It was Justin, ShawnG and myself at Rusty Scabbard at the start. Mike appeared briefly to drop off some games for our amusement.
I invited Justin to a game of Aqua Romana. This scared of ShawnG, who went off with Mike to play cards.
Justin acted tired, but he had a good grasp of the game for the win.
| Justin | 40 (13+4+8+7+4+3+1) |
| Vitas | 35 (11+3+9+2+5+3+2) |
Then he went off, and ShawnB and Andy arrived, so I roped them into a game of Aqua Romana. I wanted to try it with more than two players for once.
With three players, it was more difficult to make sure there were master builders in line of sight.
ShawnB seemed happy to take less points early, but that cost him the game. This included a placement of a bonus tile that could only benefitted me, which caused Andy to cry king-maker. It only gave me three extra points, though.
Andy had a lot of good runs, but eventually dead-ended himself.
I was fortunate to get two good runs for the win.
With three players, this game didn't seem as competitive. We all had a lot of wiggle room before conflicts kicked in. This, perhaps, comes from the distribution of workers for each player. With two players, each player has two sets of workers working nearly opposite ends of the board, whereas with three players, all the workers for each player start in nearly the same space. I fear that a four player game will be the same way.
| ShawnB | 19 (7+7+4+1) |
| Andy | 33 (12+2+10+6+3) |
| Vitas | 47 (20+4+15+3+3+2) |
Click here to buy Aqua Romana at FunAgain.com
Click here to learn more about Aqua Romana at BoardGameGeek.com
Then we broke out Robber Knights, because I was in the mood for more tile-laying games. It was ShawnB's first time playing the game. We quickly went over the rules.
ShawnB, again, showed less stratigic initiative. I guess he likes to get a few playes in to get a real feel for a game before committing a workable strategy.
Andy and I were fiercely competitive, capturing each other's territory, and preventing recaptures with lakes and mountains whenever possible.
In the end, Andy won.
| ShawnB | 17 |
| Andy | 33 |
| Vitas | 31 |
Click here to buy Robber Knights at FunAgain.com
Click here to learn more about Robber Knights at BoardGameGeek.com
ShawnB didn't have much more time remaining, so we went with Mike's copy of Beowulf. It was Justin's first time playing the game. Andy went first. We played the basic rules.
This is a pleasant game, but I find it hard to describe it in an engaging way. The game itself has simple mechanics. Beowulf goes linearly from space to space. The players, working to find favor with Beowulf by spending or bidding cards of the proper type.
We did get one rule wrong, which threw off the whole game a few times, in that we allowed a bid of multiple cards as the first bid. This meant that everyone was locked out from the auction right off the bat, and award order was sequentially determined from that player. However, the rules state that only one card can be played to start bidding.
Well, I avoided getting wounds throughout the game, and I seemed to generally have the right cards when I needed them, so I won.
The game lasted 71 minutes.
| Justin | 21 |
| Andy | 20 |
| ShawnB | 21 |
| Vitas | 29 |
Click here to buy Beowulf: The Legend at FunAgain.com
Click here to learn more about Beowulf: The Legend at BoardGameGeek.com
ShawnB had to leave and Dee arrived, so we broke out a Dee-freindly game, Category 5.
It was justin's first time playing it.
The game score swung wildly at first, but was very close by the end. Andy used his massive strategic ability to make sure he won.
| Dee | 73 |
| Andy | 59 |
| Justin | 75 (presumably -- he conceded before I scored his last hand) |
| Vitas | 65 |
Click here to buy Category 5 at FunAgain.com
Click here to learn more about Category 5 (also called 6 Nimmt!) at BoardGameGeek.com
Justin was tired so he left.
We broke out Blokus for the pretty colors. What can I say, it was late!
I rarely play three players because each of us controls a phantom player, and I prefer all players be present.
Andy cut me off from some primo real estate early on, and some good plays by Dee and the phantom player reduced my options even more.
Andy ended up winning, being the fine strategist that he is.
| Dee | -11 |
| Andy | -8 |
| Vitas | -17 |
Click here to buy Blokus at FunAgain.com
Click here to learn more about Blokus at BoardGameGeek.com
