Go Big and Go Home

A solid 14 turned up this week. I started off playing Havana while the others played Bang!. I don't know much about what happened in Bang! except that Rhys was out almost straight away.

In Havana there was all to play for in what was going to be the last round. Everyone was evenly matched and was most likely going to claim their winning card. Well, almost everyone, Andy failed to get a single point in the whole game. I saw my opening and took it but Ryan had also seen his. He had also played the Siesta meaning his action was first. He got his card and scored the extra couple of points he needed to win himself the game.

More people arrived and we split into three groups. We played Firefly, 7 Wonders and Cosmic Encounter. 7 Wonders was won by Andy using the classic getting-all-the-research-cards technique. His board was awash in a sea of green. As they were finishing up we were still getting to grips with the rules for Cosmic Encounter. 7 Wonders can be a fiendishly quick (in a good way) game. Especially if everyone already knows how to play. They grabbed my copy of Coup and played a few games of that.

Cosmic encounter is a game of cosmic negotiation. There were five of us and I quickly made sure I had two of the players as allies, effectively reducing my chances of winning from one in five to one in three. It was a clunky start with a few first time rule faux pas but it looked like Lizzy was going to win. She went big hoping to attack for the winning point but her allies betrayed her and her attack lost. The game should have carried on but Lizzy had to go home. Something about Game of Thrones and an early start. I guess we can call her the honorary victor.

The rest of us played a quick game of Love Letter while Firefly finished up. Andy had also bought himself Love Letter recently, and they were playing it too. In Firefly on the last turn Craig sold a single piece of fuel to Sam for about 10 times its worth. It didn't really change anything in the game, Sam still won and was always going to. I think it was just to stick it to Johnny somehow.

Yet More Bank Holiday Board Games

Bank holidays tend to be a slow day for board gaming and today was no different. Just the usual 7:30 start this time though. With Darren defecting to NoBoG, there were just seven attendees this week plus a fleeting visit from Theo and his friend.

We started off playing Firefly: The Game, not to be confused with Firefly: The TV Show. Or maybe Serenity: The Movie of Firefly: The TV Show. I saw the film once a long time ago but never watched the TV show. The in game quotes and references were lost on me. Still a fine pick up and deliver style game. We had to end the game a turn before what would have surely been the last as newcomer Sam had to leave, but unless the space gods really took a disliking to him, there was no way he couldn't have won.

The other table played Pandemic. After the notoriously hard Ghost Stories I thought Pandemic would have been a walk in the park for Matt but after curing three diseases, the stack of player cards was exhausted, losing them the game. After this they played the IpBoG favourite 7 Wonders. Matt won with his blue victory point card and green research card strategy.

This left us with half an hour and those that were left got in a couple of games of the hugely popular social deduction game, The Resistance. Both times the majority of missions were sabotaged by the imperial spies, meaning victory for the Empire.