There were eight of us this week and the first four started off with Mark W's suggestion: Kingdom Builder. Not sure if this is one of Mark's banker games as I know he's played it quite a bit but I wasn't overly surprised to find that Mark W won.

On the other table, Mark K was teaching Nige, Mark G and me Terra Mystica, which is one of the hot games that came out at Essen last year. And it played very well although it was quite long (but not so long that I'd refuse to play it again). It also has lots of variability with fourteen factions that players can use so each game should play out differently. Although I started off pretty well and kept in the hunt (while not knowing which areas were important). Meanwhile Mark K and Nige, who both knew the rules pretty well, were able to use this to their advantage, although Mark K always looked to be favourite due to his domination of the cult tracks. And he did win, although it turned out to be closer than I expected. Good game which I expect us to play again soon.

Having built a kingdom, the other table moved on to excavating Thebes. This looks like it was very tight with Nicky winning by a single point from Guy. Mark W looks like he was digging and coming up with dust, which is my usual result.

Seven of us this week so we split into two groups and my table started with another try at Star Wars: Angriff der Klonkrieger as Nicky had missed out last time we played. We again played with the C3PO and R2D2 extra mission and at one point we could have lost depending on an area replenishment but we survived that and lasted out until Yoda arrived with reinforcements for the win.

On the other table, Steve taught Nige and Mark K Mercante, which is one of four games AEG released last year with a linked back story in the Tempest universe (Love Letter being one of the others). This was very close between Steve and Nige with both getting to 10 victory points but Steve broke the tie.

We moved onto an older game about building a cityscape, Wettstreit der Baumeister, which is mainly an auction game with some potential attacking other players constructions. This didn't quite work although my memory of having played it fifteen years ago was pretty good and, having looked at BGG since, it needs one or two tweaks to iron out the problems we encountered. Anyway, Andrew slaughtered the rest of us with an almost perfect city, whereas I got stuffed bidding on a city piece that actually gave me negative points.

On the other table, they had another go at Legendary, which Mark K had not played before. Their choice of Mastermind and Scheme, Red Skull unleashing the power of the Cosmic Cube, which is the beginners' scenario, meant they were unlikely to be beaten and that was the case with Steve taking the win.

We finished off with some dice rolling, as our zombies attempted to eat brains faster than others'. I was the shotgun king as I tended to roll one or more shotguns on my first roll every round with very few brains rolled. Conversely, Andrew had one round where he rolled seven brains and this enabled him easily to record a third win of the evening.

Half term week meant an extra session for Nige, Mark K and Guy. They started with Bora Bora which Guy had not played before. Although experience obviously counted, because Nige and Mark K were pretty close in the final scores whereas Guy was a fair bit adrift, this didn't stop Guy rating it a 10.

Next up was Martin Wallace's Brass. The first time we played this, we felt the loan system was a bit wonky but, this time, it seemed to work better or we'd previously played something wrong. Anyway, they enjoyed this a lot better with Nige taking the win.

The third game of the day was Singapore, a game I've not played. This was very close between Mark K and Guy with Guy just edging the win by a single point. Not sure if Nige was playing a different game but he might as well have been.

The fourth and final game was a bit of superhero action in the DC Comics Deck-Building Game. Mark K hadn't played this before and it looks like he quite enjoyed it. Nige grabbed a second win of the day to maintain his charge for this year's Hall of Fame.

Another week with eight in attendance so we split into two tables and my group started with Mice and Mystics. This is a story-driven dungeon crawl where the heroes have been turned into mice and, in the first chapter that we played, fight their way through sewers and tunnels and up to a courtyard where they can escape into a gnarly old tree. In each location, you have to defeat the creatures attacking you (rats, cockroaches, centipedes, spiders etc.) before you can move on and, if you take too long, more creatures get added to the room.

The game was ok but, apart from the unusual theme, I didn't think there was much to distinguish it from other similar games. And I don't understand why it's been getting such rave reviews from many people. There wasn't much in the way of tension (although this was just the first scenario so later chapters may be harder) and, apart from Mark K and I both getting captured in one location, once the creatures there had been defeated, we miraculously escaped to rejoin the team. We eventually made it to the courtyard, waited for the centipede to come to us, while the crow defeated the rats for us, beat up the centipede and moved into the tree to end the scenario. A joint win but not the challenge we'd been hoping for.

On the other table, they opted to play Ginkgopolis which, apart from Nicky, they'd all played a couple of weeks ago. This was a two horse race between Mark W and Julia with Julia eventually taking a comfortable win. At least it didn't take them as long to play this time.

After Ginkgopolis, Mark W had to leave so the remaining three turned to Rialto. Julia was the only one not to have played before. And this also turned into a two horse race but this time for second place as Nige dominated the Doge track and ran out an easy winner.

Our group finished off with the excellent Qwixx, recently nominated for this year's Spiel des Jahres and it's not hard to see why. I was the only one to have played before but it's a very easy game to get into but it does have some agonising decisions and, as the end of the game approaches, the likelihood that the dice can ruin your plans. That said, it's a dice game so we could have just handed the win to Mark G at the start and had an early finish. Well, we didn't and guess what? Mark G won.