Session Report for Friday 4/4/2008

12 Gamers 15 Games

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Zertz

(Marshall, Robert) x 2 (Marshall, Rob)

Zertz is another of the purely abstract games in the Gipf Project, and joins Dvonn and Yinsh in our database of games played. Zertz is played on a hexgon board made up of 37 in dependant rings. The goal of the game is to capture colored balls by jumping them on the board. You can win by capturing 4 white balls, 5 gray ball, 6 black balls, or 3 of each color. The balls do not belong to any one player, instead either player may place any color ball, or make a jump with any color.

The rules are simple. On your turn you play a ball and remove a ring, OR you jump a ball with another and capture (similar to checkers). If you have a jump you must take it. You can also capture a ball by isolating the ring that it's on from the rest of the rings.

That's all the rules. So, it's pretty simple in concept, not so simple to play. The fact that you MUST make a capture if you can drives the strategy of the game. Basically, you want to feed your opponent black and gray balls in such a manner that you can capture white balls. There are several clever tactics by which you can control the position of the balls on the board (through offering your opponent forced jumps) to get the arrangement that you would like.

Overall, it looks like the Gipf Project games are starting to catch on with the group, and we'll probably be seeing Zertz again.

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Clash of the Gladiators

(Bart, Clint, August, Russ, Greg)

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Taluva

(Marshall, Nick, Robert)

Taluva continues to shine as a three player game. On BGG I rate it a 9 out of 10. The only thing keeping it from 10 out of 10 is that the end game often requires two players to cooperate to keep a third from winning. In a game without formalized negotiation rules that is a bit annoying. In order to keep me from winning the game when I did both Robert and Nick would have had to coordinate the placement of their tiles, and openly talk about the best strategy for stopping me. Also, Nick had a winning move for about 2 turns that he didn't see. It would have taken coordinated play by Robert and me to prevent that win. And, of course, you can't coordinate without pointing out the move to him. So, I just didn't bring it up and hoped that he wouldn't notice.

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No Thanks

(Drew, Christy, Nick, Marshall, Robert)

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Puerto Rico

(Christy, Marshall, Robert, Russ, Drew)

Good to get Puerto Rico back on the table. It was a tight and well played game that Drew took by a point. I got a Harbor, Factory, and the Guild Hall (normally a dominant combination), but Drew just shipped too much with his Wharf.

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Pacific Typhoon

(Bart, Nick, Rob, Clint, August, Greg)

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Coloretto

(Christy, Marshall, Robert, Russ, Drew) x2

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Dvonn

(Marshall, Rob)

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Vegas Showdown

(Robert, Nick, Bart, August, Clint)

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Power Grid

(August, Clint, Paul, Robert)

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Zertz

(August, Bart)

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Yinsh

(August, Robert)

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-- MarshallPhilips - 06 Apr 2008
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