Board Games Club
Session Review - 19th August 2010
We had 8 players in total, including a first time guest Shane. With Mike unable to attend at the start due to an external meeting 7 players started with “THE GREAT DALMUTI”, a game last played on July. Players are dealt a hand of cards which range from 1-12 and they have to get rid of their cards as soon as possible. The player who is first to do so is deemed to be the ‘Great Dalmuti’ and bosses the other players around for the next turn. The last player to go out is deemed to be the ‘Greater Peon’, the lowest of the low, and they have to do the Dalmuti’s chores, and even give up 2 of their best cards to the Dalmuti in the next round! Players score points according to the sequence in which they get rid of all their cards and change seating order for the next round. Surprisingly skilful and yet good lightweight fun, with much laughter caused by the sequence of card play, and the game was eventually won by Lucy.
With Mike in attendance we split into 2 groups of 4. On Table 2 Mike introduced the players to the game of “TRIBUNE”, in which players acquire cards by visiting various locations in Rome, with a view to gaining enough ‘influence’ to take over control of one or more of the 7 factions in the game. This control gives the players different benefits such as faction tokens, victory laurels, more money, legions, scrolls, favour of the gods and eventually a Tribune tile. For each game a particular Victory Conditions card( from a large choice) is selected which lists maybe 7 conditions and players have to achieve say any 4 of the 7 to win, so players will be adopting different strategies to do this. The benefits gained by taking over factions go towards achieving some of them. Players are limited to 5 workers each to visit the locations on the board so they cannot always do all they want to each turn, making for difficult decisions. A highly-interactive game, with great production values which all the players enjoyed. Geoff looked like being the winner until visitor Shane managed to gain the final pieces need to fulfil 4 conditions on the card. 
On the other table 4 players played the classic game of “PUERTO RICO”, in which players select to act out a different role each turn from a choice of 7, in order to construct buildings, produce goods, trade in a market, load goods on to ships bound for the homeland. Each turn a ship arrives on the island with new colonists and these are distributed to the players to employ as they wish to pursue their chosen goal. Another highly-interactive game, with many options, many different strategies to employ and fully enjoyed by all the players. Throughout the game players earn victory points by shipping goods and also they gain points at the end for satisfying certain conditions listed on buildings they have erected. In a close game there was only 25 points covering all 4 players but Richard eventually came out on top.
Table 2 played “MONTEGO BAY” a fun family game about gaining barrels to load onto ships in the harbour of Montego Bay which will eventually sail and earn them victory points. The way in which your player pieces move around the harbour to gain the barrels leads to much fun as you can sometimes force your opponents out of a lucrative warehouse into one in which they spoil any barrels already loaded! Another close game, with Geoff leading for most of it but Shane and Luke closed fast in the latter half of the game and Luke finally gained a long overdue victory with a storming last round in which he loaded 14 barrels!. Well done Luke!!- Table 1 finished with the dice game “HECK MECK”, a club favourite filler that was reviewed last week so is not repeated here. Richard gained his second win of the evening.
Games played and Winners were:
- The Great Dalmuti - Lucy Newbury
- Tribune - Shane Mclean
- Puerto Rico - Richard Piesse
- Montego Bay - Luke Williams
- Heck Meck - Richard Piesse
New members always welcome, please come along.
Contact Mike Oakes on 01249 656457 or e-mail mfoakes@globalnet.co.uk
