Raanana Session Report, in which I play Settlers with two Rochelles

Participants: Laurie, Daniel, Jon, Ellis, Rochelle, Rochelle 2

Game night at Laurie and Daniel's as usual. Rochelle 2 is a friend of mine who was willing to try something new; she has no previous experience with games as an adult.

Dominion+

Jon 27, Laurie 11, Ellis 10, Daniel 6

Scores approximate. I brought over my box of four Dominion games and selected a random assortment from all of them.

Kingdoms: Market, Great Hall, Masquerade, Swindler, Ironworks, Sea Hag, Tactician, Bishop, Bank, Expand. No Platinum or Colony.

This is the first play for any Dominion expansions by the others. Actually, they're all still in single digit plays for Dominion altogether. Turns are still kind of slow going. There was a lot of trashing, of course. Swindler has the side effect of causing piles of cards to disappear rather quickly, which is why the game ended up with three piles gone, rather than the usual Provinces. I managed to nab three Provinces before the game ended, all by using Tactician.

An interesting combo was Ironworks to take Great Hall, which gave two out of the three bonuses with no drawbacks. Swindler also handed out a lot of curses, mostly to Daniel.

Settlers of Catan

Jon 10, Rochelle 7, Rochelle 2 5

Rochelle had played this once before but had forgotten many of the rules. So it was essentially a first play for both of them. They both picked it up without much difficulty. The resource distribution was pretty even, and so were the dice rolls. No one had to toss out cards from a roll of 7.

Rochelle took Longest Road fairly early. She also acquired a port mid-game, but it wasn't one she could use. Rochelle 2 built a few settlements and was often one road away from taking Longest Road from Rochelle, though she never threatened to do so. Luck was against her, and she often rolled up a resource right after she had traded for it.

I built an early settlement and then city on the ore, and then city on the brick. I had a port for brick and used it nicely. I ended the game with my ninth board point and a revealed development victory point.

Race for the Galaxy

Ellis, Daniel, Laurie

I didn't see how the game (or games) went. They actually play with an expension or two thrown in, though I don't know which.