Session Report 28 January 2008

8 this week including new member Ben Tate, who contacted me via the geek on Monday, also we welcomed back Pete Bethel, last seen in 2006 I think, Mike having contacted him, organising a game of Settlers. It was an easy split of 4/4 with Steve joining Mike, Pete and Andy for the Settlers game, while Ben joined me, Dave C & the other Ben.
To get the Settlers out of the way first, this was, I gather, not quite a standard set up but maybe Mike will fill in more details. Apparently Andy picked up the game quite quickly.

Settlers of Catan 120 mins.
Posn.	Player
1	Andy
2=	Mike
2=	Steve H
2=	Pete B

Over on the other table, our first game was Race for the Galaxy, suing the cards from the Gathering Storm expansion. We really must play using the goals at some time, but every time we play there seems to be a new player and I am reluctant to throw in that extra complication. Once we have tired them, maybe I will discover that they are straight forward enough not to worry. In this game Dave (starting with Earth's Lost Colony) managed to get a good production/consume engine going, also adding the Terraforming Guild. I starting with Epsilon Eridani and with Galactic Imperium and Space Marines in hand at the start, initially went for military conquest of the rebels, but seemed to have trouble finding decent targets, unfortunately Ben C conquered the rebel base and Ben T also picked one up, so I modified things slightly with the Pan-Galactic League, picking up a few other small military worlds. Ben T seemed to pick things up fairly well for his first game and we'll have to try again soon before he forgets (with the goals this time).

Race for the Galaxy 70 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	46
2	Dave D	36
3	Ben T	30
4	Ben C	24

After that we introduced Ben to Dominion (using the suggested starter setup), I decided to try a more money based strategy than normal, mixed in with a couple of markets, a Smithy and a Woodcutter and it seemed to work OK as I was able to pick up 6 of the 12 provinces for a good win.

Dominion 35 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	39
2	Ben C	27
3=	Ben T	18
3=	Dave C	18

After that we joined together, with Pete and Andy having left for a quick game of Tsuro. Mike didn't seem to do as well as usual and ended up taking himself off fairly early. I got myself into a tight spot, but thought I had spotted a way out of it, unfortunately Steve blocked my escape route when he played the tile that resulted in him taking himself and Ben T out of the game, so I ended up off the board on my following turn leaving us to see which of the Coopers could stay alive long enough. It was Dave.

Tsuro 15 mins.
Posn.	Player
1	Dave C
2	Ben C
3	Dave D
4=	Steve H
4=	Ben T
6	Mike