Easton Cowboy

Saturday night. After a day of moving soil what I should have done was go to bed early, but I was awake enough not to cancel the incoming Adam and Ian.

There was a little discussion over what to play, with the main choices Flamme Rouge or Great Western Trail. I was happy with either, but when Ian warned Adam that the latter was long, his mind was made up: Great Western Trail it was.

I explained the rules as best I could and we began. The game though is slightly Rosenberg-esque in the options you have - you can travel as far as you like on your first turn, and up to three 'steps' thereafter, so it feels like you are being directed to a buffet rather than served a first course.

I won't go thorough the vagaries of GWT which have been covered in great depth recently, but my plans of exploring the buildings some more sort of evaporated early on. I didn't build a single one. We all bought cattle, and grabbed station master tiles. But during the second half of the game, Adam either hit on or realised a long-planned strategy of shunting his train as far up the line as he could. I'm sure I did this before and lost, but maybe I misremember. Or maybe I just didn't do it as well as Adam did. As the game end hove into view, it was clear Ian and I were duking it out for second. And Ian proved to be the clear winner in that particular melee:

Adam 101
Ian 84
Sam 67

I remain bamboozled as to how to join the cogs together on this one, but I do like it. Adam, as Adam so often does, had no such qualms and seemed to be in his element; herding, trading, and most enthusiastically of all, shunting.

We still had some time, so we bashed out a couple of quick games of For Sale. Adam won both of these too, with Ian and I sharing second in the opening game and me bumped into third for the second. I should have gone to bed at seven...