Game One
Carson City
This was our 2nd play of the Worker Placement, Land Grabbing, Wild West Dueling game called Carson City. The first skirmish ended in an incomplete because we stopped about 1/3 of the way through. Carson City has tons of decisions to make which includes 'not placing your cowboys' in order to gain more killing power. We definitely made a lot of decisions, not especially good ones, but we did make them. The Sheriff and the Banker were chosen pretty much every time. We also both really loved Gambling and grabbing the triple gun. HL figured out the benefit of killing power before HB did, and oh did it benefit her at the end game. She pretty took everything available, snuffing out HB from gaining any Victory points in the 4th and final round. In the end, the final score was a tie 29 to 29 because HB was able to jump out a quick and huge lead by using the $2 per victory point choice to get 18 points in the first round. Even now after much thought it's hard to tell if that move was worth it. 1 point for $2 is a deal like no other, but it really does weaken that player for the remainder of the game.
Game Two
Jambo
Jambo has been pretty back and forth in the 5-7 times we've played. Some things I've noticed are that 1) playing cards that benefit both players usually back fires on the user. 2) patience and frugileness in this game is more critical than building up your economic engine ie. basing your strategy on the saying "it takes money to make money" doesn't really work in our games. This is a race to 60, not a war of who can stay in business in the long run. Anyway, in our last encounter HB dominated winning 62 to 20, by far the most lop sided game we've ever played. The Throne, Leopard, and Weapons combo was extremely powerful. HB was able to cash in useless cards for money which he used to fund his leopard, while obtaining pretty much any ware needed at HL's expense.
