The Mine Shaft Gap

Venue: Pat’s place
Present: Lindsay, Alex, Jeff, Pat, Paul
Played: Roll through the Ages, Jet Set, The Really Nasty Horse Racing Game, Tanta Tarantel, Maori.

Small group tonight and the last session before Pat disappears with family to Europe for a month. It’s rare for Pat to miss a single Sunday session, let alone a monthful. I’m not sure who’s withdrawal will be the worst - his or ours…! :-)
Pics low-qual from the phone tonight.

Roll Through the Ages: Unfortunately for me this was just being packed away when I arrived. Fortunately for me Pat left it as a loaner until he returns from travels.
Here’s a brief summary sent in response to Tommy D’s request that he wrote for this in his BGG collection (weird - can’t figure out how to link directly to that! But, it is in this list.)

Roll Through The Ages: The Bronze Age - Roll symbolled dice to get food (to keep your VP’s), workers (buy more dice or go for VP monuments) and resources (to buy tech tree powers also worth VP’s). You get to actively choose what to pursue with your two re-rolls based on what you’ve bought so far and what your opponents are doing, all recorded via personal score pads.
There’s some nice tech tree combinations to shoot for, some engine-building vs VP trade-offs, and races to complete things first - all of which makes for an engaging game. It has the added advantage of tailoring length (using the Late Bronze Age rules) and interaction (using the optional trading element). A top-notch addition to the 30min dice arena. An 8 to start with.
Patrick

Jet Set: New(-ish) game about claiming travel routes between European cities and connecting cities to earn income and score points. Just like a train game only with planes!
Seriously, I sucked at this game and continually lamented the lack of ‘decent’ cards available from the draw. And I was taken a little by surprise when the game end trigger came around. But, I kind of know what mistakes I made and therefore how to play a better game next time around.
18 mins rules and setup; 70 mins game time.
Results: Jeff (green): 28. Pat (blue): 27. Lindsay (orange): 25. Alex (yellow): 19. Paul (purple) 16.

The Really Nasty Horse Racing Game: Fast-paced fun, with extra humour elements added in the form of puss-cards and gambling on opponents horses.
By the fourth race (of six) Pat seemed to have won most, I’d won nothing and was down to a fiver in total cash. A reversal of fortune for race 5 allowed me a £150,000 gamble on race 6, in which my horse ran 2nd and Alex’s won - giving me a £675,000 gain on that race alone and thus the game. Yay!
But bummer for Jeff. At least he kept his shirt on.
18 mins rules and setup; 53 mins game time.
Results (£’000s): Paul (white): 1000. Alex (yellow): 825. Pat (blue): 730. Lindsay (green): 405. Jeff (red): 0.

Tante Tarantel: A nice little Doris-and-Frank design that I’d seen on Pat’s game shelf for years, but never on the table.
Players move their insect tokens across a spider’s web maze to an escape section for a variable points return. The challenge is to dodge an unpredictable but hungry spider that shuffles around the web, increasing the pace of the game with each victim consumed. Two of my three insects got eaten.
27 mins incl. rules.
Results: Lindsay (green): 11. Alex (yellow): 10. Pat (blue): 9. Jeff (black): 7. Paul (red): 6.

Maori: Variant using boats that limit where on your board map you can play your new tiles. Made for a slightly longer but more interesting game, I thought.
4 mins rules and setup; 35 mins game time.
Results: Alex (yellow): 43. Lindsay (green): 38. Jeff (black): 30. Pat (blue): 29. Paul (red): 24.