Session Report – End May 2010

This report is a short catch up on the end of May 2010.

19 May

With 9 people we split into 3 groups of 3.

I played Vinci with Dave F and Colin and it ended up being a close game with Dave just pipping me on the final turn after I'd maintained a lead from early on in the game. Colin was not that far behind in third having suffered from a misunderstanding regarding the rules on adjacency between active and declined civilisations.

Vinci 120 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave F	163
2	Dave D	161
3	Colin	148

We finished off with Guillotine, which was the first play of the game since October 2007, although overall it was the 32^nd game played at the club. I had lost my copy and recently found it underneath a pile of old magazines that I was sorting out. The scores in this seem to fluctuate widely but this was very high scoring and Dave won by a wide margin.

Guillotine 20 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave F	45
2	Colin	32
3	Dave D	24

On another table was Through the Ages, which has received good commentary amongst various members, Steve has gone out and got his own copy. I have to say I do wonder about whether it's that viable as an evening game as even with only 3 players it seems to be a struggle to fit in (and that's not playing the full game). Maybe things would improve with more play.

I do not have the scores for this game, only the positions.

Through the Ages 160 mins.
Posn.	Player
1	Andrew S
2	Ben C
3	Steve H

Finally the third group played first Phoenicia, which seems to have been a close game. The time I played (again back in 2007), there seemed to be a runaway leader problem, but that does not seem to have been evident here.

Phoenicia 100 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Donald	35
2	Dave C	33
3	Andy	32

Finally they played Carpe Astra; I do not have the result for this game.

Carpe Astra 50 mins.
Posn.	Player
1=	Donald
1=	Dave C
1=	Andy

26 May

Just 5 this week and the main game was Clippers, which is a game I have and was played at the club many years ago before I have records. Back then I seem to recall the game was regarded as OK, but I don't recall a great deal of enthusiasm and the game pieces (well at least the little cardboard country markers) are really excessively fiddly. I have tried to get rid of my English copy of the game once or twice on convention bring and buy stalls over the years without any success.

This was Andy's copy which is the German version, but that does not make a lot of difference. I have to say that I am not convince about the game as a 5 player as the first 3 players get first option to pick up tiles which will give them bonus money and money seems important in the early game becoming increasingly irrelevant as the game goes on.

There was a certain degree of surprise at some of the positions, but in retrospect there should not have been. Steve seemed to be doing well raking in a lot of points from the islands on the west edge of the board, but what went unnoticed was the number of his starting islands that went unconnected and so failed to score at all. I conversely did relatively badly in the western islands but I had a good spread in moderately scoring islands elsewhere, enough to get me second due to a tie break.

Clippers 100 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Colin	133
2	Dave D	119+
3	Andy	119
4	Dave F	114
5	Steve H	98

Steve left after that and the remaining 4 of us played San Juan. I was able to play a fairly pure Guild Hall Strategy for the win; Dave F also had a Guild Hall, but did not have enough production buildings to go with it, even with a Palace in support. Andy had an early Chapel which he played quite a few cards under, but was undone by the lack of a 6 building.

May 2010 – 4 meetings, 14 games played, average attendance 7.75