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Gary Heidenreich
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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November 29, 2011
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and got to spend time with their loved ones. Perhaps games were played? As for me, we did get the game of Rail Baron that we talked about. We had five of us and Dianne brought over her monster board she made.
I had jumped out early and bought the SAL, which screwed Dianne as she had to go to Miami (so she had to pay me to get to and from Miami). So, because of that, the vendetta was set and I found it difficult to have people ride my rails when they had a choice and instead rode Timm's rails. I did have one of my strongest games (I had the Santa Fe AND the Southern Pacific) but some poor late runs and with everyone riding Timm's Union Pacific out west, my cash flow dried up and stagnated. He got the win. He also had a very nice rail system, as well. The extra cash he got helped him make up the gap I had created. All part of the game.  I like this one about once a year. With five of us, it took us about six hours but we were chatty and such. It was a very good time!
Played Clans and Islas Canarias twice each over the holiday weekend. I'm now officially a Leo Colovini fan. I like the tactical style (and abstractness) of many of his games. Neither game was long, at all, but they can get deep, I feel.
So, Tuesday. It was Mike, Timm, Chris, Kevin and myself. It had been a long while, but we broke out Mammoth Hunters and had to re-learn the game. What a crazy game of screw you, implied help and deals, and area control. The give and take of the stones to pay for your card use is a very interesting mechanic. You collect stones when you use a dark card (giving benefit to your opponents). You pay stones when you use a light card to gain benefit for yourself. It has to be balanced out so you have turns. Once the stones are gone from the dark card side, the round ends. The conflict starts when areas can only support a certain amount of hunters (and that isn't completely known as campfires (which probably increase an area's support) are unknown. Hunters are plucked off and all hunters score. The glaicer comes and wipes out an area (which usually has hunters in it). It's tactical for the most part but you have to plan your cards to make sure you have enough stones to use what you want to use. It's mean. Very mean. And once the rules are down, it can be quick. Mike won with 57, Kevin had 40, Chris 39, I had 36 and Timm had 30.
After the above, we broke out the Sheepshead deck for some five handed. We played 14 hands. Heh. I ended at -14. Interesting. Mike broke even, Chris had 3, Kevin had 4 and Timm had 7. I felt a swing coming on, we should have played longer. LOL
Mike left so we had time for a shortish one, so we got into our teams and played Some'R'Set (Chris and I versus Timm and Kevin are the normal teams. First hand Chris and I got all the tricks and points. We bid 15 so we had 24 points and 9 sand bags. The last four or so hands the TK team started playing to give us s-bags. Ug. Did not matter as the next hand Chris and I missed our bid by one which brought the score to be tied 22 all. If you get set you subtract double what you misssed your bid by and the opposing team gets double their points. Timm and Kevin won their bid the next hand with only one sand bag so the score was 38 to 20. The last hand we played, Chris and I bid 19 (out of 24). We got 18. We lost another two and earned Timm and Kevin another 12 points to bring their total up to 50. We ended the night at that point.
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