Match Report 7th May 2012

A small gathering means less competition for the munchies!

Being away for the weekend with family, it will be no great surprise that we played a few games (3 six player games of 7 Wonders, 2 games of Tower of Babel as well as some fun games with the kids Pack and Stack, Dragon Land and Au Backe! (also known as By Golly)), before returning home in time for our Monday night gathering.

Once everybody (!) had gathered and with drinks sorted we started the evening where we left off our last gathering with Take It Easy! a game requested by Crispin and needless to say not one of the many I had brought upstairs from their storage area elsewhere in the house, so off I had to trudge to recover it.

I once again acted as the caller and got the normal threats and abuse from Crispin as I failed to draw the tiles he hoped for. When it came to the final tile I called out the numbers that Gwen had been muttering (witch like!) under her breath to Natalie and she managed to finish three lines filling her only remaining space in the very centre of the board, not surprisingly she came first, with Crispin, then Natalie and finally me – oh did I mention we only had two people join us; the smallest gathering in well over a year. However Daniella promises faithfully to be with us next time and it must be about time for one of Ruth’s occasional visits, not to mention Alex and where did Ben and Malcolm get to?

Anyway, with the first game completed and with about 12 games to choose from including Carcassonne Hunters and Gatherers Crispin and Gwen selected Carcassonne (the original) again not one I had brought up so off I trudged again, with grumblings comments about ‘what’s wrong with trying the Carcassonne variant I have already got out’; to no avail!

We have a number of expansions of the original (Hunters and Gatherers being a standalone game) and elected to play Inns and Cathedrals plus The River and give ourselves an extra figure by using our colourful plastic figures (from The Phantom) for scoring purposes. When playing Carcassonne farmers are frequently a decisive factor and in spite of Gwen’s early efforts ultimately I managed to place a number of these little chaps around our French landscape and thereby ensured a healthy margin of victory.

 Time for the munchies; again Natalie had excelled with some chocolate and orange muffins decorated this time with bunnies going down into their burrow! It took a couple of explanations for Crispin and I to appreciate that we were looking at the rear and not some fluffy nose and ears, but we are blokes after all.

Our last game of the evening was 7 Wonders with Gwen (now on her 4th game) appearing to take a similar tactical approach to the way she plays Stone Age i.e. looking to maximise her points on Civilisation cards. Again she won!

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More photo's from the evening can be seen here.

If you would like to try some of the games talked about on this blog come along to our next event at the Blue Anchor, Crowborough on Sunday 12th May starting at 7pm - £1 per head. More details can be seen on our Facebook Page Social Gamers - Crowborough