Infamy, Infamy

Last night was mine and Sally's overdue rematch with Mark and Katie, Hotwell-dwelling gamers. There was cheese and wine, and smarties, and the catch up on all things family, including the current commodity of choice in our respective homes (sleep at ours, egg ownership at theirs). Then we broke out the cardboard.

I'd taken along Pompeii, Ra and Stone Age as options. I'd assumed as Sally had played it last week Ra might appeal to her in a non-rules-learning fashion, but she pooh-poohed it like the seasoned gamer she pretends not to be. Nobody fancied Stone Age, so after Carcassone was ruled out we set up The Downfall of Pompeii.

I think all GNNers have played this by now, but for anyone who's missed out: the first half of the game sees players repopulating the city of Pompeii after the earthquake of 62AD, and the second half comes after Vesuvius erupts in 79AD, when your families have to come scurrying out again. Apparently Klaus-Jurgen Wrede is planning a sequel where fascists chase you into Naples before the Allies drop bombs on you for four years.

We went through the rules and started quickly. What's nice about Pompeii is it's so easy to pick up, yet as we all noted it wears it's theme very well. Certainly Sally went through a roller-coaster of emotions, unable to decide if the lava raining down on us all was thrilling, or if it made her sad.

Some people strayed too close to the heat

I did well in the card stage, getting heaps of relations on the board that even the serial chucking of them into the volcano by the others couldn't halt. Katie fared poorly in contrast, and when Vesuvius erupted she still had plenty of family who hadn't made the post-quake return to the city.

It was now time to get out. Having a big presence on the board made me a likely target for any sentient lava, so I made an early decision to get out fast, without thinking about who to move too much. I reckoned that any thinking would be undone by A. giving away what I was planning and B. the lava tiles being so unpredictable. Sally and Katie both had issues with family members being wiped out in the chaos, during which I was unpalatably compared to an Guantanomo Bay guard.

Mark's yellow family run out of time

Mark meanwhile was doing what I'd done the last time I'd played Pompeii - amassing family by the gates. My undoing in that system was the lava tiles - in Mark's case though he unfortunately ran out of time, as the one completely nonsensical element to the game (no more lava = survivors in the city all perish) kicked in:

Sam 11
Katie 9
Mark 8
Sally 7

So no ties to resolve, but we looked in the volcano for carcasses anyway, and discovered that despite my many sacrificial lambs during repopulation, it was Sally who had suffered worst at the hands of the lava, possibly due to what she described as cardboard karma. A good game though, and a very nice evening.

On the occasional KMSS form table Mark hangs on to top spot, but I jump from 4th to second. Katie's impressive second place from a lowly presence on the board sees her stay ahead of Sally.

KMSS						Points
Mark		3	2	2	1	8
Sam		1	3	3	2	9
Katie		2	4	1	3	10
Sally		4	2	4	1	11