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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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Yes, we played Eclipse.
And, given that Eclipse took up our whole evening (bar a closely-fought Ingenious: Travel between me and JP), there's not a lot to write in this 'ere blog, given that I didn't take lots of photos of the game in various states of play, a la Boddle.
So, in a rare change of pace, here's my highly critical lowdown:
 The worker-placement/cash-economy track is very clever. The on-off aspect scratches the same itch as the worker-placement timing in Ora et Labora
The rulebook is well-written. I've downloaded to find all the rules we played wrong (and there were a few, but nothing major). It's nice: clear, unfussy rules and good examples. A published errata too. It is an art to do well.
I did want to include more up-thumbs than this, but I couldn't think of any.
 Eclipse is long. With three, it took 2.5 hours, including rules explanation. With five or six, this must be a tortuous experience equivalent to gently roasting one's testicles over a cigarette lighter. Snowdonia plays four people in under an hour as a model of worker-placement efficiency.
Dice-driven combat. Lord above, I hate it. Endless lobbing around of dice which - no matter how many modifiers you clock up, are still random, and you are therefore essentially just running a random number generator until you get a result that suits you. Dice CAN be used in novel and interesting ways (Yspahan, Livingstone, Alea Iacta Est) - playing one-up isn't one of them.
Inappropriate implementation of VPs. It seems to me that you are just picking up VPs for just doing stuff and there's no justification for why such-and-such an achievement is worth 1,2 or 3 VPs. Games of this genre have principally been conquer-the-whole-galaxy for a good reason.
Randomness at the wrong times. Why do I have to suffer a random tile draw (yes, I realise it's compensated, but that doesn't guarantee a result) after battle? See my woeful experience with the turn-order system in the otherwise amenable German Railways. Why do unexplored tiles have to be face-down? I quite like the idea of having a map to focus my strategy.
It's very linear. Perhaps 'multiple routes to victory' is becoming a bit of a cliche, but there's really only one way to win at Eclipse. OK, there's a few minor different ways to get a better ship, but it's all about tooling up and going out hunting at the end of the day. I've no problem with that, but that's really about it. For 3+ hours. One of the best aspects of TI3 is that it allows a bit of width with your plans.
I can't find anything original in it. There's a lot of Twilight Imperium, a little bit of Outpost, some generic worker placement, and a smidge of Power Grid economy. The combat is lifted wholesale from a hundred other games. I've whinged before about the games market becoming flooded of late, and this has done nothing to change my opinion.
Kingmakering. Unless everyone plays back-slapping diplomacy, it's clear that so many decisions are going to come down to the last round that you might as well shovel three-quarters of the cubes off the track and start with round 8. And, with a packed board, the trifling decision to attack one player over another is more than likely to be the turning point. It's even possible to gift another player VPs and improve your own position by sacrificing weak ships.
Bits obsessions. Woo, yeah! It's got lots of bits! But, actually, it's got a lot of bog-standard cubes and discs and a few not-terribly-nice plastic spaceships. There are nicer bits in the copy of Albion which I picked up for a tenth of the market price.
Naff backstory. I didn't get chance to read the last half-dozen pages of the manual on Friday, and I'm pleased that I didn't having found the pages online. It's the worst sort of wanky sci-fi nonsense imaginable. None of the races make me empathise with them or think 'Ooh, that's cool' in the same way that Cosmic Encounter does (and don't get me wrong, I've no love lost for CE). And the allegedly asymmetric special abilities are the most tedious imaginable.
Given the choice between playing Eclipse all evening, and playing - say - ten back-to-back games of Ingenious Travel, I know what I'd be doing.
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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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With Becky taking leave of absence to prepare for a wedding tomorrow, the planned four were reduced to three this week, which meant a full 2/3 of a bag of pork scratchings each! Little things, little things...
John and Ben warmed up in waiting for Tony with a quick game of Innovation. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that this game should only ever be played with two, and today did little to dispel that opinion. Spamming Metalworking early on helped me to both clean out the '1' pile while JP was drawing 3s, and build up a healthy score pile. I won in unsatisfactory manner while attempting to draw an 11, which felt like a bit of anticlimax.
Hooray! I had remembered the Agricola cards this week. We went for a blend of WM and E decks, and ignored Tony harrumphing about the polite visitor who asked what we were playing. Frankly, the clientele at the White Lion are generally much more pleasant than the last pub TB took us to.
Humming and hahhing over my opening hand (draw 10, discard 3), I could see a rather exciting potential combo in the Guildmaster, Potter, Stone Curator and Politician - put together they would allow me to virtually have the run of any resources I fancied. The problem with these big combos is that I sometimes dive into a pit of hideous failure while trying to get them all on the table, and suddenly it's Round 10 and I've still only got 2 family members. This time, though, it all worked nicely. With Tony slapping Minors on the table (is this illegal?) as if they were going out of fashion, and John formulating a roast-lamb-and-two-veg sort of strategy, I was left with a free run on the Ock space, and spent most of game eating clay and reeds. Topped up with Clogs, Open Gate and Raspberries, my strategy produced a very satisfactory 22 bonus points at game end which was more than enough to run away with it.
As Tony and John worryingly reminisced about Rod Stewart singing 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy' (JP's description of this being 'the best Disco song' not being dissimilar to nominating 'the most cuddly paedophile'), Santiago de Cuba caught Boydell's eye, and we were all amenable to a second run of this lean, tight game.
And what a run it proved to be! With the random deal placing the lawyer first up and combos distressingly thin on the ground, there was much wariness and unwillingness to commit much to the boat, as we crept round, closing buildings and flogging off odds and ends for small pinches of VPs. I can safely say no-one had any clue who was winning right up until the final count, when I surprised myself by matching my earlier 'Gric score of 44, pipping the field by no more than 3 points total.
With some 40 minutes until closing time, JP reluctantly suggest we try 'that poetry game, then, if we must'. He referred to Genji, a recent Maths Trade acquisition of mine, and one which had made a few unplayed trips to the White Lion recently.
I think it's safe to say Genji might not even make it into the car next week (...month...year...). Although some minor ribaldry was had about Tony writing poems about his plums, the first round fizzled out into boredom and puzzlement, and we all wished we were playing Braggart instead (the game, not the Agricola card). I was as disappointed as anyone - it had seemed like an oddball little game, but flaws, such as not having any way to track the 'beauty' of a poem without having to count it up again, just left it as a confusing, random and unobjective mess. No-one was much in the mood for the roleplaying which presumably is supposed to accompany the card-play.
It seems my gaming companions were not their usual jovial selves this week, so I must apologise if I was a poor host. My excuse, extreme tiredness after being kept awake all night by a misfiring smoke alarm next door. Although there was no excuse for my unashamed bragging after winning at Agricola and the misery that was Genji. Sorry chaps.
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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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Again, I have been frustratingly remiss with my blog updates, so it's yet another quick double-shot from the heart of West Mercia.
Putting aside our recent run of three-handers, there were fully four (four!) in attendance this week, although Tony - as is his wont - was somewhat later than the rest so JP, Becky and Ben opened with Samurai: The Card Game. The certain knowledge that Tony wouldn't have enjoyed a Knizia was confirmed when he came in halfway through (Tony, not the Good Doctor), and breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn't actually playing.
The game, is very very Knizia, with a thin and frankly uninteresting theme pasted over a set of solid abstract rules. Three players was almost certainly the wrong number, and I suspect it might make a much better 2P game. The amount of tabletop real estate it demands is frankly ridiculous when playing with 2, though. John won this one on a tie-break when I was stuck with a hand of powerful cards at the end. Time for a deck-building variant?
My having neglected to bring the cards for Agricola (doh!), we plumped instead for the forthcoming Snowdonia as our main event. The game is starting to grow on me, it's true, and I'd certainly recommend it for people's 'to watch' list at this year's Expo and Essen. Perhaps the best aspect of it is a satisfactory length which means it can easily be teamed up with another 2-hour game on games night and not necessarily feel like the light option.
It helped that I took advantage of some rare Welsh sunny weather to hoover up the excavation options early on, and when the game finished itself prematurely, I was able to sneak a win with plenty of points on completed bonuses, much to the designer's disgust as he finished well short of the field. Apparently I'd 'never beat him at Coppertwaddle', though.
Skyline of The World was next up, a game which received faint praise from Tony as it progressed, which is usually as much as a newcomer can hope for. JP got a little bit marginalised, and it would appear indeed that a 4P game is difficult to balance if there is a mixture of experience at the table - this game is similar to games in other genres (Modern Art, Endeavour) that poor, random or non-optimum decisions can have disturbing ripple effects that destroy other people's games. I won this one too, stealing the orange prime building sites and pipping Becky when she failed to make her game-end target.
Mucho sillio to finish in the form of a couple of rounds of the barking-mad For Sale(unfortunately in the shape of my first edition with only 20 building cards - anyone want to trade?). Downsized edition or no, it's still lively, fun and so quick that everyone enjoys themselves without thinking. I still love it, win or lose - I did one of each.
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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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The same trio as last week, and those expecting us to only manage two games again will be sorely disappointed: this time we got through fully six games and still got out the front door just before closing time.
We opened up with Finca, something which had not seen good table time for far too long. Much more benign with three than in head-to-head play, I nevertheless got the opportunity to rob the other players of lemons early on, but nearly got myself in a troublesome donkey situation, which is not something you should count on doing on the continent these days. In my keenness to avoid taking the last donkey, I overlooked an important play in mid-game, which let Becky through for the win - her first in about 10 plays of this game!
Aspiring Finca players should note that our favoured house rule (for best screwage potential) is to remove from the supply three of each fruit in 3P games, and six of each fruit in 2P games.
'Winner chooses' was unofficially deemed the thematics for the night, and Becky promptly requested Vikings. Neglecting the advanced version (simpler is better is very true here, and the basic Vikings game is far superior), we set about our piles of tiles and paws of Norse. I went in for Big VP early while the other two panicked about their start-island-tile situation, but things were looking precarious near the end as I ran worryingly short of cash. In the end, I missed out on a final boatmen and ran into John's last-minute overfeed which earned him the points he needed for victory.
John's choice was Acquire, a classic of gaming which none of us had played before. Thankfully, the rules made for simple explanation and we dove in headfirst, not knowing what we were getting into. The Tower chain quickly established itself as dominant and sold out of shares shortly afterwards. Sackson stagnated in a corner, and Intercontinental and Festival led brief, unfulfilled existence. John bought shares at double-speed and had no difficulty tying this one up, to the extent that Becky and I didn't bother with the final count.
Admittedly, there's quite a lot of room for improvement in our strategy, but I couldn't see all that much to get excited about in Acquire. It's clearly the forerunner of majority-control games, notably El Grande, but I can see the constant need to keep tabs on everyone's share holding would quickly become wearisome. I'd play it again, but probably not with three. Four or five sounds like fun.
Thanks to my habit of packing smaller card games inside bigger boxes to save shelf space, we had about twice as many games to hand as we initially suspected. The first small one to hit the table was Die Fugger, a game which belies the fact that it sounds like an Arnold Schwarzenegger catchphrase by being a tidy little valuation and market-manipulation game, not dissimilar to Modern Art (or its bastard card game son). And today's was a market that proved remarkably open to manipulation. From me, leastways: I shot past the 100-point finish-post in just four rounds, and flipped over two concealed goods which I had worked 'around the clock' back up to a value of 8. 124-91-88 was a pleasing margin of victory indeed.
The small card games continued with Metallurgy, a real hidden gem (and also my day job!), which I will continue to bang on about until other people see its true genius. OK, its not mould-breaking, but it is pretty low on luck and high on strategy, and there's not a lot more to ask for. I defied the odds by drawing two gold off the top of the deck (not great when any other card would have given me a scoring combo), and John swept this one up after a deserved 3-metal combo on the last turn of the game. Excellent stuff, really.
Last on our list, the standard end-of-night closer at the White Lion (and one which will make Tony feel remorseful that he buggered off to Cheltenham this week), Braggart. While John did unspeakable things to princesses in the queen's bedroom and wrestled a cat on the back of his horse covered in oil (no, really), we went digging for the Liar cards which had all hidden themselves at the bottom.
John pulled the ultimate Braggart masterstroke at the end of the game by claiming that he had scored 124 points to my 62 and Becky's 59. Thankfully, I still had an Outrageous Liar card left in my hand, so I'm claiming a moral victory on that one.
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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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Looks like I owe y'all another couple of blogs. Here goes...
JP, Ben and Becky it was that were ushered into the back room of the White Lion this week (one feels that Dave is far happier with us through there). Being in the mood for some extended, meaty games, we swung with full gusto at Macao.
(The blog title, in case you're wondering, is a Pratchett reference).
The grey die was particularly vindictive tonight, which meant I struggled, having picked up some choice grey cards early on. My impressive display of Game End scores failed to impress John who had built up a proper, working Macao combo, even at the cost of taking a couple of 3-point penalties.
I still haven't worked out whether Macao is a good game or not. It epitomises quite a lot of game features that I really dislike - needless and brainless randomisation with dice; lengthy card combos which require you to learn the deck; and endless cube-shuffling. But for all that it seems to play inoffensively enough and for now it fits into the same uncomfortable class as 7 Wonders: something I'd play if offered, but would never take to a convention or games evening to badger other people with.
We moved onto to a real thinker, and certainly about as heavy as we get on games night, Tigris and Euphrates. This immediately reminded me of the one thing I really hate about this game, which is trying to teach it. On several occasions I have tried, and on most of those I have failed, and things went perilously close again this time round, with the three of us managing to mis-play the treasure cubes and John requesting rules clarifications through to the very end. Monuments went up in short order, and I spent a good few turns leaching cubes in three colours, which was enough to give me a 10-9-9 victory. But it had taken another two hours out of our night, and it was time to go home!
Just the two games this week, but plenty of thinky goodness, as requested, to go with them.
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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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Ben and Becky opened up with our new copy of Arena: Roma II, an Ender-recommended improvement over the original Roma. And Ender was right, of course. When is he ever not? Arena solves some of the niggling problems of the original game by offering more ways to score VPs, avoiding the unnecessary Forum-digging and eliminating the poor iconography in favour of card text. Perhaps what I like best about it is the possibilities offered by combining it with the first game and playing deck-against-deck or even card drafting.
Actually, I lie. What I like best was the fact that it allowed me to actually thrash Becky.
Boydells both senior and juvenile were on their way (I'll let you disentangle which might be which), with a remit to play some easy, light and fun games in celebration of the forthcoming Easter weekend. I requested we open proceedings with the lovely Cubiko, and promptly ran riot over both the easy and difficult boards. I don't think either Boydell won a single round over both games. In fact the ball spent more time in the pork scratchings than on the board when under their control.
Benedict's turn for a request, and - much to our general sense of foreboding - he opted for Creationary. The first game was eked out by Tony and Becky despite a worrying inability on my wife's part to name the Colosseum - Benedict failing to recognise my expertly-created solar panels at the death.
A re-match was proposed, Batesons versus Boydells, and Becky carried on her winning record. Creationary is starting to lose its life-span, sadly, due to the lack of 'clue' cards, and we lent it to an enthusiastic Benedict for the forthcoming family holiday, although the frosty reception this magnanimous gesture drew from Tony suggests that the box might 'accidentally be left at home'.
The main event on 'party' nights is frequently Balderdash - the 20th Anniversary 'Absolute Balderdash' edition in this case.
And much fun was had as ever. Despite some improperly difficult abbreviation rounds (these should be banned!), much laughter was had through definitions of Pokeloken (to poke someone but not remove your finger) and the use of dancing ducks to entertain parts of Texas (both fruits of the youngest, most fertile mind at the table). Tony shot into an early lead, mostly fuelled by his being able to deceive my wife; I must keep an eye on this. But a fightback was on the cards until he closed it out quite simply, and conveniently just before closing time.
Good, frothy fun, although next week we'll have to play something a bit more serious if we're to retain any respect from Rachel the barmaid.
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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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It appears I've been tardy on the blog front again, so set yourselves for a rapid-fire double update as I while away the Bank Holiday late-afternoon blues.
It would have been last month now when Ross-on-Wye's most dedicated quartet made the back room of the White Lion their home, Dave the landlord thankfully evicting his grand-daughter well in advance.
Boydell's unusually swift arrival rescued us from the rules explanation of Genji (a shame, because I thought it looked a reasonable card game with an admirable - if highly sexist - theme), and we instead set to the forthcoming masterwork of Snowdonia. Mock horror greeted my decision to actually build rails for the first time in four games (I believe there is a photo of this rare event), but it did me no good, as I got scuppered out of my planned excavations by a rampant game engine. Becky pinched my 'climb up the mountain' stock strategy, but we were all undone by the games designer (clearly still smarting from all those Totemo losses), putting together an unnecessarily advanced combo for we beginners to cope with.
Game 2 1/2, after some late-playtest humming and hawing (I'm still pushing for increased surveyor points), became Santiago de Cuba. I had played this enjoyable game with 3P, and was delighted to see it not lose any of its charm with four. Indeed, it's hard to recall any valid criticisms of this game (other than the poorly-designed player screens), and its stock continues to rise in my eyes, not even if I was pipped out of a tight game by John.
With Tony taking his customary premature leave, we tucked into a new treat which he had kindly left behind (and, in fact, I still have - must remember to give that back!). Pizza Theory had caught my eye some weeks before, and Boydell had happily saved me spending £20 on it. And, to be fair, I'm reasonably glad he did in retrospect.
The basics behind Pizza Theory are of area control and geometry, which is enough to put some people off straight away. I am made of sterner stuff, and it looked like good brain-burning stuff at first, but unfortunately it proved to be very difficult to balance, with a leader becoming apparent very early. The leader in this case being Becky, who ended up swathing the communal pizza in tasty green toppings. But I don't think I'll be needing to play this again.
To finish off, another game which continues on the ascendant in my eyes, and one which I'm pleased is starting to find a niche audience here on the site, where previously there was only bafflement and coolness. I refer to Artus, also frequently referred to as 'the one with the pig on the table'. It's a game that really shines with two or three people who know the deck well, and to that end will never really be as good during the first half-dozen plays.
Despite some initial grumbling, Becky took to this very well, and it could have been touch-and-go at the end, if only we'd paid more attention to how many times everyone had been around the board! When people are scoring 20-40 points on a 50-point score-track, things do get very confusing...
I think we agreed on a honourable draw.
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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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After a promising title written for no other reason than to amuse Boydell, this might be a bit of a let-down, for the total turn-out at Ross this week was just two players. But does two mean poorer-quality gaming? Not at all!
Mr Jack In New York had been a present from my Secret Santa, and was getting well overdue for some table time. We had two cracking games, John being found out all too quickly in the first, and fooling himself into accusing the wrong suspect in the second. Double bluffs, double bluffs...
My game log tells me that we played Skyline Of The World next. I'm glad it does, because I remember absolutely nothing about playing the game other than the barman bringing back a little blue bit of skyscraper which Joey the weird little terrier had pinched from us. Suffice to say, I have had a lot of success with this at 4-player, but it doesn't necessarily translate to a 2-player game. I suspect I may even have conceded this as the endgame approached, but I really can't remember. Thankfully, I took this to Cardiff on the Saturday, and reassured myself that it was still great for four.
Moving on, JP and I are both lovers of poker, so Head-to-Head Poker seemed like an obvious 2P choice. Again, it proved a little bit of a wash-out; I've played this with a non-poker player and really enjoyed it, but Knizia didn't really design his bidding with cut-throat poker raises in mind, and the pass/fold decision was always just a little bit too obvious.
We resurrected the low caused by two poor games with a sure-fire winner, and regular readers of this blog won't be surprised to see Rudiger Dorn hitting the table again. Jambo was our choice, and John had fun exploring the deck; perhaps it was a bit of a mismatch, given I had at least 25 games of Jambo in my pocket, but there's plenty for a beginner to involve themselves with at Jambo.
To close out the evening, we were happy to let Joe Huber's Burger Joint occupy closing time and beyond. The economy of this game appealed to John, and I maintained a 100% losing-streak at burger/pizza-sales.
A quality evening for two all told, with much of the usual consumption of beer, cider and pork scratchings. Mr Jack was an undoubted highlight for us, being much more balanced and free-flowing than the original game, which was always clunky in my eyes.
Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:25 pm
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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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All the B's this week, and with Boddle lagging behind due to tucking in the kids, Ben Becky and Bill opened matters with a game of Dominion.
So, out came the Big Treasure Chest Of Fun, and we dealt a relatively benign semi-random layout to cater for Bill's lack of practice. He opened with a Bridge, which was almost certainly the losing move. Meanwhile, I attempted some optimistic deck-thinning with Remake + Farming Village, but Becky went on full aggressive with Big Money + Bank + Militia. And it was the latter tactic that won out, Becky wrapping things up in less than 15 turns. I didn't count, but it certainly wasn't very many.
Tony having arrived by now, he disdained the possibility of a second game (no surprise there), and instead we plumped for Notre Dame, a game rapidly becoming something of a gentle classic. I elected to play Park + VPs, neglecting the plague almost entirely, but could only tie with Bill and lose to Tony playing a similar strategy. Although there was a twist in the tale - given that I later found out that we had the central four-player board upside-down, I reckon Bill should have won this given his more dedicated attentions to the cathedral.
On to another cathedral city, and this time the lean economic grind of St Petersburg. Having properly optimised the decks with the 'improved' expansion cards and adopted Bill's 'first-round Catan draft' suggestion, it was full steam ahead on craftsmen and aristocrats. I was happy to pick up an early judge, a move which persuaded Becky to move into blue cards early, and the second round was very kind, persuading the others to take relative junk into hand. By the end it was all a bit of a cruise, to be honest, and Tony was left fighting Bill for second place.
With Tony harrumphing about not playing any new games tonight (not even the delightful and recommendable little John Silver), we pressed onto Coloretto, at which Tony disgracefully trash-talked his way into a victory when teaching Bill last time out. No danger of that this time, with Bill seated after Tony. All three of my opponents fell prey to excessive cautiousness, which made for another rather easy win, although in fairness I was pushed pretty hard by Becky in the last couple of rounds.
Boddle took his leave at this point, and there was just time for the three of us to close with that much-thumbed game of San Juan. As it happened, I got out an early Silver mine and then promptly tripped over a tasty Quarry + Carpenter combo. Becky's chapel couldn't keep up as I built my purple junk (steady at the back, there) apace and finished the game as early as possible.
Three in a row this week, and technically no wins for Tony. It won't last...
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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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Bill, Ben and JP this week, and finally an opportunity to break out Lancaster, a game I'd been itching to try for some time.
Battling with a young girl watching the TV at silly-volumes in the opposite corner (turns out we were right not to tell her off, for she transpired to be the grand-daughter of Dave the kindly landlord) and Bill's failure to pack anything away in bags, we laboured to get the board set up (not an easy task, for there are trifling changes depending on each number of players), and swiftly got to grips with the iconography. And then we set off into full worker-placement, Frenchie-battling mode.
It became clear to me quickly that we had happened on a 3-Player sweet spot for this game. I can see it being horrendously slow with 4 and even worse with 5, what with the endless cycles of booting people out of the most favoured castles. Regardless of some of the fiddliness and unclear rules (when is a squire 'employed', exactly? Does he have to be on the board? We assumed so...), I and JP were both enchanted with this game, the inherent diplomacy elements, and the clever balancing work in the wake of Glen More. Even something as simple as upgrading knights has to be carefully judged, as Bill demonstrated with a premature 3->4 move. Perhaps the only small downside is the amount of calculation which will need to be done near the end. John won this one by a short neck...
...Which is more than can be said for our second game of the night, the infamous Ricochet Robots. JP was appalled when I told him I'd recently picked up a copy for all of £2 in a charity shop and then traded it, but then he was also appalled when I told him I wasn't really keen on Twilight Struggle. My misgivings proved to be well-founded, though; this is the sort of game at which there is always going to a hierarchy and it's simply no fun playing it with people of different skill levels. I was pleased to pick up one piece, but that was all. Onwards, I think!
With time ticking on and Becky expected shortly, it seemed right to move to the card-game portion of the night, and Die Fugger was the carefully-pronounced next stop for us. I enjoy this little market-manipulation game greatly, and it's the best of Adlung's many excellent small games, even if it does borrow a key idea or two from Modern Art. Bill won this one hands-down by carefully stashing two Jewels cards and working their value up to the maximum 9 by the game's end.
Becky having safely installed herself in an Apple & Mango J2O, we set to our last game of the night, and my perennial nominee for 'BGG's most under-rated game', the delightful and pretty Metallurgy. Perhaps part of the beauty is the realisation that so much can be done with only four different cards in the deck. Bill didn't quite have the fine touch with this one, and wound up with a single, solitary point, losing out in the large scale of things to Becky, who pulled off a couple of double-scores to finish with seven. I got dealt Gold for the second straight game and couldn't do better than five.
I think four players is probably the weak spot for Metallurgy; I would, however, dearly like to try it again as a partnership game at some point: I think there's more legs there.
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Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
