This being the summer, Lime brought LIttle Lime to join in the evening, but as there is a curfew for under-eighteens (due to licencing restrictions), the first game had to get off the mark quickly.  Together with Pink and Plum, they quickly got going with the well known favourite and Spiel des Jahres winning game, Azul.  This is known to everyone, so needed little clarification, though they group decided to use one of the alternate boards from the Crystal Mosaic expansion (the one with the cross pattern).  The game is very simple with players taking tiles of one colour from a factory and putting the remains in the centre, or taking all the tiles of one colour from the central pool.

– Image by boardGOATS

In either case, players have to add them to their conveyor and if, at the end of the round the conveyor is full, one tile is slid across to be added to the mosaic and the rest disposed of. If the added tile is isolated it scores a single point, but if placed next to other tiles, then more points are scored with larger groups scoring more points.  In this way, tiles grouped together keep scoring points.  Thus, a player who starts well can build a lot of points, which both Little Lime and Plum managed to do.  In the end, Big Lime ended the game, leaving Plum with a single point advantage—The moral of the story:  Don’t end the game too early (as Big Lime commented regretfully).

– Image by boardGOATS

On something of a roll, the group moved on to one of Pink’s favourite quick fillers, For Sale.  Dating from the end of the last century, this game is now nearly thirty years old, but isn’t really showing its age, despite that.  The game comes in two halves:  Buying Properties at Auction, then Selling Properties by Blind Bid.  This game was really really close with a single point between Plum and Little Lime, but they were a a few points behind Big LIme who, as an accountant might be expected to perform well in a financial game.  The winner, however, was Pink, who, despite it being one of his favourite games had never won, until now.  And with that, it was time for Family Lime to head off.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, the rest of the group were engaged in the two tables of the “Feature Game“.  To mark the recent announcement of the Spiel des Jahres winners, this was  Looot.  Although Loot was not actually one of the winners, it, along with Faraway, had recieved a nomination for the Kennerspiel des Jahres and, as it had proved popular within the group (also like Faraway) we decided to make it the Feature.  Although its nomination was in the Expert or Connoisseur category, the game is not overly complex.  The game is played over a series of rounds where each player places one of their Viking workers—the game ends when everyone has run out of Vikings.

– Image by boardGOATS

On their turn each player places one of their Vikings on the central playerboard.  This is is made up of hexagons: the Viking must be placed on an empty space next to another Viking (of any colour).  Each hexagon gives a resource which can be used to purchase Longships, and if the Viking fulfills certain conditions, it’s owner can capture a house, Watchtower or Castle.  The player with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.  This time there were two tables playing the same game, with Black leading the first table comprising Purple, Byzantium, and Cobalt.

– Image by boardGOATS

This game turned into a a bit of a battle for Castles between Byzantium and Cobalt.  Cobalt did rather better in the end though thanks to his Long-ship bonuses.  This was because Byzantium kept revealing them and everyone else eschewed them until it came to Cobalt who snapped them up.  Byzantium’s frustration was increased somewhat because Cobalt was just before him in turn order so it looked like they miight make it round to him until they didn’t…  quite…  In the end, Cobalt’s were worth forty-two while Byzantium’s gave him just twenty-eight, despite the fact he actually had more.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was still close between them, but fairly inevitably, Cobalt had the edge finishing with one-hundred and twenty-eight, ten more than Byzantium in second place.  This was a much higher scoring game than the second table, although that was much closer.  Jade led this game with Mint, Sapphire, and Blue making up the group.  The strategies were very varied, with Jade going for Castles, Mint for Watchtowers, Sapphire for Gold, and Blue who was new to the game, going for a balanced strategy so she could change her tactics as required.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the end, Blue’s “points from everything” approach just had the edge giving her victory with eighty-eight points, two more than Mint who had one more than Jade with Sapphire close behind. With the games of Looot coming to an end at the same time as For Sale and with Family Lime heading off, the rest of the group split into two.  The first, larger group, consisted of Jade, Sapphire, Blue, Pink, Mint, Plum and Byzantium who decided to give a simple and supposedly quick little game called Tacta an outing.  This is a sort of “card placing” game where players have a hand of cards and place them on the table to cover up spots on other players’ cards.  At the end of the game, the player with the most spots visibleis the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

Unfortunately, game time is proportional to the number of players, so with the six players (Plum and Byzantium shared a hand and worked together), the game was always going to take twice as long as it would with three.  Worse, this was one of those games where gamers take even longer as they want to make sure the find the best placement option and push the rules boundaries.  It is a very clever little game though and a lot of fun, though perhaps playing with fewer cards or fewer players would avoid it outstaying its welcome.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was made worse by the fact that everyone helped everyone else and therefore, the victor was quite obvious from fairly early in the game  Although Blue made a dash to come from zero to finish in a more respectable last place, nobody looked like they were seriously going to challenge the Byzantium-Plum team.  Mint took second one point ahead of Pink who was one point ahead of Jade who was one point ahead of Sapphire.  Definitely one to try again, but with fewer people next time.  The supposed quick card game ended up finishing some time after the supposed longer game, Ticket to Ride: Paris that Black, Purple and Cobalt chose.

– Image by boardGOATS

One of the small, “City Editions” of the popular, Spiel des Jahres winning Ticket to Ride games, we’ve played Paris quite a bit since it was released last year.  Following the same pattern as all its brethren, the game involves collecting coloured carriage cards and spending them to place metro carriage pieces on the board to connect regions of the city, while trying to also complete tickets.  Each edition has its own extra little rule, and in the Paris edition, this is centred on the colours of the tricolor.  When players build a red, white or blue route, they keep one of the cards, when they complete a set of three they discard the cards and claim bonus points.

– Image by boardGOATS

Purple started and game play was rapid.  Before long, players were running out of pieces, with Blake miles ahead of the other two.  But that was without the addition of scores for Tickets. Purple took got nine points for her three completed Tickets thanks to her misplaced bravery in picking up tickets at the end and not being able to complete her last one.  Cobalt took sixteen points for completing all four of his Tickets, though that was with a bit of jiggery pokery (i.e. retaking his last turn) in order to complete one ticket when he realised he had actually failed to complete it. It was therefore perhaps fair that Black who only scored ten points for completing his pair of tickets just managed to keep his nose in front, taking victory by a single point.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome:  There is something for almost everyone in the Spiel des Jahres lists.