not quite as competitive, badly chosen route; played 8, won 7, bugger! Hearty congrats David.

Troyes (thanks Philip)

 

Michel’s copy with the bonus cards. I had the Chetien de Troyes (people in buildings) secret objective. The meeples were fairly evenly distributed with grey getting one red and one yellow slot. Monk (Yellow die into three white dice), Diplomat (spend influence to fight events) and Journeyman (spend influence to make money) were the first cards out but were largely ignored on the first turn.

The first turn events were War and Interruption of Work. Alex went first and, spending heavily, took out three slots in Interruption of Work, I followed up with 4 slots in War. Michel finished off War and James built the Cathedral. Their followed a fight for space in the Yellow building between Alex, me and Michel which lead to no change at all to its composition. Meanwhile James started the Journeyman. I put a die in the Cathedral before the turn ended.

Turn 2: The new cards were Confession (boost a group of dice by +2 each), Hunting (gain influence with red dice) and Innkeeper (turn money into influence). Events were Attack of the Normans and Heresy.
The combination of Innkeeper and Journeyman attracted me and I invested in it while attacking Heresy. Alex finished off interruption of work and Michel went into Diplomat to fight the Normans and Hunting to gain Influence. Everyone invested in the Cathedral.

Turn3: Pilgrimage (any colour dice to VPs), Banquet (Red dice to Vps but requires Red dice to be still in the pool) and Goldsmith (Yellow dice to Money and VPs) came out, along with Skirmishes and Civil War (everyone loses 3 money). Michel finished off Civil War, I finished off Heresy, James took a Pilgrimage slot, and Alex used the Goldsmith, minting money but pulling a meeple out of the White building to do so. There was also a fair amount of pushing and shoving in the buildings, reducing James down to 3 dice.

Turns 4-6: The events continued to come but were mostly defeated. I built up my position to the point where I had 7 dice on the final turn, Michel had 2 and James had 3. (Alex had 5 or 6 I think). James used the Monk together the Goldsmith for good effect. I stopped bothering with the Innkeeper/Journeyman combo as I had plenty of Influence and plenty of money. The final move of the game was Alex taking Banquet merely for the VPs on the card.

Secret Identities were revealed- Alex and I scored well on Chretien de Troyes, Michel and I scored well on Michel’s Influence identity, everyone scored ok on James’ Cathedral Identity, and I scored best on Alex’s Cards identity.

Scores; Philip 41 Michel 34 Alex 34 James 32

Last Will (thanks James!)

Anyone ever play ‘Go for Broke’ as a kid ? This is the big grown up older brother of that game wherein players are trying to find ways to spend all their money. Mark, Woody, Tonio, Keith and myself all felt like we had money to burn, and with news spreading of Jon’s impending demise the subject matter felt apt.

At its heart it’s a worker placement/turn order manipulation/card game. Players first select their turn order which also allocated a certain number of cards, workers and actions. If you want to go early in turn order then you’ll pay a price with fewer options. After this and selecting cards, players then place their workers to either gain new cards, manipulate the housing market or expand their personal board size. Finally players can play cards and/or active existing cards to try and spend cash. Quite simple really (it had to be, look who was playing), but the components make it look more fiddly than it really is.

As no-one had played before the early stages were a bit usual haphazard. Given I’d had a rule run through people looked at me like I knew what I was doing, but I’m not sure it helped. I lose track of who did what at the start on to be honest, but I think Woody brought a farm, and Keith manipulated the housing costs to buy an expensive house. Both Tonio and myself picked up a card allowing an extra action each turn, very usual as it turned out and a bonus to be able to get this in the first round.

Finding the right balance between actions, cards and turn order is the heart of the game. And a lot harder than it looks. Sometimes the move would be obvious, such as when a 1 action for 3 card was made available. Other moves are more subtle in terms of whether you got for the housing market, or just treat a few ladies to a dinner and the theatre. Tonio, being the smoothy he is was obviously doing his best to look after the ladies… Mark was also taking the hedonistic approach splashing the cash on long carriage rides, and expensive meals. Woody just kept building farms, with the dream of one day owning a pony, and buying a season ticket at Portman Road.

I managed to pick up a second bonus action card and I’d also picked up early a card giving me a bonus 3 companion cards. These combined gave me a good advantage as it took some of the turn order pressure off. I could focus on taking early turn orders while still getting a full set of actions and cards… I’d also picked up a house which I could fill and that enabled me to spend 10K a turn for a single action.

Both Woody and Keith had cards that allowed them to spend money on housing without using actions and these were working well mid game. Tonio was collecting cards like Neil collects eggs and had run out of space after 3 turns. For the next few actions he was focused on expanding his board.

One of the mechanics of the game that became apparent late was factored by the rule that you had to sell housing in order to win. Everyone had started to use up the available cash so was left with selling property in order to have more cash to get rid of. This became an important timing issue to make sure you sold up and maximised the loss. Keith was again manipulating the housing market for this, with a few action cards helping along the way. I realised that although my mansion enabling me to spend 10k each turn was great I had to sell it for 20k so was still left with a sum to lose once it had gone.

Luckily though I realised I had the bonus again of all the extra companion cards I was getting each turn so could try to pick up the white border single use cards and then treat various ladies to slap up meals (at Mrs Miggin’s Pie Shop) to fritter away the last of my wealth.

At the start of turn 6 I only had about 7k left so everyone was aware that this would be the last round. Woody had belatedly realised that the game wasn’t necessarily going to last the full 7 rounds, and everyone else was looking to see if they could also move into liquidation this round. At the end I picked up several great cards, while Tonio was 1 companion short (that might’ve been my doing) for him to complete his master plan. I ran out a comfortable winner with Mark in 2^nd.

I liked the game although not as much as I’d expected. There’s a lot of subtly mixed in, as well as some luck over card availability and turn order. We didn’t use the Turn Order board for the game, mainly cause I had no idea how it was implemented. Having checked since though it looks like a good addition as sometimes players had workers left and nothing useful to do with them. This would provide a useful option. I’d certainly play this again, but need to get through a few more Essen goodies first J

Final scores… (to be confirmed tonight as they’re at home) [ten days later...]
James -10, Tonio 2, Mark 4, Keith 11, Woody 17

Lancaster 

Then I joined Philip, Michel and David for a game of Lancaster. My grandfather was a policeman in Lancaster, then was a prison officer there. Neither are relevant to the game, or any help to me tonight either, but certainly worth a mention.

This is a really good game for player interaction; the selection of counties, joining forces to battle the French, and the voting for laws all allow for plenty of ways of scuppering your competitors’ best laid plans.

Saying that in your first game it takes a while to decide what options are the best to go for. For Michel and David they both did really well on promoting their knights and picking up squires too. We hardly mentioned fighting the French to Michel at all, very good of us in the circumstances! 

My only previous game had seen me concentrating on picking up VPs directly through battling the French and picking up nobles. I’m pretty sure I scored better this time and was happy with that strategy. Last time others went for predominantly two-target strategies as well, somehow Philip, in that wonderfully enthusiastic, caution-to-the-wind, way of his, opted for every possible strategy he could remember. And boy oh boy did it work! Well played that man.

And you’ll all be pleased to know that for my birthday last Friday my sister sent me a red wooden block, size 2 knight, to add to my own copy of the game, it wasn’t there when the game arrived. How kind is she?

Scores; Philip 84, Neil 75, David 51, Michel 46