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Chief EGG Head
United States
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Had a fun weekend of games because I got to try a variety of older and newer released games.
First the old games. Mary and I played an old classic, that I never seen a copy of until recently, called Marrakesh by Joli Quentin Kansil. This game is kind of a cross between backgammon and trick taking.
The board looks like this after rolling the dice for you starting position
The deck of cards consists of 4 suits with 4 sets of A-6 in each suit, plus plus 2 Queens in each suit. Each player gets a hand of 6 cards. The players then each play a card and resolve who wins the trick depending on suit.
The leader plays their card face down and the receiver plays face up. Spades>Hearts>Diamonds>Clubs>Spades. Then the leader shows their card. The winner gets to play the cards and use them to bear off their men off the board (the card values are used like dice in backgammon and follows backgammon bearing off rules). Queens are null cards The winner of the trick is the leader for the next round.
If both players play the same suit the receiver wins and gets to draw an extra card to use in bearing off. If the same number is played then the receiver gets doubles like backgammon and draws an extra card. The player of the higher suit also gets 1 extra card. If the extra is a matching card is drawn-known as a rematch, 2 extra cards are drawn and the player gets triples. If a receiver matches the leaders card in both suit and number they get triples and draws 2 extra cards. All the men that are taken off that turn are placed in the oval to the side. The placing in the ovals occurs for the first 3 turns and if a player has borne off all their men they score and can get bonus points depending on the pattern of the 3 ovals. If no men are borne off on one of a players 3 turns they get a null chip. For example here
Red would score a Rabat or 6 points because of the pattern of men taken off 3-1-2 and gets and extra point because white has a null chip. If neither player has all their men off by 3 rounds the player with fewest pips (the number of turns it would take to finish bearing off) scores 1.
Marrakesh is an interesting game and after 1 play I was just starting to get the hang of playing which cards when. Basically I was playing randomly through the first several rounds. The game could use a cheat sheet for when to draw the extra cards and maybe I'll print one up one of these days. It comes with cheat sheets for scoring patterns. I think it would play pretty quickly once you had the card drawing conventions down. It does contain a bit of bluffing not usually my favorite mechanism  but I'd definitely play it again. I think after you got the hang of it some strategy would become more apparent or maybe it would continue to elude me...as I was trounced. I'd give this a 7 with potential to increase. I like a challenge and this game does that.
Also played Sid Sackson's game Saxum also published as Tam-Bit. Saxum is a simple 2 player dice rolling game. Each player alternates rolling a pair of dice and placing a token on a matching set of coordinates on a 5x5 grid. Rolled 6's are rerolled or a player can pay 6 points to pick a number. As the grid fills if a set of coordinates are rolled that contains a players own token they score points equal to the number of tokens contained in a group with that spot through orthogonal connection. If it the opponent's token is there they may replace it with their own by paying points equal to the size of the grouping. Each player also receives 7 insurance stones which can be used to pay instead of points. If a player completes a row the score 1 on a separate track and if the complete 2 rows with one stone they score 3. Game is over when a player gets to 177 points, or 7 rows, or uses all their insurance stones and needs to use one.
I was concerned at first that Saxum was going to take too long to play for a dice game but once the grid filled, the points rolled in pretty fast. We only managed to complete 2 rows each and I won on points.
We also recently tried Floriado. An impossible to get game but you can play at www.mastermoves.eu. I love this game  Like most of my most admired games, it is simple yet challenging. You have 5 different colored flower suites with cards of 1 through 8 flowers or each color. Make a random 5x8 grid of the flower cards. You place a meeple and pick up that tile thus "picking those flowers". Your opponent does the same. Then you can move your meeple straight ahead, left or right (but not backwards) any number of tiles and pick up that tile. The trick is you are only allowed to pick up the tile if it contains fewer flowers that the last card of that color you collected. If you can't pick it up, the card stays there. You cannot end on a blank space. The game ends when their are no legal moves, no flowers left or both players are unable to pick up any more flowers (it is possible for one player to have more turns if the other play has no legal moves or no flowers to pick left). You gain points for each set of matching colors you've picked. The more flowers picked in one color, the more points scored. Really a nice quick 2 player abstract.
Next up, I taught Saint Petersburg to Mary who had never played. It had been so long since I last played and had not played in person for even longer that it took me a while to figure out the set-up!  The hazards of online play!
On to the multi-player games. Robert kindly taught Sean, Rose, Mary and I, Navegador. I had been itching to try this one for a while. I really enjoy Imperial and Hamburgum so I figured Navegador would be up my alley. The board is great looking and names of other great games adds to the fun. The theme may suggest that the game is all about sailing and exploring but it's really about the market. It's a small simple market but really runs the game pretty effectively. Definitely interested in playing this one again.
Next up Rose, Robert, Mary and I played Luna. This is basically a worker placement game with special actions and multiple ways to score. Initially it can seem a little complex with the many actions to choose from but it's really pretty straight forward. Has a nice theme with the moon priestess and the tides etc. Wow, did I suck at this game. I "floundered" around the isles for several turns before mercifully sinking to the bottom of the sea I'll have to give it another try but it didn't quite click with me.
Lastly Robert, Rose, Mary and I set out to scale the mountain with K2. Being hardy adventurers we chose the winter board and set out from base camp. The first few days were uneventful as we scaled the lower portion of the mountain. One of Robert's mountaineers decide to seize all the glory for himself leaving his partner behind and raced for the summit. The rest of crept slowly but surely towards the middle of the mountain. The weather was bad and it was difficult to make much leeway. One of my mountaineers reached the 7000 mark and pitched a tent. Robert's mountaineer reached the summit! Unfortunately he got caught in the bottleneck and was unable to reach his tent as first my mountaineer had struggled to the 8000 mark but was forced to go back to my tent to stay alive. Then Mary's mountaineer blocked Robert's descent. He failed to survive. The end was coming near to our campaign and I hunkered down in my tents for the rest of the trip. Rose and Mary each lost a mountaineer leaving me the winner!
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