More games

Last Thursday at Rob's we played two games. First up was The Really Nasty Horse Racing Game. It is, as the name suggests, a horse racing game, but one where you can bet on the horses, and throw the race if you're about to come in first and the horse you bet on is just behind you... Causing horses to fall at fences, to slip on the flats, or veer in can cause much amusement, depending on who has bet on that horse. It can indeed be really nasty. It came down to the last race. I had about £3,000,000, Rob had about £9,000,000. Unfortunately, the odds were such that he couldn't guarentee a win by limiting his bet. However, his horse was at 2:1, so what he could try was to win, because then, even if I had bet on his horse, I couldn't beat him. And that's exactly what he managed to do. The only real complaint about the game was that it's a little long, given how light it is.

Then we tried Risk -- Star Wars: The Clone Wars Edition, which is of course, Yet Another Risk Variant. This is played strictly in teams. And it gets confusing with some of the terminology, so you need to make sure that a card says what you think it says. The cards are divided up for the two sides, and each card has multiple uses. Determining the best use for a card can be hard. In this game, the Separatists (ultimately the bad guys), played by Rob and me, pretty much thought we'd lost. I was close to being wiped out and Darth Sidious came close to being killed. However, that attack on Sidious made Mark a little too weak, and Rob pushed back, managing to take and retain control of a number of Star Systems (continents) for bonus people. Judicious use of a wonderful card, allowing him to double the System bonus meant he then got lots of people, with an inevitable defeat for Mark and Brad, so they resigned. It's an OK game, and one that I could be encouraged to play again, but not that frequently. And the noises of disgust from Rob suggested he doesn't think much of my Risk game strategy. :)