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

Games Session - Catch Up 1

So on the 20th July we had a convivial social games evening with Stephen and Pauline. We were going to play Seafarers with the 4 islands scenario. This was the first time Stephen and Pauline had played this version of Settlers. I did a quick recap of the rules with the extra bit about boats and extra points for reaching another island and away we went. The game went OK, with Stephen having his perpetual problem of no brick! The points started to mount and I managed to reach an adjacent island with my boats.

Pauline and Stephen enjoying Seafarers
The winning score was 12 points, I had a development card for 1VP tucked away and was getting close to winning. Stephen had grabbed the longest road at first, then Tina pinched it off of him, but Stephen managed to get it back and keep it for the rest of the game. I had built all my cities and only had to build one more settlement for the win.... I managed to do it and with my dev card claimed the victory.

Final Scores
Colin 13, Stephen 9, Pauline 6, Tina 5

Me...savouring victory for a change

Catch Up Post 2 - What a Coincidence!

So we were walking through St. Wolfgang after doing a bit of shopping......and, I couldn't believe my eyes, across the road we saw a couple of friends from Billingshurst where we used to live. I think they were as surprised as we were and we spent a couple of hours sitting outside the local coffee shop catching up with the news. They didn't know that we now lived in St. Wolfgang and we didn't know they were on a 6 month trip around Europe in their new motorhome. We arranged for them to come to our apartment the next day so they could update their blog, on which they are keeping a record of their journey, and to go out for a meal in the evening. We took them to the Franz Josef where we had a lovely meal and another chance to catch up. It sounds as though they have been having a great time careering around Europe just doing and going where they fancy. If you would like to follow their progress or see where they have already been you can here:

http://barbersweb.traveleor.com/

They are finishing off their journey with 2 months in Germany and going back to England in October....good luck to them!!

On the gaming front, we had a nice evening yesterday....more later!!

Lazy Me.....Catch Up Post 1

Well, I haven't posted for awhile so here is a potted version of what's been happening here in St. Wolfgang. Pauline came over on the 1st July, Stephen went to camp with the Army cadets for a week and would be flying out later. Fortunately they were showing Wimbledon on TV here this year so Pauline came round and we watched the men's final, a fantastic performance from both players. Roddick couldn't have come closer to winning but Federer ground out a historic 15th Grand Slam title.
Later in the week we had a games evening, playing Thurn und Taxis and Settlers: Germany version. I got trounced in both games with Paulne and Tina tying with 19pts in TuT and Pauline winning easily in Settlers with 12pts.

Air Challenge 2009
Of course the big event in July in St. Wolfgang is the Red Bull Air Challenge. On the 10th and 11th the lake is dotted with seaplanes of all sizes, from small 2 seaters to the big 3 engined Dornier seaplane. Also lots of helicoptors landed in the field, a big army helicoptor landed in the field just over the road from our house and the downdraft from the rotors filled our balcony with leaves and rubbish.....Tina was not pleased!!

The army helicoptor in the field
As usual they had all stalls there selling beer, bosna, kasespatzle and so on. They also had a Dirndl jumping competition where, girls (and guys) dress in the traditional Dirndl and jump into the lake from the top of a platform!! At 4.00pm there was an air display, with a Red Bull helicoptor performing acrobatics, a bi-plane flew round the lake with a young lady wing walking (that decidely looked hair raising, although Tina said she would like to give it a try!). Some free-falling parachutists dropped in as well. Pauline had invited us to her apartment to view from the balcony and we had a splendid view of the whole show.

One of the big seaplanes flying over the lake

More to follow!

The Weather is Unsettled......

Well, June has been really funny, a few really hot days but mostly we've all sorts of weather, from thunderstorms, hail, gales but thankfully no snow!! That comes in spades in the winter. I can't really understand Twitter, I mean, I am following a few well known gaming people, but the things they write about......do you really want to share them with cyberspace? It seems to me that there must a million things to fill your day, especially if you are working, where do they find the time to write all that very personal (in some cases) trivia. Well, that's just me.
On the gaming front, still been playing Settlers on AsoBrain and not doing very well I have to say. But I did have a couple of games of Hunters and Gatherers with Tina yesterday, it's one of the games that she really likes. Our gaming friends are due back out here beginning of July so I'm looking forward to getting some more games in then. They are here for 8-9 weeks during the school holidays so we should be able to find time for some gaming. There has been a lot of chatter about Steam on BGG lately. I really hate AoS but love Railroad Tycoon, perhaps the basic game of Steam will be a bit more forgiving and I might actually enjoy it. Do I want to pay about 40 euros to find out though!!

Happy Gaming!!

Games again!!

A couple of days ago we had a nice evening round our friend's apartment, a few drinks, some scrummy cakes and of course a couple of games. This time I introduced them to the Carcassonne spin-off....Hunters and Gatherers. It didn't take long to run through the rules, Pauline and Stephen had played vanilla Carcassonne before and Lynne picked it up really quickly.

Tina placing her tile in H & G
The tiles and meeples are really colourful and look very nice on the table. The golden nuggets in the forests give the game an added twist and the play goes smoothly, especially if you pick your next tile at the end of your turn so you have time to consider your options rather than wait until the start of your turn.
We soon had the table covered with river networks, forests and plains filled with animals and tigers. The scores were quite spread out, but everybody enjoyed the game.

Final Scores
Stephen 94, Lynne 78, Colin 65, Tina 57, Pauline 46

As Alhambra went down really well last time we decided to have another game. No rules to explain this time and we started straight off. The tiles seemed to come out really badly....for me anyway :) I couldn't seem to get going, I managed to get the majority in purple tiles but not a lot else. I think you have to have at least some second and third places to boost your score up to be able to be in with a chance of winning the game. Well, that didn't happen for me this time. Everyone else seemed to be doing fine though.

Lynne studying the tiles for sale and Stephen looking quite happy with the way things are going

Final Scores
Pauline 106, Stephen 97, Lynne 67, Colin 59, Tina 53

Pauline and Stephen have gone back to the UK now, but will be back in July so I'm sure we have a few more sessions then.

Happy Gaming!!

Another Game Session

Our friends Stephen and Pauline were over for a week and they brought a friend with them, Lynne. A bridge partner of Stephen, I don't think she had played any euro type games before. Anyway, we decided to play Alhambra first, Tina and I had played a couple of times utilising the intrepid phantom third player, Dirk. After explaining the rules and answering a few questions about gameplay we were off.

Alhambra layout - Jubilee Edition
I found that with five players getting the perfect tile for your Alhambra was a lot more difficult, by the time it gets round to your turn again the tile has often been purchased. The game progressed smoothly enough and after the first scoring the points were fairly close together. By the time we had reached the second scoring Pauline had got a majority in the purple towers and took a healthy lead. Surprisingly nobody used their reserve much, I think Lynne and Pauline did once each.

Pauline enjoying the game and Lynne deciding what to buy
Eventually the final tile came out and the remaining tiles were distributed, Stephen capturing two with most appropriate money. I think everyone enjoyed the game and would 'get it' better with a second playing.

Final Scores
Pauline 88, Stephen 80, Colin 75, Tina 71, Lynne 68

Pauline suggested that we next play 'the game that Janet liked' ie Zooloretto. This is a light, family friendly game involving collecting animal tiles to place in your zoo. Last time we played I did really badly and came last in both games. Again the rules are fairly easy to explain and it didn't take us long to get under way. This time I did marginally better but still managed to get -4 points for animals in my barn. Stephen was doing particularly well with his breeding stock, although he did miscalculate once and had two very friendly male kangaroos!

Zooloretto in progress
Again this game works better with 4/5 players as the options on the lorries are more interesting. I don't think this game works so well with only two players.

Final Scores
Pauline 24, Tina 23, Colin 22, Stephen 21, Lynne 14

I have resisted Twitter for awhile now, but eventually succumbed and signed up. My user name is 'coljen' if anyone is desperate enough to see what my latest tweets are!!

Happy Gaming!!