Session Report 25 February 2009

Just the three of us this week, quite a comedown after recent times. The whole evening was devoted to Dominion, this being Steve H's introduction to the game.

The first game we played with the recommended selection for beginning players. This was quite a close game won by Mike. Steve did not do so well in the early stages with Mike and I picking up a few provinces, while he was unable. He did come back later on however and finished with a respectable score having picked up a few duchies along the way.

Dominion 40 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	30
2	Dave D	27
3	Steve H	24

The second game was a long one; we played with a random selection, notable amongst which was the Thief, with no Moat in play to counter it. When we started picking these up, everyone followed suit and in the early part of the game Mike and Steve seemed to suffer greatly as their Silvers found their way into my deck, while Coppers ended up in the trash. I guess I thought I was "lucky" as this seemed to work to my benefit and I resisted when Steve in particular was intimating we abandon the game on the basis that it was likely to go on forever. As it turned out, things worked against me as my deck became horribly bloated and I seemed to be drawing either hands full of actions which I couldn't use as the selection was lacking in extra action cards or treasure cards, which weren't enough to afford a province. Meanwhile Steve and later Mike with few treasures used the Adventurer to great effect. In the end Steve won well from Mike, while I ended up last with a deck far too full of treasure. I must re-evaluate my use of the thief in future (this was the first game I've played where they have been used) and must remember how useful the Adventurer turned out to be.

Dominion 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	55
2	Mike	37
3	Dave D	30

 

Finally we used the selection labelled Size Distortion from the rulebook. This time the thieves were not in evidence, although Witches were and the curses were soon flying about. I had a chance to try to use the chapel to slim down my deck, but this did not really work initially as the curses built up. In the end I ended up buying multiple chapels and by the end of the game all but 4 of the chapels in the game had been trashed. I tried to keep to the idea of keeping my deck fairly slim, while late in the game Mike & Steve made half hearted attempts at Garden strategies but too late for them to accumulate enough of them to make the difference. I ended up with half the provinces and that was enough to win the closest game of the evening.

Dominion 40 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	41
2	Steve H	38
3	Mike	37

 

 

I think what all these games showed was how we are all novices. This was Steve's first experience, Mike hasn't played that many games and although I have played a few more, most of those have been with the suggested beginners selection and I still have very little or no experience with many of the other cards.