So yesterday was game day. I haven’t really had a chance to play board games with my old group in months. I think the last time we got together was somewhere around the superbowl party. The only people who were free were Jon and Michelle which was perfect because it gave us a chance to try out some of the new games I wanted to try, the problem was they were generally for 2 to 5 players, which can be hard because sometimes the group can be huge (which is also good). In any case, in an entry which will be meaningless to most of you, here’s what we played:


 Ticket to Ride
Ticket to Ride was the first game that we played.  This of course was a first playing for all of us.  I had heard some really good things about this game (on top of that I’m a HUGE Alan Moon fan) but I just hadn’t had a chance to play yet.  Then, when I found out that this game won the 2004 Spiele Des Jahres, I knew that I had to find time.  The basic concept of the game is to connect cities that match the ones on your "Ticket" cards.  You get points for every route you connect as well as the bonus for connecting cities on your "Ticket" card (though those aren’t revealed until the end of the game).  This certainly had a Union Pacific feel (which  makes sense since this is also an Alan Moon game), so it was very easy to pick up on.  I totally dominated the west coast racking up huge points as I drove a route from LA all the way to Chicago.  I was way ahead on points, but as it became obvious that the game was nearing an end, Jon decided to pull out all the stops and take "Ticket" card after "Ticket" card.  In his last two turns he managed to snag 40 bonus points in "Ticket" cards making this a much closer game.  The only thing that saved me in the end was the longest route card that put me over the top.  This was certainly a game that the three of us enjoyed.  I gave this game a solid 8.
Oasis
Oasis was next on our list, and why not, we had already just had a wonderful experience with an Alan Moon game, why not try another one?  Let me see if I can think of some other games to compare this one to.  It has a little bit of New England (Alan Moon) as far as the title placement goes, it also reminded me a little of Through the Desert (Reiner Knizia) with a touch of Amun-Re (Reiner Knizia) in there somewhere.  There was quite a bit of choas on this one as the only thing you really have control over is which "offer" you get to choose.  Even there you have limits considering the fact that Player #1 chooses first, and cannot pick is own offer, so by the time it get’s around to Player #3 you’re kinda stuck.  The nice thing though is that which ever offer gets chosen first, that player becomes the new #1 for the following round.  The game was wacky as I mentioned before, I was able to goad Michelle into offering more cards then she probably should of, but this game wasn’t even close at the end.  Final score was Bob: 319, Michelle 230ish and Jon had just rounded the bend with under 210.  The scoring is rather interesting.  During the game you are placing either camels, stone tiles, oasis tiles or steppe tiles.  That’s all well and good, however, if you don’t have multiplier cards, then your tiles are worthless.  So for example, let’s say you have 6 stone tiles, and someone else has 12.  Seems like the other guy has that one hands down.  Well you toss in 10 stone multipliers to this 2 and BAMO!  You’ve got yourself 60 points.  So you have to think through what the best benefit is going to be for you and extra 2 tiles or one multiplier.  I don’t know if Jon and Michelle will ever play again, but I’d certainly like to give it ago.  I am sure that this game gets just crazy with 5 people.

Hansa
Hansa was our last game of the evening.  By this time we were all full of pizza and Wild Cherry Pepsi, so it’s a good thing Michelle and I had played this one before Jon showed up.  We gave Jon the run down on how the game was played, explained to him how to score victory points and launched into it.  The game really is a very clever at its heart and plays well with 2 to 4 people.  Basically you score victory points in the following manner:  For every good that you sell, you get one VP.  For every barrel on the goods maker you get one VP.  For every city you have a market in you get one VP, for every city you have a monopoly on (you’re the only market in town) you get four VPs.  There are also some additional scoring that the game company released that we used as well.  Jon took a commanding lead in this game doing all the work of refilling warehouses on his turn (Michelle and I were both being stubborn and refused to do it – refilling the warehouses cost you gold, but everyone else benefits as well).  But well had a great time.  It brought us back found memories of playing Paris, Paris – another Michael Schacht game (the one with the infamous "Scoring Sack".  A good time was had by all.

I personally had a wonderful time. I forgot how much I really loved playing board games. So I’ve decided it’s time to open my doors once again and start game night. So for those of you who live in the area, expect an email.

Good luck and happy gaming.