Game: Viva Pamplona

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Asdnart — 2008-03-30T16:41:18+00:00

Scoring in progress

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One Fat Pug — 2007-12-10T05:13:16+00:00

Short on bulls, the residents of Pamplona use kangaroos to test their bravery.

Thread: Push or be pushed.

daw65 — 2007-09-30T06:56:29+00:00

Celeste's husband DaveB showed up while we were playing Attika, but with that done, we now needed a game for five players. I was sorting through my bag when Heather spotted Viva Pamplona!. After last session's game with El Toro the Sprinter, she wanted to try it again to see if it went a little better, so we brought it to the table again.

We began with a nice, orderly progression of our pawns. Most everyone was able to move in pairs, to resist pushing. Only DaveB had to move single pawns, and as a result he found himself pushed frequently by other players. Meanwhile, El Toro appeared to be active again, moving first 3 and then 5 in the first two turns. But he slowed down some, moving only 1 in turn three, and he followed that with an attack! Everyone were pretty prepared, though, and scoring was generally pretty good. Dave scored 7, while Heather earned 5, DaveB 4, and Jim 3. Only Celeste didn't cash in, but at least she didn't lose anything, either.

At this point El Toro found his energy. Perhaps the adrenalin from the attack spurred him along. He moved ahead for five straight turns, moving 5, 3, 1, 3, and 4 spaces. Those big early turns stranded folks behind him. Dave, in particular, had lots of pawns stuck behind, and he struggled to catch up. Often those efforts didn't allow him to move in pairs, and it left him vulnerable to shoving, which the other players happily provided. As we approached the tomato spaces, we hoped to have some time to catch up.

But El Toro had other ideas. He easily cleared the tomatoes. But immediately afterwards he attacked, and most everyone got hurt by it. Jim and Celeste did OK, gaining 0 and 1, respectively. But Dave had most of his folks behind El Toro, and lost 7 points, while Heather and DaveB each lost 12 with pawns still stuck behind the tomatoes. After the attack both Dave and Jim work to get one pawn in the arena, hoping to at least secure one point should El Toro spring into the arena. The others either could not, or chose not to get into the arena, hoping that they could be close enough should the bull attack again. But just as after the first attack, El Toro took off after the attack, moving four spaces and right into the arena. That, of course, ended the game, so we tallied the points. Heather and DaveB still had lots of pawns behind El Toro, and lost 16 and 18 points, respectively. Dave, Jim and Celeste did much better, losing only 10, 9, and 9 points. Dave and Jim each also earned one point for their runners in the arena. But it was Jim who had a bigger number of chips as the game ended, and the fewest losses when counting up at the end, who came away with the win, with 23 points to Dave's 20, Celeste's 12, DaveB's 8 and Heather's 5.

Well, this was less frantic than last time. At least El Toro attacked twice. But there was still a lot of frantic running just to catch up, and again the arena finished awfully empty. Wow.

Thread: El Toro the sprinter!

daw65 — 2007-09-30T06:29:51+00:00

Heather was now available to join us, so with five of us we brought out a new favorite here at game night, Viva Pamplona!

It started strangely. Jim, Heather, and Helen all ended up landing in the first safety space (colored orange on the board), and ended up having to lose bravery chips for it. Jim even landed in the second one as well. But I think perhaps the most frightened was El Toro himself. He started of with a move of 5! We immediately started to scramble to catch up, but he would have none of that. He moved another 5 spaces, and then 4, and then 3 and 3 in succession. We were all falling way, way behind. When he finally did attack, in the sixth round, people were far enough back that no one earned a net positive score, and the smallest loss was Dave, who lost 7 points. Alice and Heather had it the roughest, as they each lost 14 points for that attack for having too many runners too far back.

After all this movement, El Toro was approaching the tomato spaces, and we all thought that this would be our chance to catch up. And yes, his first movement after the attack was three spaces, which landed him in the tomatoes and forced him to slide on back. But that was his only round. His next move was a 4, and he was over, and pushing toward the arena. Jim and Dave were the first to get two of their runners past the tomatoes. The next turn the others did as well, but Alice was unlucky enough to get pushed back into the tomatoes, falling further behind. El Toro's next move was 2, and he was threatening to enter the arena, so Dave and Heather both got one of their runners in the arena. The others held back, hoping to score on an attack, because El Toro had only attacked once. But no, he had that urge to ramble, and continued straight on into the arena, ending the game. So we tallied the scores. Only Dave and Heather scored by making it into the arena. Lagging runners cost anywhere from 8 points (Dave, Heather, Helen), 10 (Alice), or 12 (Jim) points. And then when we added in remaining chips, we discovered that Dave had managed to snag the win with 14 points, only three better than Heather in second place, and a full 16 fewer than that with which each player started!

I've played this game a few times now, and I've had speedy El Toros before, but boy, never this fast. Only one attack the entire game? And he never moved only one square! It really became an exercise in minimizing losses, rather than making gains. But it was even fun to all whine together every time he sprinted ahead.

Thread: El Toro the pacifist.

daw65 — 2007-04-16T05:44:33+00:00

We still had some time left before folks had to leave, and we still had six players, so I reached back into the bag and got out Viva Pamplona.

In our previous session, we started off with no arrows rolled for a while, so the first round or so was pretty placid. Not this time. This time we ended up rolling lots of arrows. This gave some folks a lot of flexibility, and meant that there was a lot of pushing. At one point Dave had a nice roll that allowed him to push him to push a runner from each Jeff and Paul, earning four courage points in the process. Paul, in fact, found himself pushed around quite a bit. Of course he didn't play in the previous session, so wasn't as immediately aware of just how easy it can be to get pushed around. Apart from that, of course, we were all trying to limit our movement, to stay as close to El Toro as possible. But El Toro had other plans. His first three moves were 2, 3, and 5 spaces! We were fighting just to keep up.

We all did our best to close the gap, but didn't have much time. El Toro attacked! Angel and Paul were best positioned, earning 7 points from the attack. Dave, who had had all three of his runners behind El Toro before the turn, did manage to reduce the pain some, losing only five points with the attack. From here the group rounded the turn and headed toward the tomato spaces. It's always a place for lots of pushing, as runners are pushed onto the tomato spaces only to have them fall back again. And El Toro cooperated here, slowing up with moves of 4, 3, 1, and 1 before even getting to the tomatoes, and then twice moving onto a slippery space and sliding back again. That gave everyone some opportunities to get across and head toward the arena. Angel took advantage, and was the first to get all three of her runners across. Jeff and Danielle, on the other hand, thought that El Toro was getting ready to attack, and kept some of their runners back with him. Unfortunately, it didn't happen, and a 3 move got El Toro past the tomatoes.

With El Toro closing in on the arena, players started pushing their runners ahead, to get them into scoring spaces before the game ended. Angel, the first to cross the tomatoes, was also the first into the arena. She and Paul both forged ahead, and got all three of their runners in early. Jim delays as long as he can, but decides to head on in. El Toro moved 3, but then moved only 1, giving everyone a little more time to get runners in. Dave and Jeff both decided to leave a runner out of the stadium, hoping that El Toro would attack, giving them points for the attack and a later spot in the arena. And it worked, because El Toro attacked, giving both of them a few extra points. Danielle, who had some trouble with the tomatoes, actually was still a bit behind El Toro before the attack, so while she lost a few points from the attack, she also managed some valuable arena spots as well.

Finally everyone made their way into the arena, and the game ended. Angel ended the game with the most points after the run itself, 39. The next closest was Dave, with 31. But we still had the arena spots to score. Would Angel hold on? Danielle managed 20 points from the arena, but she started with the second lowest race score, of 24. That gave her 44 points, which was a remarkable comeback. Jeff and Dave both had 15 points from the arena. They had had 30 and 31, respectively, from the race, so finished with 45 and 46. But Angel, even though she only scored 9 points from the arena, had just enough to hold off the others, finishing up with 48 points and her first win with us.

El Toro seemed like he was just out for a nice jog through town. After all, he only attacked twice. There was an awful lot of pushing, though, which made the trip entertaining, except maybe for Paul, who finished the run with only 20 points in chips, and that was with gaining 7 in El Toro's first attack. Yeah, it's a lighter game, but it's not without its tactics.

Thread: Don't get too far behind El Toro!

daw65 — 2007-03-13T00:45:13+00:00

With Jeff and Danielle we now had five. Jim thought there still might be more coming, so we set up something fairly quick, so we could start something new when (if?) they arrived. Dave pulled out a new game from his bag, Viva Pamplona!

The first round was odd, in that no one rolled an arrow. Also, everyone rolled different numbers, so no pushing occurred. El Toro moved only 2, so no one had gotten too far ahead. But then the pushing started in earnest. Jeff in particular was getting good rolls, and consistently moved pairs of his folks into spaces to shove around a pawn or three. And usually this was because he landed in the space next to El Toro, where the other pawns hoped to score big once the bull attacked. Finally, after moves of 1, 3, and 3, El Toro finally attacked. It was on the turn where Jeff was start player, though, so he hadn't been able to push anyone away, and scoring was pretty even, with Jeff scoring 6, Danielle only 2, but everyone else 3. But that invigorated El Toro, and he sprang away from there with a movement of 5, followed by a second attack. Jim found all his pawns too far ahead of the bull, and Jeff had a mix in front and behind, resulting in only one point, but Dave, Danielle, and Alice all scored six points from that attack.

El Toro tired at this point, and moved slowly for a while. That left the players wondering whether to dally too long, or forge ahead to the arena. Also, we were closing on the tomato spaces. Dave chose to hop over the tomato spaces when he had the opportunity, quickly getting two of his pawns over. Danielle got one ahead as well. But the back up started in the first space before the tomato spaces. And Jeff and Jim had fun pushing people onto the tomatoes, only to have them slide back to be the next target, and having them pay bravery points even though they still slid back. While this was happening, Toro moved 1, then 1, then 2 (and sliding back the tomato spaces), but then jumped 5 and then 4, and then attacked. Well, at that point there were still a bunch of pawns struggling to get over the tomatoes, and it was a major hit for Jeff (-8), Jim (-7), and Alice (-7). Dave and Danielle scored well, getting 3 and 5 points, respectively.

At this point folks ran for the arena. Danielle and Dave moved in first, but Danielle went farther, and thus scored lower in the stands. Jim was able to get two in fairly late (+5 each), and Alice followed even later (2 pawns at +6). Jeff managed one, but the other two were stranded when El Toro finally entered the arena, as were one pawn each from Jim and Alice. In the final scorings, Danielle earned 6 from her three pawns (1, 2, 3), Jeff earned nothing (4, -2, -2), Jim earned 5 (5, 5, -5), Alice earned 4 (6, 6, -8) and Dave earned 12 (6, 4, 2). That was enough for Dave to take down the win, with 47 courage points. Olé!

I like this game as a fairly light game with some interaction that can be played by a pretty good-sized group. It's never going to be the main event at a game night, but it makes for a good filler sort of game for 2-6 players.

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cktjharris — 2006-09-05T17:03:22+00:00

The Back of the Box

Thread: Re: Pushing pays, The bull is ignored

i7dealer — 2006-09-02T00:17:32+00:00

We did rotate the start player, as it seemed really bad to let the guy going first to get tag teamed by the rest of the players every time. We tried to spread the 'love' as it were around the table.

We did not play that the yellow spaces did anything other than lose you a point when you landed there. There was mention that keeping with the theme you should get points if the bull attacked while you were 'hiding' since it seemed pretty cowardly, but the random effect of the bull charging whenever it liked made it seem even nastier to push people into the yellow squares, and I for one didn't need any more negative stuff that could be forced on me by other players.

I do admit in my review that I don't like this kind of game, and I do say there (and again) that if you don't mind games that involve some random give and take, picking on people in a game, this will probably be for you. My gripe is that it didn't need to be like that. It could have had the bull, and the scoring, and the race to get to the arena last but not be left outside. All those things were really pretty neat ideas, and well themed. I just object to the game since I think in the two games we played the bull paid people about 8 points and took away about 12 points when it attacked, and at the end of both games I had about 10 to 12 chips taken from pushing throughout the game. So that's a 24 point swing just for me. That means that the bull is 1/10th as important as beating other people up for VP chips. That made me sad, since I liked the idea of the game and wanted it to be a game about getting in front of the bull and all.

I did calculate the odds that I wouldn't see an 'attack' card in the 9 cards (2 fours and a 5 in that series of nine!) out of 6/18 card set. The answer is: .6% chance, so lucky me. I did play another game to try and see if it helped, but the ass kicking was too much for me.

Thread: Strange bull

ssmooth — 2006-09-01T17:50:18+00:00

For El Torro to run all the way to the arena without charging a single time is VERY, VERY, VERY unusual. In fact, this is the first time I've ever heard of it happening, and I've played the game a couple dozen times and had several other runnings reported to me. I have heard of a couple of games where the bull only charged once.

So in a typical game, you don't just ignore the bull.

But about keeping your runners together as a defense against pushing: Yes, this is a standard part of the strategy. And there's always going to be pushing. The game is obviously organized in such a way as to keep a big messy mass of runners together. It's supposed to be silly fun, not some masterpiece of strategy and tactics.

Now, you don't mention this, so let me ask: Did you rotate the start player? The rules don't tell you to, but obviously the first player in each round has a much better chance of being pushed and the last player has a much better chance of his runners staying where he puts them for when El Torro draws his card. So everybody I know makes the start player rotate to the left after each turn of El Torro's card.

The other fairly standard (though not unanimous) variation is to make the orange penalty squares also count as "safety" squares. You still pay when you go into them, but while there you're not subject to having to pay when El Torro charges. (You also don't get paid in them.) This gives you another way to maneuver, as you might get one runner left far behind, but on a safety square so you don't have to worry about paying for him.

So, in conclusion: Don't expect too much from this game! Enjoy it as a simple silly romp, a point here, a couple of points there, do the best you can with the dice you roll, and cheer or moan when El Torro makes his move!

Thread: TVB - 3P - In which we wonder about turn order

RPardoe — 2006-09-01T03:49:40+00:00

For our final game of the evening, we decided to run with the bulls in Viva Pamplona - a game we have played a few times previously here in the group. As we raced into the streets with our first two runners, Toro came charging into the streets moving 4 spaces. A couple of turns later Toro charged another 5 spaces suddenly leaving the bulk of the runners behind the bull. Rich had 3 stuck on the wrong side of the bull while Dave and Sabrina had 2. A furious race to catch up and around Toro proved wise as Toro attacked the crowd on the next turn. Rich had 2 runners with the bull and scored nicely for that turn.

Rich then went ahead of the bull as did Sabrina. Dave had one of his pawns still 4 spaces behind the bull so moved it up to Toro while advancing his other pawn. Toro attacks again. This time Dave scores the points as does Sabrina. Rich was too far ahead and missed out on any real points this round.

Our modest pushing rounds started to intensify as Sabrina managed to push both Dave and Rich. Rich tried to slow down his advance, but kept rolling numbers (instead of the free choice arrows) so ended up way in front of the bull (almost to the tomatoes) when Toro next attacked. Sabrina benefited from this attack having the most players close to the bull. Rich tried to use low rolls to not cross the tomatoes hoping to allow Toro to catch up and score more points for Rich. This worked for a little while and soon the crowd was gathered trying to cross the tomatoes. A few runners jumped across the slippery roads as did Toro and now the race to the stadium began in earnest.

But with Toro charging fast, there is a critical decision - stay close to the bull to gain attack points but at the risk of negative points should Toro enter the stadium. Trailing in chips, Rich had to take this gamble and lost. Dave had entered the stadium first and safely scored points with all his players. Sabrina had a mix, some in and some out. The final scores were tallied:

Dave: 52
Sabrina: 38
Rich: 25

Interestingly, we noted that the scores were in reverse play order. Rich was the "first" player after each Toro move while Dave was the last. Commenting on the game, we noted that this gave Dave a small advantage of setting up the runners just before each Toro move. Whether or not this contributed to his win, we did check the rules to see if the "first" player rotated after each Toro move. We didn't see anything in the rules, but on the Geek a few players have adopted this technique using various devices. For example, Doug Adams has a pen....that right "the bullpen"....that is held by the first player. After Toro moves, the bullpen is handed to the next player and they become the first player for that round. A nice improvement I would like to try the next time we play this game.

Thread: Pushing pays, The bull is ignored

i7dealer — 2006-08-31T18:55:09+00:00

Ah, the running of the bulls. How could I not enjoy a game based on running in front of a pissed off animal that outweighs me several times over? A game that simulates the fear and tension of getting crushed by my fellows as we run from a large angry cow? Well, I could play this game, that's how.

In case you are just browsing through text trying to determine what this game is about, here's my one sentence summary: This game is very random, and filled with petty evils to visit onto other players for no good reason. If you enjoy this kind of game, then you will probably be very happy. There are a lot of people (some in the group I play with) that enjoy it very much, and you might be that kind of person too. So I don't say the game sucks, I just didn't enjoy it.

Bits and Pieces:
These were fair, and I love the bull piece. Very cool. Every player has three pawns which represent people participating in the run. There's a special bull deck that moves the bull, and 2 special dice which move your pawns. The board is nicely done, it's a linear track leading to an arena, and it has places for you to place pawns that come in for the finish before the bull crosses the line.

Gameplay:
I played this game twice with 6 people each time. I can't comment on all the variations of players and how they react to the bull. The stated objective of the game is to run as close to the front of the bull as possible to earn courage points when the bull "attacks". Everyone gets a turn to roll the dice and move 2 pawns (one for each die) and then you flip a bull card to see how far the bull moves or if he attacks. There are 18 move cards (1-5 spaces) and 6 "attack" cards, which cause the bull to score instead of moving. If you are withing 3 spaces of the bull's pointy end, you get points. If you are on the butt end of the bull, you are a scaredy cat and lose points. All this is pretty interesting as explained. Where the petty evils come in is in the shoving rule.

After you move your pawns you look over the board and see if there is anywhere on the board where you outnumber any other player in one square. If you do, you take victory points (representing courage, although I don't see how bullying people is courageous) from the person and shove them in a direction. In our group, the decision tree looked something like:

Into the penalty spaces (spaces you landed on which would make you lose a VP)
If not available, into a place where you were most likely to be bullied by the next player in line.
If not available, away from the bull.

Because of the bullying rule, you really, really, wanted to keep your guys together. If you were unfortunate enough to roll numbers that made you move (say a 2 and a 4), you were pretty screwed compared to the guy that rolled "wild" "wild" which allowed him to move a pawn from 0 to 6 squares, their choice. This basically turned a game that had interesting implications to me when I heard the rules (trying to get as close to the bull, maybe pushing people away from the bull so they got less points) to a game that could have been themed on the LA looting riots or something equally randomly violent. The bull was basically ignored in both games we played, since it was so improbable that the scoring was going to happen, and if you tried to manuver to get points from the bull, people would use that to bully you and kick you away from the bull anyways. It was much better to move as a pair, no matter how sucky the place was relative to the bull.

Last thing is the tomato spaces. Almost at the end of the track, is 2 spaces marked red with tomatoes in them. If you landed in one of these two spaces you moved to the previous space until you weren't in tomatoes anymore (rolling downhill if you want to stay with the theme). The bull also will roll down the tomato spaces, so it acts kind of like a hurdle that people have to clear to get to the end. I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that this place was a horrible trap that people would push you into and then on their turn hope for low rolls or wilds to not move and bully you repeatedly, pushing you forward into the tomatos so you'd roll back into the mob space for the next guy to kick. For a good portion of the game, people kept flinging other players into this mob of pawns so they would be kicked for VPs in turn by the others.

Thoughts on the game:
I won't play this game again, so I can't really say what I would do to improve the situation. In all fairness, I think I saw it in it's worst possible light. I played with the maximum number of players, and in the first game the bull never scored, he just ran to the end (winner was the guy with 12 points, you start with 30) The next game the bull scored 4 times fairly close to one another before the bull had moved far along at all. Almost everyone had run past the bull scoring no one many points, so again the importance of the bull was diminished. I think that if the scoring was more evenly distributed (say 2 card scoring, 6 cards move. 3 separate piles stacked similar to Union Pacific) it might make the game more about the bull. As it was, the game was really about not being too far behind the bull when it finished (you score negative points for how far you are from the bull in the end) and rolling lucky to beat up other people who had to split their guys up since they didn't roll doubles. I also thought the "wild" space made it too easy to pair up your pawns and beat up on other people. I would have enjoyed seeing more distributed pawns, not just pairs of people running ahead to beat on others. I disliked the punking people for their points and then shoving them into a crappier spot. Maybe one or the other but not both? I'm not sure.

Like I said in the beginning, my experience might not be typical, but I tried it twice to see if the game improved. As the player to my left said of the second game "This game is really different than the first one, but that just means it sucks in a new way now." I can't bring myself to play anymore, even in the interest in objective reporting. If you like That's Life! or other "take that" kind of games, this one's for you. If not, you might want to avoid this one. The 40 minutes (even with a full board!) to play the game was too much for me.

Thread: Re: Turn order question

RPardoe — 2006-08-24T06:48:01+00:00

Eric Brosius wrote:
the starting player for a round moves one space clockwise around the table each turn.

After tonight's game, we actually looked through the rules to see if the start player shifted. When we found it didn't we thought that we might add it to our next playing. Nice to see that others have considered and are using it.

Last player each round had a significant advantage we found - they could optimize their pawns to push others out of the way to fiddle with the scoring more so than the others (especially the first player). Might be a coincidence, but the order of finish was directly inverse to the (normal) player order - last player was first, first player was last.

With the two recommendations above - will certainly try it. Now to find the bullpen. Or small red tomato token.

Thread: Re: Turn order question

dougadamsau — 2006-03-09T00:06:05+00:00

Eric Brosius wrote:
We play with a variant: the starting player for a round moves one space clockwise around the table each turn. This gives everyone a chance to be first and a chance to be last.

We do this as well. We give the start player a pen (the "bullpen"), and when the bullpen holder has their next turn, they simply pass the pen on to the left, and skip their turn.

Thread: Re: Turn order question

Eric Brosius — 2006-03-08T23:09:01+00:00

We play with a variant: the starting player for a round moves one space clockwise around the table each turn. This gives everyone a chance to be first and a chance to be last.

Thread: Re: Turn order question

Fledermaushaus — 2006-03-08T21:50:12+00:00

According to the German rules the start player is the first one to shout 'Olé' and turns then continue clockwise. The turn order stays the same throughout the game.

Thread: Turn order question

Psauberer — 2006-03-08T20:02:33+00:00

Is a start player randomly chosen? Then does the start player stay the same for each turn?

Thread: TVB - 4 Player - Ask not for whom the bull rolls...

RPardoe — 2006-02-26T07:12:40+00:00

As both of our first games played relatively quickly, we had time for a final game. We opted for a game that we had played before to reduce the rules explanation. Our choice was _Viva Pamplona_ and has Sabrina had played this game in the past also, she joined us for a final 4 player game. (We last played this on 29 June 2005 during "V" week in our journey through the alphabet last year and a description of the game play is found in that session report - also posted on the geek.)

This time, the bull was off and running quickly jumping out 8 spaces leaving 9 pawns in his wake. As we quickly moved up to the bull who finally attacked near the first bend in the course. Rich was adjacent to the bull with 2 pawns - but was in the safety space. We tried the "house" rule that safety spaces prevent any points whether in front or behind, so Rich did not get the 6 points he would have been entitled to otherwise. The bull in this game was a quick one continuing to charge ahead leading most players and attacks saw people lose points or just barely stay even.

The tomato patch again halted everyone for a bit, but not the bull who quickly jumped over. But the bull was to run out of steam in the final push. Moving slowly and allowing the players to catch up and start to enter the stadium. A quick survey of the table revealed that Jeff appeared to be in the lead, so Dave (and Rich) took a chance that the bull would attack while it was 1 space from the end. The luck of the cards had the bull attacking gaining points for both Dave and Rich. Still behind Jeff's points - both took a chance again and again the bull attacked.

But such was not to last forever, and the bull finally entered the stadium, but not before all the players had done so also. Points were tallied:

Sabrina: 13
Rich: 29
Jeff: 33
Dave: 42

Dave's play (and good fortune) of capturing points for the last bull rampages pays off for the win. Sabrina suffered from racing a bit too fast to the stadium and ending up in the cheaper seats (lower points).

Viva Pamplona is a nice lighter game. Plays well with a large groups and captures the pandemonium of running with the bulls. Having played with the orange spaces as just a payment space and as a "don't gain/lose points" space, I find I prefer the as-written rules - landing in an orange space just costs the point. As one can get pushed into the space, these spaces offer to opportunity to encourage the pushing and shoving that is part of the game.

Thread: Wait for us!

Henry Rhombus — 2006-02-13T22:30:59+00:00

With a half-hour left in the evening for both me and Max, I pushed for Viva Pamplona, a game new to Max, Dave, and Sarah. After going over the brief rules, we then ran the strangest VP game I've ever encountered. The bull charged only once, and otherwise was galloping 3, 4, or 5 spaces each turn. We kept saying that the bull had to stop at some point and gambled by keeping our dudes close, but the bull entered the arena before anyone else. After paying the penalties, Dave won with a grand score of 4, Max and Sarah tied for second with 1, and I finished with exactly 0.

Everyone was convinced that the bull movement was an aberration, so despite bumping against the half-hour mark, we set up the race and played again. The bull stuttered more in this game, moving 1 or 2 spaces several times, but it charged only twice. Unfortunately, Sarah netted beaucoup points the second time, and combined with decent arena placement, she won with 53 points. I had 47, Dave had 40-something, and Max threw in his chips in disgust as his dudes were the first in the arena and had been bullied far more than they had bullied.

Taking a closer look at the bull deck gives a breakdown of:

6 Charge
3 Movement 1
3 Movement 2
5 Movement 3
3 Movement 4
2 Movement 5

This gives 46 spaces of movement divided over 22 cards, which means on average the bull moves a little more than 2 spaces each turn. In our first game, we must have drawn all the 5s and 4s with only one Charge -- a strange mix, but one that's bound to occur in a card-based game. I have also had a game in which the bull charged again and again without moving as the pawns moved far, far away, scoring everyone no points and making the game more about arena placement and bullying than machismo.

Some people I've introduced Viva Pamplona to have soured on the game after one race, yet I find it delightful -- as long as everyone takes their turns within 15 seconds or so. Yes, you have decisions to make, but they're not so complicated that you have to explore every possibility of movement. You have to consider bullying, traveling in packs for safety, or being near the bull; just consider quickly and keep the game moving!

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GeoMan — 2006-01-15T00:35:24+00:00

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GeoMan — 2005-12-30T22:43:19+00:00

Closeup

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GeoMan — 2005-12-30T22:43:19+00:00

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gamesnight — 2005-11-10T22:01:09+00:00

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Spiderman_ — 2005-10-30T11:57:59+00:00

Cards

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edroz — 2005-07-05T19:38:18+00:00

Running with the bull.

Thread: Re: User Review

RPardoe — 2005-07-04T23:58:32+00:00

Eric -

Thanks for the clarification. When I first read the rules, I thought there was more to the orange spaces than just paying the 1 courage point, but when I searched the rules I couldn't find it, so left it as we played.

When I saw your explanation, I again wondered if I had overlooked something. But from your comment (and Greg's Session Report), it appears that the "safe" orange space is a variant/house-rule that is perhaps widely used. I will keep it in mind and perhaps try it out during a future playing.

Thanks again,

Rich

Thread: Re: User Review

Eric Brosius — 2005-07-04T19:42:19+00:00

Richard,

I learned the safety space interpretation from someone who explained that the game becomes more interesting when you use it. I'm not sure where it originated, but Greg Schlosser mentions it in his session report here on BGG:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geekforum.php3?action=viewthrea...

Note that (at least the way we play it) once El Torro enters the arena, the orange spaces are no longer safe, so you may take a whopping big penalty if you try to play orange-space bingo.

Eric

Thread: TVB - 4 Player - 60 minutes

RPardoe — 2005-07-01T07:01:48+00:00

Sterling, Lawrence and Dave returned to Rich's house to play a couple of V games. While both Dave and Rich had recently acquired Viking Fury, neither had yet read the rules, so this game was vetoed. Vinci was also considered, but thought perhaps a bit long for a mid-week game. After a bit of discussion, the first game was

Viva Pamplona
4 Player (all new)
1 hour w/ rules explanation

Pamplona is the city where the bulls are run from the Santo Domingo corrals to the Bull Ring every July 6~14 (nice almost coincidental timing with our game). This game uses that event as its theme. Each player has 3 pawns they are attempting to move over the course while be chased by Torro (the bull). The trick is that you want to be in front of the bull, but not by much. Each turn is played in 2 phases. In the first phase, each player (in turn) rolls 2 dice and must now move 2 of their pawns by the amount shown on the die. The twist is that the die have a mix of pips and arrows. For pips, the pawn must move forward that amount. For arrows, the pawn can move anywhere from 0 to 6 spaces. While playing, this gives a nice mix of luck (pip moves) and tactics (arrow moves). As each player has only 3 pawns, one pawn stands still each turn.

After all the players have moved their pawns, the bull is moved by working through a deck of cards. Most of the cards indicated the bull moves forward a number of spaces from 1 to 5. But about 1/4 of the cards are "The Bull Attacks". If one of these is turned up, the bull doesn't move, and "courage" points are awarded to those players closest to the bull. 3 points for being in the same space, 2 points for being 1 space in front, 1 point for being 2 spaces in front, and 0 if further in front. Should a player be behind the bull, they lose 1 point for each space behind.

This is continued until the bull has raced around the course and entered the stadium. Pawns that entered the stadium before the bull are placed in the stadium seats. The first seats are worth 1 point, the next 2, and so on. So it pays to be "before the bull, but not by much" to try to gain the higher valued seats. At game's end, any pawns still behind the bull again lose points.

The course while a straight path (no branches) does have a few hazards on it. Certain squares are "safety" squares where one suddenly experiences a bit of fear and hides from the bull. This uncourageous action costs the player 1 courage point, so anyone landing on such a square voluntarily or involuntarily (explain this next) must lose a point. The final hazard is two adjoining "tomato" squares. Anyone landing on these squares slides backwards to the clear space in front of the tomoatoes needing to roll a 3 or higher to cross the slippery slope. (Perhaps this is a reference to La Tomatina that takes place at the Plaza Del Pueblo in the town of Buñol?).

About that involuntary movement mentioned above, the final tactic is that if at the end of a player's move, the monving player's pawns outnumber the pawns of another player (3:1, 3:2, or 2:1), they are allowed to push those pawns forwards or backwards 1 or 2 spaces. In addition, 1 or 2 points is transferred from the pushed to the pusher. (The difference in pawn count determines the number of spaces and points paid.)

Our game started reasonably enough. Pawns moved forward, the bull moved, pawns moved again, and the bull attacked the crowds. Sterling managed to grab the bulls horns for 3 points while Rich had jumped in front of the bull pushing others out of the way. The only thing unusual to date was that Dave had rolled double-arrows in both his turns.

But the game was a bit lopsided. As it turns out the bull attacked 3 times in the first 6 moves (Moves 2, 4, and 6). By this time, we started being a bit nastier to each other, pushing people forward to the safety spaces forcing that person to pay 1 point for being pushed and 1 point for being in the safety space. Dave did this to Rich once who returned the favour. But while we were fighting it out, Sterling calmly was the only one close to the bull during the third attack and the only player to score points.

The pawns had progressed about halfway around the board (as had the bull) when Sterling and Rich decided to gamble by not moving their pawns. It paid out as the Bull attacked yet again. Now thinking that the bull was more likely to sprint to the arena as the deck was sure to hold more movement cards than attack cards, the players started to line up around those slippery tomatoes. But the bull didn't move, it attacked (Rich still reasonably close) and attacked again (no one close). That's right all of the bulls attacks had occurred in the first half of the course. Now everyone started to sprint towards the coliseum either to get into the seats for points or to minimize the negative points for being behind the bull. And a sense of desperation started to settle in as players find themselves falling behind the fast moving bull.

As the bull approached the finish line, it stopped just short allowing everyone one last chance to reach the stadium. But out of the 12 pawns, only 5 manage to get into the stadium for some modest positive points. 7 pawns are trapped outside the stadium losing points.

Once the courage points are tallied, Sterling had the most with 38, followed by Rich with 35, Lawrence with 31, and Dave with 30.

A very interesting game. As I mentioned above, at first glance it appears to be a roll and move game, but the arrows on the die give the game enough tactical play to make it interesting. One die has 3 arrows and 3 pips, so a player should be seeing at least 1 arrow half the time. The freedom to make a move of 1 to 6 or even no move at all adds the necessary a bit of tactics to this game to make it interesting. This is measured against the bull's movement which is a series of cards - so the odds are relatively well known and not dependant on the "luck of the roll" at all. In fact, there are more movement points in the bull deck than necessary to get the bull to the stadium, so there is always some odds to the bulls movements. (Unlike say Finstere Flure where the monsters movement at the end of a phase is one of 2 possible tiles.) There is a nice feeling of a crowd running through the streets with the jostling and pushing of the mob. In other words, the theme tends to work with this one. All-in-all, a neat, quick to play, enjoyable romp of a game that was very enjoyable.

Afterword
I did play another game the next day with a much different feel. The bull was sprinting around the first half of the course with the result that everytime it attacked, most pawns were behind it and all players were paying courage points to the bank. The odds did even up a bit as the bull slowed down a bit at the tomatoes, but the game did play out very differently than the game reported above. I think I like this quirk of the game where the bull's movement isn't all that predictable.

Thread: Orange Safe Space - Clarification - Error in user review?

RPardoe — 2005-06-30T19:58:47+00:00

Eric Brosius wrote:
A few of the spaces along the route from the starting chute to the arena are "safe" spaces. These represent manholes, barrels, lampposts, or other places where a runner can hide safely from the bull. When you are on one of these spaces, you neither gain nor lose courage points when the bull goes wild---regardless of where you are in relation to the bull.

Reading the translation here and the original german rules (via Babelfish) - I do not see this action. The German translation indicates that these are "cower" or "fear" spaces where you have ducked for cover so pay up 1 courage point. I do not see that you are prevented from gaining/losing points when the bull goes wild.

We have only played these spaces as paying the single point cost for landing there (either willingly or unwillingly). Perhaps I have missed this part of the rules, where can I find the reference to the point you make - the spaces protect you (positively or negatively) when the bull attacks?

Image

godongi — 2004-11-05T19:02:26+00:00

Thread: User Review

Eric Brosius — 2004-09-02T23:13:25+00:00

VIVA PAMPLONA
(Eric, Rich, Evan, Vitas, Dave, Dan)

Anton made his usual early departure, leaving us with 6. Eric ran over to his tub o' games and pulled out Viva Pamplona, a game he had just acquired in a trade. Eric was happy to have traded Amun-Re (a game he doesn't enjoy) for Viva Pamplona, a game he had learned in July and wanted to play again.

Viva Pamplona depicts the running of the bulls in the Spanish city of Pamplona. Each player controls three pawns that represent runners, while the bull is controlled by a pack of cards. The bull runs through the streets of Pamplona, heading for the arena, stopping occasionally to go wild. The runners try to be as close to the bull as possible when it goes wild, because proximity to the bull when it goes wild earns you courage points. You don't have full control over your movement, which is governed by two dice (assuring that at least one of your runners will not be able to move each turn.) If you are too far out in front of the bull, you gain no courage points, but it's even worse to trail behind the bull, in which case you lose a courage point for each space a runner is behind. You might think it would be possible to be gored if you are next to the bull when it goes wild, but this isn't the case. The bull harms only your pride.

It's another story with your fellow players. Whenever a rival's runners outnumber your own in a space at the end of the rival's turn, you can be shoved forward or back by the superior numbers of your rival. Even worse, you pay the rival courage points when this happens, even though it's a matter of superior numbers---not one of courage.

A few of the spaces along the route from the starting chute to the arena are "safe" spaces. These represent manholes, barrels, lampposts, or other places where a runner can hide safely from the bull. When you are on one of these spaces, you neither gain nor lose courage points when the bull goes wild---regardless of where you are in relation to the bull. There's a catch, however. Every time one of your runners enters a "safe" space, you pay one courage point to the bank. What's more, you pay this courage point even if a fellow player shoved you onto the "safe" space; in this case you pay your fellow player as well as the bank!

In our game, the bull came out of the chute and went wild three times in succession. Most of the players were well ahead of the bull by this time (the bull doesn't move when he goes wild, but the runners must move as shown by the dice.) Eric benefited from a series of "wild" die rolls that allowed him to stay close to the bull, opening up a big lead. Rich was particularly distraught about a series of high rolls that soon had him out of sight of El Toro.

After going wild three times, the bull took off like a rocket for the arena. We went from trying to hold back to running as fast as we could in his wake. Just after the middle of the race there's a slippery spot where the spectators throw tomatoes (isn't the tomato throw in Bunol, not Pamplona?) and both runners and bull can slide backward, but the bull didn't even slow down as he charged past. The bull reached the arena before any of the runners arrived, so we were all assessed penalty points for cowardice. Rich's early lead stood him in good stead at the end as he suffered a smaller penalty than anyone else.

Final scores: Eric 30, Dan 22, Rich 22, Dave 14, Evan 13, Vitas 3.

Eric's rating: 8. I really like this game. It has the feel of the rushing mob, with the unpredictability introduced by that wacky bull. I have a strong tolerance for games with luck in them as long as the mechanics are smooth. I asked the others for their ratings, and they were all over the map: Eric 8, Dan 7, Evan 6, Vitas 5, Rich 4 (but better than Zaubercocktail!) Part of the reason Rich didn't like it may have been his sense of outrage over the idea that I traded Amun-Re (one of Rich's favorite games) for it. Dave liked Viva Pamplona, but couldn't assign a number after only one playing.

It's a shame that this particular game was so atypical. Usually the bull runs, then goes wild, then runs some more, then goes wild again, and so forth. In this game the "bull goes wild" cards all came up at once just after we started and he didn't go wild again. Next time it'll be different (though I suspect Rich won't be playing next time.)

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2003-12-18T23:02:51+00:00

Although this game has been around for many years and I’ve had the opportunity to play it at numerous conventions and get-togethers, I had never felt the urge to acquire a copy until recently. I was able to secure a copy at the Spiele Faire in Essen and finally brought it to the table. My fellow runners were Ashton, Darren, Liz, Steve and Michael.

We did play that the orange spaces are “safe”. Although costing a courage point to enter, no rewards or penalties would be earned by any pawns in those spaces if the bull raged. However, we did play that these spaces were no longer safe once the bull entered the arena.

For some reason, our game was brutal, with lots of pushing and shoving, causing the loss of copious amounts of courage points. When the bull ran, he charged ahead at the speed of a gazelle, racing far ahead of the runners. Thus, when he raged, the majority of runners were considerably behind, which cost even more courage points. Brutal. To top it off, the bull raced into the arena with only a handful of runners ahead of him. The loss of courage points for those left outside was shocking, resulting in every player ending with less courage than their starting amount.

Finals: Steve 29, Greg 20, Michael 16, Liz 14, Darren 8, Ashton 3

Ratings: Steve 7, Liz 7, Michael 7, Greg 6, Ashton 6, Darren 5.5

Thread: Session Report

PBrennan — 2002-04-03T10:06:01+00:00

The perfect game for 4 am. Luck, shoving, barging, theme, theme, theme as you try and stay even or just ahead of the bull as he surges and slows and surges towards the arena. It gets another rating point for the pleasure of chanting PULL THE BULL each round.

Scores: Rick the Brave 35
Pusillanous snivveling cowards included: David 33, Lindsay 32, Kevin 31, Warwick and myself 27

A rating of 6 after 10 games; a good occasional closer with lots of players.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-07-27T17:54:04+00:00

In Attendance: Barb, Debra, Joy, Kevin, Kevin N.(me), Ray.

Continuing the trend of quick games, the six of us moved on to this delightful little strategic dice rolling game.

Each player controls three pawns that represent runners participating in the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. On your turn, roll two special six-sided dice and move two of your three pieces (your choice which two) appropriately. The dice are special becasue some of the sides show an arrow rather than a number. In this case, you may read the die as any number of your choosing from one to six.

Gameplay hangs off of a twofold strategy. First, keep as close to the bull as possible without being behind him. When he chooses to attack, you score courage chips for being with or in front of him (or zero if you’re too far ahead) but you’re penalized big time if you’re behind him. Second, use your pawns to gang up on other pawns and push them around. They pay you courage chips and you may also choose to nudge their pawns to less advantageous spaces.

Somebody should’ve checked our bull for steroid use though, as Debra was the only person to get a pawn to the end of the track before the bull reached the arena and I won by the sheer fortune of being one of the few people with courage chips left. Ray insisted that the game doesn’t generally end so quickly and I look forward to trying it again.

Thread: Session Report

dougadamsau — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Present: Doug, Roger, Julian C., Debbie, Tina, Alan, Julian W., Janet

Roger Smith writes:

Debbie: 67
Roger: 62
Doug: 50
Julian C: 48
Tina: 45

A new game for Debbie and Tina who had the luxury of having the rules explained to them BEFORE the game (I still remember my first game of this at Billabong). A nifty Kramer design based on the annual running of the bulls in Spain. . Players roll dice to move three pawns around a track, attempting to stay equal to, or just ahead of the bull, thus gathering machismo points. You can use a majority of pawns in one space to push your opponents' pawn(s) backward or forwards one or two spaces - robbing them of machismo points in the process. The mechanics remind me very much of the Great Balloon Race. I really thought I had a chance in this one as I was getting pretty good rolls throughout. However, Debbie seemed to grasp the strategy fairly quickly and romped it in.

Roger's rating: 7

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Aldie, George, Ken

Even though we'd just finished Exxtra, it was after 11:00 when Derk left, and the three of us were still in the mood for something light. Viva Pamplona came up, and after a quick read of the rules, we started at it.

Viva Pamplona is a simple game about scoring courage points during the running of the bulls. Each player has three runners he controls, and on his turn rolls two dice to determine how far he can move two of his runners. For each die that shows an arrow instead of a number, he can choose any movement from zero to six.

After all players have moved, a bull card is revealed. Either the bull, Toro, moves ahead, or stays were he is and freaks out. When he freaks out, the players closest to him (but not behind him) score points based on proximity. Runners behind the bull lose points.

As players make it to the arena at the end, they pack themselves into the seats. The earlier a runner gets into the arena, the lower that runner's courage contribution will be when Toro arrives. On the other hand, if the bull gets to the arena before one of your runners does, that runner costs you points.

The most strategic element in the game is the concept of 'pushing'. If you've just finished your two moves and your runners in a space outnumber some other player's, you can push one of his runners out of that space. This forces him to pay you some courage, and you may be able to push him into a space that costs him additional courage.

The only rules question we had was: is player order supposed to change or be constant throughout? We just wondered because it seems like some advantage to move last, just before the bull's round. The rules didn't really specify either way, so we assumed a constant turn order was implied but changed it anyway, so that whoever had a runner in the lead at the beginning of the runners' turn rolled first. Then we continued clockwise.

We rolled, we ran, and George and I spent a lot of time pushing each other. Toro was moving slow at the beginning, and freaking out about every other turn. Thinking that this was the normal way of things, all of us tried to keep our runners hanging back to collect those courage points. Then, about halfway through the game, the high-numbered 'Toro moves' cards started appearing, and it was all we could do to keep up. In the end, though, all but a few runners made it to the arena before the bull did. Totaling up our courage points, I barely edged out George for the win, and Aldie was behind by a fair bit.

I suspect Viva Pamplona makes a good family game, and it might be really good for five or six players. For three gamers, even at that late hour, it was pretty uninspiring.

Thread: Session Report

dougadamsau — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Janet says:

Darren got some good turns down early, and earned a lot of macho points by pushing lots of other players away from his square. This helped him on his way to victory...

Julian writes:

We started off with viva Pamplona!, perhaps the quickest game to teach & to learn. Darren broke all the usual guidelines for a good start and romped away to a 15 point lead within 5 turns! He basically stayed back, where the rest of us were choosing or being forced to advance. Then the bull charged giving him 2 lots of 7 points in 2 goes. However, later indiscretions caused him to lose much of his lead, thank goodness. The rest of us were pushing & shoving as much as we could, as long as we were safe in a gang. It was the negatives at the end that really decided the game between the rest of us. Janet got everyone in, though scored quite low for them (1s & 2s) but the rest of us were in -8 to -15!

Scores:

Darren: 37
Janet: 31
Stefanie: 26
Julian: 15
Jorg: 7

Thread: Session Report

PBrennan — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Andrew 'Game Boy' Swan pulled out this closer as if to highlight what a fun game a dice driven game can be after the travesty that was Star Traders. The trick to the game is to keep your runners in a bunch and push other solitaire runners left, right and centre, picking up bravery points from them. As Andrew said 'this is Backgammon for beginners'. Keeping close to the Bull is a bonus, and just beating him home even more so. Getting all three runners on the space before the tomatos can be a bravery point god-send.

Actually this game is similar to Ave Caesar which we played last week. Sometimes you can target other players, sometime you can't. Sometimes the dice go for you, sometimes they don't.

The Bull started veeeery slooow and charged home with a vengeance, only two runners beating him into the arena. The key move was near the end game. getting my three runners on a space which had 1 runner of each of the other players, moving 2 bravery points from everyone into my kitty.

Final Scores; Pat 32, Andrew and Rick 26, Craig a cowardly 12.

Rating after 8 plays is a 7 for 'not much strategy, but a lot of fun. Ole!', slightly higher than Ave Ceasar ('Ave!') for the added tension of the bull cards. "Puuuull the Buuuull".

Thread: Session Report

wavemotion — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Viva Pamplona! Session Details: As our final game of the day, we decided on a game which Eddie had brought. Viva Pamplona did not look like much to me when he took it out of the box. I was not initially impressed, but if Eddie says its a clever game, I am wise enough to know he has good judgement and so I awaited the description. After the description, I was still not convinced this would be enjoyable - but again this was Eddie so I was ready to give it a try. Boy am I glad I did! This is a wonderful race game which uses dice, but in a strategic way. Each turn a player must roll two dice (we used Eddie's new homebrew E-1299 dice-roller which worked beautifully - see below) and advance their pawns down the race-track. At the same time, a bull (El Torro!) is making it's way down the same track. The object is to stay close to the bull - either on the same space or in the few space in front of the bull. After each of the players have had a turn, a "bull" card is drawn which either moves the bull some number of spaces (thus you must catch up with the bull again or perhaps you were clever enough to place your pawns in advance in which case the bull has caught up to you!) or it can be a scoring card. When a scoring card is drawn, the position on the board is scored immediately - players with pawns on the same space as the bull score the maximum 3 points per pawn. The next two spaces in front of the bull score 2 and 1 point respectively. For each space behind the bull, the player who owns that pawn looses one point. Therefore, you must keep close to the bull, but not too far ahead and preferably not behind. There are also special positions on the board which force a player who lands on them to loose one point and a couple of slippery patches which (if landed on) cause the player to slide back a number of spaces. An additional twist is that you can land a majority of pawns on any space which contains a lesser number of pawns and score points for the outnumbering (and you can bump the lesser pawns back or forward)! There is a very high degree of player interaction and the turns move rather quickly so there is very little down-time (something I appreciate in a game). The subtle positioning and bumping of pawns backwards and forwards turn what might be considered a roll-the-dice-and-move game into a clever game of strategy mixed with just the right blend of luck. Although Eddie assures me that the game we played was not the best example of how good the game can be played (the bull was very fast and finished the game ahead of all players except one of Jenn's pawns), I can assure him that the game was a joy to play and this seemed to be echoed by the other players. In the end, Jenn had a few apparently "bad" rolls of the dice which forced her to accelerate towards the finish line before she was ready. However, the bull drew two high-movement cards in a row - causing it to also cross the finish line much to the dismay of Eddie, Carol and I (we had many pawns quite a distance back which counted against us). Jenn and I tied for victory in what turned out to be a low-scoring but highly contested game.

Final Scores: Jenn=25, Dave=25, Eddie=20, Carol=14
Ratings(1-10): Jenn=7, Dave=7, Eddie=7, Carol=7

We had a great game-day today. Clearly this was the current highlight of my gaming hobby. Carol was kind enough to bring some food for us so we wouldn't starve during the game session. Great people, great food and great games - it's hard to beat! One last note, Eddie brought his "E-1299 Mechanical Random Number Generator (E-1299 MRNG) Model #2" more affectionately known as the "Eddie Dice Slide". This was a beautifully crafted dice roller which Eddie had produced recently to replace a somewhat poor-quality one he had acquired earlier in the year. We all found his dice roller to be of the highest quality and it worked flawlessly despite Y2K concerns!

Dice Roller Ratings(1-10): Dave=10, Jenn=10, Carol=10, Eddie=9 ( modest

We will have pictures on this site covering the now-famous dice roller and more general pictures of the game session. These should be available later in January.

Thread: Session Report

cwmassey — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Viva Pamplona - Matthew, Pat, Dave R. Craig

Feeling the need to play a game demonstrating courage and intestinal fortitude, we decided to run with the bulls of Pamplona where the object is to show how courageous you are by keeping you playing pieces in the same space or just ahead of the bull's piece as you race towards the stadium. Movement is dictated by dice and the game is actually quite vicious as you can bounce other player's pieces back and forth costing them courage points and putting them in bad position to score when the bull charges.

Pat seemed to have the hang of this best as he took the bull by the horns (pun intended) and pushed our runners around. The bull rushed to the stadium first ending the game before any players could get there. Based on my performance, I will now be known throughout all of Spain as the Chicken man of Pamplona as my lack of courage points will show. The game was quick and fun, but it felt like there was little control. This being said, I'll happily play again because the theme and game play were high on the fun factor.

Scores: Pat 46, Dave 36, Matthew 32, Chicken Man 19
Ratings: Pat 8, Dave 7, Matthew 6, Craig 6