Tuesday 7th March - Il Principe

Il-Principe-WEB
Originally uploaded by coljen.

Unfortunately I didn't make it last week due to illness but Richard, Steve and Garry played AoS using the France map. I havn't got any details or even the result so I can't really tell you anything about the session. They had a good time by all accounts and said there was loads of money in the game and you couldn't go bankrupt!! Sounds like I might have actually been able to bear playing the french map.

Anyway, this week it was Steve's choice and he chose Il Principe, a new purchase of his although it was released at Essen this year. None of us had played before so we started off on a level playing field so to speak. Steve ran through the rules which seemed fairly straightforward. The components are very colourful and the quality was good. Little card markers with the players family shield on them are used in the game for various things but Steve felt that when you got a group of them onthe region map it would be a little difficult to see them so had substituted wooden blocks from another game which worked well.
Basically you have a deck of building cards with 20 cards each of five colours and a smaller deck of city cards that are available to build. The city cards have a cost to build, namely a number of coloured cards in various combinations and a cost in money. Each player starts with a hand of 4 cards, 2 of which are thrown away, these cards are placed face up and then auctioned. If you win a auction you have the option of building a city if you wish. Next you have the option of laying cards face up in front of you or building a city. On the board there are 2 jobs (cards) for each colour, a large card and a smaller card. The player with the most cards in front of him in a particular colour takes the large job and second takes the small job. The winner of the large job flips half of the cards he has of that colour rounded up face down. Ties result in another auction between the tied players.
cont......