Czars and Boxcarz

What better way to follow Stabcon than jumping in to two new games in one night. New, at least, to Andrew and Me. Quentin, Adam and Hannah had all played both before.

First we tried St Petersburg, which Quentin had brought along, having bought it for friends at christmas and borrowed it back for the evening. Definitely a game that will repay further plays - it's not until you've finished that first game that you start to see the order in which purchases should be made. I have a feeling it could become rather mechanical once you've figured it out, and there is certainly very little interaction between players. But nice enough, and one I would happily explore a little more. Especially since it is quick enough to play before or after another game in the same evening. In the end, Quent's experience/cleverness/luck lead him to a substantial win up in the hundreds, with Joe, Andrew and Adam sitting 5 points apart around the 50 point mark.

While we were playing St Petersburg, Hannah arrived with Ticket to Ride Europe. TTR is one of those ubiquitous games I've wanted to play for a long time, but never got round to it. And when Adam suggested it earlier in the day, I was initially unenthusiastic. That's only because I'd been busily genning up on share-dilution strategies for Chicago Express, a game I long to understand better, so had my eye on getting that to the table.

As it turned out, TTR was the perfect thing to start at 10pm on a tuesday night — the rules were easily grasped in 5 minutes, and play was simple and engaging. A much more interactive affair than St Petersburg, lot's of opportunity for screwage, and some nail-biting tension as you watch your coveted route being whipped out from under your nose.

As predicted by Adam, we finished at 11.20 on the dot, and it was a very close-run thing. Ahem. Apart from me, who had made a frankly disastrous decision during the late game, and was unable to complete my long route. Doh! In the end, Adam clinched it with the 10 points for longest continuous route. Hannah and Andrew came joint second, Quent third and me in very last place. Great fun though - the perfect mix of light strategy and tension, and very pretty to boot. If I get it, okay okay when I get it, I'll just have to replace the plastic trains with my Age of Steam wooden lovelies!

Let me know if I've got the leaderboard wrong, still getting my head round the new system.

	Played	Points
Andrew	3	15
Quentin	3	15
Joe	3	14
Adam	2	13
Sam	1	7
Hannah	1	6