HO, HO,HO!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Christmas Vacation
When this movie first came out, we went to the theater to see it. What a riot! I laughed so hard and still do everytime I watch it, which has been quite a few times! It's one of my favorites!
This film is a 1989 Christmas comedy starring Chevy Chase who just wants to have a "good old fashioned family Christmas." It turns out to be anything but that!! What a holiday classic!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Vacation
This film is a 1989 Christmas comedy starring Chevy Chase who just wants to have a "good old fashioned family Christmas." It turns out to be anything but that!! What a holiday classic!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Vacation
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
2 Player Alhambra.....with expansions
Yesterday Tina and I played a game of Alhambra and we thought we would use the latest expansion that we had bought and hadn't tried yet. Expansion 3 has 4 modules as usual, the Thief cards, the 1pt coins in a bag, the trader meeples and the extra wall cards. We used just the thief cards the coins in the bag and the wall cards. Another player joined us for this game....Dirk....he always turns up for 2 player matches. I explained the rules for the additional modules and play started. When you don't pay exactly the right money for a tile you usually get nothing, but with the 1pt coins in the bag for every 2 you pay over the price of the tile you get to take 1 coin from the bag. This helps you to pay the correct money for tiles and get extra turns, very useful.
Alhambra with Expansion 3
Dirk always seems to get good tiles in our games and this was no exception, he led in purple for the first 2 scorings. In the rules for the thief cards it says that you cannot use them before your own turn....well, in 2 player that is a bit difficult, so we just played it that you could. But really we didn't find that we used them much and both had cards left at the end of the game. The extra wall cards we did use, although not until near the end just before the final scoring. Tina had led for all the game I think and with a couple of tiles left in the game she could see that she would win and played a tile card to complete her wall. Her Alhambra was now completely surrounded! For the last couple of turns she denied me tiles that I needed, so I managed to play tile card to complete my wall also, we now had both surrounded our Alhambras.
Tina celebrates victory
We didn't use the traders this time, you get a trader stall with 3 meeples on it which you place anywhere round your Alhambra, if you build a tile of the same colour as one of the meeples on the trader tile you can place it on the just built tile. You can then put another meeple on the trader tile to bring the number back up to three and place it somewhere else round your Alhambra. You then score points depending how many colours of meeples you have in your Alhambra at the end.
All in all I think this is a good expansion, we will try the traders next time. We don't use to many modules, 3 is max, I think it over complicates the game. I also really like the city gates from expansion 2.
Final Score
Tina 150, Colin 112, Dirk 104
Dirk always seems to get good tiles in our games and this was no exception, he led in purple for the first 2 scorings. In the rules for the thief cards it says that you cannot use them before your own turn....well, in 2 player that is a bit difficult, so we just played it that you could. But really we didn't find that we used them much and both had cards left at the end of the game. The extra wall cards we did use, although not until near the end just before the final scoring. Tina had led for all the game I think and with a couple of tiles left in the game she could see that she would win and played a tile card to complete her wall. Her Alhambra was now completely surrounded! For the last couple of turns she denied me tiles that I needed, so I managed to play tile card to complete my wall also, we now had both surrounded our Alhambras.
We didn't use the traders this time, you get a trader stall with 3 meeples on it which you place anywhere round your Alhambra, if you build a tile of the same colour as one of the meeples on the trader tile you can place it on the just built tile. You can then put another meeple on the trader tile to bring the number back up to three and place it somewhere else round your Alhambra. You then score points depending how many colours of meeples you have in your Alhambra at the end.
All in all I think this is a good expansion, we will try the traders next time. We don't use to many modules, 3 is max, I think it over complicates the game. I also really like the city gates from expansion 2.
Final Score
Tina 150, Colin 112, Dirk 104
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
St Wolfgang's First Beer Festival
This past weekend was the first beer festival in St. Wolfgang. I think this is just a reason for beer, music and sausage, and that's good enough. On Saturday the weather was just awful, rained all morning and into the afternoon. The Burgermeister was supposed to be opening a keg at 5pm but we didn't get there until nearly 6.30. The rain had stopped and we must have missed the keg opening because we didn't see anything. So we had a beer and listened to the bands for awhile, there were people about but because of the weather the attendance could have been better.
So Sunday dawned.......lovely and sunny....ah, this should be better. Today was the priest's turn to open a keg after a parade through the village of both local bands, choirs and various organisations, all in traditional costume. The place was packed with tables and benches lining the main street, beer stands everywhere, with bosna (local sausage) and bratwurst being consumed with gusto. The parade came at around 11pm and the priest, after a little difficulty with his hammer, opened the keg.
We walked out of the village to a little hotel alongside the lake for lunch, which was very pleasant. We sat on the terrace and watched the ferryboats pass by. After lunch we walked back to the village where the party was still in full swing, the little video clip may give you an idea of the atmosphere. This is better than commuting everyday to smelly London!!
So Sunday dawned.......lovely and sunny....ah, this should be better. Today was the priest's turn to open a keg after a parade through the village of both local bands, choirs and various organisations, all in traditional costume. The place was packed with tables and benches lining the main street, beer stands everywhere, with bosna (local sausage) and bratwurst being consumed with gusto. The parade came at around 11pm and the priest, after a little difficulty with his hammer, opened the keg.
We walked out of the village to a little hotel alongside the lake for lunch, which was very pleasant. We sat on the terrace and watched the ferryboats pass by. After lunch we walked back to the village where the party was still in full swing, the little video clip may give you an idea of the atmosphere. This is better than commuting everyday to smelly London!!
A game of El Grande
El Grande, one of the first german games that I bought, waaaay back. I have the Rio Grande version so the text on the cards didn't matter. After a couple of years I thought the game so good that I bought all the expansions as well. So, when was the last time I played......good question because I can't remember. That good uh! There are so many games and only so much time to play them that, well that's life.
Anyway, with Pauline and Stephen heading back to the UK, well yesterday actually, we played El Grande last week.
We played the basic version, this is the classic area control game and I ran through the rules quickly. No one had played before, only me and as I said I can't remember the last time. After the first turn I think the importance of the Castillo had become apparent, because quite a few caballeros went in there. Some of the cards do have the option for some lovely screwage of your opponents but we played friendly....I think! I really enjoyed playing again and the next day started to have a look at the expansions, which I really hadn't done in much detail before, it was just nice to have them. It plays 2 so I think I shall have to get Tina to try some of the expansions with me.
Final Scores
Pauline 101, Stephen 95, Colin 91, Tina 71
Friday, August 21, 2009
Some more Games.....
Well, this was last week, so I am a bit tardy with my post again. Anyway, 3 player session with Pauline and Stephen, Tina couldn't make it. Accompanied by some tasty plum cake curtesy of Stephen! First up we finally got around to playing Carcassonne - Mayflower. Pauline and Stephen have had this for awhile and this is the first time it's hit the table. Normal Carcassonne rules except that you build from one edge of the scoreboard, representing the coast of the New World I suppose. Exploring Westwards....there are two Surveyor meeples that move West one row every time a feature is scored.....ummmm. Gives something else to think about, because if any of your meeples are left behind the Surveyors on an unfinished feature they get removed. So you could leave a potential scoring opporunity for another player.
Carcassonne - Mayflower layout
As you can see from the picture, we didn't think it through before starting to play because the tiles are going to stretch a long way in one direction. We had to remove the scoreboard and keep moving the tiles so we had enough room to play them all!
We found it difficult to score a farm as you needed to surround it with tiles (a la a cloister in normal Carc), and it was likely to get left behind the Surveyors. I think it adds a nice twist to the basic game and I enjoyed it. As you can see the scores were quite close.
Final Scores
Pauline 107, Colin 93, Stephen 92
We followed up with a game of Thurn & Taxis, Pauline had played this before but Stephen hadn't. I like this game a lot, planning your routes etc. It does get a bit frustrating when the card you really like gets cleared just before your turn though. I had a pretty awful time in this game and came a distant third place. Pauline got a few bonus chits including the Bayern one.
Me, looking reasonably calm considering my performance
Final Scores (Coach Card, Bonus Chits, minus coaches left)
Pauline 10+16-3 = 23
Stephen 10+5-6 = 9
Colin 7+6-8 = 5
Creepy, spacey sound effect whooshes us forward to Wednesday of this week (19th)
Stephen has gone back to the UK for a week, Pauline came round for a chilli and of course, a game. It's been really hot here for over a week now, too hot to sit on the balcony an the only time it's bearable is in the evenings. So what better way to cool down than a nice Chilli!!
I have had Morganland (Aladdin's Dragons) for a few years now and I think I have only played it once up until recently.....little story about buying this one. We went on the bus to Salzburg one year we were here on holiday and went to a shopping mall outside of the city, never been there before. Of course there was a kids's toy store in there, but toy stores over here have proper games in them too. Not just Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. Anyway I didn't see anything I fancied until, on the way out by the checkout they had a bargain bin, and I saw....Morganland, shrink-wrapped....10 euro. Well, you can guess the rest!!!
So, Tina and I had played one game a few days ago and I thought we could try it tonight with 3 players. The board is quite large and very colourful and the game has nice bits as usual with German games. I explained the rules and off we went. I seemed to be the only one going for the magic spell cards which came in very handy during the game. I think we all underestimated the power of being the start player as there were quite a few ties which are broken in start player order.
Morganland, board layout
We all enjoyed the game, it played smoothly and didn't outlast it's welcome if you know what I mean. I think both Pauline and Tina would go for more magic spell cards next time, they got a bit cross when I decimated a space of their counters with one....he! he! The tiebreaker is the most scroll artifacts, but Pauline and I both had 7 artifacts and one scroll each so we shared the win.
Until next time.....Happy Gaming!!
As you can see from the picture, we didn't think it through before starting to play because the tiles are going to stretch a long way in one direction. We had to remove the scoreboard and keep moving the tiles so we had enough room to play them all!
We found it difficult to score a farm as you needed to surround it with tiles (a la a cloister in normal Carc), and it was likely to get left behind the Surveyors. I think it adds a nice twist to the basic game and I enjoyed it. As you can see the scores were quite close.
Final Scores
Pauline 107, Colin 93, Stephen 92
We followed up with a game of Thurn & Taxis, Pauline had played this before but Stephen hadn't. I like this game a lot, planning your routes etc. It does get a bit frustrating when the card you really like gets cleared just before your turn though. I had a pretty awful time in this game and came a distant third place. Pauline got a few bonus chits including the Bayern one.
Final Scores (Coach Card, Bonus Chits, minus coaches left)
Pauline 10+16-3 = 23
Stephen 10+5-6 = 9
Colin 7+6-8 = 5
Creepy, spacey sound effect whooshes us forward to Wednesday of this week (19th)
Stephen has gone back to the UK for a week, Pauline came round for a chilli and of course, a game. It's been really hot here for over a week now, too hot to sit on the balcony an the only time it's bearable is in the evenings. So what better way to cool down than a nice Chilli!!
I have had Morganland (Aladdin's Dragons) for a few years now and I think I have only played it once up until recently.....little story about buying this one. We went on the bus to Salzburg one year we were here on holiday and went to a shopping mall outside of the city, never been there before. Of course there was a kids's toy store in there, but toy stores over here have proper games in them too. Not just Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. Anyway I didn't see anything I fancied until, on the way out by the checkout they had a bargain bin, and I saw....Morganland, shrink-wrapped....10 euro. Well, you can guess the rest!!!
So, Tina and I had played one game a few days ago and I thought we could try it tonight with 3 players. The board is quite large and very colourful and the game has nice bits as usual with German games. I explained the rules and off we went. I seemed to be the only one going for the magic spell cards which came in very handy during the game. I think we all underestimated the power of being the start player as there were quite a few ties which are broken in start player order.
We all enjoyed the game, it played smoothly and didn't outlast it's welcome if you know what I mean. I think both Pauline and Tina would go for more magic spell cards next time, they got a bit cross when I decimated a space of their counters with one....he! he! The tiebreaker is the most scroll artifacts, but Pauline and I both had 7 artifacts and one scroll each so we shared the win.
Until next time.....Happy Gaming!!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Games Session - Catch Up 2
On the 25th Stephen and Pauline reciprocated and asked us to their apartment for a games evening. Of we always have nibbles and drinks but Stephen had baked a nice Victoria Sponge for our delectation.....yummy! This evening we were to play Cleopatra, the rather nicely produced game from Days of Wonder. All DoW games have really nice production values, I suppose that's why they are at the top end of the price spectrum. Anyway, nobody had played this apart from me, and that was awhile ago. I rang through the rules and after a couple of turns I think everyone had more or less got the idea. Collect resources, build bits of Cleopatra's palace, the more bits you build the more money you get. Of course some of the resources are tainted by corruption so you begin to collect corruption amulets which go under your own personal pyramid.
The excellent layout of Cleopatra
There are various bits you can build, Obelisks, Spinxes, Walls, Doorways, Gardens and of course the Throne. There are also 6 different characters you can use to further your plans, they give you certain advantages like collect resources from other players or get a card from the discard pile etc. They are all tainted so you get corruption from them as well. Stephen was doing very well, and managed to build 3 Spinxes in one go which netted a healthy 17 talents. The game ends when 5 out of the 6 bits of the palace are built, you then count the corruption amulets under your pyramid and the one with the most ie the most corrupt, gets thrown to the crocodiles! The corruption count was very close, Tina had 13, Stephen had 12 and Pauline 11. I had 2! I don't know how I managed that. So poor Tina went to the crocs. On the talents count Stephen had 65, and if had got one more corruption amulet would have joined Tina in the croc pool. As it was he had a comfortable victory.
Final Scores
Stephen 65, Pauline 41, Colin 33, Tina...crocs
We still had a bit of time left so we finished off with a game of The Bottle Imp (Flaschenteufel). This is an interesting trick taking card game. The idea is not to get stuck with the Bottle Imp because you get negative points. The value of the bottle imp drops throughout the hand making it harder to get rid of. Stephen and Pauline both play bridge so are no strangers to trick taking games and this showed in the scores. We played one hand to get the hang of it, then played a game of four hands.
Final Scores
Stephen 614, Pauline 507, Colin 338, Tina 114
Stephen enjoying his win at The Bottle Imp
There are various bits you can build, Obelisks, Spinxes, Walls, Doorways, Gardens and of course the Throne. There are also 6 different characters you can use to further your plans, they give you certain advantages like collect resources from other players or get a card from the discard pile etc. They are all tainted so you get corruption from them as well. Stephen was doing very well, and managed to build 3 Spinxes in one go which netted a healthy 17 talents. The game ends when 5 out of the 6 bits of the palace are built, you then count the corruption amulets under your pyramid and the one with the most ie the most corrupt, gets thrown to the crocodiles! The corruption count was very close, Tina had 13, Stephen had 12 and Pauline 11. I had 2! I don't know how I managed that. So poor Tina went to the crocs. On the talents count Stephen had 65, and if had got one more corruption amulet would have joined Tina in the croc pool. As it was he had a comfortable victory.
Final Scores
Stephen 65, Pauline 41, Colin 33, Tina...crocs
We still had a bit of time left so we finished off with a game of The Bottle Imp (Flaschenteufel). This is an interesting trick taking card game. The idea is not to get stuck with the Bottle Imp because you get negative points. The value of the bottle imp drops throughout the hand making it harder to get rid of. Stephen and Pauline both play bridge so are no strangers to trick taking games and this showed in the scores. We played one hand to get the hang of it, then played a game of four hands.
Final Scores
Stephen 614, Pauline 507, Colin 338, Tina 114
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