Grupo Martes: 3 January

We had a large group this night. The men played El Grande, while the women played Die Tore der Welt (World Without End). El Grande is apparently an old classic Euro game from 1995. It was one of the first area control games. You have three rounds of play before scoring. You score the game three times. Each round you choose one of your twelve initiative cards.  Highest goes first. This card also determines how many caballeros (horsemen) you can bring to your court from the countryside. The higher the card, the fewer the caballeros. According to your initiative you take your turn. You choose one of the five special action cards. The special action cards give you some power to do something extra in the game. For example, you score certain provinces early or you can add more men to the board or you can shove the other players' caballeros around. The special action cards also determine how many caballeros you can place on the board from your court. There are five cards and they allow one to five caballeros.

So the idea is to get the most caballeros into each territory. Different territories are worth different amounts, four to seven victory points. Second and third place get fewer points. You can boost your score by moving the king there. He simultaneously prevents anyone from messing with that territory. Your headquarters also gives you a bonus if you have the most in the territory. Another little trick is you can place caballeros in Majorca in an opaque container. On the scoring round, you first score Majorca after revealing how many caballeros from each player are there, then everyone can move their caballeros from Majorca to a territory of their choice.  The choice is also made in secret and revealed simultaneously.

I won by hitting Granada twice with the king and my headquarters, giving me 10 points each time. I also managed to score Granada two other times gaining 8 points each. This put me ahead. I was also successful at  controlling Majorca, and then scoring again after moving my caballeros to another territory. This was good practice for February when we play the 2012 Qualifier for the German Team Championships in Boardgaming.