Über Games Weekend Part 3: Sunday

Here's the last post describing last weekend's gaming.

Sunday was a fairly relaxed day, we got up late, had a roast dinner and the others headed home late afternoon. In between all that we managed to fit in a 5-player game of Puerto Rico and Tim and I played Border Reivers. So how did it go? Puerto Rico first...

It was Tim, Vicky and Dunk's first game of Puerto Rico, whereas The Wife and I had played it a few times recently. Things got off to a fairly brisk start with the Haciendas, Construction Huts and Hospices disappearing quickly as in the previous games we had played. Having been completely short of cash in previous games I made use of the Prospector early on to ensure I had money to build. Being near the end of the order of play for the first round I had only the Hacienda available, so I ended up throughout the game with loads of plantations (far more than I could occupy). I was determined to get the Residence to take advantage of my many plantations, but The Wife beat me to it, so I had to settle for the Customs House. That turned out ok for me in the end as Dunk accidently gifted me a shed load of VPs in the final turn :-). I was keen to get the Factory this game, but in the end I went for the Customs House instead, which was a much better call. Dunk got the Harbour (it's first ever outing for our set) and that is a very scary building to see in another player's hands. I won it in the end by a 4 point margin with 49 points thanks to Dunk's Captain miscalculation.

I really like the hidden VPs it makes counting up your score at the end exciting too :-)

After that Tim and I had a quick (only 20 minutes!) game of Border Reivers. Tim hadn't played it in ages, and suffered really bad luck on his reinforcement rolls, whereas I got a free reinforcement in the first turn. I managed to secure the mine, and build a second city, raking in a high income. Tim opted for 3 towns instead of the city and then attacked the mine with one of his remaining armies, and an 'Ambush' card. Combat is brutal in Border Reivers, especially when you're evenly matched so we both lost our armies. Spotting a weakness (Tim didn't have any reserves defending his land) I managed to romp through and butcher him in fairly short order. The game wasn't much fun for Tim, he felt pretty outnumbered due to the reinforcement rolls going in my favour. In his place, I would have attacked the mine with greater numbers instead of settling the towns, and ensured I had some defences in fortifications behind the front line just in case I lost the battle.