Billabong Boardgamers - 5th May 1998
Janet wasn't feeling too well tonight, so we were down one on our usualnumber.
Hols der Geier
The 'classic' game of simulaneous card play and resolution was fairly newto all of us. This was my first time with 5 players and it's a riot, andquite subtle as well. Scores were, totalling hand by hand:
Donna: 7, 25, 50 Alan: 17, 25, 25 Julian: 12, 17, 22 David: 3, 17, 17 Doug: 1, -4, 6
Doug's rating: 8
Bluff
I bought along this game of Janet's, a SdJ winner and a game I've enjoyedbefore but haven't played since my discovery of "Euros" in 1995. I think this is the same game as Liar's Dice, but I'm not sure. I do know it's a RichardBorg game, and yes Richard, we enjoyed it.
It was new to everyone but myself and David, but the rules are very easyand were quickly absorbed (except the rule about who opens the next roundof bidding, which I couldn't find. We eventually passed it around thetable).
The first 2 games saw some brutal bidding by Donna, who'd make dramaticraises like "5 two's" from "2 two's". This unsettled us a bit, and Alanmanaged to self destruct in the first two games very easily. In fact ingame two, he went out by challenging a bid of "12 threes" and losing his 5 dice in the process!
Game two also saw a terrific final battle between Julian, who was holdinghis original 5 dice, and Donna, who was down to 2 dice. We'd all been knocked out, so Donna had to take Julian down single handed. She almost didit, getting Julian down to 2 dice, before she lost her last 2 dice.
Needless to say, we all enjoyed this one a lot. Results were:
Game 1:
David (2 dice remaining)
Donna
Doug
Julian
Alan
Game 2:
Julian (2 dice remaining)
Donna
David
Doug
Alan
Game 3:
Doug (3 dice remaining)
Alan
Julian
David
Donna
Doug's rating: 8
6 Nimmt
We then broke out Kramer's 6 Takes game, which I'd only played for the firsttime last week at a playtest session for David's 6 Billion game. I didn'trealise we were actually playing it incorrectly (we were playing cards fromthe hand in turn, rather than simulaneously) but it was still pretty good.
I had two hideous hands to start off with (playing to 66 points) and was 49after they'd been completed. Donna, after being caught with a bundle ofox heads on hand 1, did very well in the remaining 3 hands to win by a mile.Cumulative totals along the way:
Donna: 20, 20, 21, 26
David: 6, 11, 42, 49
Doug: 28, 49, 58, 68
Alan: 1, 23, 49, 69
Julian: 12, 40, 50, 72
Doug's rating: 6
World Cup Tournament Football
A bit of an unusual one was next up, this is an Australian Design Group game, who are probably best known for their huge wargame World In Flames, which theyhaven't got right yet after 6 editions. This game however, is a gem, and oneI've owned for about 5 years. David bought his copy along, as it's a favoritegame of his as well (it's in writing, search under "Coutts" on the GamesCabinet), being a soccer fan and this being World Cup year, and all that.
In this game you select 16 countries (we played the Olympic draw, not theWorld Cup draw which requires 24 countries) from the pool of 80 odd you caninclude. These 16 countries are the finalists and are put into 4 groups of4 to play a round robin tournament to find out the top 8 to advance to thequarter finals.
Each player secretly controls a number of these teams, in our game we had3 each, with the last being wild. By play of cards, you have to influencethe group of four your countries are in and ensure they make it into the lasteight and beyond. The path to the final is mapped out on the board, so youcan also influence the finals matches along the way, providing you've read theresults correctly.
In our game I drew England, Columbia and Australia. England and Columbia arestrong teams, Australia is weak, so I counted that out from the start. My favorite way of playing this is to draw attention away from your teams and play onto other teams - I quickly stomped on Germany as my first play, andDavid stomped my England! I had to do a quick salvage job to get England intothe final eight teams, with Australia and Columbia missing out. Once I newthey were gone, I 'played kingmaker' and put Paraguay into the finals thinkingit was such a weak team it wouldn't last very far. Silly me.
Teams that didn't make the finals: Germany, Colubia, Sweden, Cameroon,Australia (boo), Scotland, Denmark, Spain.
The finals panned out as follows:
England (Doug) 6 d. China (Alan) 0
Paraguay (Donna) 6 d. Poland (Donna) 2 (Donna played herself!)
France (David) 3 d. Uruguay (Julian) 0
Belgium (Julian) 4 d. Brazil (David) 3
Semi Finals:
Belgium (Julian) 3 d. France (David) 2
Paraguay (Donna) 4 d. England (Doug) 2
Playoff for 3rd place:
England (Doug) 4 d. France (David) 4 with penalties going 5:3 to England
Final Belgium (Julian) 6 d. Paraguay (Donna) 1
The points were:
Julian: 6
Donna: 5
David: 3
Doug: 3
Alan: 1
A clever, underrated game. I give it an 8.
Acquire
Final game this evening was Acquire, my first time with more than twoplayers. I think I had a bit of a dream game, as I got the lead in Continental early and managed to earn the bonus for majority holderthree times. Donna, who played immediately before me, folded Continentaltwice, giving me the next play to start it again (with a free share ofcourse!). That, combined with an edge in Worldwide, which ended the gamewith 41+ lots, gave me the game. Blow by blow:
Continental merged into Worldwide: Doug, Donna
American into Worldwide: David, Doug/Donna
Festival into Worldwide: Julia, Doug
Continental into Luxor: Doug, Donna
Continental into Imperial: Doug, Donna
American into Worldwide: David, Alan
I think that was it, there may have been one or two more merges.
Scores were:
Doug: $42300
Donna: $35100
David: $32000
Julian/Alan: $29300
Doug's rating: 8 (it's a night for 8's).