Livestock Uprising
Anyway, time to
welcome the party guests… earlybirds Jon, Paul and Simon had already completed San
Juan – whatever time do you boys arrive at the Apprentice? Good to see Mark there again, must be
keen. Gareth II had his usual stack;
Stone Age, Lancaster, Airships +1. James
arrived loaded up with trade games of course, his plan to drag people into the
club seems to be working to be fair to him, as stated at least they already
know what he’s like. Then Tom arrives
baby-faced as ever – and I mean he covered in baby food, not looking young and
handsome. Scott and Charlotte had jumped
out of the car ‘discussing’ something in that wonderful way couples do, he did
manage to carry the heavy games bag in though, once reminded! John Bandettini fresh from another amazingly
successful geeklist
arrives with his placard ‘TCOTN’, bring them on John! Good to see Andy again, must try to play a
game with him again, it’s been way too long.
Last, but by no means least, Philip arrives having waltzed all the way
back from tube-strike land.
There was a huge
range of games mentioned on the IBG Guild page of the Geek this week. This always does three things to me:
1. think, ‘well there’s
no point taking anything this week, it’ll never get to the table’. Not the most positive thought in the world!;
2. creates early panic
and confusion, so many games I’d love to play but will I even end up playing
one if there are so many others on offer?
Everyone will choose – I’m not very good at stating my desires in public
– something, and I may not even get to play one of the ones I’d keen to have a
go at! For instance, this week, of the
games mentioned I was keen to play Tikal, Kolejka, El Grande, Caverna, Trains,
Pax Porfiriana, happy to play Kingdom Builder, Legacy, the Testament of Duke de
Crecy, and not so interested in the Scepter of Zavandor, Havana;
3. but I want to play
with him, him and him… I really enjoy playing with them, why do they like such
naff games??!! DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE
YET?
Right, supposed to
be editing a blog here, not writing one!
Just time for a quick thanks to Paul and James for the snaps,
immortalised forever boys! With no
further thinking here’s what we did this week;
San Juan (cheers Jon)
Jon, Paul and Simon
were sufficiently early to play a decent length game before everyone else
arrived – and so it was a welcome return to this card-based Puerto Rico
spin-off. Paul had played a while ago, but it was new to Simon, so a thorough
explanation was needed (it’s one of those games that you do rather need to know
what you’re doing from the off).
Paul and Simon went
down the production route, with Aqueducts, Trading Posts and Markets setting
them up nicely for some heavy trading income. Jon set himself back at the
beginning by saving up to buy a very early Library, which gradually paid out
with extra cards from the Prospector and discounts for the Builder. A Poor
House and a late Quarry also helped him to build in almost every round,
gradually sneaking ahead of the other players in terms of number of buildings.
By the mid-game,
Paul had built a Chapel, and was starting to squirrel away cards under it, whilst
Simon had made good use of his Smithy to accumulate an impressive collection of
production buildings, which was enhanced by a late Guild Hall.
With Paul and
Simon’s trading income rapidly rising, Jon took every opportunity to buy
buildings, and managed to sneak a Statue and Victory column into his tableau,
which was complemented by a Triumphal Arch for 6 bonus points, and finished the
game off with the other players a couple short of their maximum number of
buildings.
Jon’s experience
with the game had paid off, and Paul’s inability to get a ‘6 point’ building on
the table had cost him. Simon did remarkably well for a first time, and would
certainly score even higher with a rematch in the near future.
Final Scores; Jon – 31,
Simon – 20, Paul – 18.
Pickomino (thanks again Jon)
After James’ success
with this game last week, he brought it out for another round of dice-rolling
fun. He started well, with a nice little stack of tiles quickly growing in
front of him, whilst Jon, Gareth and Paul trading tiles between them. Jon
eventually managed to steal one of James’ tiles (whilst James was away from the
table, so we’ll assume that Jon rolled the correct numbers…) and Gareth was
quietly picking up a stack of his own.
With one tile left
and the end of the game imminent, Paul had the opportunity to steal from the
leaders – James and Gareth – or Jon. He chose poor, misunderstood Jon, and the
rest, as they say, is history.
Final Scores; James –
6, Gareth – 6, Jon – 5, Paul – 2, Simon – 0.
No Thanks!
Scott, Charlotte,
Tom, Mark & I sat down for a quick bit of bluff and dare. It’s better with more this game. Charlotte and Scott picked up some hefty
cards early on but played pretty tightly after that. Mark was new to the game but took to it
impressively and was looking odds on at one stage. Tom and I got bogged down picking up
rubbish! Scott then collected some very
useful coins and reduced his initial card selection effectively, yes he won
again.
Final Scores; Scott
– 16, Mark – 18, Charlotte – 16, Tom – 25, Neil -27.
Havana (thank you Jon, and records
tell me I had played this before, not that anybody noticed!)
Tom had been keen to
try this out again, and John and Neil were not adverse to it, so Jon got to
bring it out after 3 unsuccessful weeks of trying to get it to the table. This
is a role selection game, where each player has the same small deck of
characters, and turn order (which can be very important) is dictated by the
strength of characters that you choose.
Neil was out of the
blocks quickly, acquiring more building materials than Wickes, and managed to
purchase several low value buildings. John used his workers to good effect and
bought a nice high value building, with Jon following suit. Tom then also
joined the action, and each player was only a couple of builds away from
victory.
Jon managed to steal
a nice hoard of cash, and purchased a second big building and in a subsequent
round, ‘liberated’ the requisite building materials from Tom to buy the last
building necessary to give him the victory.
This game always
finishes really quickly, and demands an aggressive strategy to triumph, which
makes for a great, quick interactive experience. Maybe we’ll see it come out
again soon…..
Final Scores; Jon - 16,
Tom – 11, Neil – 11, John - 4.
Sceptre of Zavandor (thanks Philip!)
I was fifteen minutes late but fortunately someone had saved me a seat at the Zavandor table. I was the Mage, Andy (first game) the Elf, Gareth the Witch, Charlotte the Kobold and Scott the Fairy[hurrah!].
The Mage has discounts on artefacts so I was busy buying artefacts - which left me rather short on income compared to Scott and Andy. Gareth stayed at the back the whole game, partly because he didn't understand what the Chalice of Fire did and failed to draw Ruby cards for it. Scott was usually somewhere at the front. Charlotte bought two Masks of Charisma, giving her an incredible discount on Sentinels, but had even lower income than me.
In the end we all bought a Sentinel - Scott and Gareth choosing gem-related ones while Charlotte and I picked artefact related ones and Andy picked the one that gives VPs for completing Knowledge tracks. Briefly, it looked as if I might have tied with Scott - but a recount established Scott as the clear winner.
I was fifteen minutes late but fortunately someone had saved me a seat at the Zavandor table. I was the Mage, Andy (first game) the Elf, Gareth the Witch, Charlotte the Kobold and Scott the Fairy[hurrah!].
The Mage has discounts on artefacts so I was busy buying artefacts - which left me rather short on income compared to Scott and Andy. Gareth stayed at the back the whole game, partly because he didn't understand what the Chalice of Fire did and failed to draw Ruby cards for it. Scott was usually somewhere at the front. Charlotte bought two Masks of Charisma, giving her an incredible discount on Sentinels, but had even lower income than me.
In the end we all bought a Sentinel - Scott and Gareth choosing gem-related ones while Charlotte and I picked artefact related ones and Andy picked the one that gives VPs for completing Knowledge tracks. Briefly, it looked as if I might have tied with Scott - but a recount established Scott as the clear winner.
El
Grande (cheers Paul!)
Time for a classic that never fails to live up to such a billing.
Paul set the game up while James explained the rules to Simon and Mark.
Both of the new guys were in the swing of things very quickly as the game swung
back and forth for the 90 minutes or so it took to entice the caballeros from
the provinces to the court and be dispatched into the regions of medieval
Spain.
Everyone took turns in the lead. First Paul took advantage of an underutilised tower to get his nose
ahead following the first scoring round. Simon then took up the charge and
opened up a decent lead courtesy of a favourable movable scoreboard in the
south west. At this stage James was lagging and claiming that he stood no
chance of anything but last place, then the next turn he of course he made a
nonsense of his own claim and scored 26 points in one go and soon after got his
nose in front. Mark was on the shoulder of the leader for most of the game, and
after the second scoring caused another score to happen and he took the lead.
He didn’t surrender it for the rest of the game and charged for the line
commendably taking a victory in his first El Classico. 
Everyone agreed that it’d been a fine game, albeit with quite a lot of
leader bashing. A perfect blend of variety, difficult decisions, smooth
gameplay and a plausible theme. Come back soon El Grande.
Final Scores; Mark - 123, Paul - 118, James - 115, Simon – 99.
Die Speicherstadt (thanks again Paul, great victory by the way!)Simon and Mark were heading home after all the Iberian excitement, but Mark was talked into staying as a wannabe classic was placed in front of him - who could resist Stefan Feld’s simple but clever auction based card game where James’ set of real silver coins were painfully scarce for the whole game. As often happens, although the aim of the game is to fulfil as many contracts as possible, it was the sideshow of fires breaking out on the harbour-front that was the deciding factor.
James had plenty of contacts, most of which he managed to deliver, but
at the expense of a few damaging infernos. Mark had plenty of goods, but not so
many contracts, so got some cash for them instead of points. He balanced it
with a couple of kantors, but to really make those cards pay he needed more of
them. Paul had some fulfilled contracts, albeit less than James, but then he
protected those he did have from the fire and ended up taking the spoils.
Final Scores; Paul - 34, James - 31, Mark – 27.
Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy
The family tree
game. Jon and Neil had played before
although that was in another country and probably shouldn’t count. John tried to remind us how to play whilst
Tom was clearly taking more notice.
After the first age
we’d all happily married and had three children each, so all pretty much
level. It was then however that Tom went
baby-crazy and his second age birth rate would have made any man proud. Despite having a few deaths both John and Jon
also managed a fair return, John bizarrely sticking to an all-French
family.
I’d been
concentrating on saving three artists for my fourth generation spouses, part of
my patron’s mission, and in so-doing had completed neglected the rest of the
family. Three offspring in the third age
as opposed to Jon’s incredible nine left me high and dry, should have visited
the fertility doctor like the other boys had done. Tom and John were now fighting it out for
second place with John finally turning to the rest of Europe to expand his
family far enough to pip Tom by one point; close!
looking over Jon's shoulder...
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