Power Grid - 27 June 2007

With most of the rivals away and some AWOL, Russell was drafted in to join Stuart and Kieron for another cracking game of Power Grid. We played the Benelux countries which have the interesting rule that any ecological power stations immediately become available if they are turned up. The 33 'green for 4' station appeared very early and Russell immediately snatched it for face value as Stu and Kieron had already bought their stations. Stuart's power stations were resource dependent and Kieron had a mixture including a trash burning station that he only used once. Building was fairly rapid in an open board and Stu soon started phase 2 after about 30 minutes. Kieron and Russell had a moment of madness when the 50 'blue for 6' turned up. Kieron eventually won it for 141 Elektro and was cleaned up for the rest of the evening! The game ended before the third phase even began when Kieron helpfully pointed out to Russell that with the money he had left over from not buying the 50 point station he had enough funds to build to 17 cities, end the game and claim victory for being able to power just 10 cities!! Stuart was left being able to power 9 of his 13 and Kieron, although he had stations totalling 14, could only power 9 as he ran out of money to build any cities or buy resources to power the stations! Thus is was 1st Russell (again)10 powered cities, 2nd Stuart (more money than Kieron) 9 powered cities, 3rd Kieron 9 powered cities
What a great game this is.

Return to the Temple of Obi Thumpi, 25 April

Having felt it high time to get the Darkest Africa figures out - including the new character figures that I acquired at Salute 06 - I revamped the Obi Thumpi Temple game to bring in 6 players and a slightly different approach.

James' French were allied to Deej's Belgians, at diagonally opposite ends of the table. Their objective was to open the Temple and steal its treasure. Stu and Russell played the natives, but natives led by previously abducted and brainwashed European women (obviously...). Their objective was to protect the Temple by releasing its protector (a T-Rex) from the Land that Time Forgot in the next valley. The third faction was Andy (Brits) and Kieron (Italians) whose aim was to release their womenfolk from the Temple's thrall. All well and good. However, unexpectedly the Brits and Stu's gang of natives decided to team up - no doubt native mind control skills at play there. This contributed to the general mayhem. The Francophones managed to get the Temple open and reveal the treasure, the Belgians made a successful grab for it - just as the Dinosaur made its appearance. The game was decided on the last turn - the Dinosaur succeeded in eating some of the Belgian troopers just before the Belgian hero was able to whisk the treasure off table. So the natives win, and (predictably?) Russell's extra kills and treasure finds in the game gave him victory.

El Grande - 18 April 2007

What a cracking game this is, even in its basic form without the expansions. A most unusual line-up for this games session with Adrian, Kieron Stuart and Russell. With James out of the way, it left the rest of us with a fighting chance of success but then we forgot about Russell who, on only his second games night, won again!

Russell's grande was in Catalonia but one of his early moves was to chuck loads of caballero's into Stuart's region which, needless to say, went down well! Stuart went all out to get caballero's into every territory which early on worked quite well but when it came to the crunch i.e. the final scoring round he found himself a little too thinly spread out. There was much thinking time in the game and plenty of opportunity for friendly jibes. Adrian was heard to say that he could not believe that teachers take longer over decision making than civil servants! R, K and A put many caballero's into the castillo region but Stu pointed out that two or three is sufficient to cause disruption when they are reallocated. Portugal came into the game for the first time. Russell thoroughly deserved the win by playing the region scoring action cards to good effect gaining some 20+ points in two succesive rounds. Kieron pipped Adrian in the very final region of the final scoring round. Final scores:
Russell 138, Kieron 122, Adrian 120, Stu 115

Perhaps next time we will try one of the expansions now that everyone has played it?

Antike - 3 January

We played the war and civilisation game Antike. New player Russell played the knowledge game and spent coins on inventions rather than armies and joined Adrian (who played a similarly peaceful game until a lightning armada strike on one of David's temples) on the podium with 7 points. James managed to scrape 14 sea territories in the last round but couldn't destroy one of Andy's temples to take him beyond 6 points. David's empire left lots of temples and 5 points. Kieron and Andy spent the game accummulating forces for a huge battle that never happened, after Kieron attacked one of Andy's cities early on in the game, and they both finished on 2.