Ticket To Ride - 22 December 2007

In what may possibly be the last games night of the year, we gathered with guest gamer Russell to try James' Christmas present from Adrian - Ticket To Ride. This is a card collecting game where sets of cards allow you to place railway carriages to connect towns (and earn points) on a map of North America. Points are also earned by connecting pairs of towns indicated on secret Destination Tickets held by each player, and by owning the longest continuous path of routes.

Players tried different tactics - trying to connect their Destinations first, or accruing points early by building the longest routes - but the scores were pretty close. James just managed to add to his track in the last couple of turns to get the same length route as Adrian, preventing the 10 point bonus taking Adrian past him. So the final scores were James (Red) 112, Adrian (Blue) 105, Kieron (Yellow) 94, Andy (Green) 82 and Russell (Black) 68 - unusually not winning this visit.


There was some discussion about whether the "longest continuous path of routes" meant the most trains of one colour which were connected, or the longest path traced by those trains without branching. Posts on the Board Game Geek forum here and here say the latter, so that's what we'll play. It didn't affect the final player order in this game, but would have brought Andy's score to just a scrape behind Kieron.

Since it wasn't a school night, we brought Medici back out for another outing. Adrian was alone in remembering exactly how he'd creamed us last time we played this, and so he thrashed us again. Adrian 129, Russell 100, James 98, Kieron 96 and Andy 65.

A fun games night punctuated by hacking coughs from most of the participants.

Train Robbery - 12 December 2007

At long last, James' 2006 birthday present from the boys of a Wild West train finally made it on to the gaming table. Using the Warhammer "Legends of the Old West" ruleset, the boys played four train robbers with James defending the train. The rules worked well and the motion of the train was nicely simulated by sliding the scenery down the table. Adrian, David and Kieron got stuck in and attacked the train, with Kieron drawing fire from the defenders. He failed to make the jump onto the train but a discretionary hero point allowed him to find a handhold and he managed to cling to the side. Andy took a rather longer route to the train, weaving in and out of cacti and cattle, and just made it to the action at the end of the game. The defenders were gradually overcome, and the cowboys escaped with the safe. Lots of fun.

To watch video on full screen, view it here on You Tube.