Game Session

A new month in May! New standings in our gaming to redeem many from last month. For our large group game to start off, we played Saboteur (the first version), a great little card game with a traitor element. Essentially you a building as a group of dwarves tunnels to get to gold, but the secret saboteurs are trying to get you off track. We played a large game with 10 people, and the saboteurs lost every time - it was difficult. While some played Thunderstone, I played another bigger game of 7 Wonders. I always think I am doing bad in that game, but end up having a pretty good score.

I then played a small filler game of Hey, That's My Fish!, one of my favorites. Its a simple game of chess-like movement and the disappearance of the playing surface which happens to be ice-floes and you are penguins collecting fish. It often takes as much time to play as to set it up. That game was the closest I have seen, with all 4 players scoring 26 or 25.

After a food break, the late game was Troyes, another game that is growing on me. It is also a game where I have no solid idea of how good I am doing, so there is tension. Each time I have played there has been variation, but I must admit, the archers are powerful! I ended the game with a cool combination of getting yellow dice (commerce) for free, turning them into red (military), and using them either for the archers to take out black cards or spending favor to turn them into money.

Saboteur
1- Tyler H, Matt N; 2- Charles G; 3- Creela H, Jeremy, Mike C; 4- Tim R, Brett H; 5- Nate J; 6- Amber J

Thunderstone
1- Tyler H, 2- Nate J, 3- Tim R, 4- Matt N, 5- Creela H

7 Wonders
1- Brett H, 2- Dallin E, 3- Mike C, 4- Nate R, 5- Jeremy, 6- Charles, 7- Erika

Hey, That's My Fish!
1- Dallin E, Nate R, 3- Brett H, Erika

Troyes
1- Brett H, 2- Tyler H, Tim R

Game Session

We are getting a good collection of people out to game night on Thursdays. Dominion saw the table for the early game, and then we split into two groups. The first played Power Grid, and I taught my group Troyes. Troyes is a really good game that uses dice in a unique way. It starts with worker placement, and your workers determine what color dice you will use for your abilities, if your workers are placed in the palace (war - red), within the town hall (merchants - yellow) or church (religious - white). The dice are rolled, and they are used based upon their face up numbers to replace workers in the buildings or to activate cards with special abilities that earn you money and influence. It has quite a bit of strategy, and once you learn the icons the game flows intuitively. I had a pretty steady flow of victory points, especialy when I used my archers to defend the city from marauders and other event cards. On the last turn I had an extra die to use, and Tim suggested I use it on an event card to get one more victory point. When points were tallied Josh made a huge comeback, earning maximum VP from the hidden objectives of everyone (24 points!). I ended up squeezing out the victory by one point 59-58, and owe that one to Tim.  We ended the night teaching a couple of players 7 Wonders.

The game results were as follows:

Dominion: 1- Nate, 2- Jeremy, 3- Josh, Tim

Power Grid: 1-Mike, 2- Dallin, 3- Daniel, 4- Joe

Troyes: 1- Brett, 2- Josh, 3- Tim, 4- Nate

7 Wonders: 1- Brett, 2- Nate, 3- Dallin, 4- Jeremy, 5- Tim

Check the facebook group for monthly standings.