This week, we started off playing a slightly neglected old favourite, No Thanks!.  It seemed like ages since we played it last, but it turned out that it was less than two months ago that it last got an outing.  Since it is a quick card game where rounds take just a few minutes, it was ideal to play until everyone had arrived.  Next we, we played the “Feature Game”, Incan Gold, which is another game we’ve played previously.  In this game players are going down a mine and trying to get out with as many gems as possible before it collapses.  One player made a bit of a killing in the opening round, but she failed to hang onto the lead and was pipped by just two gems at the very end.

It was a bit of an evening for games we’ve played previously, as next we played Alhambra (which was a “Feature Game” at the end of last year).  This is a tile laying game where players have to collect sets and score points for having the most in any one set.  Scoring takes place twice during the game and once at the end, and each time the number of points increases.  This time, Blue (who won last time), got a terrible run of the cards and Red who had missed it last time, had an amazing game winning by a very large margin.

Racing fish may not seem like an obvious choice for a game theme, but it turns out that it actually works really well.  We played Salmon Run just two weeks ago and although we enjoyed it, we were all a bit tired, so we decided to give it another go this week.  For variety, however, we changed almost all the boards, using  S2, 3M, 4E, 5E & F2.  This time, Black got going much quicker than everyone else and headed left followed by Red while White went right.  Black decided not to worry about fatigue cards and just run for it, while Red and White were more cautious.  Black’s tactics seemed to pay off, however, as he made it to the spawning pool first and nobody else could quite make it in time.

Our final game game was Forbidden Desert which we also played last week, however it is a new release this year and it was a very close game last time, so we felt it deserved another outing.  This time we didn’t have a Water Carrier, but we managed to make good use of the tunnels and the Navigator’s ability to move other players three spaces for the cost of only one action.  These with the Archeologist’s ability to clear extra sand meant we ran out comfortable winners.  We’ll have to ramp up the difficulty next time!

Learning Outcome:  Doing well the first time you play a game doesn’t mean you’ll do well the second time…