Steampunk and steam trains

Tonight saw the return of an old regular: me! And as I walked to Joe's, I could help but think that all these firework displays were a bit over the top. I mean, I'd only been away two weeks.

Once again, three players were in attendance. The aforementioned me and Joe, and also Adam. From the pile of new games that Joe had got in a trade, we chose Mission: Red Planet. This is co-designed by Bruno Fiadutti, who also did Citadels, and the mechanic is similar. You chose which character you're going to play, and this also effects where in the order of play you go. But instead of building a medieval city, you are colonising Mars using some nifty looking Victorian technology.

You need to have most astronauts in an area to score points during a scoring round (of which there are three), and then at the end of the game you can add to your score with some bonus points from cards hidden in your hand. I enjoyed it. There are more rounds than there are cards, so at one point you will have to play the weakest card in your hand, which at least gets you all your cards back. I tried to avoid playing it until the last minute. I've no idea if that was a good idea or not.

During the game, Adam got picked on, and I thought I'd done enough to see off Joe too. But I reckoned without the wise one's wily ways. He edged past me thanks to his bonus points.

Joe 52
Andrew 50
Adam 44

It doesn't take long to colonize Mars, and we still had ample time for another game. We chose Ticket To Ride: Switzerland, the faster-moving but more claustrophobic version of the Europe-spanning game. Perhaps the biggest challenge in the game comes from when you get your routes to complete at the start of the game, and then you have to look for the towns in question without giving it away when you'd found one. My technique was to glance over the board casually as if it were a pile of magazines in a dentist waiting room. Don't know if anyone noticed.

I got lucky with my routes, and had completed them early on, which lead to me picking up more. And I got lucky with those too, so I got some more. By the end, I had nine routes cards in my hand, eight of which were complete. Joe had the longest route and seven route cards. Adam had six.

We totted up the points, and I sped off into first place, but Joe had a terrible discovery. A route that he spent ages in completing one end was not finished at the other. This cost him in points, and gave Adam a chance. Finally, as Joe's points for longest route were added, the magnitude of his mistake became clear.

Andrew 117
Adam 98
Joe 97

Joe may be cursing his lack of concentration on Ticket To Ride, but that doesn't change the fact that he now leaps up to first. Little else changes in this very sedate season so far.

						Points
Joe	3	1	2	2	1	9
Adam	2	3	1	1	3	10
Andrew	1	2	2	4	2	11
Sam	3	3	2	3	1	12
Anja	5	1	1	3	2	12
Steve	3	3	4	4	4	18