Attendees: (8) Warren Madden, Sharon Madden, Adam Whitney, Eileen Tooke, Andy Manning, Andrew Bradley, Matt Asher, Steve Walker
This week's Tuesday-night game session was held at our house. Warren and I got held up in lovely Atlanta rush-hour traffic while running some errands, and we arrived home to find Andrew, Steve and Matt waiting on our front-door stoop. I guess the cats didn't let them in. :-)
Anyway, once everyone arrived, we split into two groups of four and made the ever-so-difficult decision of what to play. So many games...so little time.
Serenissima
Serenissima takes place during the Renaissance period before the Mediterranean was a Venetian Lake. In this game, players represent merchant families purchasing and moving commodities around the Mediterranean with their fleet of ships. Their race to prosperity balances trade and commerce against economic piracy.
I played this game once several years ago when Don Stout was hosting our Tuesday-night game group. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we bought his copy. :-) This is a great game that unfortunately doesn't see a lot of play in our group. But, maybe that will change.
Tonight's race to prosperity was tight with Andrew sailing off into the Mediterranean sunset with 32 points, followed by Andy in his wake with 29, Matt with 25, and Steve with 21.
Leonardo Da Vinci
In Leonardo Da Vinci, players compete for recognition and rewards from the Lord of the City in Florence, Italy. Players choose their inventions and with their most-trusted apprentices, design them in their laboratories with commodities from the town shops. The more complex
the invention, the more Florins the Lord of the City is willing to pay. After 9 rounds, Leonardo Da Vinci crowns the player with the most Florins as Florence's most successful inventor.
I first played this game at Lobster Trap last year and because I'm more of a visual learner, it took me about the first 3 or 4 rounds to fully understand all the mechanisms of the game. So, I was anxious to try it again to see if my design skills had improved. There is a lot to do in a limited amount of time, and it can be a challenge to get the stuff you need to complete an invention before the game ends. Also, money is very tight, and the only way to earn more is by completing inventions. If inventions take too long to finish or your apprentices don't gain majorities in the different areas on the board, you go through it very quickly.
(Everyone is enjoying the game so
much that Izzy decides to play too!)
Ultimately, Leonardo Da Vinci crowned Warren with inventions totaling 62 Florins (thanks to his diversity in the types of inventions completed). The rest of us will have to go through the inventor apprentice program all over again. Adam ended the game with 51 Florins, followed by Sharon with 28 and Eileen with 20.
Both groups finished up around the same time, and everybody wanted to keep playing, so we were more than happy to oblige.
RA
Ra spans three epochs, during which players bid for groups of tiles representing Egyptian life -- Gods, pharaohs, niles, gold, civilizations and monuments. Tiles are drawn randomly, and each player has three bidding tokens, or "suns", that he uses to acquire groups of tiles. Once a player has purchased his three groups for the epoch, play continues until all other players have bid their 3 "suns" for tiles. After each epoch, players earn fame points from the tiles they have collected, and the winner is the player with the most fame points after the third epoch.
This press-your-luck game comes out fairly frequently in our game group. I usually end up overbidding or missing out on opportunities. I've yet to win it, but none-the-less, I think it's loads of fun!
Tonight, the Sun God Ra acknowledged Andy as our most famous player with 44 points. Following closely in his shadows was Steve with 42, then Adam with 27 and Andrew with 19.
Warhamster Rally
In Warhamster Rally, players race their Warhamsters around a racetrack marked by a pair of Battle Budgies. Each player starts with 9 points to use for special actions and 5 movement cards to steer their Warhamsters. The board is covered with hexes containing arrows pointing in different directions. At the start of the game, players place one of their movement cards face down in front of them. On their turn, they reveal their movement card, move their character token as indicated, and then choose a new movement card for their next turn. The movement cards a player chooses are relevant to the direction on the space the token lands on; however, tokens can get pushed and players may find themselves facing an entirely different direction on their turn. Additionally, players can pay action points to take an extra action during their turn that will either help themselves or trick other players. The first player to make it around the board and across the goal line is the winner.
(Eileen makes her move in Warhamster Rally)This is another game I played this game several years ago, but I can't recall where or with whom. Those of you who are Dork Tower fans will truly appreciate this game. The best way to describe it is Roby Rally with chariots. There are different variants for this game, but because we were all new to it, we stuck to the basic game play.
In our game, Ken (Warren) managed to steer around the Jongleurs and Kobold-kin and get over across the goal line first, followed by Gilly (Sharon), Carson (Eileen) and Matt (Matt).
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