Jury out on Thunderstone

Last night saw Quentin, Adam, Andrew, Joe and me (Sam) sat around the table for the second five-player games night in a row, a welcome return to bums-on-seats after a quiet February for the Tuesday night club. After a brief debate over which game to play - I had seductively popped out Genoa's cardboard thingies onto the table, to no avail - we elected to go with one of Joe's recent purchases, Thunderstone.

After Small World, which no-one really liked that much, this was only our second tentative foray into the fantasy themes that Quent loves and that make Adam nervous. Generally I'm a bit reluctant about fantasy themes too, though really there's no need to be as once the game starts it's all a bit abstract anyway. And unbeknownst to all I have been wearing my invisible chain mail armour with +2 hit points for many Tuesdays now.

So we cracked on with Thunderstone, where we take on the role of heroes setting out to slay dungeon monsters. Very similar to Dominion in it's mechanics, the game is about building up your hand of cards to give you a strong attacking capability, but at the same time not forgetting to actually use that capability and slay as many monsters as possible, as the player who achieves most kills - bearing in mind some kills are worth more than others - is the winner. The catch - as with Dominion - is that the cards that win you the game are the cards that clutter up your hand during it.

I was caught out by the first game; it suddenly ended while I was still intent on building a decent hand, when Quentin romped home to an easy victory with 21 points, Joe in second with 16, and Adam, me, then Andrew in distant 3rd/4th/5th placings:.

Quent: 21

Joe: 16

Adam: 9

Sam 8

Andrew: 6

Quent loved it; the rest of us newbies (Joe had played before) were less convinced, but as it was on the table we played again anyway and this time it was a tighter affair as everyone got to grips with their strategies. As we were playing a couple of house-rules we had a protracted finish to the game as everyone struggled to kill off the last monster - a frustrating but perversely entertaining variant, I thought - and it was Adam who shuffled his hand into the right combination to take down the Sleeping Lurk, or whatever it was. Adam then proved his capacity for heroism was matched by his potential for evil as he encouraged me to think I'd won, actually getting me to recount my cards before announcing he'd beaten me anyway. Shame on you, Hillmann!

Adam: 27

Sam 24

Quent: 17

Joe: 16

Andrew: 14

Quent, who'd initially said Thunderstone ticked all his boxes, was a little disappointed by the second game, whereas I grew to like it a little more. Can it be as simple as our final placings? Are we that shallow? Probably, although to be honest though I liked it more than Dominion it's still a bit heads-down, waiting for your turn, and as your turn is sometimes an exercise in frustration I'm not in a massive rush to play it again. However, in fairness Joe said there were some variants that brought some (nasty) player interaction to the fore, so I'm sure it will pop up on the table at some point.

Leaderboard: No-one dominated the points scoring though Quent and Adam will be happiest with their night's work.

The leaderboard...

	Played	Points	Ratio
Adam	10	52.5	5.25
Joe	11	43.5	3.95
Andrew	12	37	3.08
Sam	7	32	4.57
Quentin	7	30	4.28
Hannah	3	11.5	3.8
Jonny	1	2	2