by Ben Bateson
For the second week running, we were expecting 6P, but with Mischa and James somewhat slow to turn up, we comfortably had time for a starter game of Tony's new copy of Starving Artists. This is a moderately enjoyable jumble of Cubist and Pastiche, although it seems to have omitted any real strategy. John criticised the 'rich get richer' mechanic and I'm inclined to agree with him. But it was pleasant enough stuff for a time-filler.Assuming that James and Mischa weren't coming, we set up Troyes (Tony had brought it for several weeks on the trot, so of course we played my copy) and no sooner had I started to dish out the rules when guess who turned up? That's Mischa and James, not the actual game Guess Who, mind.
With a bout of impressive logic and realism, Tony suggested that M&J learn Troyes given that it was already set up. He took Becky and John off for a session of Le Havre - the Rosenberg I cannot bring myself to love - and by all accounts it was cracker, playing up to its 'best with 3' tag perfectly.
I was impressed with how quickly M&J - keen but not terribly experienced games - picked up Troyes, which is somewhat disjointed at the best of times, and they both showed no fear in getting themselves established on the activity cards. A hilarious neglect of the Events left us rolling 7 Black dice at the end, and my chronic inability to roll anything higher than a four left me fighting quite a lot of them. James had picked up on a big-money engine to edge me into third place, but Mischa was generating sizable quantities of VPs from round 3 onwards, and it was looking like her game well before the end. Unusual, this: it's only rarely I've been able to accurately predict the end positions at this game.
With the coloured-chameleon wrangling of Coloretto (and all Tony's associated trash-talk) well underway on the other table, I offered Mischa a choice of 'easy but thinky' or 'easy and less-thinky'. James chose the former for her, and so The Boss hit the table. This proved to be a perfect choice in terms of player count and card-wrangling skill and we pulled our way past closing time in finishing the game - and another win for Mischa. The obvious highlight was James being blacklisted from Cincinnati, only to be dealt all three cards for that city.
Unfortunately, we have outlasted another pub. The Prince is going to be closed for some time for refurbishment and I don't know yet whether the new owners look kindly on board gamers. So next week sees us at yet another Ross-on-Wye locale - perhaps we should become a touring group?
