Session Summary - 12 December 2007

5 this week with no Mike but Steve Perkins back. Dave indicated that he could be called away to pick Lisa up from some where so we split up 3 & 2. These comments are going to be brief since I think I've said all I need to say regarding the games I played before and I don't know anything about one of the 2 that Dave & Ben played.

Race for the Galaxy 45 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	34
Steve H	2	31
Steve Pe	3	29

Taking advantage of Mike's absence to bring this to the table again. I am now convinced of it's superiority to San Juan and our ability to bring the game down to a reasonable time period when the players are aware of what they are doing.

This was I think the lowest scoring game that I've seen, with very little consumption so the victory points chips were hardly touched. I won by adopting a military strategy, building up a strength of 10 which was enough when combined with the New Galactic order development (1 VP for each point of military)

Pillars of the Earth, The 90 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	48+
Steve Pe	2	48
Dave D	3	46

A very close game, I did not do enough in the early stages to win and could not quite make it back despite having the highest score in the final round. Steve H had the goldsmith from round 5 and was able to use that to convert enough gold to catch the other Steve with just enough left over to win the tie break. Unusually I was the only one who went heavily for metal and I was hoping that I might have picked up both the big craftsmen using the stuff in the final round. Unfortunately they both came out in those to buy in the first phase and I couldn't afford both, so I had to settle for the Bell Maker. If one of them had been available with the master builders it's possible I might have gathered a few extra points, but I wouldn't want to say for sure.

Meanwhile Ben and Dave played

Starcraft the Boardgame 55 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Ben	1	8
Dave C	2	7

and

Saga 60 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Ben	1	90
Dave C	2	81

This seems to provide the evidence that Starcraft can be played in an evening. The game would obviously take longer with more players, but from what I saw before, the increase ought to be somewhat proportionate. I gather that the end of this one was determined by the random appearance of the game end cards in the deck.

As I say I know nothing of Saga, so will not comment. It is a game brought along by Steve Pe which Dave liked the look of. I have not inserted a geek link as I'm not sure which of the games in the database this is. There are several with the same name.(Edit: Steve Perkins has let me know which one so I've now linked it)