Session Summary – 10 September 2008

We welcomed Andy Evans to the club for the first time, who is from Wolverhampton and contacted me via the geek having seen the website. He joined Mike and Steve Paget for a couple of games, while Gordon, Steve Hilton, Jonathan and I played Pillars of the Earth with the expansion.
This was Jonathan's first try at the game and Gordon's first with the expansion, we adopted the modified rules for Master builder placement, despite their being strictly for the 5/6 player game and this seemed to work OK.
I do not recall that much of the game play except that I did not play very well and thoroughly deserved my last place, there were a couple of times when the St. Denis card would have been helpful, but I did not choose to take it with my first placement and lost out to Steve, who I also recall making good use of it in his first play of the expansion. I think I need to re-evaluate my priorities which it comes to placement in this area.
It was very close for 1^st place between Steve and Gordon, Gordon having a very good last turn having done a good job of playing down how good a position he was in for a lot of the game. He was obviously in no way disadvantaged by unfamiliarity with the expanded game.
Still this game is always fun.

Pillars of the Earth, The 135 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Gordon	1	50
Steve H	2	49
Jonathan	3	45
Dave D	4	42

Over on the other table 2 games were played, the first was Tinners' Trail, which was new to Mike and Andy. I gather there was a slight error in the turn order rules and there was some concern over a runaway leader issue. This is not a problem I have seen in my 2 tries with the game, in the first at game expo I was second by a single point and when we played here back in June, I was last in a 3 player game, but still only 10 points behind the winner.

Tinners' Trail 90 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve P	1	162
Andy	2	121+
Mike	3	121

Finally there was a game of Arkadia, this is game I have seen, but never played and really know nothing about.

Arkadia 60 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve P	1	110
Andy	2	102
Mike	3	91