The Mine Shaft Gap

October 25, 2009: Smorgasbord

October 28, 2009 at 9:11 pm · Filed under Session Reports

Venue: Paul’s place
Present: Alex, Jeff, Pat, Lindsay, Euhan, Neil F., Mark, Paul.
Played: Fairy Tale, Station Master, Monkey Memory, Giro d’Italia, Hamburgum, Dragon Delta, Pandemic, Nobody but us chickens, Tycoon, Oasis.

I could find no particular theme for tonight’s games - it was really a blend of lots of stuff. Hence the title chosen for this post.
Except for the Oasis one, I’m generally happy with my pics tonight, particularly the close-ups.

Fairy Tale: The usual opener for these guys.
9 mins.
Results: Alex: 52. Pat: 44. Jeff: 41.

Station Master: There was a bit of hollerin’ with this.
25 mins.
Results: Alex: 332. Jeff: 309. Pat: 233.

Monkey Memory: Even more hollerin’ with this one. I don’t know what it was about (we were trying to play Giro d’Italia on the other side of the table), but gosh gee - it was loud!
~10 mins.
Results: not known.

Giro d’Italia Card Game: There is a board game themed on the famous bike race, and this is the card game version of that. Apparently this is sold all over Italy, so I gather popular with families and non-gamers. The course is laid out as half a dozen cards showing flats, inclines, and declines, which affect each rider’s maximum speed according to their specialty (eg., hill climbers vs. flats specialists). There is a peleton card that generally races to a fixed count per turn (the peleton leader can push it one extra space), then players in the peleton decide if they will try to break away.
I have to admit that overall, I wasn’t really ‘feeling’ the theme that much while playing, nor the natural tension of a race. These are things that I only get in retrospect, so perhaps another playing is in order before I pass final judgment on this.
23 mins rules and setup; 27 mins game time.
Final positions: Lindsay, then Mark and Euhan together (although Mark on the outside), then Paul, then Neil who was ahead of the peleton.

Hamburgum: Too hard for me to think about tonight, so I opted for the alternative option (below).
About 15 mins rules; about 60 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): 76. Euhan (yellow): 71. Lindsay (green): 68. Neil (red): 50.

Dragon Delta: Building bridges over stones. Jeff basically made a quick run, then the rest of us tried to sabotage his plans near the end. This worked for one turn, but then he slipped in when Alex and I mis-timed our dragon card plays! Still fun.
20 mins rules and setup; 32 mins game time.
Jeff (green) makes it across first, ahead of Mark (blue), Alex (yellow) and Paul (red).

Pandemic: We played with the expansion components (cards), but not the Terrorist rule. Apparently we also played the ’soft’ rules, but according to Alex, if we didn’t we would have lost within the first 2 or 3 turns. But, all good, we won. Hooray.
9 mins rules and setup; 39 mins game time.
Mark: Dispatcher. Jeff: Containment Specialist. Alex: Field Operative. Paul: Generalist.

Nobody but us chickens: Silliness on the other side of the table. Pat must have played with a sixth sense – look at those scores:
Pat: 70. Neil: 31. Lindsay: 15. Euhan: 9.

Tycoon: A bit of economic engining (from the verb, to ‘engine’). But Euhan rolled over the top of us with clever placement of factories. I made the mistake of not taking a loan on the very first turn like everyone else and got left behind somewhat as a result. Pat discovered that we had not been playing the complete rules: Removed hotel tokens are supposed to go into the city middle where they count towards city bonuses and can be restored to the chain at no building cost! Next time we’ll play the correct rules…
15 mins rules and setup; 65 mins game time.
Results: Euhan (yellow): 156. Pat (blue): 128. Jeff (red): 93. Paul (green): 85.