Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Session Report - January 16, 2007

Attendees: (9): Andrew Bradley, Tamara Ferretti, Michael Hall, Sharon Madden, Warren Madden, Andy Manning, Eileen Tooke, Steve Walker, and Adam Whitney.

We gathered at Steve's house for another great evening of games. Prior to everyone's arrival, I started to teach everyone Bang! but the rest of the group arrived before we started the shootout so we put it aside to try at a later session. Tamara returned for another night of gaming, so she must have enjoyed her first experience with Euro Games, and hopefully she will continue to be a regular attendee. We split into two groups with four going to play Thurn & Taxis (the 2006 Game of the Year) and the other 5 to play Caylus.

Thurn & Taxis
Tamara, Andy, Eileen, and Adam played Thurn & Taxis. This is a lighter game but a good gateway game in many respects. It involves set collection as each player tries to draw certain cards to complete mail routes across the country and score points for meeting specific conditions. The nice features of this game are that there is no direct competition for routes (some indirect moves can disrupt players however) and there are multiple strategies and choices along the way. I have played this one with non-gamers with mixed results but I think everyone enjoyed the game last night. Adam was the winner with 22 pts while Andy, Eileen, and Tamara finished with 14, 13, and 10 respectively.

Caylus
Sharon, Warren, Andrew, Steve, and I tried to build the castle and earn the most prestige in the process. Caylus is an involved game that scales very well with 2-5 players. It can be very cut-throat if players pull the provost back and keep other player's workers from performing any actions. This tactic can also lengthen the game substantially if done in excess, but it is a valid strategy and must be considered. Our game was pretty friendly as the person who moved the provost was often the player in the riskiest position and they would advance the provost to keep themselves safe and speed up the game.

I went first and was the first to build in the Castle while Steve set himself up for future turns by taking residence in the Inn. Warren, Sharon, and Andrew built some early wood buildings and then looked to the Castle. Steve never built in the Castle before the first scoring and was down to 1 prestige, but he set himself up with a lot of money and cubes for the mid-game. I was able to occupy the Inn from Steve and also to get Gold from the mine for 3 consecutive turns. Through some late moves I was able to pull ahead on prestige by picking up 5 prestige for every Favor. Warren was passed up twice in the Castle by players building more after his build and earning the King's favor in spite of his efforts but he was the only one to build a Blue building before the final scoring which moved him ahead of Sharon. Steve built a lot in the castle at the end and picked up 10 prestige in favors while Andrew used his last King's favor to build the 25 VP blue building at the end. I was fortunate to have an outlet for my Gold and hold on for the victory of the surging Andrew.

Final : Michael, Andrew, Steve, Warren, Sharon (I don't remember the final scores).

Tamara had to leave after Thurn & Taxis but the rest of us decided to squeeze in one more game. We split into two groups of four and Andy, Steve, Andrew, and Warren shipped goods and built buildings in Puerto Rico while Andy, Eileen, Sharon, and I auctioned antique displays in Hoity Toity.

Puerto Rico
I won't go into a detailed review of Puerto Rico. I caught the end of the game and Warren pulled out a victory with a Quarry heavy strategy (Construction Hut + Hacienda) which allowed him to build cheaply. His mid-game cash troubles were alleviated by a clogged Trading House which kept everyone's cash low for a time. I don't have other details except a final score.
Final: Warren 51, Steve 45, Andrew 37, Andy 32

Hoity Toity
This is a light game involving buying antiques and earning victory points for displaying them in Exhibits. It is a lot of guessing and you can easily over-think the game although there is some solid strategy too. We taught the game to Eileen and then got underway. I pulled ahead early thanks to stealing some items from Adam's Exhibit and stealing some early cash in the Auction Hall which allowed me to get an early strong Exhibit that I could display. As the game progressed, both of my thieves were caught and everyone else caught up to me. Adam had been in the back for some time but he closed the game in the last few turns as well. Eventually Eileen was able to move into the final space and trigger the final Exhibits. We all were within 2 spaces of each other and the final Exhibits were worth 8 and 4 VP's for 1st and 2nd place. Sharon had a 10 item Exhibit and I had an 8 item Exhibit, so we our final positions were Sharon, Michael, Eileen, and Adam. The game was enjoyable but since Sharon was going on very little sleep (she had been in Vegas for the past week -- playing games of course -- and had just flew in on the Red-Eye flight in the morning) we had several hilarious moments and all four of us had a good time just laughing about various things. This is what makes FtF (Face to Face) gaming so much more enjoyable for me and why I don't play any online gaming.

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