4th August 04.....................................................9 Players

We got another good turnout this week with 7 adults and 2 children. It was nice to have the company of first timer Steve Paget. I hope you had a good time Steve!

Power Grid – 180 minutes

We had pre arranged to give this game its second run in 2 weeks. This time we finished the game in time. The game is manageable in a session but it does need us to have it set up and ready to go by 7:45. Our play will speed up a bit with repeat playing.

To an extent I get a natural high from board gaming and this game took that feeling in me about as far as it goes. This is a big satisfying game that I just want to be playing right now. I would have been quiet happy to have ended this game and immediately set up again for another. I have no doubt that Keith and I would have played this for hours if it had been around during our “dole” era back in our early 20’s.

Keith was fuelling his plants on the cheap with wind power and an economic oil burner. Steve ended up as the only one with nuclear plants he also picked up the beautiful 6 city fusion plant. Steve led most of the time. I was the trash man. Dave was heavily into coal. Towards the end of the game I brought a dirty big coal plant threatening to strip the supply. Dave’s retort was to build his way to ending the game which also happened to gave him the victory. I was completely caught on the hop with one of my plants not even fuelled. I liked my board position but I messed up my plant buying from the start, though all the decisions seemed good to me at the time. I felt this game was won and lost on the plant and resource management, I did not feel the board play was particular significant.

Saint Petersburg – 90 minutes

It looked to me like Steve got into buying workers early and buildings later in

the game which is a cool way to play. He pulled off the victory with a high score so he must have been doing something right. I see Peter was close behind Steve. I hope you remembered to score 1 point for every 10 roubles in the hand at game end.

La Strada – 30 minutes

This is the first time this game has been tried by any of us as a 2 player. I gather with 2 it was a bit naff with no meaningful decisions to be made.

Samurai (bgg), Scotland Yard (bgg) and Royal Turf (bgg) – 90 minutes

Ben and Daniel were unsupervised this week. Their games were played suspiciously quickly, 20 minutes for a game of Scotland Yard! They spent a fair amount of time messing around downstairs by the fruit machines. They seemed happy. Daniel tells me he won all the games. I really like Royal Turf. A 6 player 3 round game takes about an hour and is a lot of fun.

11th August 04....................................................3 Players

I was away at Butlins with the family this week. Had a great time, thanks for asking. Dave D kindly provided the following report.          

Vinci – 120 minutes

Just the three of us tonight in the heart of the holiday season, the game was Vinci and turned out to be one of the closest I’ve seen, unfortunately it was also very frustrating as I succeeded in going from first to last in the final round having led throughout. Tony having trailed for most of the game made a great comeback to catch Steve and overtake me. The last couple of turns were a bit strange since both Tony and I were running civs with Diplomacy so things were relatively quiet and I think in retrospect it might have been better if I had shaken things up by going into decline may be two turns before the end, my empire was doing alright but not as well as the others and there was an attractive civ with slavery and espionage available for only the loss of two points, which I could have grabbed without losing tempo as I had rebirth. Oh Well.

18th August 04...................................................6 Players

I really enjoyed tonight’s session. It is a pleasure to have Steve P’s company in the car while travelling to and from Halesowen. Hope you get the audition Steve. I played 2 of my favourite games but as always the main attraction is the comradeship.

Mike's Comments - Well I certainly enjoyed the goings-on at the other table too.  Web of Power was desperately close, perhaps not surprising as it was 16-16-16 at the end of first scoring!  I cleaned up on Advisors, but was the only one not to score a cloister trail so was nearly pulled back.  I know DD finds Alexandros too chaotic, but this is yet another 3-player outing which has been incredibly tense and enjoyable, if you want a 1 hour game with plenty of backstabbing and changing fortunes and plans then this one certainly seems to deliver at the moment, time will tell if we've just been lucky.

   
Jonathan, Mike and Steve P           Steve H on the right. Dave D’s Hand on the left

Ra – 60 minutes

No two games of RA are quiet alike. The RAs were plentiful in the first 2 epocs thus the scores remained low for most of the game. I managed to pick up the most Pharaohs every time and Dave got caught with the least. Dave got a big Nile score every round, with a total of 10 points for his Niles and floods in the last epoc. Steve got 5 Sphinx which is the first time I have seen anyone get 5 of one type of monument. The game ended, as is traditional, with Steve losing a final tile gamble by pulling RA. Dave got the lowest end of game sun score and Steve got the highest.

San Juan – 60 minutes

This was a big scoring game. There was not too much producing going on. Dave ended with 7 production buildings, a Guild Hall and a Palace. I ended with 9 violet buildings, a City Hall, the monument 6 point building and the 3 monuments. Steve had a well stuffed Chapel and a Palace. On a different day both Steve and Dave could have expected to win with these builds but not today.

Web of Power – 60 minutes

Mike explained the rules to first timers Jonathan and Steve. From what I can tell from my picture it seems Mike (Red) did well with the advisors. Some games of Web of Power the advisors are responsible for as many as half of player’s points and in other games nobody manages more than a handful of advisor points. There is a group-think that affects the relative importance of advisors to cloisters.

Alexandros – 60 minutes

Alexander did not chop many territories this time. Steve took the mid game lead but was pegged back. Jonathan stored up cards early in the game.

25th August 04...................................................6 Players

Bit of a messy session this evening. Nothing I could get my teeth into and the children were distracting me somewhat. I hope the rest of you had a smoother time of it. I spoke to Becky and Ben’s dad afterwards and let him know that next week was the last week for the kids. Daniel will not be about next week because the following day he is back at school. I understand that in the Black Country you go back the following Monday.

I have had an e-mail off Karen who I met at Manorcon. She is going to be joining us next week which will be nice. Dave C, Ben C, Steve H and Steve P are all expected as well so it should be a good turnout. If Mike and Dave D get there way we will also have the “gentleman” from the Sunday Mercury joining us. More e-mails will no doubt follow regarding the man from the press, it is a contentious issue.

Citadels – 90 minutes

This is not a game that works for me on a Wednesday night. It feels like a waste of time. As a 3 or 4 player family game played at a good pace it would probably be fun but even then I would want it over within 60 minutes. Mike seemed to spend much of the game as the King with me to his right and thus getting last choice of roles. Credit to Dave for managing his role choice well over the last couple of turns. Fortunately I seemed to be the only one struggling to keep focus on the game, with the rest of you obviously experiencing some enjoyable angst.

Monopoly Junior – 30 minutes  bgg

Molly Daniel and Alice used to play this when they were younger. I think it is a good re-working of Monopoly. Children are un-aware that the game is totally playing itself. There is literally no way of influencing play, it has less skill than Ludo! This completely luck based journey manages to hold the attention of young children and they enjoy participating in a competition on equal footing with each other. Nobody cries at the end.

Guillotine – 30 minutes

Dave made a miserable job of collecting the right heads. One of the lowest scores ever I suspect but nothing that is going to stop Dave from collecting the trophy for August.

Alexandros – 40 minutes

This was my first playing of this game with two. By more luck than judgement I got a reasonable territory lead by mid game with a big hand of cards to defend it with. Becky joined us for some of the game, now Becky is a live wire and I really enjoy her presence but I suspect she was driving Jonathan nuts. We really should have a re-match some time without the distraction.

Final Trophy points for August and a very decisive victory by Dave Dudley: