Sunday, July 5, 2009

SOIREE JOUX At Bios de Vincennes

This weekend, I met a Canadian at Vinecenne to play board games together.

He plays board games with his wife. He said they play DOMINION.
I am impressed that his wife plays DOMINION, which is not for débutants. He said she even beats him.

We brought our own games and went to Bois de Vincenne to find a place to play them.
We walked into woods and found a wooden table with benches to play board games.

A game we play at first was Small World.
Now, it looks like this game is so popular in Paris. I was looking for this game and went to some stores, but they all said “C’est indisponible (It is all sold out!)”
After depressed a couple of times, I got one finally.

This is the first time for both of us to play this game. So we started playing the game reading the rulebook.

I chose “Flying Trolls” then I started conquer the land from the bottom right.
Then he chose “Merchant Ratmen”. I guess this is a smart choice because choosing “merchant” only gives you 2 tokens, but choosing the ratmen gives you 8 which is the most number among the races. So he got 10 rats tokens.
He spread over his ratmen on the other side of the land.
Each of his turn, he scored almost twice as much as mine.
I failed to use “flying ability” in the first and second turns. I just forgot my special power “Flying”. (Flying Trolls sounds weird, though.)
I cut his troops in two and placed a troll’s lair to protect the place where I conquered.
But this move is not crucial in this game. He collected the isolated rats, abandoned the region and conquered another region and kept scoring…
As my Trolls were well protected by a mountain and a Troll lair, the number of Troll tokens didn’t decrease so I think I missed the timing to put the Troll in decline.
We knew each other he won the game before the last turn.

We started the same game again. I chose “Stout Skeletons” and he chose “Forest Tritons”. In the map for 2 players, half of the land borders the sea or the lake, so he conquered several regions including forest regions in the first and second turn. Skeletons weren’t a bad choice and I conquered more regions than him, but 3 Forests are bordering the sea or the lake. So he took those forests back using less tokens. I should have watched the map more carefully.

I lost so badly, but I really enjoyed the game because so many things happen during a game.

He said he likes the game and is going to buy one.


Next game we played was “Mr. Jack” which he brought.
One plays Jack and the other plays police to arrest him.
He explained the rules and then said, “I never win when I play Jack.”
This is the first time that I play this game, so he let me play the police at first.
At the first turn of the game, I actually didn’t know what I should do, but the number of innocent people automatically (to me) increased. I picked up Holmes who tells you who is innocent and at the fourth turn, I figured out there are only 2 suspects left. I moved Miss Stealthy close to "Jack" as she can move farther than any other people. Finally she caught “Jack”. “I told you.”, he said.

Then I played Jack. I placed Sir William as a decoy near the exit of the town so that he seems to sneak out. I was planning to let “Jack” out of the town just after exchanging his position to Sir William. But the light near the exit won’t let to do it. So I changed the strategy, just keep escaping until the end of the game. At the last turn, I thought I win, but he found the way to reach Jack. Mmmm, I lost.

He plays very well, but I can’t still image how his wife plays DOMINION and beats him...

That was a wonderful evening. I wish I could play games with him again (and his wife if possible).