Christmas Games Night 27/12/2015

So the festive season is upon us and that means more new games.  I was lucky enough to get two this year, Sheriff of Nottingham and Carcassonne (with the River and Abbot expansions).  This was the first chance we got to play any since Christmas so we got a few games in.  We had started with 6 which was over both games player counts so we started with a few other games until we were down to 4 players.  These aren't as big or story driven games like my last Games night post but they were new games for all of us and I wanted to write about them a bit but haven't really played them enough to do a full review.

We started with Exploding Kittens since someone else had just got that.  We were combining the regular game and the NSFW deck.  It was a pretty quick game so not to much to say about it.  With a big deck of cards early on it wasn't to bad but as the game went on it seem to get more and more tense since the chance of pulling an exploding kitten of the deck increased.  There was some nice back and forth between two players.  One stole a card from the other and then spent the rest of the game getting all his cards taken from him in revenge.  Once everyone else noticed he had very few cards in his hand but still a diffuse card everyone targeted him, fewer cards increased everyones odds of getting that card off him.  I lasted until the last 4 but got myself out before making it to the final 3.  BBG play information is here.

Next to the table was Coup and we were using the Reformation expansion.  We didn't include the Inquisitor just stuck with the basic cards but we did include the loyalty cards.  I think the loyalty cards add a nice twist to the game, since you are not working together as there is only one winner but you are forced onto a team with people.  We started out as normal just building up money.  I started with a Captain so was using him to steal from other people but I decided to claim to have as much as possible early since a lie could come in handy later.  I took tax and claimed I had a Duke and carried on stealing if anyone looked like they were getting close to a Coup.  I was doing quite well.  When I got rid of the Ambassador card I also had  people got suspicious that I didn't really have one, but no-one called me on it so I swapped and got a second Captain.  I carried on claiming to have both a Duke and Captain with people now unsure about which I was lying about and which I really had people just let me do it.

The teams had gone in my favour.  Early on a couple of players changed their loyalty to my team which meant that most of the hostile actions were being taken against a smaller number of players.  This meant that I was mostly left alone to make money and Coup people.  I was eventually Coup'd by another play and got rid of one of my Captains.  I planned to carry on claiming a Captain not a Duke hoping that someone would call me on it and cause them to lose one of their cards but I didn't get much of a chance I was knocked out and the game went into a 1 on 1 between two other players.  BBG play information is here.

The last of our small games was Mafia De Cuba.  We had played this before with a lot more people in the pub but with so many new people then and drinks flowing not everyone had fully understood what was going on so this was really a chance to try it out.  We ended up playing two games of it.

In the first game the 1st and 2nd players took tokens and the last token was removed and put in the bag.  It meant that the last 3 all had to take diamonds.  When I got the box there were only two left in the box.  I decided to take one and leave one in the box for the Godfather to see.  It was a pretty quick game, the 3rd player had taken about 9 diamonds out the box and was quickly caught, me and the 4th player were chosen next since it was clear they had gone missing late rather than early.  Everyone but the 3 Thieves won since it was the FBI agent taken out the game and the Driver was sitting next to the Henchman.

We all moved around and then played the next round.  This time when the box came to me there were 5 diamonds and the FBI agent.  I took the FBI agent convinced I could make it look as if I was a Thief that slipped up.  When asked what was in the box when I was handed it I only said 5 diamonds and didn't mention any tokens.  I hoped this would put some suspicion on me if I wasn't claiming that I could have taken the Henchman or Driver.  It worked and I was accused winning the game.  BBG play information is here and here.

At this point two of our players had to leave so we were down to four people.  This meant we could get my Christmas presents to the table.


First up was Sheriff of Nottingham.  I had been looking forward to getting this to the table.  It was new for all of us but we had good fun.  Early in the game I was caught trying to sneak in contraband and decided to have a couple of turns off and be honest.  I did offer tiny bribes still hoping that people would think that I was trying to sneak stuff in and be cheap.  It worked a few times people opened my bags and had to pay me penalties.  I also did very well with getting bribes.  I would let people get anything through so long as they paid a very good bribe and would keep upping my offer instead of lowering it to see how high they would go before I accepted.  All in all this meant I ended a very rich player.  I didn't have much on my market stall but bread and cheese, but with the large amount of coins I had in stock from bribes and penalties plus getting the King's bonus twice I ended up winning the game.

The second game of Sheriff was actually later in the night but I thought I would write about it now.  This time everyone had a better idea of how the game worked and how each other played.  I decided early I was going to try and get as many bonus points at the end instead of lots of contraband.  I got lucky with a few hands with a lot of the same thing in them and made a show of getting rid of contraband to pick up honest goods.  This meant I was claiming I was putting through 5 bread or 5 apples in my sack and instantly they were suspicious of how likely it was I had managed to get 5/6 cards the same.  This gave me a few big penalty payments and put me in line to win the King bonus for a couple of items.  I did slip some contraband through but tried to get the Royal goods to help with end of game bonuses rather than high cost items like crossbows.

I lost big on my last turn as Sheriff though.  Until this point I had let all bags through on my goes just getting bribes from them.  The turn before as Sheriff every player had loaded up with contraband knowing I wouldn't stop it as long as they paid so they were getting their money's worth.  I thought they would try it again and decided I wouldn't accept any bribes just open all three bags, get three lots of penalties and stop the others getting anything to their stalls.  It backfired, as one it seemed the other players decided they didn't want to pay a bribe this turn so all stocked up on legal good.  That round cost me a lot of gold.

Probably my favourite part of the game was the last turn though.  I was trying to get a Royal Good through that would help get me a end of game bonus for cheese which I was behind on as well as a few other "undeclared items".  I decided to offer a bribe to leave my bag alone and open another players instead, the Sheriff let him make a counter off to open mine instead and we ended up in a bidding war with each other that went way too high for me to afford.  As the round timer ticked down all three of us came to an agreement to split the highest bid between the two of us and not open either bag which was a deal I jumped on.  I didn't do as well this time around losing out to two of the other players who came joint 1st place in the end.  BBG play information is here and here.

Between the two games of Sheriff we played a game of Carcassonne with the River and Abbot expansions.  It was another one I really wanted to play.  I'm not much of a Euro Gamer but this one appeals to me.  We started badly, I shuffled all the river tiles together including the source and the lake so they were drawn at random as well.  We sorted that out and carried on.  Early on I took a few roads while other concentrated on cities.  I took a few Monasteries and was working on them, I also worked my way into a few cities joining them to split points with people.  We had one player concentrating on one really long road, we were using that to block peoples cities and make them harder to finish, running it against the edges of the cities so that to close the walls he needed wall and road on the same tiles to finish.

About mid way through I took two monasteries next to each other I was hoping that I could close them both off at the same time for 18 points.  Someone surrounded the last square I needed with field then a road coming into it.  It meant I needed a dead end piece of road to finish both of them, I didn't know it at that point but there were none left in the deck to draw so for the rest of the game I was sat with no way to finish or get my meeples back.

Late in the game I made sure I finished with all my meeples on the board to get a lot of end of game scoring.  This ended up paying off well since I ended up getting a slim win.  BBG play infomation here.