Players: James I, Neil, Noel, Jon, Amanda, Dan, Gareth I,
Gareth II, Alex, James II, Philip, Chris, Alturo
A good crop of gamers tonight, including a welcome re-appearance
from Alex and James.
In terms of games, tonight saw the return of an old
favourite, which also produced one of the most incompetent displays of spying
in the history of the western world…
Pinguin Party (thanks Neil)
Never underestimate the power of the Knizia. This game is so
simple and yet played with four it's so difficult to get all of your cards
down. Chris, Alex and James II joined me for four high pressure rounds.
The first round I
decided to show them how to play the game. I managed to get out first time with
the others collecting a number of penguins each. With Alex anticipating his
monstrous roast pork dinner he managed an aberration of second round collecting
an unhealthy amount of the penguins, as well as unhealthy question as to
whether penguin would be nice to eat or not. I'm pretty certain it wouldn't be
good but hey it must be worth trying.
Round three saw Chris
realising he was stymied immediately, and I managed to follow him pretty
swiftly too. Alex had disappeared for his meal so Gareth II stepped onto the
ice and played a good round although James had another consistent low scoring
round too.
The big finale. I
managed to deal myself only two colours of penguins and so had no chance of
getting them all down. Gareth crashed big time too and it was tight again
between James and Chris. With the former taking it. Good, cool, fun.
Final Scores; James
II - 12, Neil - 13, Chris - 14, Alex/Gareth II - 17.
Coup
An early evening appetiser for the first to arrive. Gareth
was the first to challenge Amanda's Ambassador - incorrectly as it happens. Jon
got to 7 coins but decided against a Coup in favour of a cheeky assassination
at Amanda's expense. He didn't believe her assertion that she had the
protective Contessa at her disposal - but she did, and so Jon also lost a
character.
After Gareth Coup'd Jon's second character there were all 3
Dukes on show, necessitating the use of a proliferation of captains instead.
It came down to a shoutout between Gareth and Amanda, but as
she had snuck an Assassin into her portfolio, there was no competition and
Gareth perished before he could initiate a Coup. Good fun stuff - we must use
the expansion next time...
Amanda won; Jon, James, Gareth I, Alturo - didn't
Snowdonia (thanks Noel)
With Dan's arrival, Noel moved from network building in USA
in Trains to laying track in Wales by joining Chris, Arturo, James and Neil at
the Snowdonia table. This was James' copy which has had a few plays at the club
but was new to both Arturo and Chris.
After a good rules
through from James, with particular emphasis on judging the pace and finish of
the game which is always difficult to pick up until a few plays through. Much
to Noel's disappointment, Arturo (sitting to Noel's left) was the randomly
selected start player and the first 4 players picked up the resource spots.
However, there was a nice card left and Noel picked up that and repeated the
same move for the first few turns, without getting any resource.
James and Arturo
picked up early trains that allowed them to encourage a 3rd worker out of the
pub. Neil selected a card that granted a final bonus for getting the surveyor
to the end of his ambling and in the same turn Noel grabbed the start player
marker with the intention of starting to accumulate some much needed resource.
However, with the card restock the 2nd surveyor bonus card came out so he used
his first player action to take that to avoid Neil having the double bonus. One
for the team..maybe...but probably just one for extra bonus points for Noel as
he also pushed on with the start he had already made with the surveyor.
James cleared plenty
of rubble with some bonus cards to hit these bonuses, Arturo played lots of
coal to gain repeated use of his 3rd worker (no easy jokes about the
(in)efficiency of Spanish builders here) and Noel completed a balance of track
building, rubble clearing and picked up the train that grants 9 points but no
end game bonus. As Chris and Arturo completed out the track building to finish
the game, Noel with cards and bonus aplenty was a good bit ahead in the final
scoring.
Noel 125, Neil 98,
James 87, Chris 77, Arturo 73
Trains
A pre-game substitution occurred, with Dan arriving, taking
Noel's place, who defected from trains in America to trains in Snowdonia.
This was new to Gareth and Amanda, but they were familiar
with deck-building, which helped. This was the first play of the NE USA
expansion map, which has a large mountain range down the middle, and a nice row
of points-scoring cities along the top. Amanda took the SW corner, Gareth the
SE, Jon the NW and Dan - a la Noel - joined Jon in the NW...
This game moved at a pleasingly swift pace, with turns
coming round quickly. With Dan doing a nice job of blocking Jon out, Jon was
forced to save up and buy the expensive rails card which negated any extra
building costs. This eventually paid off towards the end of the game when he
was able to build across the Northern edge fairly cheaply.
Gareth had managed to build track up through a number of
cities but had failed to add any stations. Realising that he was falling
behind, he was tempted to buy up a couple of piles of cheap cards just to end
the game, but was persuaded to keep going and buy a load of station expansions
instead.
Amanda was being left to her own devices and was starting to
build up a nice board position, although was accumulating a rather ominous pile
of waste to go with it. Jon had secured enough high-value trains to give him
some effective buying power - picking up a few Skyscrapers - and was able to
buy up the 3rd pile ending the game. This was obviously a rules error, as it is
in fact 4 piles that need to be completed, but as the 4th pile was only 1 card
short of being depleted, it was calculated that it wouldn't have altered the
result.
The final scores were very close, and had Gareth majored on
stations a bit earlier, he might well have been in with a shout himself.
Jon 27; Amanda 24; Dan 22; Gareth 18
Terra Mystica (thanks Phil)
Four players, two new to the game. Alex dominated the cult tracks
as Chaos Magicians, in his own little corner of the world. Gareth won largest
area with his Swarmlings. My Dwarves scored quite a bit by Tunnelling: James'
Nomads failed to find a scoring formula.
Philip 94 Gareth 90 Alex 84 James 73.
No Thanks (thanks Noel)
Chris had the top idea of getting a game of No Thanks in
while Coup finished. Noel, Philip and Neil signed up. Noel picked up a couple
of big scoring cards early but lots of coins to ease the pain. Neil was always
keen to pick up cards to stop others adding adjacent cards and Chris was waiting
patiently to complete a mega chain from 12 to 19 that didn't quite come off. 5
minutes later and one odd vegetarian meal later(Phil) all was done,
Noel 41*; Phil 49*, Chris 63*, Neil 65*. (*ish)
Council of Verona
Amanda had picked up this game recently, but was reporting
that it had fallen flat for her, despite a number of attempted plays. 'Did you
have the poison expansion?' asked Dan and Jon. 'No' came the reply. 'Aha -
prepare to have some fun then.....'
4 rounds were played. After the first round, Gareth opined
that it was a bit random. 'Maybe - but notice that only Dan and Jon, the
experienced players, have scored so far....'
Gareth and Amanda subsequently picked up points in the
second round, and despite a massive 8 points from Gareth in the last round, Jon
had scored just enough to keep himself ahead.
Never have 2 tiny wooden cylinders made such a difference to
a game...
Jon 13; Gareth 10; Amanda 6; Dan 5
The Resistance
It seems such a long time ago that this game used to end the
evening at IBG almost every week, but it hasn't seen the light of day for many
weeks. And so it was a very welcome return for several old-handers (James,
Noel, Jon, Gareth) some newbies (Chris, Alturo) and a floating voter (Neil).
And a memorable return it was...
With 7 players there are 3 spies, making it very difficult
for the good guys to succeed. And in this game, the spies were Gareth, Neil and
(of course) Jon.
1st round - Neil chooses Chris to accompany him, and the
mission passes.
2nd round - James chooses Neil and Chris, as well as
himself, but unfortunately makes such a song and dance of the fact that Neil or
Chris could fail it and blame him, that it immediately heaped suspicion in his
direction. It did of course fail, and James was subsequently pilloried for
being a suspected spy.
3rd round - Alturo then chose the mission that required 2
failures, and chose the previous 3 players to go on the mission with him. No
failure cards were played, so the mission succeeded.
4th round - Noel was bemoaning the fact that everyone had
agreed to all the missions going ahead, resulting in very little information
being gained regarding Gareth, Jon or himself. He himself was believing the
general suspicions regarding James, who in turn was pointing the finger
squarely back at Noel. For some reason, Noel picked Neil and Gareth to go on
the next mission, which was an absolute gift for the spies. They could easily
fail this with either 1 or 2 fails, which would heap suspicion on Noel and
almost guarantee a final mission victory.
And so the mission cards were revealed, one by one -
pass.....pass.....and.....pass! By some moment of keystone cops incompetency,
neither spy had chosen to fail the mission and so the good guys had won the
game. Jon threw his hands up in horror, bemoaning the lack of basic
intelligence shown by his fellow-spies - whilst James and Noel chuckled loudly
long into the night.
Less a resistance victory - more a spy suicide - but they
all count. Whatever, it was a brilliant return for fantastic game.
Noel, Alturo, Chris, James - won by default. Neil &
Gareth - should be shot. Jon - bemused.
.
.
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