The Mine Shaft Gap

Venue: Paul’s place.
Present: Nick, Alex, Jeff, Richard, Brian, Neil F., Bryan, Pat, Paul.
Played: King Arthur - The Card Game, Agricola, Garibaldi: La Trafila, Sechs Tag Rennen, Humm Bug, Attika, Catan Histories - Kampf um Rom.

Old and new titles tonight, also mirth and mayhem (see Humm Bug).
There was also some discussion of the early days in this group’s history. We’ve pegged the genesis here before at about early 1996, when things were largely about RPGs. Board games followed, with this observation from Pat about when he first became involved:

… The date was 17 Jul 1999. Games played that night:
Hummbug
Ra
Ave Caesar x 2
Ricochet Robot
Alex and I win the meta-memory game.
Although I wonder what the hell was going on. We’d have that bunch finished by 8.30pm these days.
I also note that the games played the following Sunday were Mamma Mia, El Caballero x 2 and Barbarossa. Hummbug the first week. Barbarossa the second.
And yet I still stuck around. I’m amazed myself.

Returning then, to Sept. 2008…

King Arthur - The Card Game: The warmer for the earlier arrivals.
8 mins rules and setup; 15 mins game time.
Results: Jeff: 43. Alex: 36. Pat: 33. Nick: 27.

Agricola: The biggie for the night. This set was Brian’s, apparently a Father’s Day present - nice!
A good session, but a challenge for me from about halfway, when suddenly the others were working on getting their fourth family member while I was still in start-up mode on two. By the end of the game I had managed to get a third, fourth and even a fifth, but these were only in the last turns of the game and, critically, I had therefore missed out on a chunk of actions that my opponents were benefiting from during the mid game. Don’t get behind in the population race!
15 mins rules and setup; 105 mins game time.
Results: Alex (purple): 32. Brian (red): 31 + more food. Jeff (green): 31. Paul (timber): 26.

Garibaldi: La Trafila: Apparently an enhanced version of Sherlock Holmes. The box art looked interesting…
10 mins rules and setup; 20 mins game time.
“A team thing” - Pat defeated by the team of Nick, Richard and Neil.

Sechs Tage Rennen: Six-day bicycle racing. The following is an inscrutable table summarising the results, prepared by Neil. I’m sure this must make sense to the guys who played it:

Best Sprints: Richard, Neil.

Humm Bug: It was Pat who suggested this (and admittedly, me who seconded) and I’m still not sure why. There was some discussion of how we used to roll this out as a form of embarrassing initiation/torture whenever anyone new joined the group (hence the reference to the very first sessions of this group that included Pat). So maybe the goal was to make Bryan feel right at home, despite the fact that this was not his first time along.
Anyway, much mirth and merriment was had by all.
20 mins, including house rules debate.
Despite protests and attempted conspiracies, the team of Neil and Pat were triumphant, with Richard and Paul a likely 2nd. The two Br(i/y)ans as a team, and Alex + Jeff, were a bit further back again.

Attika: Haven’t seen this one pulled for a while.
Richard the winner, with Pat maybe a turn behind. Brian and Bryan a bit further back again.

Catan Histories - Kampf um Rom: I was happy to play this again given Alex missed out last week. Jeff seemed comfortable to be drawn in as well. To reiterate last week’s remark, we levelled punishing criticism the first time this was played in our group back in November of last year. I thought last week’s game was a little better, and tonight’s session was better still. Despite an early strategic error which probably cost me any hope of winning, this game was actually enjoyable tonight. For me at least, there was a genuine sense of competitive tension for plunder tokens and conquest spaces. This might be stronger in a 3p game compared to a 4p due to the removal of a bunch of spaces at setup.
The most significant error I made in the game was to leave my warrior legion parked in his comfortable spot east of Limes for the first 4 or 5 turns. Sure, he was generating resources and/or $ each turn, but he was gaining no plunder tokens or other benefits for all of that time. Furthermore, the tokens would be slim pickens whenever he did eventually move.
Another difference between me and my opponents, and probable error on my part, was their collection of action cards (ie., 1 cow + $1). Despite best intentions early on, I fell off the pace, spending my reserves primarily on moving around the board instead. By game end I had collected a mere two in total, while Jeff and Alex had drawn and played 11 and 10 respectively.
So some mistakes to learn from and I expect I will have the chance with at least another two willing participants in the future.
~20 mins rules and setup; 110 mins game time.
Results: Jeff (blue): 11. Alex (orange): 10. Paul (red): 6.

Venue: Richard’s place.
Present: Alex, Jeff, Brad, Richard, Brian, Neil M., Neil F., Andrew, Pat, Paul.
Played: Die Heisse Schlacht, Pandemic, Catan Histories - Kampf um Rom, Euphrat & Tigris, Notre Dame, Guillotine, 500, Münchhausen, Elfenland.

A healthy turnout, with a similarly healthy selection of games on play. Sorry about the lo-res pics this time.

Die Heisse Schlacht: With the others seemingly already one round into this, I came in playing some big risky rolls. This session also saw the introduction of a variant: Roll 3 dice simultaneously and if you don’t bust (ie., roll over 7) you are entitled to double the value of the food tile you collect.
As the risk-takers amongst us will attest, sometimes your big risks pay off big, and sometimes they don’t. Tonight was a case of the latter for me. But it was an amusing session anyway…
15 mins.
Results: Andrew (yellow): 31. Brad (purple): 26. Pat (blue): 17. Paul (green): 0.

Pandemic: A rarity tonight, with the powers of humanness triumphant over the powers of diseasiness.
Pat, Jeff and Alex teamed together. About 20-30 mins.

Catan Histories - Kampf um Rom: Only the second outing ever for Settlers Rome in our group. We panned this after the first playing (which included Pat, Alex, Brad and me, back in November of last year), but despite further side-line heckling from Pat, I actually got more from this session than that first one. Maybe the flow of the game was a bit smoother, and certainly there was more competitive tension for plunder and settlement sites (the latter in particular). I don’t think we got any rules wrong this time - except for one - my fault again - apparently if you take no move or action with a tribe you can take two gold or a resource card of choice (I forgot about the latter detail!).
Anyway, despite coming last, I’m still prepared to play this again since this experience was (for me at least) so much better than the first. And I believe Alex is still keen too. Perhaps we can pull in Jeff as another victim at the next opportunity…
30 mins rules and setup; 115 mins game time.
Results: Richard (white): 12. Brian (red): 11. Neil M (blue): 9. Paul (orange): 6.

Euphrat & Tigris: I have no details for this game session, except for the players and their scores. Not that I’d know (having played E&T once in about the past 3 years), but I thought the scores were on the unusually high side.
BTW, I took a phone pic of this game session, but it came out so bad (even worse than the others here) that I decided not to insert the thumbnail.
Results: Andrew (pots): 16. Neil F (arrows): 14. Brad (goats): 9.

Notre Dame: A record score for Pat!
Results: Pat (blue): 78. Alex (yellow): 65. Jeff (green): 44.

Guillotine: Fittingly played by the Notre Damers.
And no, I don’t understand why. Must be the attractive cards…
Jeff: 28. Pat: 26. Alex: 23.

500: Some of the party were obviously keen on getting some steamy card game action in tonight. I’ll spare you the gory details and merely report the facts, being that a mere three hands were played and that Alex and Jeff went out backwards by -560 to Pat and Neil F, who scored 310.

Münchhausen: Bluff and second-guessing savagery, particularly funny with lots of players from this group.
I managed to trap Alex on one outrageous lie, but overall he was far too adept to hold back!
20 mins total.
Results: Alex: 35. Richard: 24. Paul: 23. Pat: 22. Neil F: 21. Brian: 15. Neil M: 14. Jeff: 10.

Elfenland: Three more gamers then went home, leaving just five of us to ponder the remainder of the evening, which eventually settled on the old traveling elf salesmen challenge.
Rules points-of-order to note: 1. We all got one face-down chip at the start of each turn, which none of us remember playing before. 2. All lake crossings cost two raft cards per step - maybe this is usual, but it seemed a little harsh to me…
I was feeling pretty good about my position in this game after turn one, having tucked in 6 tokens and comfortably positioned for turn 2. But, things went progressively downhill from there. Could have been worse, I suppose - Richard must have severely lucked-out on his card draws.
15 mins rules and setup; 55 mins game time.
Results: Alex (yellow): 19 + 2 cards. Pat (blue): 19 + 1. Paul (black): 18 + 4. Jeff (green): 18 + 3. Richard (purple): 16.

Venue: Paul’s place.
Present: Alex, Jeff, Richard, Brian, Neil M., Pat, Paul.
Played: Fairy Tale, Squatter, Viking Fury, Cannonball Colony, Notre Dame, Ticket to Ride - The Card Game, Manhattan, Pandemic x 2.

Lots of bite-size morsels tonight, with nothing over 1hr 20mins. And still a satisfying evening…

Fairy Tale: The ice-breaker for the earliest arrivals.
Results: Alex: 46. Pat: 45. Jeff: 32.

Squatter: This is something I’ve wanted to have a go at for a long time now, for a number of reasons. Tonight I was fortunate enough to have Alex and Brian both prepared to go there with me!
I did have a pre-conceived notion of playing the rules variant of what is described as the quick game, because of the expectation that the standard game would run into hours. But after an assurance by Pat, we settled into the standard game, which was all over in an hour anyway. Lots of chance-taking with dice rolls and gambling on price differentials in Stock Sales.
In addition to their indulgence to play this with me at all, Alex Brian also let me win.
18 mins rules and setup; 53 mins game time.
Paul wins as the first player to acquire 6000 sheep on 5 blocks of irrigated pasture.

Viking Fury: Hot Viking action for those not sheep farming. This is the original version with the cotton sheet board, not the the re-release (Fire and Axe). Richard sailed away with it (the game score, not the cotton sheet board).
Total time: 80 mins (incl. rules and setup).
Results: Richard (yellow): 168. Pat (blue): 144 . Jeff (green): 131. Neil (red): 74.

Cannonball Colony: Richard and Alex both pleased to satisfy their curiosity with this. Both beat me to early cannon placements by one turn and left me floundering for space to build forts. Creamed!
14 mins rules & setup; 36 mins game time.
Results: Richard (blue): 10. Alex (yellow): 7. Paul (red): 6.

Notre Dame: For the rat chasers on the other table…
65 mins, incl. rules & setup.
Results: Pat (blue): 68 + $2. Jeff (green): 68 + $0. Brian (yellow): 64. Neil (red): 46.

Ticket to Ride - The Card Game: I first saw this at the Albury expo back in June, but tonight was only the first opportunity for me to try it. I didn’t have very high expectations of this capturing the same interest and sense of competition as its board-based siblings. Hence I was pleasantly surprised when this was well-achieved!
Actually I felt as though I was right out of the running, watching both Pat and Alex meld down their sets with ease, occasionally trumping each other and me out of hard-gained cards. So I was even more surprised during the final score reckoning when my numbers gazumped both of them. They must have let me win again.
10 mins rules and setup; 26 mins game time.
Results: Paul: 138. Alex: 91. Pat: 88.

Manhattan: Building buildings. A somewhat surprising choice from Richard, but even more surprising that he had apparently never played this before.
Of course, they played the Monster that Ate Sheboygan variant.
50 mins (incl. rules and setup).
Results: Richard: 58. Jeff: 54. Brian: 48.

Pandemic: Three-player version while the Monster ate Sheboygan (above). In this case, Pat, Alex and I were overrun by the Black disease.
5 mins rules and setup; 34 mins game time.

We enjoyed this so much that we decided to play again, this time with Jeff joining us. For the second game we came close again to succeeding, but this time we were overwhelmed by eight Outbreaks. Despite this, I’m liking this game more each time I play it. It’s really growing on me like, well, a disease.
4 mins rules and setup; 35 mins game time.

Pat followed up with the following statistics:
All at normal level (5 epidemics):
4 players : 7 plays : 1 win
3 players : 6 plays : 2 wins
2 players : 2 plays : 1 win
Not enough plays for statistical integrity, but it’s evidence towards the theory and the common sense that says it gets harder with more players.