Old Friends

T'was the games night before Christmas...  an intimate affair, with various regulars absent for a variety of reasons, including flying to the US, landmark family birthdays and gigs. And so just Adam H, Ian and I (Joe) convened at Steve and Anja's at 7.45pm for a night of classic GNN frolics.

While Anja did a bit of  last-minute adulting elsewhere, the rest of us plus Louie played Timeline. It was fun to revisit this old friend (a theme that would recur this evening), and we mostly got things right, until Louie and Adam finished the round with no cards each, forcing a chronological head to head. They both failed this, which meant they had to do it again, and Adam thought he was a shoo-in with the invention of GPS. His swagger turned to dismay as he discovered that it was invented before the launch of the first Space Shuttle (though with hindsight that seems reasonable) and Louie rejoiced in his unshared victory. 

Louie WIN!

Everyone else LOSE!

Anja arrived on the scene at this point, and we debated the merits of a 6 player versus two 3-ers. The 6-ers on offer didn't satisfy Louie's criteria for a 'proper' game - I've never heard the word 'Kites' uttered with such deep disdain - and thus we split into two 3s. Ian, Steve and Anja set up Mille Fiori at one end, whilst Adam, Louie and I reacquainted ourselves with another old friend, Dominion.

We played the 'Big Money' variant, and it didn't disappoint - Louie utilised several Adventurers to explore his deck for coins, whilst Adam used several Laboratories (pronounced 'Bloboratories' for reasons forgotten) to chain some big moves. I set to Mining, and it worked quite well in conjunction with my Throneroom; we launched into the points-harvesting phase of the game with all in contention.

It was close, but Adam took the win with 33 points. I had 30, and Louie 29.

Mille Fiori was drawing to a close, and Ian seemed to have discovered an overlooked rule - that the offer gets restocked at the end of the round not only with players' discards but also one card per player from the deck. I'm not sure I've played that way before, but I could be wrong. Martin will tell us in the comments.

The final scores were Ian winning with 198, Anja a close second with 192, and Steve elbowing various delicate glass objets onto the workshop floor with 162.

Whilst they finished up and Louie retired, Adam and I debated what next for us five. Adam, as noted by Ian, attempted a bit of Derren Brown-style subliminal influencing by asking me aloud what game we should 'railroad' the others into playing.

Perhaps it worked. I'd brought 20th Anniversary Ticket to Ride Europe, and as we got the bits out to admire its sumptuous stylings, positive noises from the other end of the table suggested it might fit the bill. So while the others packed MF away, we tried to understand the implications of the various route tickets, which can be combined for all sorts of variants. In the end we used all the base and 1912 tickets, plus Big Cities. Lots of tickets.

Steve made the excellent suggestion of using the Team Asia card holders; being able to see your destinations all at once really helps, it turns out! We started off all clustered around Paris, for some reason; apart from Steve, who built Roma to Brindisi on his very first go. And then ignored this little branch line for much of the game. Adam adammed, meaning top-decked like a mofo, and Ian followed suit. As did Anja. Ok ok, I did too a bit - what can you do?

The board gradually spidered out from Paris - it was feisty and tense (though I felt relatively un-messed-with), and there were various agonised noises coming from Steve, who seemed to feel unfit for the role of early 20th Century rail magnate.

Here's a distinctly unsophisticated time-lapse of the game...

Eventually Adam blew the final whistle, and on my final turn I gambled on a six link tunnel from Budapest to Kyiv, which paid off. Steve, Ian and Adam had nothing to do on their last turns, and all weighed up the option of taking more tickets, but balked. We turned over the top three to see if they should have taken the plunge, and there was a collective sigh of relief - except from Anja, who it turned out could have made all three!

Anja did take the longest route bonus, however; and then we started the final scoring from Steve, who was in last place. In the final tally, Adam held on to his crown as master of TTR in style, with over 30 point separating him from me in second place.

Adam 160

Joe 129

Anja 120

Ian 111

Steve 73

The final board state in all it's sumptuosity

It was quarter to midnight, shockingly, so we hastily packed away and tootled off (so hastily I forgot my jumper). Thanks S&A - it was a lovely final games night before Christmas, and great to play some old favourites.

Four Tribes. Five Days.

Five days in Dorset with four families - Joe's, mine (Sam), our friends Tom and Hannah (plus Theo and Esme) and Alison and Simon (plus Elliott). It's something of a tradition now, as this was the third year running we piled into a rambling 1930's house and indulged ourselves in fine wine, fine food and of course, games.

It's only really myself and Joe who are committed gamers, but Tom, Simon and most of the children are at least intrigued, and often keen. It was amazing to watch how young children will pick up a game very quickly, whereas some of the adults will start to glaze over, defeated, as soon as there is a third or fourth rule.

I'd brought along a few games and Joe a few more. We both had a new purchase with us - Istanbul for me, and Machi Koro for Joe. Both were big hits.

Image courtesy JackyTheRipper

Machi Koro is a game of dice and cards. Thematically each player is building a city, and they grow from their initial two cards (Bakery and Wheat Field)) by generating money to build more buildings (or other things, such as the curiously un-urban Forest), which beget more money, which beget more buildings and so on. The first player to build four specific landmark buildings - Radio Tower, Train Staion, etc - wins. Personally I didn't get on with it. A series of rubbish dice rolls and consistent strategic ineptitude on my part in three attempts all ended with me soundly beaten and somewhat frustrated. But I was the sole voice of dissent, as Joe, Tom, Simon and the kids played it serially over the five days to much appreciation. I think Tom usually won.

Istanbul won the Kennerspiel des Jahres, the award for the "Gamers Game" this year, apparently seeing off Concordia in doing so. I don't know if it's the better game, but it's certainly more accessible. It's slightly reminiscent of Five Tribes in layout and movement, but any similarities end there, as the game moves much faster and finishes much quicker. Each player is trying to be the first to get a number of gems - 6 in a two-player game, 5 with more. Everyone has a merchant they move around the variable set-up board, dropping off assistants to do tasks in worker-placement style. You can try and generate money and buy gems, or pay for them with resources. Getting certain in-game bonuses or extras will also get you a gem. Key to the game is movement - you can only do the action of a building if you're dropping off or picking up an assistant, so you can't go scattergun all over the place.   I played this as a two, three, and four player and enjoyed them all - admittedly I won them all, but Tom never played it.

 Image courtesy Kenneth Hiew

Cube Quest was also a big hit, particularly with the kids. Big Joe and I spent a good deal of our time searching for cubes behind or under furniture as the flicking velocity increased. It's a great leveller, Cube Quest. I won a few games - but I also lost to both Little Joe and Stanley, and Stanley defeated Tom (Tom!) with possibly the Flick of the Trip - a two-mat sniper-style hit on Tom's King.

Little Joe prepares for battle

Possibly the biggest hit, though, was a variation on many party games which Alison introduced: one by one the adults chose a book and read out the title, and blurb on the back. Then everyone wrote their own opening line to the book in question, and they were all (including the real one) read out. Points are awarded for a correct guess and for anyone who guesses your own faked effort. I won this game narrowly but it helped me massively that, being only fairly drunk in a room full of paralytic people - courtesy of some extremely strong margaritas - I had my wits reasonably about me. I have never seen Joe as drunk as during this game. I'm not sure I've seen anyone as drunk as Joe during this game. He fell off his chair three times, went outside for a mysterious 'walk', and fell asleep upstairs during the last round whilst the children - still up to witness events - regarded us all with appalled, yet justified, disdain. The game definitely benefited from our inebriation though, as well as an impressive collection of 1950's literature on the house's bookshelves - titles including The Swish of the Curtain, The Houses Inbetween, Destination Unknown - and best of all Gently Sahib, the story of a tiger killing someone in a sleepy England town and poor old Detective Gently assigned to investigate. Our own investigation of the novel itself featured a fleeting appearance of Sausages and Mash, the game of reading out sections of a book and turning any words beginning with S or M into 'sausages' or 'mash' - or variations thereof. No-one - or maybe everyone - is a winner with this venture.

Our rival to Simonen

Other games were played - Dominion, Fauna, Camel Up and X-wing (basic version). The latter three were curiously flat: Charlotte admitted Fauna had never lived up to its first play when there was hysteria over the Bushy-Tailed Gerd. Though we played to the end nobody requested it again. I had a disaster, finishing stony last and embarrassing myself by thinking Balearic music came from Central America. Music and geography - not my specialisms. I tended to focus on the map and not guess at length and weight that much. Personally I really struggle with weight once you get beyond a pound - I've realised I measure weight in terms of cheese.

Dominion, and Elliott's leg.

But Fauna was probably the success of the non-successes; Camel Up was okay but it lacks the immediacy of something like Cube Quest, and actually is a tiny bit fiddly rules-wise for something that plays in 20 minutes. X-Wing I really need to learn the proper rules to, as the base game - played by Elliott and I - is fairly dull. I'll bring it along to GNN and let Matt teach me! Trans Europa also saw the table at one point early on, and the eerily prescient event of Tom winning happened. I think apart from Fauna and Cube Quest he may have won every game he played.

Take It Easy got played a couple of times, with Joe beating me in a two player, and I'm not sure who won the group game. Probably Tom. Wizard also made the table, although I only witnessed a small part of the game which was Theo going for every single trick in two subsequent rounds. Tom won.

Simon won Dominion (Tom didn't play) in a tie-breaker with Elliott, who had a bit of a crazy week overall. On the second night he fell out of a tree and broke his leg in two places. He spent a night in hospital and then returned with his limb in a cast and recommenced gaming, albeit more statically before. As someone who can generate a few days' worth of complaint about a split nail, I take my hat off to his calm stoicism throughout the whole episode. He also - pre-break - beat myself and Theo at Raj, when I picked up two minus cards thanks to the boys tying on lower bids. A late surge when the boys were left with low-numbered cards was not enough to catch up. Oh Raj! Why dost thou forsake me so?

There were also several games of Top Trumps, both Stan's several-years-out-of-date European Football Stars deck (Tom beat Stan) and Joe's Transformers version. I now know that Optimus Prime travelled to Earth after thousands of years in search of the Allspark, only to find his nemesis Megatron awaiting him. Poor Optimus.

Vegas, and the crossword

We didn't spend the whole time at the table. There was walking and beaches and Lyme Regis and football and cycling and even mushroom foraging, leading to the discovery of the Shaggy Ink Cap, which is non-poisonous unless eaten with alcohol, or even (apparently) combined with potent aftershave. Simon already knew this, as he recounted the fact that Georgians tried to cure alcoholism by feeding the afflicted with the shaggy ink cap, and thus supplying them with non-fatal yet lingering hangover symptoms.

We didn't need mushrooms for that.

Shaggy

On the last night we played (Las) Vegas (Tom won) early in the evening, and Joe's plan for Lords of Vegas as the main event were stymied by lengthy meals and lengthier chat, including Joe himself coming up with the tagline for the relaunched Soda Stream: Force Air Through It! He did still try and push Lords of Vegas through, but at 10.40pm, my shying away from it dissuaded others. Sorry Joe. Instead they played Long Shot, the game of betting on plastic horses. In fact that's what he, Tom and Simon are playing now as I write. All that remains to be seen is who finishes second behind Tom. I'm going to bed.

Smashed again

This week saw the regrouping of the three Bracknell members after a month long hiatus (One meet up!). Despite it's inauspicious debut Smash up has become a firm favourite in the East Berks section of GNN. Before any real discussion on games was entered into the title was barged to the front of the queue like an eastern european at ski lift. Dominion was pulled from the baking soda pot for our Bracknell leader board game, if there was time. (There was time).

We elected to go for random selection of factions with James getting first pick of the eight face down packs. He chose the much sought after Robots! He was pleased. We all then picked our factions in turn and ended with this: James - Robots and Ninjas, Chris - Aliens and Tricksters, Paul - Zombies and Pirates. I'd seen James do very well with Tricksters so I was hoping they would play well in combo with the Aliens however, going several turns without Minions (The guys that score points) is not a good strategy and I was left stacking shelves as the other two racked up points on the bases. Four quite tricky bases had come out in the first draw so the start was slow with players organising thier hands for optimal moves.

This is quite key and a hidden aspect of the game that isn't apparent until after a few plays. The nature of the game is stymie each other from smashing the bases, therefore producing heavy sweeping moves is strong play. The Robots are a good faction for this as they link up well with other cards. Also the Ninjas have a unique quality in that they can whisk in as a base is scoring and change the outcome. James was very tempted to do this on some early bases but kept his powder dry (Unlike the Pirates Garrrrrr), however toward the end of the game he used his hidden cards to great affect, nipping in and stealing the win after Paul had smashed a pirate ship. (Or something).

James - 15
Paul - 11
Chris - 11

As mentioned above that left us time for Dominion on the All Games leader board. I choose the point salad version of cards which would guarantee some high scores. All three players made the mistake of filling their hands with Victory Point and Action cards early on and therefore money for Provinces was stretched out. The game wore on and it was starting to look like we were going to run out of 3 separate piles of cards, itself a game ending condition. Eventually the Provinces depleted and everyones huge decks were tallied.

Paul - 65
James - 63
Chris - 61

Discussing the game afterwards both James and I rued passing on 1 point Estate cards because of his Masquerade action card. Effectively that creates a 2 point swing in the totals and either would have changed the positions in this game. Also if my uncle had tits he'd be my aunty.

Kingdominion

When Netrunner was pulled out of the bag both James and I looked down dejectedly at it. I knew at that point that my Ebay account had a new sale item coming it's way. Next out was Mammut. We looked at each other and shrugged. Mammut it was. Not a popular title and quite a while since it was last played. A perfect example of why we are embarking on our trip through the games cupboard. Tactic rusty we were as we fudged our way through the first few rounds. By round 4 I had built up something like a 12 point lead but with the way that the game is designed that can be eaten away quite quickly. My one tactic of denying James the last sabre toothed creature that he needed went some way to helping make the final totals look a little skewed. The game has never really caught fire with us and perhaps it's better with more players. It's possible this title might be joining Netrunner on Chris's new game fund raiser.

Chris - 76
James - 53

Dominion was up next as we left leaderboard games behind. I again selected a recommended 10 cards but this time choosing one which offered fewer victory points. Fewer victory points meant only one legit route to victory - Provences. Again James felt money was the best route and I, after dabbling with a few cards, followed suit. However James was ahead of me in collecting Provinces and I never caught up. Especially as he laid a card which took a card off my deck. A Province... We both felt that the game needs something to stop it being a race to stuff Provinces in your hand. You get presented with all these lovely action cards and end up ignoring most of them.

James - 42
Chris - 40

What came next will probably be referred to as the lost games or the forgotten games or something catchier. Two games of Kingdom Builder were squeezed in to the remaining hour however the outcomes were spoiled by a dawning realisation after our last moves that James had missed a key rule about the secondary action, namely, it can be played first. Although I didn't make a lot of use of this facility, the fact it was there for me to use if I needed meant I was able to get out of some tight areas.  It had never been an option for James and, had it been, the games would have played out much differently.

Chris - 52
James - 27

Chris - 43
James - 29

Bring on the next games.....!

Wonderdom.

On seeing Dominion being drawn from my bag James looked as if he had eaten a tasty looking blackberry only to slowly realise that it had been the cosy residence of a flatulent grub.

This elaborate game of multiplayer solitaire hadn't seen the light of day since I introduced him to the seedy underworld of euro games. However, when I refreshed the rules James quizzically enquired as to why it had seemed so complicated originally. How far he's come....! By the end his opinion had completely switched and was hoping we could have another crack soon.

I selected the Victory Dance set of 10 which allowed for plenty of victory points. Normally my main tactic is to gather as much money as possible quickly and then buy up all of the Provinces but the allure of the Kingdom Cards such as Masquerade, Ironworks and Bridge drew me in. Across the table James was collecting mostly money. In the end James had spotted a neat victory point earner in the Duke which a point for every duchy in your hand. I thought I had bought some as well but I hadn't. James won quite comfortably although it felt like it was going to be closer.

James - 80
Chris - 65

Next up was another card game in the form of 7 Wonders. The two player variant includes the virtual 3rd player Dirk who is generally used to stitch up your opponent by giving him cards you know they want. The choice can be agonising as well as the fact that he gets cards for free first before purchasing from other players. James asked the question what would happen to our league if Dirk won... We decided that it would fall to our relative positions.

In a tactical game involving a good deal of stitching up my win came about in fairly fortuitous circumstances. In the final round I had a choice of the Arena (3 gold and 1VP for each wonder built) and the Craftsman's Guild (2VP for each of my opponents grey cards). Due to my miscalculations i thought they were worth the same because I thought the Guild gave 1 point instead of two. I decided to pick the guild because I thought guilds were nicer. (True story). At the count up James's strong sense of fair play compelled him to point out my error. Had he not done so he would have won due to money count back.
Well done James :)

Chris - 51
Dirk - 48
James - 47

Dirk's shock 2nd place was down to his really strong showing in sciences, which of course we were only too glad to sling toward him...

I like Trucking and I like to Truck

So Paul finally made good on his long awaited promise of bringing his game to table this Tuesday. Previous weeks had been filled with intriguing comments like "Almost there", "Needs a few tweaks" and "I wish I had a colour printer" but now the teasing had stopped and I was presented with Cargo! (Intentional exclamation mark. See it as emphasis rather than surprise..).

So what is Cargo! you all chorus in prefect harmony. Well Cargo! is a game of freight transportation around Britain linking such nebulous hubs as Croydon, Bracknell and Eccles. Paul had cleverly spotted that lorries had been scandalously omitted from the games market and since trains had been done to death (And were quite expensive to buy) it was a natural theme to adopt (Plus Paul has a ton of beautifully crafted mini train containers). The central mechanic of the game is to create routes between the six depots via a route selected from your hand of cards to place next to your haulage companies lorries. The route cards have numbers at the bottom which in combination generate a number to be rolled (On two dice) to enable your cargo to be delivered. The depots hold all of the cargo and essentially you are removing one of a 20 or 40 foot container to be placed on your lorry complete with route to await delivery. When loads are delivered money is paid out for the size and type and where it was delivered.

Each player gets two actions per turn, whether that be buying or selling lorries, creating routes, obtaining cargo, rolling for delivery or replenishing your card hand. There are two scoring paths calculated at the games end. One is money you still have in your bank and the second is for route cards collected and totalled.

It didn't take us long to get into the swing of it and as with all home designed games getting it's first play, there were some rule changes on the fly. The most difficult bit to grasp, for both parties, was that due to limitations of the game components available to Paul, the container specific money colour didn't match the containers. Therefore we were constantly having to refer to the crib sheet for information.

Who is playing Cargo!? It's Paul!

Not that it detracted from a nice flowing game that saw me race up to 4 lorries in my fleet and amass a lovely pile of dosh. However, Paul had been able to make a lot more deliveries in the game in more locations and consequently scored more for his routes. There was a lovely moment when we had to decide who had won a particular route as Paul had one card for it but it was a minus 1, I didn't have any so technically a zero. Did having a minus number beat someone without a card? We decided the route wouldn't be scored as no cards meant no score and the minus cards were meant to be punitive. My money scoring couldn't quite make up the difference so Paul won the first play of his game…..

Paul 69
Chris 64

After the strenuous activity of delivering our loads I suggested we take on another new game, Mammut. After 10 minutes struggling with the rules and repeated glances at the clock it was put away again for another day and the more familiar Dominion was tabled. Even my desperate knocking beer all over the table couldn't prevent Paul from registering a comfy win.

Paul 50-odd
Chris 37

January tales.

In an astonishing feat of restraint I had managed to avoid buying any new games over the Christmas period, telling myself that come January I would pick up some bargains. Unlike the Bristol brigade, who seem to be able to introduce a new flavour every week (It only seems that way), tonights fare was served up favourites from last years table and not a turkey in sight. After I managed to tear Paul away from my two rather playful new kittens, he graciously or unwisely offered me first choice of game.

Totally disregarding Paul's open dislike for card based games I unboxed Dominion (Intrigue) to see if his mind could be changed. I chose a party time style set of decks to see if the freer play would help Paul enjoy the game. Dominion is one of those games for us that always needs a rules refresher. Even so some of the cards had us a little confused due the use of the word "Gain" and early progress was slow. Suddenly it all clicked and we were racing through our decks with a barely a pause. (Save for Boris shinning up my leg, clambering onto my laptop and onto the table for a good nose round).

In the games dissection afterwards we noticed that Paul and I had selected differing strategies, with him only using a Bridge, Pawn, Upgrade combination where as I tried a bit of everything but stuck mainly to Great halls and Nobles with a few pawns thrown in for good measure.

Somewhat surprisingly the game ended a dead heat, 58 points each. Checking the rules the only other differentiator was the amount of turns, which was equal. Therefore, the rules declared, we should rejoice in our shared victory. So we rejoiced.

Next up Paul's choice Ticket to Ride. I tried the accepted card hoarding method and really long route, whereas Paul set about adding fistfuls of tickets and creating a sort of explosion effect in the middle of the map. Paul's bravado paid off even it nearly backfired on him. His superior haul of tickets beat my massive chain which nearly reached from the west coast to the east and back again.

Paul - 109
Chris - 94

There was just time to fit in a game of Aton. The game was actually closer than the final scores reveal, but my last hand of 4,4,3,3 was too powerful for Paul to defend.

Chris - 49
Paul - 29

Honours even for the night then and so we rejoiced again. On the journey to the train station I promised Paul some new games for the New Year. It's a tricky thing getting well balanced two player games so any suggestions are welcome.....

Do You Want To Play a Game?

Having missed out on the last THREE get-togethers, I thought I'd post up what little gaming I've managed to get done outside the GNN fold. Since last monday's impromptu game of Alhambra at mine, I've only managed to play one game. One third of a game, truth be told. But it was Twilight Struggle.

I had my mate Pascal staying on sunday and monday nights. He plays a lot of chess, and as a result is fairly skeptical about my obsession with 'modern games'. That is to say, he totally gets the obsession bit; the cardboard sniffing, the rules ingesting, the meeple fondling — him having had a long-standing thing about new pens — but he still needs convincing that they're actually worth playing.

I've slowly begun to win him over. Earlier in the year, he and his girlfriend Helen stayed and we introduced them to Settlers. I say 'we'; you all know about Charlotte's galeforce indifference to gaming — but she does like a bit of Settlers, and a bit of Alhambra too, in a casual, after-dinner sort of way. She draws the line at Stone Age.

Settlers went down well, as I thought it would. And more recently, Pascal and I have managed a game of Dominion, which he grasped quickly and enjoyed. A couple of traditional gateway games; one a tried and true classic, the other a very clever mechanic, together designed to illicit that face they do on cornflake adverts after taking the first mouthful — the pleasantly surprised 'I had no idea boardgames could be this much fun — I'm going to have to re-design my entire life so that it revolves around them' kind of face.

So this visit, I cast about for the obvious 'next step'. Alhambra? Stone Age? A five-hour card-driven chit-based war game about the Cold War?

Pasc doesn't need patronising — if he's going to get in to something, he wants to get as much of what it has to offer from the word go, really. Added to which, we have a shared love of espionage thrillers, steely movies like Le Samurai, The Ipcress Files, and much more recently Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; films that don't hide behind special-effects and chrome, but evoke a cool, dark world of international intrigue.

That all said, I hadn't played Twilight Struggle, which was, of course, the main reason behind my deciding it was the one we needed to play this time. And I wanted to show him that games could be grown-up; that they're not all trolls and zombies, or resource-management. Or zombie management.

Sunday night, I mentioned it, and showed him the box. On monday during the day, he brought the subject up a couple of times, but it wasn't until about 9.30 on monday evening, after sausages, cider and red wine, that we actually got the board out. 'Right, just tell me which are the snakes and which are the ladders', he wisecracked.

Despite being someone who actively dislikes learning rules, he absorbed them patiently, and by 10pm we were embarking on the first round. By midnight, we were finishing the second round, and I suggested we might pack it in. It had been a hugely steep learning curve, and while I was sure I'd want to try again sometime, I was suffering the effects of a vastly heavy cognitive load. And the Drambuie was out, too.

But Pasc, quite rightly really, wanted to push on — we'd only just got to grips with the rules, after all.

In the end we got to the end of round four, the first of the mid-war rounds. And his instinct to keep going was spot on, because the game really did click. Those last two rounds were much more aggressive, vying for influence in all seven regions of the board, and hatching longer term plans. I can see how deep it could get, once you know the cards, and the likelihood of scoring rounds in each stage of the game - pushing operations in South America to force your opponent to take his eye off the ball in the Middle East(to anyone who knows the game I'm going to sound like a total noob, I appreciate).

I think Pasc enjoyed it — I know he enjoyed having a tour of the upper-echelons of the hobby.

It would take a long, rainy sunday in the black mountains to really make the most of a game like Twilight Struggle. But for someone who confessed earlier in the evening to having fond memories of Cluedo, he certainly stepped up to the plate. And I have him to thank for finally getting TS to the table.

Oh and he won. As Russia. Well he didn't really win, because we only played four rounds, right?

And I was reading the rules for both of us. And it was beginners luck. Look let's just say he was in the lead when we abandoned the game.

JB

GNN Bracknell Branch Reports!

Tuesday night saw the first Bracknell meet up of GNN's most far-flung members - Chris (Me) and Paul. Having got a refresher taste of the gaming fun from our Bristol trip some weeks ago the two of us decided to arrange a night of our own.

As Paul had journeyed to my house on South West trains finest it seemed only natural to start off with a game of Ticket to Ride. This was a new game to Paul and myself although I had played it on the computer before. Therefore the rules took no time at all to learn and we were off and chugging, making improbable routes across America to join up cities. My previous experience told in the end as I picked up a whole bunch of extra tickets early on and then managed to complete them. At the final count up I pipped Paul by 91 to 80 even though Paul nabbed the longest route bonus.

Any game with a train theme was going to grab Paul and therefore a second game was speedily started. Paul had got a real grasp of the game's chief driver by now and proceeded to steam into a lead. In an even game which saw both players complete 7 routes Paul ran out the winner due to some inspired play. With the game nearing its final destination he elected to choose some more tickets in the hope that he had already completed the route. To my amazement that's just what happened. The final scores ran out Paul 132 to Chris 114.

So there was just enough time for a quick game of Dominion. Unfortunately for Paul, I had played this the previous evening and therefore when it came time to count up VP's my freshness told - winning 58pts to Paul's 24.

So the first session ended well and both parties agreed that we should do it again. And maybe rope some others in too!