Ra - 10 September 2008

Another couple of random but thoroughly enjoyable games of Ra at Stu's place. The first game was won by James with a huge score in the third round from his collection of monuments - final scores James 42, Stuart 38, Kieron 34 and David 24. Adrian arrived hotfoot from a parents' evening to add to the joshing and Derren-ing in the second game, securing him a massive win and James a complete reversal of fortune - Adrian 51, Stuart 40, David 38, Kieron 33 and James 21.

Shako 31 August: Assault on Gaschwitz

Finally, we got to play the much-postponed 2008 Shako outing at the end of August.  The summer hols allowed Adrian lots of time to prepare and two new units were painted up for the occasion (French and Austrian grenadiers).  The weather outside did a good approximation of October 1813 as James and Andy's French took the war to the allies with an all out assault on the village of Gaschwitz.  Congestion in the centre meant that Andy held back his large Saxon division to guard the rear.  A headlong attack by Polish light cavalry allowed the French to overrun various Prussian units and exit the board to the west - one of the French victory conditions.  The initial French division attacking the village was held up for more or less the entire game by the stalwart Prussian grenadiers holding the only fortifications that were not atomised by the French grand battery.  Happily for the French, the Polish infantry division were more successful and were pushing the village hard by the end of turn 11.  Meanwhile on the flanks, Jonathan's Austrians slugged it out with James' division guarding the village of Althen, denying the French more forces to fight in the centre.  On the left, Deej's Russians did well to support the Prussian centre, but took a hammering from Andy's cuirassiers (once he finally got them into battle...).

Who won?  Well, the Allies met their major victory condition - denying the French the control of Gaschwitz and thus the breakout.  The French however were able to hold onto their flanking lines of communication and have some of their light cavalry break out into open country.  As scenario designer (and since we only had time to play 11 of the 12 planned turns) I would call it a narrow victory to the Allies, but I expect others will comment...

Dust - 27 August 2008

The first Rivals try-out of a game Adrian plays with his boys - Dust, introduced to us as "Risks with Tricks". The backstory is a post-WW2 world where the Third Reich discovered and shared alien technology. A map of the world is marked with territories and supply centres highlighted and connected by fixed routes. There are over 800 little pieces of tanks, subs, mechs and planes - fortunately impossible to get more than a fraction of these onto the board during a game - but they are great models.


Five of us playing tonight made for lots of interaction - James getting the brunt of attacks to start with, partly due to his position in Europe but mostly to do with his early steal of supply centres on Kieron and Stu's doorsteps. The game had a neat feature with cards setting initiative, move and attack opportunities as well as providing a different special ability each turn. A fair bit of luck with dice rolling but a well-balanced and fun game. Definitely one to play again.

Kieron's return from his summer break in Central Europe led to a swift reformation of Team Balcarras and although we didn't have enough time to play through to the victory condition of 30 points, the final scores were Stuart 22, Kieron 21, James 18, with Adrian and David both on 16.

Ra - 6 August 2008

We had a strange couple of games of Ra this evening. In the first game, the initial Epoch was over in less than ten minutes as the Ra cards just kept coming, and neither David nor Stuart had bid on any tiles before the turn finished. Andy did manage to win three bids but ended up holding the three lowest bidding chits to start Epoch 2. The third Epoch was over almost as quickly as the first. Final scores were James 48, Andy 32, Stuart 28 and David (having a most un-deejous game) on just 13.

Fates turned in the second game. James started the game with the highest bidding chit but failed to actually use it until the third Epoch. Stuart built a huge number of monuments and a long River Nile, securing the much needed flood card in the last couple of turns. A virtual recount of Stuart's final score gave him the same score as David - 43 - with James on 35 and Andy on 27.

--- Rule 23 alert ---

However, a post-games night check of the rules shows that if players tie for the most fame (victory points) then the player with the highest sun (bidding chit) wins. I recall that David got the bonus +5 for having the greatest total across his three suns, so I think he may have won the game. (Standing by to be corrected...)

Ticket To Ride - 29 July 2008

A couple of great games of Ticket To Ride.

First game: James 118, Stuart 105, David 81, Andy 67
Second game: Stuart 130, David 100, James 80, Andy 78

El Grande - 23 July 2008

Contribution from Andy:

David 99, James 96, Kieron 94, Andy 89, Adrian 83.

James 5, Kieron 4 for the chocolate cake.

Or to hear it in his own words...

Power Grid - 9 July 2008

With both Adrian and David sadly suffering from the lurgy, the four remaining Rivals sat down to the Germany board of Power Grid. Andy straight away attempted to box James into his Western starting position with Kieron threatening to complete the job, but fortunately for James, Kieron and Stuart set up in the East and North respectively, providing them both with plenty of Lebensraum, and James an escape route around Andy's cities.

All players made steady and similar progress in building cities and as the game was about to tip into Step 3 (when six powerplants are available to select from each turn) things were very close with Stuart, Andy and James all with the ability to power thirteen cities and Kieron able to power fourteen.

All players were sitting on fair amounts of money at this stage and Kieron was able to easily build from 11 to 17 cities in a single turn, ending the game that turn to win (for the second week in a row). With everyone else able to power their thirteen cities, it was cash in hand that decided the rest of the places - 2nd for Stuart, 3rd James and 4th Andy (trailing James by just 1 credit). As always, a great game.