With eight of us this week, we split into two tables. The first four decided to pull out Kingsburg to teach to Richard. Inevitably, with it being a dice game, Mark G won although the scores were pretty close. It seems like Richard enjoyed it.

The other four of us decided to try out the Lamont Brothers' new race game, Snow Tails. I think people were a bit surprised that there was more to the game than first appeared to be the case. There is a nice hand management aspect to the game and, controlling your sled is not as straightforward as it seems. If you mess up a move, it can be pretty difficult to recover although the bonus moves do favour those who are lagging behind (although it's not always advisable to take the bonus). Tom and I were fighting it out for first place but, whereas Tom didn't have the best cards to use at the end, I had kept back some helpful cards to allow me to cross the line just a bit ahead. Mark K just managed to keep his sled together although this had looked doubtful early on. As a fan of race games, I liked this quite a bit, although Tom felt that you were still dependent on drawing the right cards and marked his rating down accordingly.

Powerboats report soon.

Dominion report soon.

San Juan report soon.

Five of us this week tried out Le Havre for the first time. Le Havre is designed by Uwe Rosenberg and published by Lookout Games. Now the rules suggest not playing with five until you have tried the game before but we were all keen to give it a go.

Le Havre has a number of similarities to Agricola in that it is a game of developing capabilities in order to make yourself richer. There is a lot going on with a wide variety of buildings that players can utilise to their advantage. It definitely takes a while to work out what you need to do, although Mark K rightly concentrated from an early stage on building buildings. I'm not sure how loans might affect play. Nobody took one in our game and it seemed strange that you could not take one unless you were unable to feed your workers. Seemed a bit restrictive to me.

I found the game quite a bit drier than Agricola and it seems to take longer to play. Our short game took all evening. For me, therefore, the jury's out on Le Havre. I need to play again now I understand how each of the goods helps you progress. Maybe playing with 3 or 4 will give more opportunities to advance quicker as you get more turns between each feeding phase.

There were seven of us this week so we decided to split into two tables. The table of four started with Dominion, with Steve teaching as he already had dozens of games played on Brettspielwelt under his belt. I think they played with the recommended starting action card decks. apparently, there was a remarkably high number of Moats taken (obviously people were expecting attack cards to be played) and Steve was sweating as NIge had pulled ahead and was trying to get the game finished quickly before he could be caught. However, Steve just managed to pip him by a single point. I'm not sure how Mark K managed to accumulate just 7 points - was he asleep for most of the game?

While the table of four was playing Dominion, the other three opted for this excellent train and stock market game, designed by Harry Wu and beautifully published by Queen Games.

Players invest in railroad companies and aim to expand their rail network to increase the companies' income, which is periodically distributed to shareholders through dividends. As each company has a different number of shares available, we weren't sure initially how important the availability of shares would be. In hindsight, PRR shares were by far the most valuable as the dividend was divided between fewer shareholders. I managed to snap up two of the three shares for too little cash and just made sure I didn't get blocked in so I could continue to expand. Next game, I'm sure either the shares will not go as cheaply or the expansion capability of PRR will be hampered by the other players to limit its income. Richard, who joined us for the first time tonight, played a very good game and was able to develop the C&O across the South of the board before turning it northward. Guy's major investment in NYC got stuffed when I blocked his expansion path with the PRR. Nobody reached Chicago so the Wabash line never got started and when the dust settled, I managed to emerge with the victory. Not so sure it will be quite that easy next time when we all know what we're doing.

Chicago Express is a great game that I'm sure will see quite a bit of play as it's quick, there are lots of decisions required of the players and it plays with up to six players.

Dominion finished before Chicago Express so the table of four turned to another new game that none of us had played: Strozzi, designed by Reiner Knizia and published by Rio Grande. This was billed as a close relation to Medici but the general feeling was that it lacked some of the tension of Medici and was not as good. I hope to try it soon to make my own mind up. Mark K had obviously woken up after his dismal Dominion showing as he took victory in this one.

After Chicago Express, our table of three went for a shorter game to try and catch up with the other table. High Score (or Wurfel Bingo) is a very accessible variant on Take It Easy, played with dice and aiming to score the best poker hands horizontally, vertically and diagonally in a 5x5 grid. Richard and I had played this one before while it was Guy's first attempt. First round scores were very close for all of us but I then proceeded to have a disastrous second round where I only managed 26 points while the others were up around the 50 point mark. Although I recovered in the third round with both diagonals raking in good points, it wasn't enough and Guy was able to claim the win. I really like High Score and it's a very versatile game as any number can play.

We managed to join both tables together for the last game of the evening, the infamous Bang! - a game that Nige still whinges about because a player in Boot Hill can still win. I was Sheriff for this game and decided to mix it up a bit early on by lighting the fuse to some dynamite. Unfortunately, the fuse was remarkably short as it blew up in my face before I could pass it on to anyone. Grr! With a lack of cards and no beer in sight to revive me, things looked bleak for the good guys and, sure enough, with outlaws as my immediate neighbours on both sides, the Sheriff soon took the trip to Boot Hill, This left outlaws, Nige, Tom and Guy, celebrating while Richard the Renegade, Deputy Steve and Deputy Mark came to the realisation that skulking around not helping the Sheriff did nothing to aid their career aspirations. Good stuff.