A Successful Games Evening

Well, I think that our first gaming session with Pauline and Stephen was a great success. We may have two more converts to the world of Eurogaming. Yesterday they made a trip into Salzburg and visited the gaming stores I had told them about and bought a bunch of games including, Ticket to Ride, Ticket to Ride Marklin and Carcassonne A New World. We have another session planned at their place next monday, with Ticket to Ride Europe and Settlers of Catan on table. Looking forward to it!!!

Happy Gaming!!

Ticket To Ride gains 2 more converts

 

Our friends Stephen and Pauline came round this evening for a few drinks, nibbles and of course a game or two. They had never played anything like a eurogame so out came TtR, the definitive gateway game. I showed them a few of the games I thought might be suitable for a first time play, Thebes, Settlers of Catan and of course TtR. We decided to give TtR a try and they liked it I think right from the start, the rules are easy to get to grips with so you can start playing pretty much straight from the off. I explained that in the later stages of the game it might be good to take more tickets because you might already have the connection or part at least. Stephen went a different way, after connecting his initial routes he went for all the 6 train routes, scoring a hefty 15 points a pop.
In the end it was pretty close, Stephen closed out his last 6er to leave him with 1 train and me one route short of making two tickets and a large minus. Pauline had the longest route to get the extra 10 points, so the final scores ended like this.

Final Score
Stephen 89, Colin 83, Pauline 81, Tina 80

After TtR I brought out Reiner Knizia's Spiel des Jahres winner, Keltis. This didn't go down so well, quote from Stephen 'tame'. Plus the fact that I forget a crucial rule that the game ends when the last card is taken from the face down deck....ah well, you can't win em all.

Final Score
Pauline 37, Tina 20, Stephen 18, Colin 14

As the time was getting on now I thought we could finish the evening with a little card filler, Geschenkt (No Thanks!). Rules are easy, plays quick and has a bit to it. I think they quite liked this as well, Pauline was definitely on a roll now, just look at the scores for this one.

Final Scores
Game 1 - Pauline 51, Tina 55, Colin 61, Stephen 74

Game 2 - Pauline 59, Stephen 66, Tina 84, Colin 92

Game 3 - Pauline 49, Tina 65, Colin 66, Stephen 99

Game 3 - Tina 36, Pauline 55, Colin 62, Stephen 87

All in all a good evening I think, well, Pauline and Stephen wanted to know where they could buy TtR and took down some names of other likely games. Hopefully 2 more converts the great world of Eurogaming. Can't wait to play again.

Happy Gaming!!

Thebes and Things

So after reading the rules and having a solo run through I finally persuaded the wife to give it a go. I had been reading on BGG how it played 2 player and quite a few couples found it an entertaining game. No such luck, Tina found it quite boring and said what have I got to do with all these cards, well that was her first impression. I know most of the time she only plays to humour me as I have no other opponents at hand. It got better as the game played out, she liked the drawing of artifacts out of the bag, and she laughed a lot when I drew a load of rubble!!
In the end she said it was OK, and she even beat me by 2 points. I think she liked Settlers better, I know Settlers is an old game but it's easy to get into and if she likes it...it's fine with me, I'll play.
Well, Essen is almost over for another year, I didn't go, but I have been reading lots of reports, lists of what people bought and so on. Kulkmann's report is always a great read (and he has prizes), of course loads of stuff on BGG. I also found 'Obsessing about Everything' by Melissa, a good read but I don't understand all this OMG stuff, I expect it's an American thing.


Here is another misty autumn picture of St. Wolfgang for you. Our English friends are back over here for 12 days and we have actually arranged a gaming evening for next Tuesday. They seem quite interested in my game collection, but I don't think they have played anything resembling a Euro game before. I think I have a gateway game or 2 that I can tempt them with....here's hoping anyway!!

Happy Gaming!!

A Day in Salzburg

Monday last we went to Salzburg for the afternoon, had some shopping to do and while we was there I thought I might as well just pop into a couple of game shops. The weather was fine as it has been for the past week and the trees looked wonderful.



There is a shop run by an english chap called, amazingly, the English Shop. They stock most things that you can't get in Austria that you miss from home. We paid him a visit and bought a few things that we needed. Then we sat in the square and had frankfurter hotdogs and beer, very nice indeed. We looked in the game stores and noted that they are already getting the Christmas toys and games out. Oh oh....I spotted Thebes, a game I had been reading about on BGG and that appealed to me quite a lot. I love games with ancient themes, Roman, Greek or Egyptian, 'you said you weren't getting any more games before christmas', says the wife. Ah...well, this is game I really would like. Oh, go on then, but this is the last one!!


So, I have been reading more about the game on the geek, about the luck and so on. I have tried a sort of run through of the rules and can't wait to play. Tina likes Egyptian stuff too, so she maybe might like to try this soon.

Happy Gaming!!
PS if you want to see more pics Austria and Salzburg go here:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Colin.Jen/Autumn2008#

More pics of Autumn in St. Wolfgang

Here are a few more pictures of the lovely scenery around where we live in St. Wolfgang. The weather has been lovely and sunny for 4 or 5 days now, almost too hot, we are going to Salzburg tomorrow so I hope it continues for at least another day.

Autumn in St. Wolfgang

 

The weather here is fantastic at the moment, bright sunshine with folks in swimsuits sunbathing by the lakeside. The autumn colours make the scenery pretty spectacular as well. We went for a walk yesterday and I took the camera to record some of the autumn scenes, the cows have been brought down from the mountains so they add to the overall picture and make the scene typically 'Austrian'.
I have also been looking at the Essen threads on BGG and going a very pretty shade of green. Some of the offerings this year look pretty interesting, but I keep thinking of all the money I will be saving by not going. Well.....I keep thinking it, but it doesn't seem to be working!! I know Richard, Garry, Steve and Jo are going and hopefully I will get a report on how it was from one of them. Ah well.....I'll go and look at the lovely scenery one more time.

Happy Gaming!!

3 Games of Settlers

Well, 2 posts in two days. We actually sat down and played 3 games of basic Settlers straight off the bat today. Tina picked it up really quickly and quite enjoyed it I think. The score was 2-1 to me, but this game may actually make the table again in the future. When our English friends come over in October I think this could be the game to try them on.
The weather here is pretty depressing at the moment, rainy and cold, still at least there's no snow yet. This weekend they are bringing the cows down off the mountain and make quite a big thing of it. Bands and beer I think, and the cows have a pretty good time too!!

First Post for Ages

Well.....I never realised that it was 2 months since my last post. Tut! Tut! must do better. Anyway, what have I been up to, well, we went back to the UK for a couple of weeks in September to visit family which was nice. Tina's mum is 92 and not in the best of health and my mum is 84 so it was nice to see them. We haven't been on any more trips to shows or anything and I am getting really twitchy now as it comes up to Essen 2008 and I am not going. I know all my gaming buddies from the UK plan to make the trip and I am really jealous.
I have been playing mostly online, loads of Settlers and Knights and Cities some Hacienda and Year of the Dragon. I had bought the Settlers card game ages ago in the forelorn hope that the wife would play it, but no luck, anyway I have just bought the expansion sets so that's more games that will not get played lol. I seem to be getting into a Settlers mood just lately, I must admit that when I first played it way back when I first started boardgaming, I was not all all impressed, I just didn't get the dice rolls and my first placement of towns was useless. Which of course is half the battle when trying to get a good start. So when we were in Bad Ischl shopping last Tuesday I thought I would just have a look in the one game shop they have to see what was about and I came out with.....you guessed it, Settlers of Catan, the boardgame. I definitely hope the wife will play as I have found some interesting looking 2 players rules on BGG. Well pigs might fly I suppose, but you never know.
On a more opimistic front, we have made friends with an English couple that have bought a flat out here. Both teachers, one retired, one not, they come out about 10 times a year and when they saw my boardgame collection expressed an interest in them. They both like boardgames they said, but I think that maybe not german boardgames as they didn't recognise anything in my collection. So, a chance to introduce another couple of people into the wonderful world of Eurogaming. Next time they come over (October) we have scheduled a games evening....what to play, what to play. Should it be Ticket to Ride, Settlers, Pandemic.....I don't know, still it looks promising, so fingers crossed.

That's all for now...happy gaming!!