Tuesday 29th November - Winchester/Packeis am Pol/Puerto Rico

Winchester-WEB
Originally uploaded by coljen.

Garry couldn't make it tonight because of work commitments so it was only Steve, Richard and myself. Before Richard arrived Steve and I had a quick game of Packeis am Pol, a game I hadn't played before. The rules are simplicity itself. You place a series of hexes to form the board, these have a number of fish on them from 1 to 3. You take turns in placing your penguins on the board then you can move them in a straight line picking up the hex you start from. Trying to corner your opponent and secure sections of the board for yourself is the name of the game and Steve soon had me stitched up.

Final Score
Steve 52, Colin 47

Then Richard arrived, it was Richard's choice and he wanted to play something he hadn't played for a long time so he chose Kremlin. But as there was only three players he thought it might not play so well, fortunately he had bought along with him Winchester. This is an old game by David Rostherne of Railway Rivals fame. Basically it's a race game, trying to get your five dobbers round the track avoiding the obstacles and other players on the way. Movement is accomplished by rolling a die which has chess moves on it. So a player rolls the die and then each player moves one of his dobbers according to the rules of chess. If you take another players piece they are not removed from the game you just swap places. There is a scoring chart and as players get their pieces home they go on the chart and score points. There are various bonuses, first piece home, 3 pieces in a row, all pieces home and so on. The mechanic works OK, but I think we all found it a bit dry for our taste. Probably not going to come out again for a long while.

Final Score
Richard 49, Colin 43, Steve 28

Finally we just had time for a 3 player game of Puerto Rico, always a favourite in our group this turned out to be a very close game indeed. I opted to go for the construction hut and the hospice so that they came out manned. I didn't have many goods the entire game, just able to produce 1 indigo, 1 tobacco and 1 corn at a time. I did have the large market which helped me when I sold my tobacco and this combined with the 4 quarries helped me to get 2 large buildings. Richard was doing very well too and got 3 large buildings. Steve was doing a lot of shipping and did ship over twice as much as Richard or myself. I think my large buildings did give me more VPs than Richards (1vp for every 3 colonists, and 1vp for every violet building). In the end the scores were very close.

Final Scores
Colin 52, Richard 51, Steve 47