Ticket to Ride Europe and Dominion, 29 July 2009

A foursome this week (James, Adrian, Orhan and David) for Adrian's post-natal return to gaming. First up was Orhan's Ticket to Ride Europe, a shorter and denser game than the US map but in many ways more involved and engaging. The addition was stations, allowing players to use others' routes (a sort of 'leapfrog rule'). James eschewed the completing routes strategy in favour of going for top scores on individual connections. The other three opted for the more standard approach, but with Orhan collecting a fistful of route cards even before he'd looked at his opening hand. In the end, James racked up an impressive 129 and then had the agony of watching the others cash in their routes. But to no avail: Adrian and Orhan just made it to 125 and David to 124. A good win for James.

Having finished TTRE early, we went for Dominion, taking about an hour to play the standard game. Orhan had to go a bit earlier than the others so we followed up with a three player 'Big Money' variant (which was over very quickly but which had a couple of bemusing inclusions in the Action Cards - why 'Chapel' for example?). In these games the previous chaining combos so beloved of David didn't quite work out for him and Adrian snatched both victories with a money-heavy approach (acquiring decks with more Gold and Silver cards than Action cards). The scores: Game 1 Adrian 33, James 28, Orhan 24, David 23; Game 2 Adrian 48, David 42, James 39.