Small World Expanded - 24 July 2013

Seven players at Adrian's and no Seven Wonders to hand, so we set up Small World with the Underworld set plus the Tunnels expansion to connect the boards.  The lure of the Underworld's high scoring special locations and artefacts generated early punch ups between Orhan and Kieron, meanwhile, topside there was slightly more space to expand but of course not enough room for everyone just to live in peace...  As ever the usual mix of luck and judgement resulted in a pretty tight set of scores: Kieron 73, Deej 79, Andy 89, Orhan 96, James and Stu 97, and Adrian 101.

Alea Iacta Est & Ra - 17 July 2013

A couple of games played over a warm evening sat in Andy's summer house.  The first was the dice placement game Alea Iacta Est where Andy and James' initially promising strategy of pursuing Fortuna tiles didn't pay off against the main aim of securing province and patrician tiles, and Kieron's bonus cards took him well ahead of the pack at the end.  Final scores: Kieron 49, Orhan 39, David 38, Andy 32, James 30.

Then a quick game of old favourite Ra in which the first two Epochs had large number of Ra cards drawn very early (four in a row at one point) which put the pressure on trying to use all the bidding chits.  A couple of close results with David just pipping Andy, and James similarly Orhan.  Final scores: David 43, Andy 42, James 32, Orhan 31 and Kieron 24.

Village - 10 July 2013

First play of the expansion ("Village Inn") for the new-ish but increasingly firm favourite Village.  The expansion allows an extra player, bringing the maximum up to five, and introduces an extra couple of buildings (brewery and inn) and a range of in-game and end-game bonuses from the Villager cards (recruited in the inn for a pint or two).  The new additions fit beautifully into and around the existing game board.

This really is a quality game - lots of lovely mechanisms, fantastic art and production quality, plenty of player interaction without any game-ruining impacts, and no clear idea of who's winning until right at the end.  And it was close, with Orhan overtaking James in the penultimate step of the scoring, only to be re-taken by James' extra few coins in the last step.  Final scores: James 70, Orhan 67, David 58, Kieron 50.  Great fun.