Naturelich Games

After a long time we got the board games out again. As some of you might have noticed the number of posts had gone down over the past two weeks. Whoever knows what the term release date means knows what I am talking about. But here we go again for some Easter gaming with friends and family.

We started off with two sessions of Die Dolmengötter. Die Dolmengötter always plays pretty quickly - even with four players. We all considered it to be a great start for the Easter sessions. Since we had played the game more than a couple of times before it was not necessary to go over the rules again.

In the first game we had two pairs of two competing with each other: blue vs. white and green vs. red. The blue and green druids interacted a little bit with one another but the game was pretty separated between these groups. It was quite interesting to see this happen, as normally the games get really mixed up between all players.

Die Dolmengötter - Final position (Game #1)

The second game saw the first glooorious victory of Kleki-Petra. Ever. Congratulations on this one. To be able to memorize this historic moment, you can investigate the tow pictures below which show the final score and a memorable fight between white and blue druids in the lower right ring. Dolmengötter continues to be a real fun game for us with enduring replayability.

Die Dolmengötter - Detail of game #2

Die Dolmengötter - Final score of game #2

Next up was Thurn und Taxis. We had played this extensively a couple of weeks ago and all four of us wanted to go again. Pretty seldom to find mutual agreement when it comes to selecting games, but Thurn und Taxis seems to become the next big hit in this group. The game was a lot of fun and MM won by quite a margin as she was able to score heavily by completing the "outside Bavaria" mission (this is the single most valuable mission to fulfill). She did also well on the small bonuses and was the first to get the best coach. Kleki-Petra had some bad luck as she had to start over on one of her routes. A very painful experience to make, I guess. We all learned our lesson. Sometimes it is much better in Thurn und Taxis to keep a matching card on hand even if two matches can be played with the support of the postal carrier.

Thurn und Taxis - Starting position

Thurn und Taxis - Mid-game detail of the situation in Bavaria

Thurn und Taxis - Final board position

We then turned to Carcassonne - The Tower (Carcassonne - Der Turm). This was the first time we tried the new expansion. The rules were quickly explained and the card tower is really nice to keep the table tidy and clear. The expansion adds a little bit of cattiness to the game: each player gets tower pieces which can be used to take prisoners. This adds entirely new strategic options to the game and - yes - it can be nasty and mean at times, but that's life. My first intuitive reaction to this fourth expansion is positive. I believe it is much better than the last one (Carcassonne - The Princess & The Dragon) and it is certainly much better than the standalone Carcassonne - The Discovery.
Unfortunately, I failed to take a pic of the final boardgame position, but some fun images are available, here.