Session Report – 8 April 2009

We had 6 upstairs this week, while Dave C was running a holiday role playing session of Corporation downstairs in the bar. We welcomed back Jeremy, who came once last year and played Pillars of the Earth. We split into 2 groups of 3.
Steve H, Jeremy & I played 2 games of Small World, which I discussed in some detail in my last post. I have now played 6 times including a couple of games on Saturday and Dave's house, 5 out of 6 games being with only 3 players, I really would like to try it some more with 4 or 5. Anyway, Steve & I greatly enjoyed both games, which were both very close, with us each winning one, although as Steve pointed out, on aggregate points I was one ahead.
All that said, I can't remember very many details and the only thing really sticking in the mind were the Pillaging Skeletons, which made an appearance in both games, first in my hands and then in those of Jeremy. The skeletons do appear to be a powerful race with their ability to add extra units by capturing occupied areas and in this case they were combined with a powerful ability that complements them. Pillaging giving extra VP for capturing occupied areas.

Small World 70 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	99
2	Steve H	96
3	Jeremy	87
Small World 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	100
2	Dave D	98
3	Jeremy	76

Over on the other table, Mike, Gordon & Andy first played Chicago Express, another game coming back for a second week. The following comments are Mikes

Chicago Express game played totally differently to last week's - an auction frenzy rather than an engineer's paradise with no sign of the Wabash arriving.  This game has some real depth to it - trying to pitch a fair price, whilst trying to maintain or eliminate majorities, is a real challenge and something I'm nowhere near mastering yet.  Andy and I just shouldn't have allowed Gordon to dominate the two companies with the lowest shares, hopefully we'll learn the lesson.  After 2 plays I am still very enthusiastic, should have plenty of replayability, but I'd definitely like to go back to 4 players for the next try.

Chicago Express 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Gordon	67
2	Andy	52
3	Mike	45

Next they played Caylus Magna Carta, which we played twice back in 2007, when I felt it less offensive than Caylus, but still way too long to want to play again. It was shorter this time, but 70 minutes for this game is still longer than I'd like. Mike wrote

This was played with the 'quick start' variant - you add one extra card to the recommended start number, and make sure that the 2 deniers cash card is used.  For me the game length then felt about right, so I'll certainly suggest it for future plays.

Caylus Magna Carta 70 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	48
2	Gordon	35
3	Andy	34

Session Catch-up – 25 March, 1 April

I think it's time for a quick catch-up. I've been spending far too much time thinking about my online game of Battlestar Galactica on BGG (see here & here), so details here will be sketchy, but here goes.
25 March
We had 6 players and Ben wanted to play Munchkin, so we split 4 & 2. On our table we played Vinci, as I was keen to play again before the appearance of Small World, which I was expecting imminently. Not my finest hour as the scores show, things were going well enough until just past the halfway mark, when I chose to take the Specialist Livestock breeders, which had sat in the "I" position of the list for some time and accumulated some bonus VP. The problem was that they did not have enough units and although they did well enough initially, once forced into decline my scoring fell to near zero and I fell way back, the VP accumulated on the combination, being nowhere near enough to balance things out.

Vinci 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	130
2=	Mike	121
2=	Andy	121
4	Dave D	100

After that Andy moved over to the other table with Dave & Ben and we played Dominion, this being another long one, involving the Witch. I played Chapel from the start and had some success, but with the accumulation of curses, I was never able to trim my deck as I would have liked. By the end of the game, most of the curses had been eliminated from the decks by either Chapel or Remodel.
Over on the other table Dave & Ben played Munchkin

Munchkin 50 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	10
2	Ben C	8

Followed by 2 game of Through the Desert

Through the Desert 20 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	93
2	Ben C	85
Through the Desert 20 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Ben C	102
2	Dave C	75

They were then joined by Andy and played Mordred, Arthur was victorious here.

Mordred 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	16
2	Andy	15
3	Ben C	8

Finally Andy introduced a prototype called Wreck! (more later), a quick filler.

Wreck! 15 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	10
2	Dave C	31
3	Ben C	32

1 April
Happy 50^th birthday to me and everyone insisted I take first turn in each game, although this did not turn out to be an advantage.
Again we had 6 players and spent the early part of the evening down in the bar, while we waited for the committee room to become free. We played a couple of fillers, first being Tsuro.

Tsuro 15 mins.
Posn.	Player
1	Mike
2=	Ben C
2=	Andy
4	Steve H
5=	Dave D
5=	Dave C

Next up was Wreck! This time with 6 players. This is a fun little trick taking game, with a nominally pirate theme. The aim is to score the fewest points, calculated from the cards in the tricks you take. You don't have to follow suit, but if you don't then the card you play counts as zero, so you'll probably take the trick, unless you are playing later on as in the case of a tie the first player to play the lowest value takes the trick. As the game goes on it becomes more difficult to avoid taking tricks as players can add the values of previously taken cards in the appropriate suit to their score.
It is a fun and quick little filler and my only win of the evening.

Wreck! 15 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	0
2	Andy	2
3	Steve H	18
4	Ben C	26
5	Dave C	40
6	Mike	56

After that we moved upstairs and split in to 2 threes with Ben joining Steve & I in a game of Small World. This is a new Days of Wonder game, being a reimplementation of Vinci set in a fantasy world. I played the game again on Saturday and I like it, but I am not entirely sure, yet, which of this or Vinci I prefer. Here are a few of my thoughts.
The game is for 2 to 5 players, rather than 3 to 6. An unusual feature is a different board for each player number, which balances the game better than the token number adjustment in Vinci, the lower maximum player number is not a problem for me as I don't think Vinci played that well with 6 anyway. (1-0 to Small World).
Whereas Vinci has a completely random selection of special powers, in Small World they are split between a Race and a special ability and each combination will have one of each, so you might get a combination such as Berserk Skeletons. Many of the Race abilities and special powers replicate or are similar to powers in Vinci. This seems to have the effect of giving more balanced combinations. (2-0 to Small World).
In Small World each race has its own set of counters, rather than using a coloured disc to represent all a players units. When a race goes into decline, its counters are flipped over, rather than using special markers. This has the advantage of doing away with the decline markers, but I found it is often difficult to find all a player's units on the bard, compared to the obviousness of the coloured discs. (2-1 to Small World).
Small World has hidden scoring, compared to the open use of a scoring track in Vinci, it has been suggested that this will reduce a Kingmaking problem that some people (not me) see in the Vinci end game. If the problem exists I don't see that this solves it as the game is short enough for anyone with reasonable memory to have a fairly good idea about who the leaders are. In addition I have seen another problem in one game due to the use of small cardboard counters with identical backs to represent VPs. It is too easy, if the counters should get into the wrong slot in the tray to give out the wrong counters. This is probably a mistake that won't be made twice, but is not a good thing (2-2).
Vinci has totally deterministic combat, which I regard as a good thing, but Small World introduces a die which you can use to attempt one final conquest, if you have at least 1 unit and are no more than 3 units short. 3 of the 6 sides are blank, meaning you always have at least 50% chance of failure, so I don't think that the die really affects the game much if used for final conflicts. Unfortunately there is also a special power (Berserk) that allows the use of the die every turn and I think that is a bit much. (2-3 Vinci).
The point penalties for passing over combinations in Vinci are halved to 1 point in Small World, which seems to be a good thing as it makes is a conceivable option to take the combination in 6^th place (although I haven't seen it yet). In Vinci, I don't think this could seriously be considered. (3-3)
So on these points I sit on the fence about which is the better game, there are other things to consider such as the much better quality of production. This does not sway me one way or the other, although it has to be said I actually prefer the look of my old 1^st edition Vinci board. Some may be swayed, one way or the other, by the fantasy theme; again it makes no difference to me.
This was a close game with Steve winning on the tie break (something else that Vinci doesn't have). I shall have Small World in my normal selection, rather than Vinci for a bit in the hope of getting more play of the new game, but looking forward I would still like to play both games.

Small World 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	109+
2	Ben C	109
3	Dave D	105

Meanwhile, over on the other table, Andy, Mike & Dave played Chicago Express. Apparently Andy had imported the game from Europe due to difficulty in finding it over here and was a bit put out by the fact that it is now back in the shops again. Mike also has a copy put aside at Waylands, but he may have picked it up by now of course. Steve & I played this at Gordon's place with him and Steve P and were a bit dumbstruck by it. There is obviously a lot of depth here for a short game and we were caught out by how quickly the game ended, once the Wabash was available. Listening to the comments from the other table, it sounded as if this group found the same thing.

Chicago Express 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	99
2	Dave C	95
3	Mike	73

We finished with a 6 player game of Citadels. I managed to get down a very nice combination of 2 purple buildings allowing me to get cards and money. I am sure I could have won with this if it hadn't been for the fact that I was hit by the Assassin 3 time, as it was look at the results.

Citadels 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	30
2	Dave C	27
3	Steve H	27
4	Andy	25
5	Ben C	22
6	Dave D	19