Session Summary – 2 July 2008

We were down to 2 tonight, with just myself and Mike, who had indicated that he probably would not be around so I narrowly escaped being on my own.
We were somewhat short of 2 player games and eventually decided to give Power Grid a try using the German map and original power plant deck. While I went to request the lights in the bar be turned on, Mike started setting up and selected the areas to use. These were the western Red, Blue & purple areas.
I went first and bought the 4 coal plant, while Mike bought the 5, both of these went for face value which set the tone for most of the game, with very little competition for plants. I set up in Koln (or possibly Dortmund) on one side of a set of expensive connection while Mike went for one of Wiesbaden and Frankfurt-M, which have a free connection between them. In retrospect my choice was probably mistaken bearing in mind the 10 city target for step 2 because I ended up 1 short of this, having miscalculated the number available on my side, when Mike grabbed Kassel. This left me in the position where I would have needed to spend 50 in connection costs to trigger step 2.
Fortunately this was not a fatal error because of the way the plants came out. Being a 2 player game there was a shortage of decent plants early on and I was able to grab the first 5 capacity plant when it became available. This was the 20 and produced the only serious auction battle in the game, I ended up paying 50 and wondered if that was too high, but it was probably a game winning play because it meant I could power 8 cities with 2 plants, while Mike needed 4 for the same capacity and the price of fuel had risen almost to the top of the scale. All this meant Mike could not afford to sit on 9 cities because of my efficiency advantage.
Once step 2 starts in a 2 player game it is pretty much a case of who can build to 21 the quickest because there is no longer any competition for cities, the only complication being fuel shortages. For the last couple of turns both Oil and Coal ran out on more than one occasion and I actually failed to power my 20 plant. Garbage would also have started running out if the game had gone on as I acquired a garbage plant as well as Mike. At the end I ended the game by building 9 cities on a turn to get 21, Mike made it to 20.
Power Grid is not a bad 2 player game, but I think we both agreed that it does lose something over the multiplayer experience, with reduced completion for Power Plants and cities.

Power Grid 120 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	21
Mike	2	20

At the end of the evening we had a couple of quick games of Tsuro. I don't think this is quite as good with more players, but still a fine filler.

Tsuro 5 mins
Player	Posn.
Mike	1
Dave D	2

Tsuro 5 mins
Player	Posn.
Mike	1
Dave D	2

Until Wednesday.

Rosliston 2008

Belatedly, here are the results from the Rosliston weekend away of June 2008, with brief comments from me on each one. As usual we had a great time, and many thanks to Gordon for organising it.

As the non-serious competition for the weekend, we decided to adopt the old points system we used to have at the club, the formula being number of players x number of minutes in points for the winner, with that number halved for 2nd place, halved again for 3rd, halved again for 4th, with zero for coming last.

I've included here every competitive game we played, so the cooperative game I can't remember about plagues is excluded.

Game 1: Settlers (60 mins)
1: Gordon 10 (240pts)
2=: Mike 8 (90)
2=: Steve 8 (90)
4: Simon 7 (0)

Ah, the traditional start to the weekend of a game of Settlers; subtitle - hand Gordon a nice easy win to begin with. He didn't disappoint. Matt arrived.

Game 2: El Grande (135 mins)
1=: Simon 116 (506 pts)
1=: Steve 116 (506)
3: Matt 113 (169)
4: Mike 102 (84)
5: Gordon 101 (0)

The mad Spanish game - I absolutely love it. Exciting from start to finish, and everyone has a chance to win throughout. Simon and I somehow emerged from the chaos.

Game 3: Poker (90 mins)
1: Gordon (450 pts)
2: Mike (225)
3: Steve (113)
4=: Simon (28)
4=: Matt (28)

Wow I didn't come last. Gordon got the best bed for the third year running.

Game 4: Age of Empires III (210 mins)
1: Steve 76 (1050 pts)
2: Mike 73 (525)
3: Gordon 70 (263)
4: Simon 64 (131)
5: Matt 58 (0)

A stunning game, highlight of the weekend. My shoot everything that moves strategy paid off for the second year in a row. The best bit for me was murdering the entire Dutch population of Peru in one turn (6 of 'em). But in the end it was the faintest of margins - Mike missed out by one discovery going wrong.

Game 5: Koalition (80 mins)
1: Simon 53 (400 pts)
2: Matt 22 (200)
3: Gordon 21 (100)
4: Mike 16 (50)
5: Steve 15 (0)

Suddenly there was no one left for me to shoot, and you had to be devious instead. So of course Simon won.

Game 6: Container (120 mins)
1: Matt 116 (600 pts)
2: Simon 70 (300)
3: Steve 67 (150)
4: Mike 56 (75)
5: Gordon 36 (0)

I started off hating the game, then I warmed to it, then I sort of hated it again. Ok it's a crap review, but you'd know what I mean if you were there. I remember Gordon was badly stuffed by the games mechanics. Matt crushed us all with his production strategy.

Game 7: Amun-Re (110 mins)
1: Matt 45 (550 pts)
2=: Steve 41 (206)
2=: Gordon 41 (206)
4: Mike 39 (69)
5: Simon 36 (0)

The Knizia classic, one of the best five-player games ever. Simon's first try and I think he liked it. Matt's hot streak continued.

Game 8: Poker (110 mins)
1: Simon (550 pts)
2=: Matt (206)
2=: Mike (206)
4: Gordon (69)
5: Steve (0)

Back to my usual poker form, Matt took me out with a straight flush. So I went to bed.

Game 9: Zooleretto (90 mins)
1: Gordon 27+ (450 pts)
2: Mike 27 (225)
3: Simon 24 (113)
4: Matt 21 (56)
5: Steve 17 (0)

After this I had a strong desire to kill every zoo animal in the whole world with my bare hands. And then strangle myself.

Game 10: Power Grid (105 mins)
1: Steve 15+ (525 pts)
2: Matt 15 (263)
3: Simon 14+ (131)
4: Mike 14 (66)
5: Gordon 11 (0)

Eastern Europe board. Gordon would have won but I did that fiendish brown-out thing to him that leaves you all bitter and twisted if it happens to you. Gordon, being a brilliant sport, took it in his stride.

Game 11: Ra (60 mins)
1: Mike 48 (300 pts)
2: Steve 47 (150)
3: Gordon 28 (75)
4: Simon 26 (38)
5: Matt 25 (0)

You can't beat a game of Ra. Even if you get a drubbing it's only an hour.

Game 12: Caylus (140 mins)
1: Mike 70 (700 pts)
2: Matt 66 (350)
3: Steve 62 (175)
4: Simon 58 (88)
5: Gordon 44 (0)

Ditto, you can't beat a game of Caylus. It's always different which is why it's so playable. This time we filled every space in the castle which I've never seen happen before. Mike won by nicking all "my" gold. Gordon, normally the Caylus king, was oddly sluggish - maybe it was a stamina thing...

Game 13: 6 Nimmt (40 mins)
1: Gordon (200 pts)
2: Steve (100)
3: Matt (50)
4: Mike (25)
5: Simon (0)

This game was a blast - I'm going to get it when I can. Just when everyone thought Gordon was out for the count, he minimised his bull count to great effect. What do you mean, "huh"?

Game 14: Il Principe (60 mins)
1: Gordon 68+ (300 pts)
2: Mike 68 (150)
3: Simon 49 (75)
4: Steve 48 (38)
5: Matt 45 (0)

This game is an acquired taste that most don't acquire. Gordon claimed not to know what he was doing but we weren't buying it. Simon went.

Game 15: Taj Mahal (100 mins)
1=: Matt 61 (300 pts)
1=: Steve 61 (300)
3: Gordon 45 (100)
4: Mike 38 (0)

Great end to the weekend. This was Matt's best performance among many good ones. His connection strategy was perfect. I only drew on the old sneaky card collection count.

Well I've just enough energy to compile the final table:

Rosliston 08
1: Steve 3403 pts
2: Mike 2790 pts
3: Matt 2772 pts
4: Gordon 2453 pts
5: Simon 2360 pts

Champion again! Interestingly, if you average this out by number of games played, Matt beats Mike and Simon beats Gordon. So argue amongst yourself chaps. Until next year.

Session Summary – 25 June 2008

Just the 3 of us tonight, with Steve and Ben, of the regulars, missing. Mike gave a quick rundown of the events of Rosliston and I gather Steve is going to write up some kind of report. From Mike's description it sounds like a fairly even mix (games wise) of the good, the bad & the ugly.
Onto the evening's game and we continue to try out the new stuff from Games Expo, in this case Confucius, which Dave was lucky enough to acquire one of the few copies of. Dave had played before at home (see his report here), I had been given a run down by one of the guys at Surprised Stare at the expo and had downloaded and read through the rules, while Mike was coming to the game completely blind.
Setting up at the start the foreign invasions were (in order) were Korea, Manchuria and Annam. The distant lands saw Africa and the Spice Isles worth 4 points each. India was 3, while Arabia and the Americas were 2. The points for the ministries were Bingbu 7/5, Hubu 8/5 and Gongbu 7/6. We were playing the basic game so there was no petitioning of the emperor. There now follows an overview of the play, note the events mentioned are not necessarily in the order they happened
Dave was selected as first minister for the first turn and the general tendency (I don't quite recall if it always happened was for this to be passed to the right, presumably on the basis that the outgoing minister would get first action in the next turn, that was certainly my reasoning). I spent the first turn giving Dave a gift and buying my 3 cost gift, together with gathering income, while the others went straight to the bribing of officials.
Over the next few turns, we all did a bit of bribing and buying of junks, followed by setting sail to foreign parts. Mike was first to visit Africa, while I followed up with a visit to the Spice Islands and Dave went to India, all picking up Emperor's reward cards. Mike got a free gift and of course took his 6 value one, which he then gave to me, while Dave got a free bribe. I held onto my free army, for a short while as there seemed to be no action on the military front.
The first ministry to be resolved was Hubu, which Mike took 4/3 over Dave, I also had a single official and would have been obliged to support Mike in the resolution, but took the opportunity to transfer my influence before the resolution, cancelling Mike's 6 value gift in the process. In the other 2 ministries I was able to get ahead, through use of the imperial examinations, replacing one of Dave's officials in Bingbu and Mike's in Hubu, then displacing an unbribed official in Bingbu to force the resolution for me 4/3 over Dave. Gongbu was resolved at the end, again in my favour over Dave, who unexpectedly (to me) displaced Mike for second. Dave took the extra point for first minister at the end of the game.
As has been said there was not much action on the military front, Korea went by with no one placing any armies. The invasion of Manchuria failed as I was the only one who sent an army (which was free), placed to gain the emperor's reward card, yielding a free bribe to help me in Bingbu. Mike and Dave supplied the 2 armies to invade Annam at the end, Dave taking the 4 points and Mike 3 and the emperor's reward. I built one more army to take the extra point at the end as General. I wonder if there would be more action in this area with more players, since (barring emperor's rewards) it costs 1 action to raise a single army and then another action to send a single army to war. Even a small invasion is going to take 4 actions to complete and I suspect that more players committing more actions would make this area more viable.
In contrast there was plenty of action in overseas voyages. As mentioned before we each made one of the early voyages, while Mike started another and I finished a voyage to Arabia at the end for 2 points and an emperor's reward of a free bribe, which helped in Gongbu. I took the extra point as Admiral. In this case you can buy multiple junks as a single action and then send multiple junks to sea, also as a single action. Admittedly the points available are not as high as those potentially available from military action, but you can do it all yourself, rather than being potentially reliant on the help of other players.
In the end the final scores were

Confucius 120 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave C	1	24
Dave D	2	22
Mike	3	15

This was after a recount. Having awarded the game to me on a tie break at 22 all, I went home and worked through it in my head and came up with the above. In this game the scoring possibilities are set in advance and there are not so many of them that you can't remember who got what when. The key to Dave's victory I think was having a share of each ministry resolution which in turn gave him the point for first minister at the end.
What do I think? Well on the evidence of 1 play I would give a qualified thumbs up, even on this play I saw an interesting game with scope for varying strategy. I was able to make good use of the Imperial examinations, by triggering them when I had the only candidate; this is particularly useful in combination with the Imperial favour because no one can then comeback at you. I say qualified because I think that it would be better with more players for the reasons I mentioned about the military path. Additionally with more players you would have more options with your gifts, with three to get 5 actions you need to have given a gift to each of your opponents and received one back (or given one and received 2) and to make this work you need one of your opponents to have given back one of equal value creating mutual obligations. With more players there is more scope and I suspect this would mean more players with the full 5 actions, meaning more gets done.
The one problem I found with the game has nothing to do with the game play, it concerns the way the imperial favour is marked with a cube on the same display as the actions that have been performed. Throughout the game I was looking at the cubes on the display thinking that many actions had been performed and getting confused because one of the cubes represented an action which hadn't been performed. This may say more about me than the design, but I feel it would have been better to have a card to represent the imperial favour, which could be given to the first minister who could place the cube on the card rather than placing it on the display and confusing poor souls like me.
Anyway just to repeat, an interesting game which I hope to play again soon with more players.
Until tomorrow.

 

Session Catch Up – 4, 11, 18 June 2008

This is by way of a catch up of what's been going on since the games expo. The last few weeks have been filled with new games.
4 June
Dave had to pop back home to wait for a call from Jen to pick her up from the station, so we tried a quick game of Tsuro, while we waited.
This is a game I have played a few times over at Hinckley on Saturday afternoons. It is great fun and plays up to 8, all this and it is playable in 15 minutes. The game is one of playing tiles on a 6 x 6 grid, each of which has four paths running from one side to another side. You have a piece which starts off the board and must move to the end of its path each time it is extended. This goes on and eventually the pieces will start running off the board or colliding with each other. If either of these happens you are out of the game and the last player remaining is the winner. The elimination aspect is not a problem because the game is so short.

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

During the Tsuro game, Simon arrived and joined Steve, Mike & I, while Ben & Alec set up a game of Munchkin, which Dave soon joined when he returned. We had it in mind to play Steam over Holland, but Simon is not a fan of hex laying train game (or it may just be 18XX games, which this actually is) so we put that aside for another week and played Monastery.
Another games expo purchase, this is the new Ragnar Brothers game, which I tried and enjoyed at the show, but I don't think as much as Canal Mania. I won't go into any detail here about the game here but point you in the direction of my review on the geek. Feelings about the game were mixed, with Mike and Simon not keen, while Steve thought it OK. Simon thought he was doomed from the start but I think this was mostly due to his reluctance to buy his extra monks, which to me seems the most basic of strategy. Mike felt the fact that his secret was tile was brown was a disadvantage. I don't really agree with that but a still have a worry that it is possible to be seriously disadvantages by bad card draws.

Monastery 120 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	35
Steve H	2	29
Mike	3	23
Simon	4	20

I don't have the Munchkin results, Dave did tell me, but I've forgotten. After that game they started a game of Tinners' Trail, the new Martin Wallace game, another I played at the expo and found quite fun. The game was not finished.

Munchkin 45 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave C
Ben
Alec
Tinners' Trail 75 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave C	1=
Ben	1=
Alec	1=

11 June
Steve Perkins and Paul were with us this week and we had a split of 3/3, with Steve P, Paul and me on one table and Dave C, Ben & Steve H on the other.
On our table we played Monastery, which played a bit differently with 3. We all went for monks early and the game played quickly ending with the taking of all the letter tiles rather than the end of the second day as in the previous game. My victory was due to having more blessings at the end and a lower deduction from unused buildings. There was again some discussion about the disadvantage of having a lot of brown tile and some solutions offered along the line of making the Abbey dual coloured or maybe grey at the front and brown at the back. I think I'm a little less concerned that there is a serious problem at the beginning as if worse comes to worse, you always have the option of leaving your monk in the abbey at the start, earning a point allowing you to buy your next monk, but I wouldn't be adverse to allowing a mulligan on the first tile draw.

Monastery 75 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	35
Steve P	2=	28
Paul	2=	28

Over on the other table they played Tinners' Trail and the game went down well with Steve who seemed to have a good victory. I was struck by high the scores were compared with the game I played at expo when 104 (or maybe 105) was a winning score I supposed the difference is the number of players meaning there is less competition for the developments.

Tinners' Trail 75 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	137
Dave C	2	122
Ben	3	104

The 2 games finished at about the same time so we switched tables and Steve, Paul and moved over to Tinners' Trail. The scores in this one averaged higher than the last with first time player Steve P coming out the winner. The ore prices were high at the start meaning we could invest heavily, which is another probable reason for higher scoring.

Tinners' Trail 60 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve P	1	136
Paul	2	131
Dave D	3	126

Over on the other table Dave demoed Confucius, but this game went unfinished. Dave has posted a review and session report (for a game he played at home) for this game on the geek.

Confucius 60 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave C	1=
Ben	1=
Steve H	1=

18 June
Nice to see Matt this week after a longish absence, although it is sad we will be losing him when he moves down south in a couple of months time.
Steve H, Mike & I were agreed on giving Steam over Holland a run out and Matt joined us, he being new to 18XX. This is a game I first became aware of some time back and I was interested because it looked like and 18XX game that could be played in an evening, so when I saw a copy at games expo I picked it up. The game is shorter than most 18XX by operating over a fixed 15 rounds (a stock round followed by 2 operating rounds and then repeat). The game develops quickly by allowing each company to lay 2 tiles on a turn (either 2 yellow or 1 yellow and an upgrade). Companies get money for the shares they sell and they can raise money by selling unsold shares to the open market rather than waiting for them to be bought by players.
In this game we all went our own ways each having control of a single company. That left 3 other companies which were never started. I don't know whether this is normal in this game. The critical point as I see it occurred at the transition to phase 4 of the game. In the previous stock round Steve sold one of my MSN shares dropping the price and leaving me to operate third. I sold one of Steve's HYSM shares to move his price down too, but that still left me to operate behind Mike's OSM. When we got to the operating round Mike did not declare a dividend, but did not buy the first 4 train which would have meant his losing his 2 trains, this left me to get an extra turn out of my 2 train and buy the 4 train. If Mike had bought the 4 train I would have still been able to buy the 4, but because of the 2 trains rusting my share price would have stayed the same for a turn. As it was it went up and continued to rise for the rest of the game, often by 2 levels at a time.
The final scores were pretty much in the order of who had the most valuable company. This does not have the flavour of a full blown 18XX, but is certainly a good option for an evening. It was suggested that 3 might be a better number than 4 and it will be interesting to try this some time.

Steam Over Holland 150 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	2454
Steve H	2	2142
Mike	3	1733
Matt	4	1513

Over on the other table were Dave, Ben and Alec who first played Gheos, in what seems like dominant win for Dave.

Gheos 50 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave C	1	116
Alec	2	48
Ben	3	36

Next up was Pandemic, which Matt had brought along. This is a game which I've been very curious about due to all the coverage on the geek and I have almost bought it at times, but I have been put off by the fact that it is a purely cooperative game. I tend to prefer a game where it is one player against a group like Scotland Yard or Fury of Dracula, rather than everybody against the system. They seem to have had a good time with it, the first game was lost to the diseases, but they won the second. I hope Matt will bring this along again as I would be interested in giving it a try.

Pandemic 40 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave C	1=	L
Alec	1=	L
Ben	1=	L
Pandemic 40 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave C	1=	W
Alec	1=	W
Ben	1=	W

As I write this a group will be gathered at Rosliston for what seems to have become an annual event. I have not been available for the last couple of years and it seems to have become an opportunity to play games that I would not like, so I have decided to give it a miss in case I had the likes of El Grande forced on me. I expect someone will do an account of the weekend.

UK Games Expo – 31 May, 1 June 2008

This past weekend was the second UK Games Expo, bigger and better than last year, you only have to look at the programme, which unlike last year's flimsy booklet was now a glossy affair, superior to many concerts I've been to (and it was free as opposed to setting you back a tenner or more).
Before I start describing my weekend, I'll give a mention to Dave C who volunteered to help out with the show and was at the venue setting up on Friday evening, was there both mornings at 7am and spent much of the days helping out including operating moving walls in the living dungeon. Anyway he seemed to thoroughly enjoy it and earned the club a name check in the programme. The downside was that I don't think he got a chance to play any games. Anyway well done Dave.
Now my weekend.
Saturday
I got there about 10 o'clock and spent some time wandering about finding out where things were. Almost immediately I ran across Nick Kinzett who was demoing The World Cup game and had a brief chat. I happened on Paul manning his GamesLore stand and after a bit of a chat he pointed me in the direction of a nearby table where they were demoing Jamaica so I sat down and gave that a go. In this game you represent a pirate racing round the island collecting gold and treasure and shooting your opponents, the game finishes when one player reaches the finishing line and victory points are awarded based on how far you have gone and the amount of gold you are carrying in your holds. In the 2 player game I played, the 2 ships got separated early and we never actually got round to exchanging any broadsides, I caught up right at the end so we finished at the same time , but my opponent was carrying a bit more gold. This strikes me as quite a fun family game and the production is very good. For myself, though it's not something I would choose to play that often.
Now it was back to wandering, I visited Ragnar Brothers stand where they were demoing their new game Monastery and booked myself a demo, after that I met Dave C, who had a bit of free time, and Ben, so we joined each other in our wandering. Ben seemed to spend a fair bit of time chasing a Dalek around tormenting it, which did not seem an entirely wise thing to do considering the nature of these creatures. Oh well I supposed kids no best some times.
11.30 and back to the Ragnars. I thoroughly enjoyed Monastery and proceeded to buy a copy. The game is one of building a medieval monastery. Each player has a team of monks and they spend some of their time building parts of the monastery which are tiles that are first laid with their unconstructed side up and and are completed and flipped over when a sufficient number of monks are present on the tile. As an alternative to constructing, monks can also engage in toil or study in completed location depending on the time of day, or can start praying. All these actions earn the player points which they will then spend buying letters of their phrase or acquiring extra monks, if they have points left over then they receive blessings which can be use to add to points in later turns or count towards victory at the end of the game. 3 times a day (the day is played over 2 days) there is a service round where a new abbot (starting player) is elected. No points are scored in these rounds but praying monks are returned to the abbey and are then available for use again.
The game goes on until all the letter tiles are taken or 2 days have been completed at which time players score 3 points for each letter they have placed in their phrase and 1 point for each blessing, highest total is the winner. Dave C had a chance to see some of the game play as for part of the time he was sitting on a chair by the game guarding the door to prevent unauthorised people coming in. After Monastery which we didn't quite finish, I went off over to the Garden House for something to eat and drink, away from all the hubbub.
Returning I bumped into Roj from Wayland's Forge and then Julian, who it does not sound as if we will be seeing at the club in the near future. I played a game of something called Shout7, which is an abstract involving getting 7 stones in a row on a hexagonal grid. Following that, I met Dave again who was looking to gather Ben up and head for home having completed his duties for the day, so I thought I would go with him but got involved in the last demo of Tinner's Trail for the day, we were likely to be pushing the 5 o'clock closing time so Dave headed back without me. I had assumed I would be on the bus anyway and had bought a day ticket so that was no problem.
Tinner's Trail is the new game by Martin Wallace about tin and copper mining in Cornwall. Not surprisingly Dave had already picked up a copy earlier in the day so I would expect to see it on the table at the club in the near future. The game has been billed as a lighter Wallace design and I suppose this is true when compared to Brass or Age of Steam, but the game still has quite a bit of beef in it to my way of thinking and I enjoyed the demo game which we just got finished before we were thrown out at 5pm, having played in about an hour. I just came second in a close finish. There is a review on the geek by one of the other players in the game I played.
Also during the day I picked up a copy of Tsuro, which is a nice little filler playing up to 8 and should be done in about 15 minutes.
Sunday
On Sunday morning, I woke up with the alarm but then went back to sleep again and next I knew it was 5 past 9, so I rolled out of bed and had to rush to get out for the bus. I again arrived about 10 and this time I headed upstairs to grab a cup of tea and a sausage roll as I'd missed breakfast. Heading downstairs I ran into Ben who told me his Dad was on car Park duty so I went for a walk round the building to see if I could find him. I didn't because he had already gone down the dungeon for the morning, but did meet Gordon, Keith and Daniel on their way in, who wondered if I was already leaving.
For most of the morning I wandered around. I was given a talk on Confucius, which Dave had also picked up the day before; apparently they only had 30 copies which they had sold out before lunch on Saturday. Wandering into the Board games tournament room, (which was somewhat larger and more airy than last year) I came across Steve Perkins and Mark Stretch playing Carcassonne and observed that Mark was wearing our T-shirt. I then ran across Gordon and co. again who apparently had missed out on a game of Giant Settlers, we all headed upstairs for a cup of tea and met Alex, who used to come to the club a few years ago, and his Dad.
After leaving Gordon, I went back downstairs and got a chance to try a prototype of Ascendancy, a 4X space game which is due out at Essen. This was OK, but I think my enjoyment of the game would probably be dependent on the group I was playing with. Now it was lunch time, so over to the Garden House again.
When I headed back to the show I met up with Dave who was now off duty and spent the rest of the afternoon with him. Ben had a trip down the dungeon which he seemed to thoroughly enjoy. I succumbed to the temptation which I had had all weekend and picked up Steam over Holland (aka 18IR aka 1839). This is the nicest produced game of its type that I have seen and I think it should play in an evening.
After Ben had finished I went home with Dave. I had had a good weekend and so had Dave although I suspect his was a lot more tiring than mine. We have now of course got a number of new games to try out at the club.

Session Summary – 28 May 2008

Bank Holiday week and we were three with Steve and Mike off on holiday.
First we played a couple of games of Gheos, the amazing thing to me is the difference in the scores of the 2 games. I think in the second the civilisations must just have had more wealth in their lands. Can't really think of much else to say.

Gheos 40 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	69
Dave C	2	44
Ben	3	39
Gheos 40 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave C	1	115
Dave D	2	108
Ben	3	59

Next we played Race for the Galaxy, which I don't play anywhere near enough. I have played 11 total games and see that 69 people on the geek played more than that just in May, one player have recorded a total of 491 games. Anyway, I was lucky in this one, drawing New Galactic Order at the last minute and just having time to play it, that was worth 13 points and was the difference between finishing first and last.

Race for the Galaxy 40 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	48
Dave C	2	42
Ben	3	36