The Mine Shaft Gap

Ok, nerdy, goofy, etc. in the extreme.
Anyone reading tMSG should be able to relate…

(This report submitted by Andrew in Paul the Gapper’s absence)

I’m going to leave those East-table splitters to report for themselves, but suffice to say they at least played a Martin Wallace game.

1. The more trendy West table started off with Tinners’ Trail, because Neil F hadn’t played it before. He seemed to suck up the lucid rules explanation like a giant Arab sponge, so off we went. I don’t recall too much about the game, so let’s jump straight to the final scores:

Results: Andrew (red): 108, Neil F. (blue): 85 + £1, Brian (yellow): 85 + £0, Neil M. (green): 80.

I was relieved to finally crack my maiden win of this title.

2. Next was a couple of games of Hey! That’s My Fish! while we waited for the other table to get their act together. The first game saw your faithful correspondent get whooped (27-25-22-20?), but I came back to win the next one (26-25-24-20?).

3. Last game before I had to leave was St Petersburg, another game I like and own but rarely win. We’d all played before and only needed a quick rules refresher before we were in. Neil F. spurned the “build your engine” strategy and this folly was borne out in the results. Neil M. spurned the “play quickly” strategy and likewise came a cropper:

Results: Andrew (red): 96, Brian (yellow): 66, Neil F. (blue): 52, Neil M. (green): 50. (same colours as the previous game).

Venue: Paul’s place.
Present: Pat, Brad, Nick, Euhan, Alex, Jeff, Brian, Neil M., Phil, Paula and Paul.
Played: Hey! That’s My Fish!, Bacchus’ Banquet, New England, Last Night on Earth, Tribune, Tribune (again), Galloping Pigs, Alex’s Game, Caylus, Saboteur, Corsari.

We were pleased to introduce Phil Harding, of Adventureland Games, Archaeology (Boardgames Australia BAGotY’08) and Cannonball Colony fame, to the group tonight.

Hey! That’s My Fish!: Starter fun for Pat, Brad and Nick.
10, maybe 15 mins (Brad reckons 10 mins is generous and that it was less than this.)
Results: Nick: 36. Pat: 33. Brad: 29.

Bacchus’ Banquet: Pat boycotted this one, and by the end of the game apparently Brad wished he had too. I see a little entry in my notes that reads simply, “horrible game - Brad”.
Played by Nick, Euhan, Alex, Jeff, and Brad.
Brad won, apparently Jeff about “one off”. The green bottle in the pic is not part of the game, BTW.

New England: It had been years since I’d played this game so I had forgotten pretty much the whole thing. But, it didn’t take too long to get into the swing of this and I actually felt that I was doing alright. At one point I made a rather ‘pussing’ (that’s pronounced pʌsɪŋ for those who are unfamiliar with the term) play against Neil, partially intended, but in fact at the time I didn’t fully appreciate that I completely destroyed his chance of ever being able to play down the 10-point card that he had tucked under his barn. I did feel kind of bad about this afterwards, but hey, we all move on…
By the time I had collected 5 pilgrims, I even thought I was in with a chance of winning. But the cost of collecting them is high - your land tiles are of course tied up and can become impossible to score from, and this too was my problem. I think I got a decent score in the end - just not enough to win.
15 mins rules and setup; 70 mins game time.
Results: Pat: 36. Paul: 34. Brian: 33. Neil: 27.

Last Night on Earth: I didn’t play this, but it seems that one of the hardest decisions was right at the start - choosing between the nurse and the cowgirl. Weight of consensus in the room was with the cowgirl…
We let them play with the ambient zombie CD on in the background, although I think they should’ve had the lights down low too. Could have been a problem with reading the text on the cards, but we could have broken out the candles.
Played tonight by Euhan, Alex, Jeff, Brad and Nick. I’m looking forward to having a go at this one myself sometime.
About 70 mins. Results: The zombies won with about 3 turns left.

Tribune: I might get to play this one day!
Played this time by Nick, Brian, Neil M and Brad. Don’t know scores or timings.

Tribune (again): The first thing I need to do is confirm that this game was indeed played twice tonight, and I that I don’t simply have two entries in my book for the same playing! The recorded players are the same, which makes me think there is the chance of a mix-up here…
20 mins rules and setup; 50 mins game time.
Results: Brian won with 4. Then Brad, Nick and Neil.

Galloping Pigs: We played a couple of variants in this filler:
1. Six players! The game is only spec’d for 4. We reduced the number of starting cards per player in each round, although in hindsight I don’t see any fundamental reason for doing so, nor in why four players should be a hard game limit. All it does is add more randomness to the whole show…
2. As can be seen in the picture, Pat was inspired to seek the unofficial Hot Wheels overpass expansion!
15 mins for three rounds.
Results: Alex: 9. Jeff: 6. Pat: 4. Paula: 3. Euhan: 2. Paul: 0.

Alex’s Game: Keep on bringing the new design prototypes!
With this one, although I got the mechanics fine, I struggled with the strategy and what sort of decisions were best to make with each play. This is because there is a ‘plans within plans’ aspect to the play of cards and subsequent scoring, which I didn’t fully appreciate at first. But, by the end I felt in agreement with Alex’s suggestion that it might take about 3 playings to ‘get it’, and some of the decisions might even be a little easier with 4 or more players (since the 3p variant required the play of 2 cards per round instead of one, and then won-cards are distributed to the stacks of ‘virtual’ players, all of which disappears in a 4p game).
So please, bring this one along again, Alex, to give it the chance to sink in a bit better…!
Results: Alex: 24. Jeff: 14. Paul: 12.

Caylus: A rather severe introduction to the group for Phil, who hadn’t played Caylus before! Obviously Euhan was allowed to get away with murder… But I imagine that just like my first playing of Caylus, the range of options available, especially during the mid-game, could be considered quite overwhelming for a first-timer…
95 mins.
Results: Euhan (yellow): 101. Pat (blue): 93. Phil (green): 49.

Saboteur: Finger-pointing fun. Even more fun when you’re one of the Saboteurs, I think…
10 mins rules; 37 mins game time.
Brian: 8. Paul: 7. Pat: 6. Alex: 4. Jeff: 3. Euhan: 0

Corsari: Although everyone else decided to call it a night, both Pat and Phil were keen for another game so I was happy to oblige. Phil fell victim yet again to first-timer’s syndrome on this one. Although I’m pleased to say that I think this was the first time in a long time (maybe the 2nd time ever?) that I’ve won this with Pat playing…
5 mins rules; 55 mins playing time.
Results (lower is better): Paul: 40. Pat: 49. Phil: 126.

Venue: Paul’s place.
Present: Euhan, Nick, Mark, Richard, Alex, Brad, Brian, Bryan, Paula and Paul.
Played: 10 Days in Asia, Ticket to Ride Marklin, Tribune, In the Year of the Dragon, Carcassonne the Tower, Downfall of Pompeii, Mü.

We introduced a new local addition to the group tonight with Bryan, and welcomed back Mark after few and far between sessions.

10 Days in Asia: Something light for some of the first arrivals tonight.
5 mins rules and setup, 15 minutes game time.
Alex won, Nick and Brad only one tile behind.

Ticket to Ride Marklin: A first foray into the world of Euros for Bryan (with a ‘y’) produced a respectable result, in the face of Euhan, who blitzed his opposition in just about every category of scoring - chunky-scoring track sections (two 18-pointers), 40 points worth of passenger collections, and a huge score on completed ticket cards. Suffice to say that Brian (with an ‘i’) will prefer to forget this session even faster than he forgot to complete to complete two of his drawn tickets…
Note that the product placement advertising in the picture here was not intentional.
20 mins rules and setup; 60 mins game time.
Results: Euhan (yellow): 161. Bryan (black): 132. Paul (purple): 125. Brian (red): 69.

Tribune: New Roman fare brought in by Nick tonight. Apparently somewhat unusual in that scoring is according to a number of victory conditions, with the win going to the player first to achieve the requisite number of these.
Featured gimmick: the little chariot shown here. Perhaps it doesn’t fit with the manner of the game (I didn’t play, so I don’t know!), but it seems to me the horses could have been in full flight, with a Charlton Heston-esque rider with stock whip…
20 minutes-ish rules and setup; 55 minutes-ish game time.
Results: Mark won a basic victory conditions points tie (3) against Alex, with Nick, Richard, and Brad all behind on 2 each.

In the Year of the Dragon: Euhan’s games bag continued the workout with this title, which I was happy to play only for the second time ever, and determined not to repeat some of the mistakes I had made in that first playing so many months ago.
And I felt this played well with 5p, although Euhan yet again demonstrated his prowess as game-owner and took out his 2nd overwhelming win for the evening.
The attractive hand in shot belongs to Alex, BTW.
25 mins rules and setup; 65 mins game time.
Results: Euhan (blue): 95. Paul (green): 85. Bryan (purple): 80. Richard (red): 79. Alex (yellow): 77.

Carcassonne the Tower: Although this is not a brand new expansion, it was the first time played by any of our group tonight, barring Mark of course who brought it along with a few of his home-brews (one of which is still in my fridge and will be consumed by the coming weekend).
Anyway, apparently Brad was anointed chief meeple-catcher.
About 15 mins rules and setup; 25 mins game time.
Results: Brad: 54. Paula: 43. Mark: 39. Nick: 22. Brian: 20.

Downfall of Pompeii: In keeping with the overall lightness of the evening, this was rolled out by the Carcassonners while the Dragons were still mid-year. By the time we arrived to look over shoulders, the Pompeiian streets were looking very messy…
About 47 mins, incl. rules and setup.
Results: Mark (blue): 9. Brad (black): 9 (but minus on the volcano count-back). Paula (yellow): 8. Brian (red): 6.

Mü: We moved from lightness to the heavier double-thinking trick-taking of Mü, arguably at the wrong end of the night.
This is a hard one to count scores in, since we encountered a bit of rules ambiguity and confusion toward the end, which affected the sequence of play (and the winning cards) in each trick for at least the last 3 tricks of the game. Regardless, Alex creamed it.
About 115 minutes, incl. rules.
Results (not counting last hand): Alex: 191. Richard: 149. Paul: 112. Brian: 110. Paula: -12

A quick photo-less account in Brad and Paul’s absence.

Attendees: let the record show Nick was here! Also visiting were Melissa, Fraser (and Claudia) from Melbourne. Other attendees included Andrew, Pat, Alex and NeilM.

The magic “8″ meant two tables of games for most of the night.

King Lui was the filler while waiting for attendees. Meliissa took over from me, but didn’t save us from a drubbing. Pat winning with Al second.

Then two tables. I played Tribune - Karl-Heinz Schmiel’s latest brought by Nick, together with Pat and Fraser. Some vague theme about stuff happening in Rome - though it did feature the opportunity to visit the latrine. In essence it is a set collection game with lots of ways to turn your sets into points: some methods require a spread of suits, other need pairs, some need high cards etc. In some ways this part is like Shadows over Camelot: different regions where you can spend effort and turn card combos into victory. Unlike Shadows you have 5 men working for you so you can do several things per turn. There is competition for key sites and to deny others cards that may threaten your own holdings. The neat thing is that you win by hitting four victory conditions: no tallying VPs. I managed to do this before the others, but I think most of the others would have done it in the following turn. It is a little complex but is fairly light in play as there is explicit randomness in face down cards as well as crazy duelling in-the-fist bids.

The other table played Agricola - taught by the loyalest Agricola babe on the planet, Melissa. She also won the game to demonstrate the skill-factor, but let NeilM come within striking distance. Scores were Melissa 36, Neil 34, Alex 29, Andrew 25.

Nick requested Timbuktu which I am always happy to play. Pat explained rules while I made coffees. Nick and Fraser were gutted on the first round, while Pat was found to have been packing his saddlebags in a dodgy manner. I had a good lead which the others gradually ate into. At the end Fraser was one good behind me with the others breathing down his neck.

Tinner’s Trail hit the table on the Andrew/Melissa end. Alex crushed the opposition beneath his steam engines with a mighty 129 and the poor newbie Melissa paid for her earlier victory languishing in some sump hole at the back of the pack. Neil over Andrew in the middle orders if I have it correct.
The Timbuktu-ers went for light and silly and switched to Mordred meaning we had Martin Wallace on two ends of the table. Nick was new, Pat was confused, and Fraser had only played by ‘Melbourne’ rules. Mordred was on the back foot most of the game. I nearly snuck an early win, but Nick rolled very low (snake eyes?) on the most treachorous table to get many Morderd men and take out my string of 9 villages along the Southern coast. Thereafter things inched backwards and forwards ’til Fraser pushed for the win, but misjudged the points letting me sneak out the win.

Pumpkin coaches then for everyone but Alex and me, though the pumpkin taxi took a fair while to arrive for Melissa & Fraser. Alex and I played Shazaam - a 2 player duelling wizards card game up both our streets. I took out the training game, but Alex hung on in the second game to take it to the fifth round and eventually crushed me like a bug - or fricasseed chicken or whatever…

Good fun with some faces new to Tempe.