Harrowed Halls

Mike and I are back from Origins, so this week we finished the Le Havre game we started the week before Origins. At the end of the first half of the game we thought Owen would be a shoe in for the win. Things change.

It was obvious from the beginning that many of us had no clue what our overarching plans where for the game. I think most of us didn’t have a plan. Mike and I floundered with indecision and Ben waffled between doing thing one or doing thing two. (There’s a joke there someplace.) Owen lamented his decisions from the beginning of the game saying that next time he’ll try a different strategy. Heck, I’m impressed someone had a strategy.

Ben tried many of his schemes for cheating. I think we caught most of them. (He tried methods #7, #26, and #42 as found in his book, “Winning through Obscuration”.) As the game played out, Mike gained some momentum. I managed to stay one building ahead of Ben which caused him to have to wait for resources or at least choose something different. This really didn’t seem to hurt Ben much. Owen flat lined somewhere towards the end of the game. Spinning his wheels, he seemed to have lost all of the momentum built up during the first half of the game.

As the points were tallied, I was surprised to find that I did better than I thought. Ben won with 162 points; Mike came in second with the help of a last action build of a Luxury Liner for 38 points that gave him a total of 148. I was third with 136 and poor Owen came in last with 125. With my cry of “I’m not last!” still ringing in our ears, we adjourned until next time.

Chaos Steve

This week we began a game of La Havre. I say “began” because the playing time on the game box says 100-200 minutes. (They must know Ben.) We are playing the advanced game that has 21 rounds of seven turns each. One player gets to act on each turn. Since there are four of us playing, that means that everyone gets to act on two turns during the round except for one “screwed” person. At the end of the round, harvest is gathered and you must feed your workers. Unfortunately those pesky workers demand more and more food as the rounds progress. The rest of the time you are trying to gather wealth in the form of buildings and Francs. You can buy buildings, but it’s much better to build them. Because of this, all of us struggle each round to gather building materials. Ships also play an important role in the game. The rules state that it is unlikely you will win the game without any ships. We all built ships.

We halted our game last night at round 11 or 12. We all think Owen will win. He has a plethora of buildings. He also managed a triple-play at the diner earning him 24 Francs. (That’s a lot.) It’s be interesting to see how the second half of the game progresses. There are not that many buildings left to be built or purchased.

We’ll finish this game up in a couple of weeks. Right now it’s hiding under Mike’s poker table top.

Chaos Steve