Billabong Boardgamers - 7th July 1998

Nearly back to full strength tonight, with David turning up half way through a readingof ....

Elfenwizards

I picked this up to complete my "Elfen" set, not really knowing much about itas a game, apart from a vague feeling it was Qvo Vadis with dice. That sums it up, Ithink, but it really has a nasty streak in it! Despite some confusion with the rules, therather befuddling rulebook was read and off we went. I managed to defeat Julian to becomethe first High Wizard, while down on the lower levels of the tree Alan appeared to beupsetting some people, mainly David. Round 2 saw my wizards on the bottom rung (atMagician level), and I got them all up to the second level safely. Julian was elected HighWizard on turn 2, and Alan appeared to be relishing the opportunity to stick his thumbinto many pies!

Round 3 saw Janet become High Wizard, and looking hard to beat - in her own words ...

"..I didn't really understand what was happening in the early game, all I knewwas people kept supporting me!"

... and that early support had her in a great position, 7 points up on Julian and Douggoing into the final round.

This was David's 15 seconds of fame as High Wizard, but Janet had done enough. Itotally goofed the last turn, trying to take both positions below High Wizard for 18points total in a bid for second place. I committed all dice there, but David thwarted mebut supporting Donna instead of himself, and made sure I couldn't get both wizardspromoted.

Scores were:

Janet: 16 + 19 + 15 + 12 + 6 minor spells = 68
Donna: 9 + 11 + 17 + 20 + 1 minor spell = 58
Julian: 17 + 16 + 10 + 8 + 6 minor spells = 57
Doug: 16 + 12 + 14 + 13 + 0 minor spells = 55
David: 8 + 12 + 15 + 15 + 4 minor spells = 54
Alan: 18 + 12 + 10 + 11 + 0 minor spells = 51

We were a little confused over the rule stating you must place 2 major spells, 2 minorspells or one of each on your turn - or pass. Pretty clear, then it goes on to say if youonly have one major spell or one minor spell then you may place the one spell. This wasinterpreted literally that you could just place, for example, one major spell if you onlyhad one dice, irrespective of how many minor spells you had. I think this was wrong, but Ilost the argument... :)

Doug's rating: interesting.... 7 but this may swing either way.

Res Publica

Elfenwizards took a good 2 hours. David had to leave as there is soccer on tomorrowmorning at 5am here (which I plan watching, sheesh). We bought out last weeks debutant,Res Pub., again. The rules were quickly explained to Julian and I felt this game was evenbetter than last weeks play. The trading of tribes flattened right out so we had twosettlements each by the the time the tribe deck was depleted. A flurry of commoditytrading, which I think was performed more skillfully than last week, saw bolder bids andcounter-offers. Again, the scores were tight:

Janet: 21
Doug/Alan: 20
Julian: 19
Donna: 16

Great game - rating is an 8.

Next week we have a special guest, hopefully. Stefanie Kethers, the LudingAdministrator, is holidaying in Australia and said she'd stop by at Billabong for a game.She kindly offered to bring out some games that were on want lists, and we're all verymuch looking forwards to meeting our first international guest!