The first game we played this week was our “Feature Game”, the card game, Saboteur which is a little like a cross between two games we’ve played before:  Avalon and Incan Gold. In this game players are dwarves working together mining for gold, with the catch that there could be a saboteur in their midst…  Since nobody had ever played it before, the first round was a bit of an experiment for all of us and we all started out “honest” playing path cards and maps.  However, suspicion arose a when one player claimed to have run out of useful paths and had to play a broken pick-axe, with inevitable reprisals.  Unfortunately, he HAD been honest and there were no saboteurs, but as we just managed to get to the gold, it didn’t really matter.

Since we felt we were starting to get the hang of it, we went went for a second round and this time correctly identified the saboteur and pinned him down with a pile of broken picks, lanterns and wagons while we dug up the gold.  When we picked on the same player for the third time, however, he was understandably distressed and protested his innocence.  Nevertheless, since he had very obviously shut off one of optional tunnels we had been carefully building, the pleading fell on deaf ears and failed to prevent the hail-storm of broken tools, only for it to become apparent that, once again, he was innocent.  When we asked why he had behaved in such a treacherous way, he forlornly explained that he was trying to stop us going the wrong way as he knew where the gold was.  Next time I suppose we might listen to him…

Next, we played the Scandinavian Ticket to Ride, a game we were all reasonably familiar with.  This is a really beautiful edition of “the train game”, but with slight twists to the usual rules.  White and Purple took the first few points, but Black joined in quickly and play continued pretty much evenly.  Black ran out of trains first which stymied Purple’s attempt to get the long track into Murmansk, however, we were all within ten points or so when we went into the final scoring.  Unfortunately, it turned out that Black and Purple had accidentally conspired to block White making her take a sizeable detour.  This had consequences for the number tickets she could complete.  Black and Purple jointly took the Globetrotter bonus with five completed tickets each, but it was the magnitude of the completed tickets that made the difference and Black ran out the winner by some fifty points.

Next we returned to semi-cooperativity with a quick game of The Great Balloon Race.  This is a great little race game (albeit with a ridiculously large box), where players have three different coloured balloons and the first to get them all home wins.  The snag is that nobody knows who owns which colour and it is highly likely that players will share at least one balloon with other players.  We last played this back in October and Blue and Orange got a bit victimised.  This time it was Blue and Pink…

Finally, we squeezed in a game of Ice Flow.  This is a really pretty strategy game where players direct teams of three explorers that are trying to get from Alaska to Siberia, climbing pack-ice, dodging polar bears, catching fish and occasionally jumping in for a quick swim.  Although this is a new game to boardGOATS, we were all familiar with it, so with a quick reminder of the rules we were off, jumping from ice floe to ice floe.  The game has a bit of a tendency for players to get stuck unable to get fish or rope, but we were wise to this and managed to control the resources quite successfully.  Black got an explorer home first, followed by a couple of Red meeples, however, while Black’s last piece dodged a hungry polar bear, Red managed to get his final one home for the win.

Learning Outcome:  A clever move can sometimes be mistaken for a guilty one, however much you protest.