Sat. July 17th Session Report Part 2

Before the Spanish Civil war began, a couple groups decided to get in a quick game. One group made up of Kim, Homer and Alexis, played a game of Dominion. I'm uncertain as to the outcome of this game.

The other group, consisting of myself, Richard, and Josh played a game of Race for the Galaxy. This was Josh's first time playing this game. Race for the Galaxy is a card game where the winner is the one with the most victory points at the end of the game. It's a quick playing and very fun and possibly a bit addicting game. It seems difficult on the surface but once you get playing, the game will click into place. While playing, Amos dropped by.

After those two games wrapped up, part of the group split off and joined Ken with his Spanish Civil war minis scenario while myself, Kim, Alexis, and Amos began a game of Time's Up!

Time's Up! is a party game that Amos described as being probably the best party game. You play in teams (for us I paired up with Amos and Kim and Alexis paired up) and are dealt a certain number of cards. On these cards are names of fictional and non-fictional 'celebrities' such as Paul Simon, Rocky Balboa, Winnie the Pooh or Ross Perot. Each person chooses 10 cards to keep and all cards are pooled together, read aloud, and then shuffled.

The game then proceeds in 3 rounds where each team tries to get their partner to guess the celebrity named on the card. When the cards are passed to a team, the clue giver only has, I think, 30 seconds to get his partner to guess as many cards as possible. After the time is up, the remaining cards in the deck is passed along to the other team and they then proceed with their 30 seconds and so on until all cards in the deck have been guessed.

In round 1, the clue giver can use as many words as possible to get his teammate to guess the card. You cannot pass the card and the guesser can guess as many times as he'd like.

In round 2, the clue giver can only give one word for a clue and may pass a card.

In round 3, the clue giver cannot say any words, may pass a card and the guesser only gets one guess.

For each correct card guessed, the team gets a point and the team with the most points at the end of round 3 wins.

Shortly after we began playing, Rob and Angela showed up and Angela joined Kim and Alexis. This was a rather fun party game and was a hoot to play. It gets interesting when you can only use one word or no words to desribe the celebrity on the card. I recommend this for a fun, casual play where you are looking for some laughs.

After finishing Time's Up!, we broke out Bohnanza. Bohnanza is a card game where you are a bean farmer. Yes, I said bean farmer. You are dealt a hand of 5 cards which you may not reorder. You have to keep the cards in the order they were dealt. On your turn, you have to plant the first card in your hand and then you may plant the second card in your hand. Since you are only allowed 2 'bean fields' in front of you, you need to try to trade and/or donate cards with the other players so you can harvest your fields for the most profit. Once you are done planting, two cards are drawn face up and then the bargaining begins. These two cards must be planted so bargaining can get intersting. During the bargaining stage, the active player can also trade and/or donate cards with the other players. It can get intersting game to overhear as you may hear something like, "I'll give you two stinks for that blue bean!" The game ends when the supply deck is exhausted for a 3rd time and the person with the most coins at the end of the game wins. Angela was the most successful bean farmer.

After Bohnanza, we broke out Carcasonne:Hunters and Gatherers. H&G is a stand alone game, not an expansion to regular Carcasonne. As Angela described it, it's like regular Carcasonne but not. The Carcasonne games are a tile laying game. There is a stash of tiles where each player draws one and plays it on the board. As each tile is drawn, the board gets bigger. After you play a tile, you may place one of your meeples (wooden 'person' that represents you) on that tile. The meeple can be a hunter (in a field), gatherer (in a forest), fisherman (on a river), or you can place your hut on a river system. Your meeple scores when a forest or field or river is completed and your hunter and huts are scored at the end of the game. The person with the most points, wins. It's a very easy and quick to learn game. Carcasonne is a great intro game to EuroGames. I don't recall who emerged victorious in our game.