I've been a bit busy over the last week or so and I've got a bit behind with the blog, so I'll keep this one quick and simple. There were 3 of us and it was Steve's choice, he turned up with a massive bag (I thought he was going to move in!), it was full of games as I don't think he'd made up his mind. First up was King of Siam, this was new at Essen this year and was one of the games on my list that didn't make it. Not because I didn't like it but because I just didn't get time to check it out.
About halfway through
You have 8 cards which will alow you to move cubes around the board which is a map of Siam.
Each player has the same 8 cards and you only get to use them once per game, you can pass on your turn so a game will last longer than 8 turns. There are 8 Regions on the map and they get scored in order during the game (one of the cards allows you to change this order). Quite tricky, and as it was the first time I'd played it it was hard to work out what was the best thing to do. It will definitely need a few more plays before I get the hang of it.
Richard 5, Garry 4, Steve 2
As King of Siam didn't take to long Steve produced an older game from his bag. Spiel der Turme came out in 1993 and was one of the first German games that Steve bought. Wooden tiles are placed at random on a grid of squares. Each tile is marked with a coloured symbol, the idea is to stack up tiles of the same symbol but keeping your tile on the top, once you've done this you need to move it to one of the dark blue finishing squares.
Things are starting to stack up
This is a lot trickier than you think, as soon as it looks like you can manage it everyone goes all out to stop you. This caused a fair bit of analysis paralysis towards the end of the game. Richard managed to get his men into a position were we couldn't stop him and despite our best efforts scored a double point bonus for filling all 4 squares of dark blue scoring block.
Richard 35, Garry 12, Steve 9
About halfway throughEach player has the same 8 cards and you only get to use them once per game, you can pass on your turn so a game will last longer than 8 turns. There are 8 Regions on the map and they get scored in order during the game (one of the cards allows you to change this order). Quite tricky, and as it was the first time I'd played it it was hard to work out what was the best thing to do. It will definitely need a few more plays before I get the hang of it.
Richard 5, Garry 4, Steve 2
As King of Siam didn't take to long Steve produced an older game from his bag. Spiel der Turme came out in 1993 and was one of the first German games that Steve bought. Wooden tiles are placed at random on a grid of squares. Each tile is marked with a coloured symbol, the idea is to stack up tiles of the same symbol but keeping your tile on the top, once you've done this you need to move it to one of the dark blue finishing squares.
Things are starting to stack upRichard 35, Garry 12, Steve 9
