Board game club session: Tichu, Gulo Gulo, Attika

We had a nice board game club yesterday. It was strange to have the club on Monday, not Sunday, thanks to the Easter, but many people arrived nonetheless.

Tichu was definitely the high point for me yesterday. After reading Steve's Tichu strategy article I wanted to give it a go (last time I played was almost two years ago). It was a blast! Combine four pretty clueless players and you'll get lots of action!

It took us 13 hands to actually finish the game... not many successful Tichu calls. However, I did use the positive scoring variant where failed Tichu call gives 100 points to the other team, which shortened the game with a hand or two. It was pretty exciting, anyway, because the scores were fairly close. I called Tichu on what might've been the last hand and failed - and it didn't end there, we started the final round with my team behind 910-990. Well, we smoked them: successful Tichu and clean double finish for 300 points, thank you!

I really should play more Tichu.

Gulo Gulo with five was nice, lucky and fit the Easter theme with all the little eggs. It's a nice game, but not very high on my list of games to play with gamers, really. Maybe as a filler, but it's a pretty big box for a filler.

Neuland wasn't quite as fun as it could be, for some reason. It ended a bit abruptly, and not as my victory... I'm not sure it was the right game for one of the players, or in general the right game for that situation.

Attika was fun to play after a long break, even though I made one clueless move. If I had just took some cards at certain point of the game, I might've won and I'd definitely be able to block the eventual winner. Ouch. But, you know, bunch of newbies playing, I'm quite sure they'll understand the significance of temple blocking the next time they play.

Flix Mix was good with some proper opposition. I won the first two rounds, then it got sticky. In the final round I was left with five cards. I'm not good with switching the colours, it seems. Fortunately Joona didn't get his move on in the first round, when he scored nine points. Those were enough to secure the victory for me.

Don was strange: two guys kept bouncing a stack of money between each other for a while, leaving me and Aaro bit helpless. Doesn't surprise me they won. However, the winner was the guy who reneged on the deal, there's a lesson to keep in mind...