Session Report: Monday at Paul's

Last night I went round to Paul's for Monday night gaming and, for the first time, The Wife joined us - yay!

There was no Vin this week, but Lisa joined in and Greg and Spence made it so it was a full table. We started before Spence arrived, so we set up a 5-player game of Guillotine to get us in the mood. It seemed like my run of bad Guillotine luck (or ability) from the previous night was due to continue, as I struggled to get any valuable nobles. But it was good fun as ever, and the good company made up for my inability to behead the rich and famous. The Wife did remarkably well, storming through the bourgeoisie, and as a result stormed to an impressive victory. The final scores: The Wife 24, Lisa 18, Greg & Paul 16, me 14.

Spence arrived during Guillotine, so we had to choose a 6-player game next. Luckily Greg had brought Power Grid, so we broke that out and started explaining the rules to The Wife who was the only person not to have played it before. The Wife and I lagged a bit to begin with, no bad thing really as you get first access to the fuels and the connections, while Spence, Paul and Greg steamed ahead. Somewhere around the middle I thought I was in with a chance, but unfortunately I peeked too early. I connected to twelve cities when I could only power ten, and that put me first in the turn order for the final turn. The good news was that I was able to get the power plant I needed to power the fourteen cities needed to win the game. The bad news was that I was last to buy fuel and make connections and so I had to pay over the odds once everyone had tried to screw me. In the end I was four cash short of connecting to fourteen cities while Greg did it with plenty of cash to spare. Still it was a very close game, and I enjoyed it - I think Power Grid scales up to six surprisingly well. Final Scores: Greg 14, me 13 (24 cash), Spence 13 (22 cash), Paul 12 (105 cash), Lisa 12 (36 cash), The Wife 12 (22 cash).

Session Report: Dinner & Games at Paul's

Last night we went round to Paul and Lisa's for dinner, and both adult games (not as dodgy as it sounds) and kids games with their daughter, Ellie. After playing shop with Ellie and the most amazing toy cash register imaginable, a fantastic feast for dinner and bedtime stories we settled down to some adult games.

I'd brought Codename: Monster on the off chance someone would want to play it and both The Wife and Paul were keen. So we set it up and I explained the game to Lisa who hadn't played it before. The first game was won by Lisa, while the second was won by The Wife. Final scores: Lisa 51, The Wife 44, me 43, Paul 37 and The Wife 57, me 45, Paul 38, Lisa 34. In both cases the person who completed their set won, which is not always the case.

Next up was Carcassonne, The Wife was keen to play, both Paul and I consider it our favourite game and Lisa had never played with four and was keen to try a more populous game. We played vanilla Carcassonne, and with the official farmer scoring rules (I usually play the rules in my edition which are wacky and involve 4 points per). I got off to a very slow start (I was on 7 points about three-quarters of the way through the game), while the others raced ahead, with The Wife getting to 50 points before the final pieces were scored. Fortunately I acquitted myself much better in the final reckoning, but not well enough to win. Final scores: Paul & The Wife 59, me 56, Lisa 53.

We had time for a few more short games so we chose to introduce The Wife to Diamant and Guillotine - both favourites at Paul's Monday night games. First up was Diamant, which we played a couple of times. The Wife and I were scarily in tune - both running away fairly early to capitalise on left-over jewels, while Paul and Lisa both brazened it out to the bitter end. We had lots of runs during the two games where all five disasters came out very early on which makes for risky play. Final scores: Lisa 42, The Wife 39, Paul 35, me 25 and Paul 28, Lisa 23, The Wife and me 20. My tactics again fail to work for me. Must get some balls.

We ended the night with a couple of games of Guillotine. It was my destiny to get sorely creamed it seems. After failing to win a game all evening I was utterly lamped at Guillotine. Still, I really enjoyed it - that's my only real criterion for game quality, if I get crushed and still enjoy it's a good game. Final scores: Paul 27, Lisa 18, The Wife 17, me 9 and Paul 20, The Wife and Lisa 17, me 11.

It was a great evening - thanks Paul and Lisa.

Session Report: Dave At Mine

Last night Dave came round again for games. Due to being busy I'd not had time to learn the rules for any new games, so we stuck with some tried and tested favourites. Dave had recently bought Guillotine one of the favourites at Paul's Monday night games which he brought along with Carcassonne: The Castle which I had played a few times at Christmas. Dave also wanted to play Border Reivers again - yeay!

First up was Guillotine, a delightfully silly card game where you get to decapitate the French. I'd not played this 2-player before, and I wasn't even sure if it supported two players. Unfortunately Wizards of the Coast neglected to tell me on the box, so after much searching I had to check the rules. Two to five. Excellent. We played three games, I sneaked the first one, Dave creamed me in the second and then in the third I had a huge score (despite two -1 Martyrs and a -2 action card from Dave) and was convinced that I'd won, but Dave had equalled me to draw the game and the series. I'd collected the Piss Boy though, so I like to think I won the moral victory ;-) Final scores: Dave 23, me 25; then Dave 31, me 23; finally Dave 39, me 39.

Next up we played Border Reivers and due to a slack few days when it comes to construction I have no finished games and my copy is still missing loads of tiles as I've been raiding it for spares when I cock one up. So we played with my old prototype with nasty, lurid tiles, but lovely hand-scultped FIMO pieces. Dave won the toss and chose a central location for the mine, and feeling aggressive I went for the start location nearest to the mine and decided to contest it. I got to the mine first, but Dave built a couple of early towns and wrested the mine from me in fairly short order. I fought back, re-claiming the mine and building a Market to boost my income. Dave forced me out of the mine for a second time, so it was time to get medieval on his ass, and I went for cards and got my hands on an Insurrection (cue evil laugh: mwoa ha ha ha). After having just settled two towns and won the mine for a second time Dave was a little exposed, I knew he didn't have any hidden cards, so the Militia wasn't prepared to defend his city, so I went for it. My Insurrection came up trumps destroying his city in a blaze of glory and the tide had turned. Dave tried to save himself, pulling two armies back from the mine to upgrade one of his towns into a second city, but that left the mine with only one army defending it, and I managed to destroy that then his second (and only) city. It was a bit harsh to open up with the Insurrection, but I figured Dave had played recently and knew the risk of my hidden card. Hopefully I've not put him off the game :-) In hindsight, I think I would have left the mine in his position too, moving the one remaining army back to the tower or city where it would gain a numerical boost in combat at the expense of losing the mine. Dave had a reasonable amount of money at that stage, and would likely have rebuilt fairly quickly. Final result: I won my military victory.

We decided to round out the evening with a couple of quick games of Carcassonne : The Castle. Dave had played this before being introduced to vanilla Carcassonne, while I had only been introduced to it at Christmas. I really like this one, but it takes a completely different mindset from vanilla Carcassonne as the unfinished houses, towers and roads don't score at the end of the game. I won both games in the end, having done slightly better on the markets. Final scores: Dave 52, me 63; second game Dave 67, me 87.

Another great night of gameage. I'm really enjoying approximately one night a week of gaming either with Paul and chums or Dave. Next week hopefully it will be at Paul's as I'm off to Paris for work later in the week.

Session Report: Paul's Games Night

Monday night I went round to Paul's for Monday night games for the first time in ages. Mt trip to San Francisco had got in the way of a couple and I think I'd missed the one before that too.

Not long after I arrived Spence and Greg got there, and seeing as Vin can be a little tardy we set up a quick 4-player game of Die Mauer. As it's out of print Paul had knocked together his own copy, so we played with that. It's a quick and simple game of bluffing and second-guessing. Each turn the current player chooses one of their remaining pieces to play. The other players have to guess what they played. All players reveal their choices simultaneously. If nobody chose the same piece as the current player, the current player adds their chosen piece to either end of a wall that the players are building jointly in the middle of the table. If someone else chose the same piece they get to play instead. The winner is the first to run out of pieces. It's slightly more complicated that that, but not much. I enjoyed this one - good fun with enough variables to make the guessing interesting - I can see why Paul wanted his own copy. Final Scores: Spence 0, me 5, Paul 6 and Greg 26.

With no sign of Vin, we decided to play our perennial filler: Guillotine. It's chaotic, and there's very little strategy involved but I still really enjoy this one, the humour, the illustration and the speed all combine to make a really fun game. I didn't have many good cards during the game but I still managed to off King Louis and in the very last turn I got the Master Spy too, which was enough to force a draw: Spence 20, me 20, with Greg and Paul scoring 17 & 16 (though I'm not sure which scored which!).

Vin arrived during Guillotine, so the final game of the night was destined to be a 5-player, and we opted for Alhambra Dirk Henn's game of building gardens set in the medieval Moorish palace. I've played this once before at Paul's and was crushed - I just couldn't get to grips with getting the cards I needed to buy the high-scoring tiles. Once again I suffered, I managed to get an almost-monopoly on the lowest scoring Blue tiles, but could never afford the highest scoring purple and green ones. Right from the off I was lagging behind, and it was only my decent wall-length that earnt me the ignominious title of joint loser!

It was a great evening, the humour was fullsome and coarse, the games were fun and I joint won one - so a good night all in all.

Session Report: Paul's Games Night

Last night I went round to Paul's again for his weekly games night. He'd asked me to bring Puerto Rico this week, which I did, but I got there quite late, so I wasn't sure if we'd have time.

When I finally arrived I realised the others had waited for me! Bless them. With Vin still to come, we set up a quick game of Guillotine for the four of us: Andy, Greg, Paul and I. Andy got off to a great start (I think his first turn put him on three times as many points as the rest of us, thanks to a Double Feature card), and the rest of us spent the game trying to scupper him. Andy was delighted (he doesn't usually win), and even though I wasn't winning (or even coming close until fairly near the end), I really enjoyed this one again. It's funny, it's fast and it seats loads - great stuff. Final scores: Andy 24, me 19, Greg 18 and Paul 14.

During Guillotine, Vin arrived, so as soon as that was over we set up Puerto Rico, for a 5-player with all of us.

I love Puerto Rico, but I'm not very good at it. I recently looked at an online strategy guide for the first time, and with that in mind I tried a different strategy during this game, eschewing quarries, and instead trying to get loads of money together with an idea of building factories/wharves/big buildings. I met some of those goals (Factory), but Greg had managed to fill up his island far quicker than I was expecting, so I built the Residence big building in the final turn - but didn't even get a chance to get it occupied, hence missing out on most of the points. Greg's speedy finish caught a few of us out - so he won handsomely: Greg 35, Paul, 30, me 30, Vin 25, Andy 23.

Puerto Rico went surprisingly fast with a bunch of players who all knew what they were doing, so we had time at the end for another quick filler. We chose Diamant.

Lisa joined us for this one, and while we were playing I was bearing in mind Hugo's criticisms of Diamant. If you play the game purely as a press-your-luck game, only considering the likelihood of a second disaster coming out then I think the game would be a bit dull, but the bit I enjoy is trying to second-guess my opponents, and take the lion's share of the remaining gems on the way out. Is this a winning strategy? Nope. I don't think I've ever won, but every time I escape on my own and claim a few gems from the cards I get a little hit of 'I win', from choosing the right time to leave so that I don't have to share - and I still enjoy it. Paul didn't have any gems after the first four mines, but he still managed to beat me, so that'll give you an idea of just how bad a strategy it is :-) Final scores: Vin 28, Lisa 14, Paul 11, me 9, Greg 8, Andy 5.

Yet another great evening of games and top company, very entertaining. Highlights would have to be Greg's expletive outbursts and his apoplexy when I quoted from the Planetary graphic novel at him :-) Sadly, that's my last one before Christmas, so I've got four weeks of cold turkey.