Gaming review, 11/23

Four games this week, which wasn't bad for the day after the holiday.

We started off with 7 Wonders, no expansions.  I don't usually go the military route, but I was dealt Rhodes, so I played to my strength.  It was a five-player game, but two of the players had a total of one game of prior experience.  The five-player games seems to have a lot of resources compared to the one for four and three players.  I came in first.

Next up was Cloud 9, light filler while the other group was finishing up their game.  Again with five players, I guessed poorly, and came in fourth.

Third was the only new (to me) game of the evening,
Beowolf:  The Legend.  You start off with a hand that has some of five types of resources, and use those resources in two different types of bidding.  There is blind bidding, where everyone bids once by laying cards face-down, and round-robin bidding, where you have to beat the previous bidder to stay in the round.  Every player gets to choose a prize after each type of bidding (sometimes the last couple of choices are actually penalties). There are also opportunities to improve your hand or score in between bidding rounds.  The group travels the board with Beowolf together, the only random aspect is the drawing of cards.  I had a nice time with it.

I ended the evening with Alien Frontiers.  We had to play a shortened game because the venue was closing, with three players.  The winner had seven points, the other two had six.