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Chief EGG Head
United States
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I managed to get in a very good variety of games played this past week.
Mary and I played Vis-a-Vis which is a quick little 2 player abstract. The game is played on a 5x5 grid with 25 discs (5 discs of 5 colors). The first player draws a disc randomly from the bag and places it on the grid. The second player may move the disc to a free space orthogonally. They may not jump over other discs. The second player scores for palindromic patterns. Then the players reverse roles for the other player to score.
We also played Haggis. Haggis is a great little 2 player climbing trick game. Tichu for two. Look forward to more plays of this one.
Got in my favorite filler Floriado. We used some homemade tiles and Mary had found some nice snail meeples to use.
Since I've been on my quest to play all the GIPF games we played ZÈRTZ. Zertz is the one with spheres that look like really tasty jaw breakers. So far I'd have to give this one the lowest rank out of the GIPF games I've played so far. I need to give it it another try but it just seemed to lack some of the tension the other games in the series give.
Mary had wanted to play Maestria which I had never heard of, but it sounded interesting-a combination word game, puzzle game, speed game. Each player gets 35 tiles which have colored areas some curved, some straight, some end pieces. The players race to use these tile to form letters and make word worth the most points. Then they exchange tiles and go again. This was a lot harder than it seemed to get words that were long enough to score the big bonus points. I'm looking forward to a rematch!
On Saturday we were off to the game day. We pulled out Brass. Brass is still one of my all time favorites. Our game had one new player and two newish players. It's kind of interesting playing with new players and seeing how they discover the game.
While we were waiting for the next meaty game to start we played
Psyche-Paths an old game of connections. We played the cardboard edition, very 70's!
On to the next heavy game. One of the players wanted to try Indonesia which he had brought. I've played it before but was just learning the game. I had only played with 3 players previously and this time we had 5 players. I suspect the best number is 3 or 4. Still I was glad to have the opportunity to play it and refresh my memory of how to play so I'll be ready if I get the chance to play with 4! In this game the Siap Faji merger was huge and the player that gained the company ran away with the game. I'd really like to try this ones with 4 players.
Continuing on my path to playing 2 player abstracts Cary and I played YINSH. Yinsh is kind of like Pente meets Othello. Pretty easy to learn but plenty hard to play! Really enjoyed this one.
So last week had seen the arrival of South African Railroads a different map for the Pampas Railroads system. Cary, Robert and I set this up for a run through. Cary and Robert each bought 2 stock in the opening auctions and had 1. Robert started out with the red company and green company. Cary had the blue and black and I had the brown company. Yellow starts after Johannesburg is started. I was able to get a hand up in blue stock which Cary had boosted the value of by paying for one of the special developments. Cary collected the yellow stock and won the game by owning the single stocks out in yellow and black. Here is the final board
I've been on a Cwali kick lately and had recently picked up Morisi in a trade. The concept is pretty simple here. You pick up resources as you move around the board and use them to build a network between cities. Players put houses in the cities they connect and earn points in the best connected cities as well as for their network at the end of the game. Plays very quickly and worked well with 3. Here is a close up of the tiles I really like the nice clean look of the art.
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