Recent Sessions

23rd July 2010 ... El Grande
I was still on holiday this week so Nige again recorded the scores. Disappointed to miss this one as El Grande is one of my favourite games and I haven't played it for ages. Mark K took the win.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Mark K	8	127	1
Nige	9	117	2
Steve	8	110	3
Guy	8	97	4
16th July 2010 ... Traders of Genoa, The
I was on holiday this week so Nige recorded the scores. Apparently, this was closer than the scores suggest with Guy getting loads of points at the end of the game but it wasn't quite enough to catch Nige.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Nige	8	995	1
Guy	7	950	2
Mark G	8	895	3
16th July 2010 ... Dominion
Nige also recorded the scores for this one in which Guy wiped the floor with the other two with an uncontested Garden strategy.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Guy		73	1
Nige		51	2
Mark G		36	3
9th July 2010 ... Amyitis
There were seven of us this week so we split into two groups. Nige was keen to play Amyitis so Guy and Steve joined him. Steve was the only one not to have played before so naturally he won.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Steve	8	56	1
Nige		54	2
Guy		39	3
9th July 2010 ... Siedler von Catan, Die: Deutschland Edition
Mark G suggested the rest of us play the Deutschland edition of Settlers so that's what we did as Mark K and Mark W had not played before. Mark W got off to a terrific start although he didn't make many friends with his aggressive tactics, cutting off first me and then Mark G - I think he now has more black marks in Mark G's notebook than any of the rest of us put together. My position, which looked absolutely dire at the start when I was only on 4 points at the same time as Mark W was taking his 8th, slowly improved and eventually I was able to grab the longest road. Although I briefly lost it to Mark K, I managed to grab it back and with an extra VP from one of my development cards was able to claim the win. Good stuff as always but I think I still prefer the original game as the board setup on the Deutschland version restricts the choices on how you can get to the target 10 VPs. You have a bit more freedom with the original.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Garry		10	1
Mark W	8	8	2
Mark K	7	7	3
Mark G		7	3
9th July 2010 ... Thurn und Taxis
The group of three opted to follow Amyitis with a game of Thurn und Taxis, which Steve has played several times before. I know nothing about how this one went, other than Steve won again - two good wins for the night.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Steve	8	22	1
Nige		16	2
Guy		15	3
9th July 2010 ... Atlantis
Having finished Settlers with about 30 minutes left, Mark K was keen to try Atlantis as he had missed out last time we played. However, everyone was determined (even those on the other table) that I wasn't going to win this time. They needn't have worried because, even though I was playing last and therefore started with more cards than everyone else, I always seemed to be lacking the right colour for the really big jumps. That said, towards the end I did manage to move one of my men all the way from Atlantis to the mainland in one go. Mark W was the first to get all his men home but everybody else was far enough advanced that the cost of reaching safety wasn't too big. And amazingly, when the treasure was totted up, three players (not including me) tied for the most, creating a three way tie for the win.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Mark W		9	1
Mark G	7	9	1
Mark K	8	9	1
Garry		2	4
2nd July 2010 ... Savannah Tails
We started off tonight with Savannah Tails, an ostrich racing game designed by the Lamont brothers that was released at Essen last year. Through the play of your cards, each of which shows a distance and the lane in which you need to end your move, you aim to navigate a course in the most efficient manner while avoiding various critters along the way. This was quite good fun, although we could probably have added in one or two more animal tiles to make it a trifle harder. Nige was doing pretty well until Guy managed to block his route, forcing him to slow right down. I was forced wide on the final bend due to the cards I was left with and this allowed Mark G just to pip me by a nose (or beak) at the line. That said, we were all very very close at the end.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Mark G	6		1
Garry	7		2
Nige	5		3
Guy	8		4
Mark W	6		5
2nd July 2010 ... Aladdin's Dragons Card Game
We then attempted Aladdin's Dragons Card Game, the card game version of the board game where the cards form the board. Confused? Now Nige tends to poo poo card games but he admitted afterwards that there was more to this one than he expected. It's basically a worker placement game where you are trying to gain gems that can then be traded in for artefacts - the aim being to collect the most of the fifteen artefacts available in the game. Now Guy and Mark G were the only ones to compete for the magic spells and this proved critical as Guy was able to use one of these to grab a critical second Aladdin's Lamp artefact, which act as tie breakers in the event of an equal number of artefacts at game-end. As it turned out, three of us ended up with four artefacts but Guy had the most lamps to claim victory.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Guy	9	4	1
Nige	7	4	2
Garry	7	4	3
Mark G	7	2	4
Mark W	4	1	5
25th June 2010 ... Atlantis
There were eight of us this week, so we split into two groups of four. Steve, Dean and Mark W joined me for a game of Atlantis, a game by Leo Colovini and published by Amigo-Spiele. This is reminiscent of his earlier game, Cartagena, which Steve puts among his favourite games. However, whereas Cartagena was a straight race, the winner of Atlantis is the player who escapes the sinking island with the most treasure (and cards). I was the only one to had played previously and raced my first guy to dry land as quickly as I could, which then gave me an extra card draw each turn. Even foregoing the valuable treasure I could have picked up along the way, I managed to get all my men to safety while leaving some expensive gaps for the others to fill such that I was the only one to end up with a positive score.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Garry	8	16	1
Steve	8	-2	2
Dean	8	-4	3
Mark W	8	-4	3
25th June 2010 ... Atlantis
Now that the others understood how to play, we decided to play again - quite a rare occurrence to play the same game twice in an evening. However, they were determined to do better this time. I decided to try a different approach this game and lagged back for quite a while to collect some good treasure tiles. However, I eventually saw an opportunity to surge through the field and again ended up being first to get my three guys to safety. And the result ended up being even more embarrassing as I improved on my previous score whereas the others got worse. Nige was not best pleased on the other table and several exclamations of "monkeys" and "puppets" could be heard.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Garry		21	1
Steve		-6	2
Mark W		-7	3
Dean		-11	4
25th June 2010 ... Egizia
On the second table, Nige was mis-teaching (sorry, teaching - albeit rather poorly) Egizia to Guy, Mark G and Mark K. Now, the uncharitable among you may conclude that this was merely to ensure Nige secured another win but I couldn't possibly comment. However, Nige won ... surprise surprise.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Nige		105	1
Mark K	8	93	2
Mark G	8	86	3
Guy	8	64	4
25th June 2010 ... Sumeria
Sumeria report to follow.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Steve	7	20	1
Mark W	7	19	2
Dean	7	17	3
Garry	7	17	3
17th June 2010 ... Shipyard
This week's session was a day early and I was unable to attend. However, Mark K recorded the scores
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Guy		78	1
Nige	8	56	2
Mark K		56	3
Dean	8	53	4
11th June 2010 ... World Cup Game, The
With the World cup starting today, it seemed only fitting to play this so Steve brought it along and we played the 2006 tournament (from the second expansion). The group stages were fairly uneventful with all the top seeds going through except England, as Mark W was unable to stop Guy getting both his teams through from Group B. The Round of 16 saw all six players get a team through with just Mark G and me squeezing a second team through, although my Portugal only managed it after a penalty shootout against Steve's Argentina. Having two teams in the quarter finals and no goal cards made it difficult for me, especially as Nige's standing orders to everyone that, "If you can't play anything to help yourself, play a card to hit Garry," were still in play. Hence Portugal and Italy fell at this hurdle although there was some consolation that Nige's Ghana also lost. The semi-finals pitted Mark W's France against Guy's Germany, while Steve's dark horse of Ecuador faced Mark G's Spain. In a turn-up for the book, Guy for the first time didn't have any multiple goal cards in his hand so France were able to book their place in the final, while Mark G won a high scoring second semi 4-3 to set up a Spain v France final. After a lacklustre third place playoff where Ecuador beat Germany 2-1, the stage was set for a goal fest of a final, in which Mark W's France took the trophy by a 5-4 scoreline.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Mark W	6		1
Mark G			2
Steve			3
Guy			4
Nige			5
Garry			5
11th June 2010 ... Golden Goal
Keeping to the football theme, we finished off with this fun dice game which I bought on my first trip to Essen in 1998. We played a six team round robin tournament, featuring Brazil, England, Italy, Germany, Spain and France. Highlight of the game was Steve's England facing Guy's Germany and needing three goals from three dice, a 1 in 216 chance, and pulling it off.... only to find Guy play a Pressing card to make him reroll. Unfortunately, he wasn't up to the task twice but it was very funny. Eventually Germany topped the league with 11 points from their five games with Mark W's France in second with 9 points. This set up the final which Germany won 2-0, maintaining Guy's unbeaten record throughout the tournament (even though we thought Mark G's dice-rolling ability would have seen him triumph). And the biggest shock of all, Nige's parting comment "That was good fun, I'll give it a 7". Hold the front-page! Headline: No-fun Nige in fun game rating controversy.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Guy	7	11	1
Mark W	6	9	2
Mark G	7	7	3
Nige	7	5	4
Garry	7	5	5
Steve	7	4	6
4th June 2010 ... Samarkand: Routes to Riches
Samarkand report to follow.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Mark K	7	71	1
Guy	6	65	2
Garry	7	62	3
Nige	6	51	4
4th June 2010 ... Speicherstadt, The
The Speicherstadt report to follow.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Nige	6	24	1
Mark K	6	22	2
Guy	5	20	3
Garry	7	14	4
2nd June 2010 ... Puerto Rico
Four of the guys decided to fit in an extra session this week and after an aborted 8 hour game of Twilight Imperium, they did get to complete a game of Puerto Rico. Scores were lost but Mark K assures me the positions were correct.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Guy		59	1
Mark K		55	2
Mark W	8	48	3
Nige		38	4
28th May 2010 ... Glen More
This week, five of us tried the new Alea games release, Glen More, designed by newcomer Matthias Cramer. The game is about developing your Scottish country estate and using the land tiles to generate resources, cash and ultimately VPs through three scoring rounds. It uses a rondel on which the land tiles are placed, allied with a Thebes-like 'furthest behind plays next' mechanic and this works well as you need to balance whether to jump ahead for that vital land tile against the loss of intervening turns while others catch up. It also has a neat end-game adjustment whereby those that have built more tiles are penalised by comparison with whoever has built the fewest, hence giving a slight benefit to the player who has been most frugal In our game, Nige was trying to gain this advantage by jumping a long way ahead for a high-scoring tile and waiting while the rest caught up having built more tiles inbetween time. I benefitted from one very nice VP-generating tile and was also able to take advantage of some desperate resource buying by Mark G tobe able then to sell 4 resources for 10 cash. In the end, Nige's assertion that I had won easily proved to be correct and, only having built one more land tile than him, he didn't get the end-game advantage he had been hoping for. Good game but, as with many of our first plays, it took a bit too long to complete. However, I'm hopeful that a second game would trim a fair bit off the time.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Garry	7	59	1
Steve	7	49	2
Mark K	6	43	3
Nige	6	40	4
Mark G	6	30	5
28th May 2010 ... 11 Nimmt
After Glen More, we tried the latest Wolfgang Kramer card game, 11 Nimmt, a close relation art-wise to 6 Nimmt although the game-play is quite a bit different. Here, players are trying to get rid of their cards by playing a value within 10 of the top card of the play stack (or stacks). Sounds easy, but as you get fewer cards the likelihood that you will be able to do this reduces considerably and if you can't play within 10, then "11 takes" and you add all the cards in a stack to your hand. As a stack is taken, two new stacks are begun, giving a greater choice of where to play so that eventually someone will be able to go out. The bull heads on cards left in the other players' hands count as penalty points and, after a given set of hands, fewest penalty points wins. I really liked this game the more I think about it. I rated it a 7 but could see that rising as it does scratch the same itch as 6 Nimmt. In our game, the first hand was very tense as none of us had worked out that taking three cards early on wasn't that bad. As a result the number of cards on our single stack kept growing and growing. Eventually, someone was going to get caught out and it proved to be Mark K, who suffered a massive 55 penalty points on that single hand. We played three hands overall and clearly Mark K didn't win but it was pretty close between the rest of us but Nige emerged the winner, having gone out on both first and third hands. A really fun game.
	Rating	Score	Position	Winner
Nige	6	1	1
Steve	7	4	2
Garry	7	4	2
Mark G	6	16	4
Mark K	5	69	5