Irons Win - I Lose

As I arrived at the home of the Goldstone Gamers I discovered that the Hammers had made it back up to the Premiership which was a good start for me. Good food, good company, interesting conversation continued the pleasure. ...but then games began and things went downhill. Actually they were very enjoyable games but I think I must have played them rather badly because I lost the first and actually came last in the second.

This week we played Paul's de-luxe copy of Discworld: Ankh Morpork followed by Finca, both games I like.

Discworld brings together the world of Terry Pratchett and the game-designing skills of Martin Wallace. There are those that think this is not one of Wallace's best designs but my attitude is more along the lines of "It's Pratchett AND Wallace - What's not to like?". Not being po-faced "serious" gamers (surely an oxymoronic concept anyway?) we had a lot of fun with this despite a fair amount of "backstabbing" and revenge moves.

I made the mistake of giving away my intentions at a point where I seemed poised for a win quite early on. Of course, after this I was steadily knocked back by my opponents and then contributed further to my own downfall by playing a card with a random event, which destroyed houses and cost money, and then another which overfilled my hand with unhelpful cards, holding me back for several moves.

Meanwhile I unwittingly contributed to a very near win by Paultro but Sandsweeper luckily saved that situation by removing a trouble marker on her turn. However, Sitro had been quietly heading towards his own goal of controlling four areas and achieved it that same turn. Lots of fun and great to play with the nice metal and resin pieces. Not my finest hour as far as strategy was concerned though.

Things could only get better... Finca is a game I like and had played three times before, pretty successfully as far as I could recall. When I first played it I thought it might suit the Goldstone Gamers but I didn't anticipate ALL the newbies playing it better than me. Certainly my worst game of Finca so far. Despite being well aware of the game concepts I kept failing to get useful quantities of fruit, blew two of my special action tiles and failed to gain a single bonus. Dismal.

Which is not to say I didn't enjoy it but I did indulge in a fair bit of characteristic whinging as Sitro nudged me into last place on 30 to his 31 when unused actions were taken into account. Meanwhile Paultro and Sandsweeper had played a sensible game, picking up board bonuses and those for having all the different numbers. I have conveniently forgotten Paultro's score, probably because I was fixated on the lowliness of my own, however  I can say with confidence it was A LOT MORE.

A nice game though. Simple in concept and with nice wooden fruit, differentiated both in colour and shape.

Photo by Paultro received later

It was a really good evening and I would happily go for a re-match of both these games as soon as possible.