A Saturday of gaming

Wow - a whole load of games today - first Eketorp, then Zooloetto then Ticket to Ride (USA map). Eketorp was played by myself, Roshni and Maya - a fab game of warring Viking tribes (I think Eketorp is German for Viking although Google Translate doesn't seem to think so, but hey, what does Google know...). The idea is everyone gets a group of little wooden guys, a card is drawn that shows where to place several pieces of material (Bales of grass/hay, wood, clay and stone) - each worth more in points value.

Once these have been placed, players then secretly using a marked board and screen place their warriors where they want to attack or claim materials. Once revealed, everyone moves their warriors to the appropriate places - any in dispute then have to fight over the materials using combat cards marked 1 to 6; the higher card wins, knocking the other to a hospital, the bigger the difference in card numbers, the longer they have to stay in the hospital - but the cards are swapped over and placed on the board where they can be picked up again if the the players cards run out, so you can't ever have one dominating player - neat idea.

After all combat has taken place, including any attacks on villages, players take back their "booty" to store in their village. The first to 18 pieces ends the game and score is counted on the number of pieces * their value (grass/hay worth 1 whilst stone is worth 5).

This is a medium length game, but a fantastic play - everyone one can get involved and it is simple to play; combat mechanics is very simple, but effective and play never becomes stagnated. An all round favourite.

Later in the evening was a 4 player Zooloretto - again a great game, Roshni won just in time; taking the Polar Bear Cub add on was decisive. The Cub halves all Barn negative scores at the end of the game.

Finally in the evening over drinks and crisps, Anita and I duked it out in a game of Ticket to Ride: USA map. In a close fought contest, Anita passed me by 3 points when it came to the ticket count up at the end, but she failed on one ticket, loosing her 10 points - final score 92 to me, 87 to Anita! I never win at this! Yay!