The second Matthias Cramer game was played by my group of five. Lancaster was one of the nominated games for the Kennerspiel des Jahres, the German expert gamers' award. For the first half of the game, we all thoroughly enjoyed this but most of us found it got a bit bogged down towards the end as people were continually being bumped from where they initially placed their knights. I suspect five players is just too many and three is probably the optimum.

Steve started off really well and it was looking doubtful if anyone could catch him. Conversely, I don't think I claimed a single victory point until the end of the third round (and it wasn't as though I was building for a big finish - I was just in the wrong places all the time). However, Nige was playing very much with the end-game in mind and came through for a very well judged victory..... Pauses for a moment to double check his notes as "Nige" and "victory" in the same sentence is a rare occurrence without the words "snatched defeat from the jaws of" sitting in between. However, it's there in black and white so it must be true.