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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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Just a merry trio this week, after Tony's untimely withdrawal at the 11th hour. Ben, Becky and John had enjoyed the previous week's High Society and broke it out again to explore some new strategies. One strategy which wasn't sufficiently explored by John was 'not spending all his money', and he promptly lost the first game after purchasing all three 'promote to peerage' cards. Ben pipped Becky on the remaining points, and everyone was keen enough to deal out another hand, where almost exactly the same thing happened. Two wins for me already - I can't claim that happens every week.
Vikings has been a firm favourite of the Batesons ever since we were introduced to it a couple of months ago (thanks, Darren, if you're reading!), and having finally gotten my hands on a copy it seemed a shame not to give it a good playing. John proudly built a six-tile island, but neglected to employ enough fishermen-Vikings, which cost him in the final run, and Becky's negligence in feeding everyone didn't quite account for her extra boatsman in the final tally. Ben won this one as well, and suddenly was three games up!
We were just bagging things up and debating what to play next when John hinted that the Progress-variant of Vikings looked quite interesting. So we broke it all out again and set up another game. I thought I was doing well to keep my money reserves above zero in the first few rounds, but the tiles were really not falling well, and I was forced to build a six-tile island out of necessity rather than choice! Becky was making full use of the bonus tiles with a ridiculous number of red vikings, and John was dabbling in using his boatsmen a bit better, but still had the same problems in feeding. I picked up a few boatsman bonus tiles towards the end and it proved to be enough for an unexpected victory, particularly given my problems in building coherent islands earlier, and my lack of warriors until the final round. But I was Played 4, Won 4 - definitely some sort of personal best! The consensus was that the Progress version didn't really add very much at all; what's wrong with the basic game?
Keen to end my winning streak, Becky claimed to be fully conversant with On The Underground, although the poor lighting didn't really help with differentiating the purple and brown rails. Luckily the 3-player game didn't need purples, so she played an amalgam of the two. It was a tight-run thing, as this game always is, with the destination cards coming out in a very asymmetric fashion. The lead swung back and forth throughout - there wasn't a time when each of us didn't look to have a clear advantage - but I resigned to losing my perfect record well before the end. Becky and John took it to the last turn, Becky just squeaking a win on the buzzer.
Just time for a quicky before closing time, and I broke out R-Eco and managed to mis-explain the rules, which made for a rather unfulfilling game! Nevertheless, John should be credited for winning under our alternative not-very-good rules. I like this game when it's played properly: must remember the proper instructions next time!
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Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
