Sat at one half of the table was myself (Andrew), Joe and Quentin – making his début this season. The other half consisted of the leaderboard front-runners Sam and Adam and Jonny and Andy, also making his first appearance of the season. But if I was thinking that I'd escaped the sternest opponents that Games Night can offer, then I had forgotten about Quentin's steely-cold logical mind.
They chose Alhambra and Sam explained the rules to the newbies. Meanwhile, we chose a new game, Oregon, and Joe talked us through the game. Quentin initially claimed to be confused, but by the end of the first round, he said he'd worked out some of the subtleties of the game. At this point Joe and I should have just thrown down our cards and welcomed our new Oregon-playing Overlord. Instead, we battled on, watching helplessly as Quentin played the cards like a maestro. Before we knew it, he'd placed all his men calling an end to the game.
Quentin 59
Joe 55
Andrew 44
We glanced across at the still unfinished game of Alhambra, and we thought we had time for another game of Oregon while it was still fresh in our minds. We set off again to ruin the beautiful nature of the state of Oregon with mines, buildings, railway stations and people standing in the middle of nowhere hoping someone might put a point-scoring building right next to them.
If Joe and I thought that our familiarity with the rules may rein Quentin in, we were in for a sorry lesson. Quentin sped ahead by an even greater score than before, leaving me to rely on coal mines to just edge me past Joe in the final count.
Quentin 73
Andrew 56
Joe 52
I can't say I'm in love with Oregon. There is an awful lot of luck involved, and it's possible to find yourself staring at a hand of four cards which do nothing but offer your opponents some free points. Perhaps we were too eager to use our jokers and our extra goes too quickly. When I say “we” I mean “me and Joe,” of course.
By now, Alhambra had ended. I'll leave it to the others to describe the vicous battle over choice real estate that must have taken place. But the results were
Sam 113
Jonny 86
Adam 84
Andy 78
... but before we had ended our second game of Oregon, they had already begun a game of Trans America. Quentin bowed out of a quick game of Hey! That's My Fish, preferring to get an early night (ie, keep his points ratio intact). Joe and I played a quick non-leaderboard game of Citadel (won by Joe by enough of a margin that we didn't need to count up the scores) until Trans America had ended. This time Adam had wreaked terrible revenge for his third place in Alhambra with a whitewash of his opponents.
Adam 0
Andy 10
Jonny 12
Sam 14
This leaves the leaderboard looking more populated, with two new names added. Not much has changed in terms of position near the top, but Quentin wondered about not turning up to any more games nights, just to keep his points ratio nice and healthy. Luckily, Joe lent him Ascending Empires which means he'll have to make at least one more visit to the GNN tables to return it. And then we'll get him, good and proper.
Right, guys?
The leaderboard...
| Played | Points | Ratio | |
| Sam | 16 | 72.5 | 4.53 |
| Adam | 15 | 69 | 4.6 |
| Andrew | 17 | 59 | 3.47 |
| Joe | 10 | 35 | 3.5 |
| Jonny | 3 | 10.5 | 3.5 |
| Quentin | 2 | 10 | 5 |
| Dan | 2 | 8 | 4 |
| Andy | 2 | 7 | 3.5 |
| Sally | 1 | 4.5 | 4.5 |
| Steve | 1 | 4.5 | 4.5 |
Alhambra was enjoyable as always and Jonny and Andy picked it up straight away. Adam's tactic was to go for Gardens and Chambers while letting us fight it out over the Towers - Andy won that particular battle and Jonny and I shared second. Just by happenstance I began with Pavilions and went after Arcades as well - plus I kept an eye on what was happening in the second-places for each building.
ReplyDeleteBut key to my victory was (again) a long wall and a bit of luck, picking up three of the final four tiles to extend my wall a point and gain first place in Seraglios.
Oregon was less fun than when I played three player game on my own!!
ReplyDeleteAs Andrew said, too luck-driven, really. Even Quent was slightly underwhelmed, despite his double-win.
We're a bit spoiled these days though — if Toys R Us had Monopoly, Cluedo, Risk and Oregon, I'd go for Oregon any day. It just doesn't quite stack up to the best the hobby has to offer these days.
Early days I know but can I moot a 'Games Weekend' sometime next year, early summer perhaps? Chris, Andrew, Paul and I have been doing this once a year for the last X years and I'm sure they'd like to extend the invite to the GNN group.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely :)
ReplyDelete