Wednesday 15 February 2012

A Thurn for the Wurst

Seeing as it is the vogue to try and make the report fit the title I thought I'd give it a go. This week Monday games night was shelved due to James' and mine separate illnesses. Tuesday games was also in jeopardy as it fell on Valentines and I still hadn't fully recovered. A combination of delicate negotiations and effective cold cures saved the day. Poor Jacquie you might be thinking, and yeah you're probably right.

The "Thurn" of the blog title does indeed refer to a new game for us Thurn and Taxis, which had a little history to it before I could get it to table. I had wanted this game for quite a while. Good reviews, Spiel des Jahres winner, high Geek score and playable with two made it a nailed on purchase. However when I did get to the shop I managed to somehow walk out of it with the expansion instead. Undeterred, I quickly logged on to Amazon and ordered a copy. Unfortunately this time I didn't play close enough attention to the description and ordered the German version. Luckily the BGG has wonderful people that supply the rules to these things and I was able download one.

I'm glad I had Paul with me when I went through them though. The second line on the translated rules was, "A rough translation" and that proved to be the only really accurate statement on it. Somehow however Paul managed to pick his way between my confused utterances to work it all out claiming, "It's a bit like a cross between Ticket to Ride and Web of Power."


Paul's understanding of the rules appeared to help him. As I was tentatively making my way from Stuttgart to central Germany and claiming a nice little route I suddenly noticed Paul had Post Offices everywhere! He started off in front and never looked like slipping behind.

The final tally was closer than I expected
Paul 32
Chris 26

After having low hopes reading the rules I found I really enjoyed the game and I expect it to have high replay value.

This was our second game of the night as we started where we left off last time with a game of Alhambra. With the scoring rules better understood Dirk didn't stand a chance. This game we also made better use of our reserve which allowed me cement my first place by adding another tower right at the death.

Chris 160
Paul 143
Dirk 78

Take that Dirk.

4 comments:

  1. I think my Alhambra score might be a two player high score!?!

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  2. Well done on putting Dirk in his place. Upstart imaginary player. He doesn't even bring crisps!

    Thurn... is a game that keeps getting mentioned but I've never got round to playing it. But it sounds good for what you've said.

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  3. We played it once at Sam's back when he was in Montpelier. I really like it - with two its basically a race. It's fairly light, very pretty; a nice step up from ticket to Ride, as Paul says.

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