Session Report for Friday, 1/5/2007

17 Players, 24 Games. Which is just 2 players less than we had at the first session last year (which benefited from the big bump from the Eagle article) but more games played. So we're off to a very good start.

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Tsuro

(Johan, Russ, Paul, Tracy) (Scott, Kevin K., Greg, Paul, Nate)

This is a nice quick game that has been played in the group several times. Usually used as a filler between games or while waiting for others to show up. You basically place tile cards on the board that have different paths drawn on the tiles. The object is not to let your game piece stray off the board or run into another's piece based on the paths connecting from one tile to another.

-- ScottK - 11 Jan 2007

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Battlelore

(Johan, Tracy)

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Turn and Taxis

(Marshall, Kevin L., Nick, Stephanie)

Thurn and Taxis was the 2006 Spiel des Jahres (German Game of the Year) winner and this is its first appearance in the group. It's very reminiscent of Ticket to Ride in that you draft cards then play those card to claim routes on the board. There some significant differences though because you can only draft 1 card at a time (some exceptions) and you have to play the cards in front of you before you can use them to claim a route. Routes are also slightly different than Ticket to Ride in that each city only needs one card to connect it to an adjacent city but your route can be up to 7 cities long.

Another thing to note is that this game is by Andres Seyfarth (the designer of Puerto Rico) and sure enough there is a role selection mechanism (each turn you select one character which gives you a bonus in one aspect of the game). The difference here is that the role you select only affects you.

Overall Thurn and Taxis has a lot of overlapping mechanisms that the player must juggle in the most efficient manner. I found the turn to turn decisions in T&T to be more interesting than those in Ticket to Ride but the board play in Ticket to Ride is a little sharper since you can block routes, something which is impossible in T&T (although it is often more profitable to get a route first).

The artwork is quite nice also, very pleasant and easy to look at.

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Hey! That's My Fish

(Robert, Ty, August, Russ) x2

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Mission: Red Planet

(Scott, Kevin K., Greg, Paul, Nate)

This is a game I received for Christmas and was anxious to play with the group. Basically this is a land majority type of game where you are trying to land astronauts/counters of your color on the different areas of Mars and by having the majority in any area(s) of Mars allows you to 'harvest' (gain points) for the resources there. You load up astronauts on several ships, each with a different destination and number of astronauts that the ship can hold. When full, the ships launch for Mars. In order to get your astronauts on the ships, you use different character cards to place astronauts and do other nasty things (like blow up a ship, kill another astronaut, send a ship to a different destination, etc.). I found the game to be a mix of Citadels and El Grande.

-- ScottK - 11 Jan 2007

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Through the Desert

(Scott, Kevin K., Greg, Paul, Nate) (Scott, Nate, Greg, Kevin K.)

The game of pastel camels! This has been played in the group before, and since my wife hates this game, one of the few places I get to play it is with the group. Nice filler game that I think scales well for 2 to 5 players.

-- ScottK - 11 Jan 2007

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10 Days in Europe

(Ty, Clint, Russ, Robert)

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Cartegena

(Ty, Clint, Robert, Karen)

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Guillotine

(August, Johan)

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Boomtown

(Scott, Kevin K., Greg, Paul, Nate)

I really enjoy this game and was able to get it for Christmas as well. It is fairly quick with simple rules, but it does involve dice, so that luck factor can turn some people off on it. There are five different colored 'towns' and there are several mines in each town. These mines are shown on the different cards with a colored border to designate which town the mine comes from. There is also a number on the card which is number you need the dice roll to land on to allow the mine to make money. Finally, there are different gold coin symbols on the card showing how much money the mines produce when/if your lucky number comes up. Each round there are a number of cards placed face up to equal the number of players in the game. The players bid on the right to chose first from the cards available. Whoever wins the bid has to pass their money to the person on their right with this person taking half the money (rounded up) and passing the rest to the next person on the right and so on. The player who wins the bid choses the card they want with the person on their left getting the second pick and so on until all the card are taken. After all cards are taken, the person who won the right to choose first rolls the dice and whatever cards have the same number as what was rolled on the dice gets to gain more money. The winner is whoever has the most money after all the cards are taken. This is a brief rundown of some of the rules, there are also things like mayors that reward the owner of the most mines in a town, and special cards that can allow you to blow up mines, steal mines, gain gold from the bank, change dice rolls, and so-on. I think it is interesting that when you win a bid, you are giving your opponents money which could be used to win the game. I find this to be a pretty good gateway game, with my family really enjoying it.

-- ScottK - 11 Jan 2007

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Quoridor

(Kevin L., Nick) (August, Marshall) (August, Kevin L.) (August, Russ) x2

Quoridor is a very simple abstract game. Your goal is to get your pawn to your opponents side while he tries to do the same. On your turn you can move your pawn one space orthogonally OR place a wall on the board. As walls are placed the board becomes mazelike, the idea is to make your opponents route as convoluted as possible (though you're not allowed to completely cut him off).

Your first instinct is to use the walls to cut off your opponents pawn but as Kevin ably demonstrated the best use of them can be defensive. You want to place walls near your own pawn to prevent your opponent from cutting off your route. Very clever and quick game.

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Ra

(Marshall, Johan, Nick, Russ, August) (Greg, Russ, Scott, Nate)

Not much to say about this game. Three players were new to the first game so it was basically a learning game (and Ra takes at least one game to figure out what everything is worth). I think the lesson from this game is that with 5 players you want to be calling Ra more frequently because the round is going to end quicker than you think.

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Ticket to Ride

(Nick, Stephanie, Karen)

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End of the Triumvirate

(August, Kevin K., Marshall)

End of the Triumvirate is a hybrid euro-war game for exactly three players. The theme is ancient Rome at the end of the first triumvirate when Caesar, Pompeii, and Crassus struggled for power. It's best described as a knife fight in a phone booth as the state of the game changes rapidly as players struggle to reach one of the three victory conditions. The strategy mostly involves keeping someone else from winning by invading their provinces until you are close enough yourself to push for the victory in one turn. Fortunes change dramatically as the ownership of the provinces changes again and again.

A typical turn goes like this:

1) Take supply (legions and Gold) from your provinces and then from Rome 2) Use 4 movement points (at least 1 of which is usually an invasion of someone else's province) 3) Use the actions associated on the province you ended on (i.e. build weapons, sway electors, increase your military or political competence) 4) Move the calendar stone one space toward the next election.

The three victory conditions are:

1) Be elected Consul twice OR elected once and accumulate 6 electors 2) Control 9 provinces at the end of your turn 3) Max out on the military and political competency tracks

Typically a victory can come quicker than you expect as happened in our game when Kevin (Pompeii) was left alone for a couple of turns and found himself flush with legions. He conquered one of August's provinces and 2 of mine for a total of 9 controlled at the end of his turn and the victory.

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Descent

(Russ, Johan, Robert, Kevin L.)

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Power Grid

(August, Nick, Stephanie, Russ, Robert)

-- MarshallPhilips - 09 Jan 2007
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