Lawless Utopia

Thursday night games for four this week as Petra Pan and mrwendell were too shattered by their day's work (or at least that's what they said). Somehow the decision came down to a choice between Steam and two of the bargain haul from The Works: Utopia and La Citta.

When I came back from the kitchen with an assortment of hot drinks the decision had been made and Utopia was being set up. This proved to be a mistake as before long everyone had taken a dislike to it. Curious given that after my initial two-player game with Crabro our opinion had been cautiously favourable.

In the event it was decided to cut our losses and end the misery at 20 points rather than 50. ProfMudlark was the winner and I came second although if I could have been bothered to work it out exactly I might have been able to improve this on my last turn by further manipulating the favour track. Given the confusion and unhappiness amongst a group which seemed rather tired tonight, I don't think this will be hitting the table here again but I might give it one last try with the Goldstone Gamers before we sell it on.

No-one really fancied another complex game after that and we headed to the games shelves looking for a simple card game. I suggested Lawless although this was new to MaOldie and the Prof. A fairly cutthroat game ensued with an unusually successful gold mine running most of the money out quite early on. After some skullduggery but nowhere near the backstabbing the Goldstone Gamers relish in this game, the Prof. ran the rest of the bank out by selling cattle and ended the game the winner by a small margin over Crabro. I came a poor third having never really got to grips with ranching this time and sorely in need of the cavalry.

Not the best Thursday games evening ever but played with good humour and still enjoyable.