The Mine Shaft Gap

Apr 26, 2009: Something here
Venue: Paul’s place
Present: Alex, Jeff, Pat, Brian, Mark, Paul.
Played: Fairy Tale, Pow Wow, Red November, Löwendynastie, Shark, Marracash.

First things: I’ve just updated three earlier entries from the past few months that had the wrong date, in fact, the wrong year! “2008” entries now corrected to 2009s.
Number of gamers down a bit tonight, but it was good to see Mark back at the table.
And I used the real camera tonight, in order to lift the quality of pics here a little. I’m quite pleased with the close-ups for Red November, Shark and Marracash below…

The usual starting game and players at Paul’s place: Hardly needs stating, but those not commonly around between 6:30 and 7pm, Alex, Pat and Jeff played Fairly Tale. Blah blah blah… :-) (private joke). Actually there is one difference tonight, and that is that I actually know who won: Alex.

Pow Wow: Amusing party game. Everyone (up to 8 players) wears a Rambo headband. Stick a feather in so that only you don’t see the number on it. Then play a progressive bluff bid for the total value of all head feathers until someone successfully or unsuccessfully calls the bluff. After three misses you’re out, and when only three players remain, the winner is the player with the least number of misses.
Sorry about the focus in the pic. I want to say something about the significance of the numbers on the particular headbands visible, but the joke would be too unsubtle…
5 mins rules and setup; 15 mins game time.
Results: Paul wins – hooray. Pat and Mark next in line (although order may be wrong or equal between those two). Then Alex, who was third eliminated, then Brian second elim, and Jeff the 1st eliminated.

Red November: A controversial cooperative. Alex insisted that, special circumstances notwithstanding (and assuming true and fair balanced d10), the best way to play for responding to all hazards etc., was to spend on each turn one minute only on tasks, and therefore attempt to roll 1s on the d10. I think we all understood this to be true statistically and in the context of how the game worked, but I was nagged by the knowledge that it was possible that a 1 might never be rolled during a game. But he stuck with his approach, as did Mark, and their rolls possibly did validate the method, at least in our game. But with 6 players there are an awful lot of events to work through and around. Unfortunately they got the better of us. Despite surviving numerous fires and threats of asphyxiation, several floods and a few drownings (we played the ‘less deadly dying’ variant), and just surviving the Kraken attack, with about 7 minutes left on the clock structural integrity failed and the sub was crushed under the deep ocean pressure. Bummer.
(BTW, “Kraken” comes up as an unknown word in my spell check. One of the suggestions is “Kramer”. Should have known we had a Cylon in our midst… :-)
(Also BTW, note the spinning d10 out of focus in the background of the close-up pic…)
7 mins rules & setup; 108 mins game time.

Löwendynastie: New (or at least, first-time playing) card game brought over by Pat. Kind of trick-taking follow-suit meets Frank’s Zoo, abd our third game to accommodate 6 players tonight.
About 6 mins rules & setup; 44 mins game time.
Results: Pat: 10. Jeff: 9. Brian: 7. Mark: 6. Alex: 5. Paul: 4.

Shark: Share market speculating in which prices are determined by spatial positioning of pieces resulting from die rolls. Similarities in that sense to Acquire, but this is better for some reason.
Some of has have played this in years past at Richard’s place, but Pat’s set seems to be more recent with little buildings instead of pegs, and we think the shark region in the middle of the board is also a more recent innovation.
Good fun, but too short – I could have played this again but done better knowing that the die roll favoured green over the other colours…!
6 mins rules & setup; 43 mins game time.
Results: Jeff: 110. Alex: 102. Brian: 63. Paul: 37. Pat: 24.

Marracash: Another speculating game, although quite different. Years since I’ve played this one, about buying shops in a north-African city street market, then attempting to manoeuvre shoppers and tourists into your doorways to gain a cash return. I thought I was doing well in this, but I ending up over-spending on shop stand auctions and perhaps not enough time working the shoppers to gain movers’ cuts, etc. Interesting little chess-game considerations made more interesting by virtue of having 4 players.
12 mins rules & setup; 55 mins game time.
Results: Pat: $3900. Jeff: $3000. Paul: $2750. Alex: $2050.

Venue: Pat’s place
Present: Alex, Craig, Pat, Paul.
Played: Revolution: The Dutch Revolt 1568 - 1648, Corsari.

Revolution: The Dutch Revolt 1568 - 1648: An unusual set of availability circumstances saw four of us turn up to Pat’s place for this epic - The rules explan time may in fact be a new record. Completely new for me, and as good as new for Craig, who had played once before maybe a year ago. Alex and Pat had retained a good sense of the rules but had to occasionally consult on minor details. We were all helped by Pat’s excellent rules explanation and turn summary sheet. Factions, families, or ‘player roles’, whatever you call them, are non-symmetrical, not simply because each has slightly different powers, but also because each has slightly different victory point counts. We drew factions randomly, with Pat taking the extreme Catholics, me the extreme Reformists, Alex the less Catholic Hapsburgs, and Craig the less Reformist Burghers. I don’t know if there were any historic alliances, or even sympathies, between the more closely-aligned factions, but there didn’t seem to be any in-game. Within a few turns my Reformists were all but driven out of Holland by the Burghers, and my campaign against the Catholics in Utrecht failed once Pat had moved in two armies on the first possible opportunity. I managed to scramble up north to claim Friesland and eventually the others up there, but I gather this is a common, predictable and wholly uninteresting play by the Reformists.
So with the home strength whittled down to ineffectuality, I made a play instead for my remaining bastion of presence: Flanders. Unfortunately it turns out that my success here was illegal in game terms, because I had landed in a collection units from my off-board Calvanists, and these are supposed to go only in regions with a future university. Alex pointed out the error a few turns after it was made, and it being too late and too hard to unravel, we simply considered it a warped alternative history in which the Calvanists attempted to establish the University of Antwerp in about 1590…
Anyhoo, the game progressed and although my Reformists gained a few points each turn, they were not enough to make major gains against the Catholics. In hindsight I ought to have played the teleporting Calvanists differently - given the opportunity again I certainly will.
73 mins rules & setup; 234 mins game time.
Results: Pat (Catholics; yellow): 13.3. Alex (Hapsburgs; red): 12.4. Paul (Reformists; orange): 10.45. Craig (Burghers; blue): 7.5.

Corsari: A little bit of setting sail with pirates to end the evening.
6 hands; about 45 mins game time.
Results (lower is better): Alex: 9. Paul: 83. Pat: 128.

Venue: Pat’s place
Present: Alex, Jeff, Brian, Craig, Pat, Rick D., Paula, Paul.
Played: Bluff, Pit, Le Havre, Cuba, Geschenkt, Dominion, Control Nut, 6 Nimmt!.

New phone with a 2Mpx camera to try out tonight - pictures here are from that. Better than the old phone camera I often used, but still no where near as good as those taken with a ‘real’ camera. Perhaps with a bit more practice I can improve the quality of them…
Also, I was going to add a comment that I must be in a gaming slump - my performance in ‘real’ games has been atrocious since January in Canberra, and the streak continues tonight! But the truth is probably that I’ve returned to my standard after a brief moment of glorious luck all those months ago!

Bluff: An ice-breaker as we waited for Craig. I guess we played an unofficial variant for 7 players with 4 dice each.
13 mins.
Results: Jeff wins with one die remaining. Rick D. the last to be eliminated, then (in order) Pat, Alex, Paul, Paula, Brian.

Pit: Our second ice-breaker, and Craig turned up after an arduous holiday-traffic drive just as we ended our second hand.
Rick won both of them.
7 mins.

Le Havre: I spent over half an hour writing a session report on this one that was good enough to post on BGG. I had written about the different building strategies employed by Pat and Jeff, and how it was difficult for me to keep up with the available building action types after about the fifth turn in. And lots of other stuff besides.
But my original text has vanished - apparently gremlins of the no-save or the accidental-delete variety at work.
I don’t really have the inclination to rewrite it, so I’ll simply leave a results summary.
15 mins rules and setup; 115 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): 138. Jeff (green): 129. Brian (red): 114. Paul (purple): 94.

Cuba: Figurative cigar-smoking on the next table.
About 20 mins rules & setup; 95 mins game time.
Results: Rick: 83. Craig: 77. Paula: 75. Alex: 73.

Geschenkt: Post-Cuban filler.
Two hands played.
Results (lower is better; score 1,2, total): Craig: 59,24, 73. Alex: 39,49, 88. Rick: 63,33, 96. Paula: 45,99, 144.

Dominion: 1st time playing for me. A simple concept, but such a unique one that it took my brain some time to really get it - most of the game, in fact.
It looks like there is a lot of scope to explore different strategies in this game. But, like Le Havre, success probably depends on learning the different card types available.
10 mins rules and setup; 53 mins game time.
Results: Alex: 26. Paula: 23. Rick: 21. Paul: 8.

Control Nut: Some kind of quirky trick-taking game involving squirrels, I believe.
Pat, Craig, Brian and Jeff played, for at least 75 mins. No results recorded.

6 Nimmt!: Paula suggested we play this one as a closer, and so we did, despite my warning this “is not a game”, and “how about we just roll some D6s…?”
Anyway, for the record then, 13 minutes game time for two hands only.
Results (lower is better): Rick: 25. Paula: 27. Paul: 29. Alex: 36.