Ashton, also hosting!
After a scrumptious roast courtesy of Jacquie, and some catching up, it was time to get down to the serious business of playing Glen More, our starter for the evening. We had nearly finished playing a rule slightly wrong when Andrew arrived, and saw enough of the play and general confusion to pick up what was meant to happen.
Me (blue), jumping rather far ahead
The conceit is we are competing clans in the Highlands, building a landscape of tiles, and the turn order is - like Tokaido - determined by who is the farthest back on the path. Jump far ahead to juicy tile and you're gifting other players more turns. But on the other hand, in the end-game scoring it pays to have taken the fewest tiles. Placement is key, as well, and it has a quirky scoring system. I enjoyed it a lot, but unlike the game with the rules played wrong, I didn't win:
Chris 56
Paul 44
Sam 43
Andrew 38
The Chief Chieftain now crowned, we travelled continents to another earlier time: Ninjato. This mash-up of Stone Age and something else I can't quite think of sees you raiding houses and claiming ownership of clans by bribing envoys.
Creeping around on Ninja toes
It's a slightly chaotic looking board when in play, but the mechanics are simple enough to get your head around. I put my regular thrashings by Stan behind me with a win this time:
Sam 118
Andrew 91
Chris 75
Paul 72
By which time the ale and crisps were freely flowing, except for Paul who was trying to shake off a cold. We inducted him into Barenpark, which is a game almost made for Paul.
Bears
Whilst Chris took early digger tiles and Andrew fretted over his tessellation skills, it was looking like a fight for first between Paul and I - or so I thought. But as it turned out, I wasn't really in contention:
Paul 93
Sam 79
Chris 71
Andrew 69
There was just time to, as Andrew put it, "squeeze out a quick NMBR 9" before we retired to bed. Chris ran out a comfortable leader this time, as the rest of us cursed our lack of elevation:
Chris 83
Sam 73
Andrew 57
Paul 53
And with that, the curtain fell on Chippenham for another night. Thanks all!
Goodnight!
Thanks for coming over guys. Glen More has that feel of a game where strategies reveal themselves after repeated players. I copied Sam's 1st game route of special tiles, but noticed how powerful Paul's resources for points strategy could be.... Ninjato was nice to play as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting, and special thanks to Paul for making the trip. I tried asking when he was moving to Bristol but I suppose if he's just painted one of his rooms orange, he won't want to leave that behind.
ReplyDeleteGlen More's one I kept an eye out for when it was first out, but I can't say I'm now that interested in trying it, flighty person that I am.
ReplyDeleteThere's another game we play (don't think it's Tokaido) which gets compared to Glen More a bit on the geek - can't think what it is at the mo...