Medici & Bang - 17 March 2011

Six of us again tonight so another outing for Reiner Knizia's Medici - winner of Spiel des Jahres in 1995.  As always with bidding games, lots of fun to be had with the Derren-ing and the judgement of whether better cards would turn up later.  In the first round, Adrian failed to secure any cards, saving money and still leaving him ahead of other players but failing to establish any footholds up the pyramids for the second and third rounds.  Kieron, David and Orhan had strong hands each round but Andy's previous natural strength at this game didn't come through tonight.  James started off with an expensive first round and was trailing until the third round when he managed to win a set of cards including the neutral 10 and extra metals to give him the monopoly bonus.  Together these meant he managed to better Kieron's description of "coming from behind to storm into fifth place" to end up just one point behind Kieron's winning position.  Final scores Kieron 80, James 79, David 74, Orhan 70, Andy 65 and Adrian 64.

Hoping for third time lucky, James brought out Bang! again with the desperate wish of lasting longer than one turn.  Drawing the Sheriff meant that at least there were two other players who didn't want to see him dead - at least not straight away.  A slow start as most players equipped themselves with weapons but then Orhan and Andy revealed their true colours by shooting at James.  James managed to kill off Orhan but then Deputy Kieron blew himself up with his own dynamite.  David then softened up James for Andy to finish him off.  A fun short game.

Endeavour and Bang, 27 January 2010

From thinking that we might have seven players this week, we were, on the day, down to four - so time for an outing of Endeavour (or rather Endeavor), a new game that Orhan got me for Xmas.

This is a very tightly optimised game - I think I read on Boardgamegeek it described by one poster as "the perfect Eurogame". The setting is 17th and 18th century expansion, exploration and colonisation. There are only seven rounds, each one allowing players quite limited numbers of actions. You build buildings, gain workers, activate them, explore, attack or draw cards - all aiming to raise your stats on your home board allowing you to do more of whatever stat it is next turn. Many of the mechanisms are familiar (eg worker activation of buildings) but this game has more interaction as the players vie for advantage (and victory points) on the main game board.

This was very much a learning game for all of us. The rules were simple, but optimising (even for the Great Optimiser Deej) was tricky and we all made some silly mistakes. As it was, and despite some asymmetric play, the final scores were pretty close: Adrian 52, Deej 51, James 49 and Kieron 42. A jolly good game which can probably be played in 90 mins, even with five players. Eurotastic.

We then had a go at 'Bang' - a rapid play card game. At least it would have been rapid a second time. Good fun Sheriff versus the Outlaws versus each other versus the Renegade. Adrian managed to be the last man standing.