Galaxy Truckers and Galaxy Caramel

Tonight, four of the GNN regulars had arranged to meet up (with Joe fuming enviously, unable to attend). As it turned out, Hannah was a late cancellation so three of us were sat around the table this chilly May evening: Adam, Sam and me.

With Adam supplying plentiful chips, we had to eat them up quickly and wash our hands since we had decided on Galaxy Truckers as our first challenge. This game of ad hoc spaceship construction is more tactile than most games with all players scrambling to uncover the best tiles, so greasy fingers are a definite faux pas.

We decided on a variant of Adam's own choosing: start on round two and then play both round threes. An interesting new twist to the game, it avoids the relative safety of round one and throws you straight into a field of big meteors, pirates and epidemics right from the start.

Galaxy Truckers is a great game and quite different to anything else we play. The randomness is offset by the opportunity to look at the cards beforehand, and our own haste and stupidity are as much our enemies as the pack of cards we have to navigate through, since bits often fell off our spaceships before each round had begun... to great hilarity from the other players.

I played a safe game. I finished my ship last, but always solidly made, and I was rarely in first when it came to facing down pirates or nabbing goods from abandoned ships. Sam took most of the these events, cleverly dropping back just in time to let someone else take a few meteorites in his face or laser blasts from behind. And it was usually Adam who faced the worst of these incidents, not helped at all by his evil nemesis: dice.

In the end, Sam's space-age handiwork won the day, with me coming in a comfortable second. I suppose we should've felt bad for Adam coming in last when he'd also supplied such brand-appropriate chocolate (the Galaxy Caramel in the title)... but we didn't.

Sam 132
Andrew 80
Adam 67

Next we chose Seven Wonders, a game undergoing a bit of a revival at GNN Towers recently. I had the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, which had the tempting option of building a discarded card for free whenever you build part of your wonder. I thought (and still do) this this was a very powerful option, and I made sure to discard good cards knowing I could build them easily later on. But I put all my building into the last round, and didn't have enough time to do everything I wanted to. Plus I should've discarded a guild that gave Adam about fifteen points, but I didn't notice it until it was too late. As it was, my lack of foresight left me in third while the warmongering Adam wrestled first from Sam by the narrowest of margins.

Adam 59
Sam 58
Andrew 45

It was still early and I still had half a can of beer beside me, so another game was suggested. Tsuro – that classic game of tense duelling with dragons on rails – was chosen. In the first game I graciously allowed Sam one extra go when I could have annihilated us both, but he couldn't make the advantage count, and Adam took first place again.

1. Adam
2. Sam
3. Andrew

Finally, Sally arrived from swimming. Or not swimming. Either way, she joined us on our last game of the evening: one last round of Tsuro. This time I sent Sally into the corner of doom, while Adam and Sam leapt off the board like synchronised lemmings, leaving me with a last-minute win for the evening.

1. Andrew
2= Sam
2= Adam
3. Sally

Meanwhile, all this mucking about with three-player games has left the three of us at the top of the Form Table. What a coincidence! Plus tonight saw the first use of the high-tech scoreboard to track tonight's progress for all to see.

						Points
Sam	2	2	2	1	1	8
Adam	2	1	1	3	3	10
Andrew	1	3	3	2	2	11
Steve	2	2	1	5	2	12
Hannah	1	1	3	5	5	15
Joe	3	2	5	3	4	17
Anja	5	2	2	4	4	17
Quentin	1	3	5	5	5	19
Jonny	2	2	5	5	5	19
Sally	3	5	5	5	5	23