SCR Gamers: May Game Day May 22, 2006
I have been horribly deficient in writing up reports from the Shadow Creek Ranch Social Game club (Scrgamers). We got together this past Saturday for our third game day. This month, game day was hosted by the Chris and Keri King. I brought a pretty large selection of games along, including some brand new purchases that I wanted to try out. This month we got to play a total of four games, each game with four players. In addition to Chris and Keri we had 3 other gamers in attendance, Rob, Melissa and myself.
Up first was Celtica, a brand new game to me, and one that I was very excited about. This game has gotten a fair amount of bad press on boardgamegeek.com. Nevertheless, the theme, 11th century Ireland, and the game play seemed to make for a game that I would enjoy a lot. We played two games of Celtica on Saturday, one to start the day and one to finish things up. I was fortunate enough to squeak out victories in both games. Celtica is a race game, played with cards, where everyone is racing to put together amulets from various components in cities and cloisters across Ireland. The interesting part of the mechanic is that everyone is using the same five druids to race with. Unlike most games where players would each be assigned a color, in this game anyone can move any piece…just need the correct cards. Cards match the colors of the druids, and each card played allows you to move one space. The spaces can be one of three things, 1) city,cloister: a place where you find amulets, 2) cult site: a place to get extra cards, 3) ruin: a place attacked by Vikings where you lose amulet pieces but gain valuable experience. The game is mostly about luck, if you get the right cards at the right time it helps a bunch in this game. That does not make the game any less enjoyable in my mind. If you are looking for a fast, easy to teach and learn, filler game this one is a good bet. Especially if you like unique race games.
Our first play of Celtica was Rob, Chris, Melissa and I. We got started and after the first round of plays everyone had a pretty good idea of what was going on. I think we all under estimated the damage the second half of the path could cause. I got a good start, but then lost a part of my completed amulet. Chris picked up the pace after I fell back, and in the second half of the game nearly had me. Melissa and Rob managed to get into position to lose more pieces than they captured. In the end though, I got lucky and ,managed to complete a little more than 2 amulets. Chris had me beat, but lost 3 vital pieces on his last turn which gave me the win. The second game was played by Chris, Keri, Melissa and I. The game actually played pretty similar to the first. Chris jumped off to a very strong lead, looked like he was unstoppable. Keri had a string of bad luck early losing pretty much everything she got. Melissa and I sort of hobbled through the first turn. Then things changed. Chris started dropping pieces faster than he could replenish them. I got lucky with two sets of 3 cards each which gave me 6 pieces and no chance to lose any. Keri got into a great position and started to assemble pieces. In the last turn, I got another set of 3 of the same card, and managed to get the red druid into the end point, and start the end game. Melissa and Chris were stuck losing pieces each turn, but Keri managed to get three druids onto the 4 amulet space. At the end of the game Keri and I both had 2 complete amulets, but I also have 3 other pieces giving me the win by only a hair. Both games took about 30ish minutes, and I think everyone liked this game a lot.
Second game up was Cave Troll. I could have sworn that I had played this game before, but I don’t think I ever did. We played a four player game of this Fantasy Flight Games/Tom Jolly dungeon romp. Melissa managed a victory with some nice actions at just the right time, and by ending the game with her pieces in control of some of the best rooms. Rob enjoyed rampaging through the dungeon with his Orc. He killed about 5 of my adventurers, and at least 5 of Chris and Melissa’s combined as well. The game turns out to have a lot of tactical possibilities that I think everyone was surprised to see. It really is a very clever game, and one that I think would be welcome on the table again. It played in about 1 hour for us.
The third game we played was Carcassonne Hunters & Gatherers. I think this one was least well received. Melissa did well in this game also, nearly lapping all of us. The game was a bit unusual though, in that we have large forests, at least four that were never completed. I forgot that in H&G you do not get points for an incomplete forest or river. Chris and Rob had some nice sized river systems, but no one had any run away hunters. I thought the game was a little awkward with some unusual tile draws. The lack of forest completion meant that only about 4 of the bonus tiles were played. I am sure a Carcassonne variant will hit the game box again…maybe The City next time.
Well thats it. Another month, another game day. I will try and do a summary (from memory) of the previous game days, and will make sure to keep up with these going forward.
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