Ave Caesar (15th)
Carcassonne (8th)
Der Schattendieb (22nd)
Groo (29th)
Limits ( 8th & 15th)
Nicht die Bohne (22nd)
Njet (22nd)
Pick-It (15th)
Samurai (1st)
San Marco (1st)
Settlers of Catan (1st)
Tabula Rasa (15th)
Tally Ho (8th & 29th)
Traumfabrik (22nd)
Wanted (15th)
Way Out West (29th)
Zapp Zerapp (29th)
Zirkus Flohcati (1st)
Zoff im Zoo (1st)
Eight of us tonight, including John Todd, a member from the dim and distant past, and his adult son, Greg. I arrived to find them playing Zoff im Zoo, Doris and Frank's modified and attractive version of Career Poker. Result: GT, etc.
We split into two groups of four and my group played San Marco. This is another new game following the currently popular mechanism of placing pieces into regions to gain control of them and so score. It's not bad, though. The board represents a town divided into about seven regions separated by canals. You play cards showing the regions to place one of your markers in those regions. Other cards let you place bridges between regions, allowing you to use region cards for neighbouring regions in future. There are also cards which allow you to change the colour of markers in a region or to remove markers from regions and still others that cause a scoring round. The most peculiar thing about the game is that, with four players, each round you are split into pairs and one of the pair takes eight cards (five good and three bad) and splits them into two piles. The other player of the pair then chooses one of the piles for themself, leaving the other for the player who split the cards. It wasn't long before most of us were hoping not to be the one of the card sorters each turn. Although this meant you had some downtime waiting for your sorter, that was a small price to pay to avoid the agonising choice of how to split the piles such that you won't be disappointed when the other player chooses the pile you wanted. Apart from that, the game flowed pretty well and I shall certainly be willing to play again. I managed to win quite convincingly by getting a small lead and then concentrating on reinforcing my lead in some areas rather than try to expand. This made it easier for the other players to dispute other regions among themselves than to challenge the regions where I had large majorities and ended with me getting quite a boost at the end of game scoring. Result: TC, SG, GT, GL.
That game took us all evening. Meantime, the others played Samurai (Result: GC+MH, SO, JnT), Settlers of Catan (Result: SO, MH, GC, JnT) and Zirkus Flohcati (Result: GC, etc.).
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Two young children and five older players including a new visitor, Sven Rieper (aka Sven the Ripper), who was over visiting me from Germany and who I had taken along.
We persuaded the kids to play Tally Ho (Halali), another in the Kosmos line of two player games. This is quite a nice tactical game where the board consists of a grid of squares, representing a forest, onto which are placed 48 face-down tiles. Neutral (green) tiles are either trees, ducks or pheasant; the blue player's tiles are either foxes or bears; and the brown player's tiles are either hunters or woodcutters. Each turn a player can either turn over a face-down tile or move a face-up tile - one of their own or a green tile (except trees). Woodcutters and bears can only move one space, whilst the others can move any number of clear spaces. Each of the players' tiles 'takes' others: foxes take ducks and pheasant; bears take humans; woodcutters take trees; and hunters take any animal. To take a tile, the taking tile is moved onto the space of the taken one. Hunters can only take in the direction that their gun is pointing - and they cannot be rotated. The game begins with a certain amount of tile turning as each player attempts to get some of their forces into play. This is then followed by trying to get a bit of space to manoeuvre and coming up on your opponent's tiles such that you can get them without them getting you. Various points are scored for each taken tile and there is a little scramble for the exits at the end as you can score for your own tiles if you get them out. An excellent game that I have played lots of times now and enjoyed very much.
Meanwhile, the adults played Carcassonne. This is a popular game of turning over tiles to add to a landscape and placing your little people on the roads, towns, monasteries and fields that are revealed. Having the majority of people on a feature scores various points when that feature is completed - or at game end if it isn't completed (fields are only scored at game end). As you can only place a person on a tile when you place the tile and only on a feature that doesn't already have a person, you are gambling on how the board will develop and that you will get enough people back to keep you from getting stuck without any. You also try to place your tiles in such a way as to make it difficult for other players to get their people back or that they score little points. Much of the scoring of the game is gained at the end from the people in fields and there is much battle throughout the game to gain control of the one to three main fields that develop. Good fun, though, and it flows along pretty quickly - although the results were pretty clear for most of the game. In the end, my score was 36 compared to Garry's 96! Result: GL, SO, MH, SR, TC.
Next we played a couple of games of Limits. This is another new game that I had picked up at Ramsdencon and it is yet another card game by that master of the form, Uwe Rosenberg. I seem to now buy games by Uwe on spec. In this one you have to play cards of five colours onto a central pile, but there are limits specified on the limits card played at the beginning of the round - these limits are added to to the tune of one card played face down from each player. Instead of playing a card, a player can challenge that another has gone over the limit in a particular colour. The limit card and the face-down cards are examined to calculate how many were allowed to be played and the cards in the central pile are checked. Whoever wins the challenge gains 1 point and whoever loses it also loses two points. This continues for a certain number of limit cards and then the scores are totted up to find a winner. A great game that doesn't favour the memory masters as much as it seems like it will - I seem to do fairly well at it and I am appalling at memory games. Get out and try this game, but don't play too many times in one sitting - it will destroy your brain. We had two games. Result 1: GL, SR, TC+JO, SO/MO+MH. Result 2: TC, MH, GL/JO, SR, SO, MO.
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I turned up with Dan to find three of them already playing Tabula Rasa. While they finished, Garry lent us his copy of Pick-It and we had a couple of games of that. Six 'matchsticks' are laid out in any pattern that has them all connected with no diagonals and each player is dealt a hand of cards that show various possible layouts for the matchsticks. On your turn you move one matchstick and try to form one of the patterns shown on one of your cards, or its mirror image. If you can, you discard that card, otherwise you draw an extra card. First player to get rid of all their cards wins. As you get down to one card it gets harder to get rid of it and so you can go back up again a bit. I got stuffed a couple of times by Dan moving the matches into the pattern I needed - but I had to move one of them before I could play a card! It worked out even with Dan winning the first game and me winning the second. By then they had finished playing Tabula Rasa. Result: GC+GL, SG.
Next we all got together and Dan and I decided to liven them up with a game of Wanted. This is one of those silly reaction games that doesn't use much brain power but generally causes quite a few laughs as players do the wrong thing. Players turn over cards one at a time until one of the four types of special card is turned over. Depending on that card, players must race to put their hands onto various cards, thump the table and say 'Guilty' or put their hands in the air. The last one to do it correctly must take the pile of cards from the middle. First to get rid of their cards wins. Result: TC, DH, GL+GC+SG.
On to a bigger game, we played Ave Caesar, although using an Ausgebremst set, the main difference is Ave Caesar has three cards in the hand drawn from a shuffled pack. To fill out the field we had a random player - traditionally known as Colin - who took an early lead only to fade somewhat towards the end. Dan stormed through in the end despite hanging about at the back with me for much of the race - the game didn't last long enough for my late charge... Garry did well until he ran out of cards near the end. He claimed that he should have been third and that he didn't have as many cards as everyone else - but I don't think he believed it really. Result: DH, SG, GC, TC, Colin, GL.
We rounded off with Limits again (see last week). As in the last game, Dan stormed to a win. Result: DH, TC+SG, GL, GC.
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I arrived to find four others finishing off a game of Njet. Result: SG, SO, GC, GL.
Next we played Traumfabrik. This excellent game form Reiner Knizia is my game of the year for 2000 and one that I have enjoyed each time I have played. Players take the part of film producers, each with three films on the go at a time. Each film needs a director and a number of other special roles that vary from film to film - for example, some need more special effects, others need more leading actors, musical score writers or camera directors. Each of these roles is represented by a tile with from 0 to 3 stars on it (plus some 4 star directors), representing how much quality that particular person will add to the film. Once the film is complete, a point token is gained representing the total number of stars in the tiles used for the film. A number of oscars are available at various stages during the game for the best, and in one case the worst, films so far - these give extra points. The tiles are gained during a number of auctions and parties, split into four 'years' (times round the board). Each player has a number of 'contracts' for use in the auctions and the amount they bid is then distributed among the other players, so keeping the 'money' recycling. At the parties, there are a number of tiles equal to the number of players available and the order of choosing these is determined by how many actors each player already has allocated to their films. The game flows well and is pretty resilient to the tactics that Steve tried. He spent most of the game refusing to buy anything in the auctions, but just accumulating contracts so that everyone else's buying power was reduced. He expected to come in and clear up at the end when no-one else had enough contracts to outbid him. Apparently he had tried this successfully with three players before, but with five, the game never really reached the point at which he would start cleaning up - he almost came last as a result and most of his points came from the vast number of contracts he had accumulated by not spending (worth one point each at game end). Result: TC, SO, GL, SG, GC.
Next up we played a card game that I got at Ramsdencon, Der Schattendieb. In this game each player has a hand of four cards that are either treasure cards, thief cards or closed safe cards. All players play a card simultaneously, then any treasure cards with the same value are all discarded. If any thief cards have been played they can take a treasure card of the same colour from another player, if there are any. Then any players with treasure cards still in front of them can add others of the same colour from their hand before adding the cards to their safe (face up on the table). If a player has played a closed safe card, they can close their safe and drop out of this hand, scoring points for the cards in their safe. This is only true, however, as long as there remains another player with an open safe. The last player or players to close their safes score no points this round. The game is fun and the rounds are quite quick (we played ten), although sometimes they are quicker than you want because you have to play a safe when that's all you have. We wondered if there should be a rule allowing you to discard four safes in that case, but we weren't sure if that would adversely affect the game speed. Good fun and we must play again. Steve stormed off to an early lead and never ended up as the last player in any round. Result: SG, SO, TC, GC, GL.
Time was flying and we ended the evening with a single hand of Nicht die Bohne instead of the usual three. Result: SG, GL, TC, SO, GC.
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I seem to be making too much of a habit of arriving late lately (!?). Garry had already won a game of Groo before I even got there and was just starting to explain the rules for Way Out West. I sat down to listen and by the time he had got halfway through those rules, Steve King turned up even later than me. I let them continue with their game and joined Steve for some two player games.
I first showed him Tally Ho (see 8th March) which we played twice, taking the different roles in turn. I have played this a number of times now though and Steve was learning the ropes, so the result was not unexpected. Result (aggregate): TC, SK.
Way Out West was nowhere near finishing, so we scrabbled around looking for something to play and came up with Zapp Zerapp. Although I would have preferred this with more players, it is still quite fun. The game is basically a version of ludo: you move your pieces from your start space around the board to your home space. There are some differences to do with protection spaces and carry-forward spaces. The main difference, however, is in how you determine how far to move. Two dice are rolled to get a figure that applies to all players, who then choose one of the 'magic barrels' from the middle of the board. These are little wooden barrels containing from one to thirteen small metal 'stones'. The same number is written on the bottom of the barrels, but players are not allowed to look at that. Instead they may pick up one barrel at a time and shake them to try and guess how many stones they contain. All players do this at the same time until they all choose one and place it before them. Then all reveal the numbers on the bottom of their barrels. Any that are over the number rolled on the dice are put back and those players cannot move this round. Others move the number shown on their barrel. This adds quite a skill and fun element to the game. The other thing that makes it a pleasure to play is the sheer loveliness of the components, from the barrels to the Doris Matthäus board to the wooden pawns which are not only different colours for each player, but are different shapes too, representing different hats worn by the magical apprentices that they represent. A great game, especially for non-gamers. Result: TC, SK.
Garry adds:
Way Out West: Although I picked this up at Essen last year, I have still not played it until tonight. The action takes place in five towns of the old wild west and the aim is to buy resources in the towns with the aim of bringing in more income (in the short term) and influence in the town to gain Victory Points (in the long term). Most VPs at the end of the 12th turn for 3 players, or 9th turn for 4 or 5 players, wins. We mistakenly played 12 turns with 4 of us and it still worked ok, plus it finished within 2 hours which didn’t seem overlong.
The choice of resources to buy on each game turn is limited, so if other players have chosen to buy all the cattle available before your turn, that’s tough luck. To avoid this predicament, each turn starts with bids for turn order, with whoever drops out first playing last, whoever bids most playing first. There is, however, quite a wide choice of things to do so you’re never stuck with having nothing useful to do. Hiring cowboys in a town allows cattle subsequently to be bought and corralled there. Otherwise you could buy up the local hotel, store, bank, jail train or stagecoach, which bring various advantages. However, much more fun than buying resources is challenging an opponent to a gunfight (hey, what would the wild west be without them), which is a dice rolling duel based on the number of cowboys you control in the town where the fight takes place. I decided that this was much more important than actually playing to win the game, which was silly knowing my luck with dice. I think I won 2 duels out of about 10, even though I was rarely outgunned at the start.
The game was good fun although there are so many options that it is difficult initially to work out which are the best. Some of the others described the game as fiddly, although I think it will be less so as players become accustomed to it. I also think that if we had played 9 turns rather than 12, there would have been more of an urgency to having the most influence in the towns. Definitely one to play again. Result: SO+SG, GL, MH.
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