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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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A real mixed bag this weak, after some last-minute email pleading from me managed to drag together three of our core gamers. So JP, Tony and Ben sat down to what was to be an intriguing variety tonight.
John and Ben kicked off with Architekton, a game I had just picked up from the European Chain of Generosity. I thought it looked like an intriguingly nasty little tile-laying game, but it turned out to be just a little bit too obvious. Well, it did to John, who forced me into a resignation when he went 4-1 up. I might give this one another go, but I can't see it becoming a favourite.
Tony rolled up shortly before I capitulated, and was quick (unsurprisingly) to suggest Glory To Rome. Unfortunately, he wasn't banking on the fact that I'd been practicing. An early Coliseum, a Circus and a couple of Architects in the Clientele was all I needed to shut out the game with a flurry of buildings. I still claim my masterstroke was starting to Merchant early, though. Congratulations came very much through gritted teeth, given that Tony is, in his own words: "about 300 games ahead of me"...
As we were three in number, I saw an excellent opportunity to get probably the best 3-player game ever made to the table. We were doubly helped that Becky, and her inexplicable playing-card phobia, weren't around. But Ninety-Nine is an indisputed classic, in my view, second only to bridge in terms of being an intellectual exercise, and an staple on the list of card games for given numbers of players (with one, play Solitaire, with two Piquet, with three Ninety-Nine, with four Bridge, and with more Poker). John certainly picked up on it quickly, and declared quite a few hands, eventually picking up a 60-point score that rendered him unbeatable.
I couldn't bear to leave my recently-acquired Catacombs in the box much longer, and coerced the other two into breaking into its maiden game, despite grumblings about it being a 'Childrens Game'. Humph - nothing of the sort, I say. As it turned out, Tony and John picked a pretty easy route through my dungeon, although the gung-ho tactics and playing in semi-darkness (well, it IS supposed to be a dungeon-crawler, you know) quickly caused them to struggle against Crypt Spiders and Centaurs. In the final room, it was pretty much carnage, as a Fire Demon quickly picked off the Thief and Elf, and left his boss the Sorceror to tidy up. Chalk up another one to the bad guy!
As Tony said, quite rightly, you need to time a game of Catacombs well and get into the spirit of things. I love stuff like this, and hope I can find a reasonable supply of people who want to play it. I will try to disprove John's suggestions that it will cause marital friction, but given that Becky and I can argue over something as innocuous as Jaipur, perhaps it might be best reserved for those big games days.
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Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
