Game(s) Played:
And welcome back to another edition of our monthly meet-ups to teach, learn & play boardgames for the niche group of us who are strangely only free on Saturday mornings. We have an unusual theme for our choice of games this morning, deciding to go with "Games Sean Has Not Played Before", the first of which being… …
Session – Castles of Mad King Ludwig
Game: Castles of Mad King Ludwig
Designer: Ted Alspach
Players: 1 – 4 Players
Playing Time: 90 minutes (This Play: 90 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Tile Placement
Player(s):
… … Castles of Mad King Ludwig, where you are tasked with building an amazing, extravagant castle for King Ludwig II of Bavaria...one room at a time. You see, the King loves castles, having built Neuschwanstein (the castle that inspired the Disney theme park castles) and others, but now he's commissioned you to build the biggest, best castle ever — subject, of course, to his ever-changing whims.
Today, we're trying the Top Shot, giving us a view of Sean's dungeon-y castle (leftmost)
As it turns out, Gideon would be the only player at the table who has played Castles of Mad King Ludwig before. Gideon took my place as GM because we had another 3 Players show up! What joy! Two 4 Player pods are one of the little things all Eurogamer GMs rejoice over.
The conversation I could overhear from further down the table was animated interjected with humorous quips so I'm going to guess they had a good time, enough to play 2 rounds of Castles of Mad King Ludwig back to back.
Results Of Game(s)
WINNER – Henry (102 VPs)
2nd – Sean (85 VPs)
3rd – Gideon (82 VPs)
LAST – Terence (74 VPs)
WINNER – Sean (89 VPs)
2nd – Henry (76 VPs)
3rd – Gideon (70 VPs)
LAST – Terence (61 VPs)
Session – Lords of Vegas
Game: Lords of Vegas
Designer: James Ernest, Mike Selinker
Players: 2 – 4 Players
Playing Time: 60 minutes (This Play: 90 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Area Control, Dice Rolling
Player(s):
In Lords of Vegas, you and your opponents represent powerful developers in a burgeoning Nevada city. You will earn money and prestige by building the biggest and most profitable casinos on "The Strip," the town's backbone of dust and sin. You start with nothing but parking lots and dreams, but from there you build, sprawl, reorganize and gamble your way to victory. Score the most points investing in the most profitable development companies and putting the best bosses in control of the richest casinos. Put your dollars on the line . . . it's time to roll!
This being a Christian group, we did without the gambling rules which is a mechanic we hardly use in my other playgroups anyway. This group being newer to modern boardgames, I adopted a "Divide & Conquer" approach, sticking to one or two colour casinos all over the area. You could see the cogs starting to churn in Jared & Ser Leng's minds but they seemed to prefer not to take the "mean" path, until I crossed paths with Ann Gie, the casino boss next door with the tiger emblem, the type you don't see hiding in the tall grass until it was too late.
Another top shot, I'm starting to like this angle
There waited Ann Gie (red) in the left corner, facing off against me (yellow) waiting to see who would flinch first
Jared had little casinos of all sorts of colours all over the place. This worked well for him until he hit the barrier of needing at least size two casinos to hurdle the point gap the 10 VP mark. Something new Players should look out for.
Results Of Game(s)
WINNER – Justin (26 VPs)
2nd, 3rd & LAST – Ann Gie, Jared & Ser Leng (16 VPs)
My win came largely due to the strip which I had forgotten to explain about, tainting my first win of Lords of Vegas. Everyone else surprisingly got the exact same score.
Session – Bohnanza
Game: Bohnanza
Designer: Uwe Rosenberg
Players: 2 – 7 Players
Playing Time: 45 minutes (This Play: 60 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Hand Management, Set Collection
Player(s):
In Bohnanza, planting beans is your life's purpose. Your goal is to be the bean farmer who harvests the most beans for coins to be the richest German bean farmer this world has ever seen. Unfortunately you have little control over what beans end up in your sowing bin, your only choice is to convince other farmers to take the beans you have no interest in so that you are not forced to dig up your entire bed of Stink Beans prematurely to accommodate the lonely Blue Bean.
Padawan Minigeek decided to join us as her own Player. She tends to play with emotional attachment towards the bean types but ended faring pretty well in the game. It tends to be rather hard to say no to a 7 year old little girl who blinks her eyes at you asking to trade your Garden Bean for a Chilli Bean.
I was too busy making sure Padawan Minigeek didn't cheat so I dug up an old picture of us playing at the old house
Results Of Game(s)
WINNER – Jared (14 Coins)
2nd – Ann Gie (13 Coins)
3rd – Justin (12 Coins)
4th – Ser Leng (11 Coins)
LAST – Padawan Minigeek (9 Coins)
This was a really close game! All separated by one coin each.
And so ends the perfect 2 pods of 4 Players session. And yet the lesson for me today is that I need to find an interactive gateway game that has little to no take that. Thank goodness I decided against pulling out Sheriff of Nottingham. Thanks for coming out everyone!
Until next time, keep calm and play better!
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