The first session of 2009 saw us travelling to ancient Egypt to dabble in the markets of Nefertiti, a game designed by Jacques Bariot, Thomas Cauet and Guillaume Montiage and published by Matagot. This was a clever auction and set-collection game where different markets demanded different terms under which the auction was closed. You could also recruit the help of different characters who gave a variety of benefits. Trying to limit the number of opposing players collecting the gifts you were after was the key to this, as fewer collectors gave more prestige when you came to “cash” them in.

Both Tom and I had good collections of the two most valuable gifts, although Tom engineered a monopoly in his and was poised to enlist the scribe for bonus prestige points when he chose to sell. This forced my hand in taking the best scribe first, both to get my gifts the best bonus and limit Tom’s. Mark K got very short of cash part way through and this limited his bidding options for quite a while, while Mark G ended up with almost all the money by the end. However, Mark K made good use of a couple of royal seals to score lots of points at the game end. As it turned out Mark K shot from dead last to tied with me for most prestige points. Checking the tie-break rule (most cash left) couldn’t separate us as neither of us had any, so we had to settle for a joint win (I can hear Nige’s groans from here now – serves him right for missing this week’s session).

We all enjoyed Nefertiti a lot. It took a bit longer than advertised on the box but then we do tend to play slower on our first attempt at a game. I could see a number of things I would do differently – grab more royal seals to recruit the helper characters, for instance; make sure you don’t run too short of cash etc. But this looks to have lots of ways to develop a strategy. Very good game.