A first outing for Small World, an updated version of an old favourite Vinci. Vinci's gameplay was pretty straightforward and based around the rise and fall of empires across Europe. Players control a number of empires during the game, each with its own special powers, and have to choose the right moment to abandon one empire and move on to the next.
Small World moves the setting to a fantasy realm which fits the gameplay better, and actually simplifies the rules somewhat. The main changes are that each empire is now a race/special power combo, victory points are secret and the game lasts a fixed number of turns.
The game itself played pretty quickly.
James ended up playing only two races - his first (trolls) set themselves up in an expensive to overrun location and the followup (halflings) dug themselves in, scoring James good points each turn.
Orhan went for a more spectacular approach - picking a good combo and making a high score before moving quickly onto another.
Kieron suffered from having his active race getting hammered early on (by Adrian and Orhan?) and never really recovered.
Meanwhile Adrian and David played a more standard game, typically a couple of turns of activity before picking a good time to decline.
Final score was a victory for James on 90 points, Adrian on 89, David 84, Kieron 77 and Orhan 67. James' gameplay may have been on the dull defensive side, but it worked - just.
All in all, a good fun game, and we'll play it again soon.
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