After a late night updating the blog, I woke up late (8am) for breakfast, only to find that there was no bacon or sausages left. Seems they put the food out early, and it's first come first served until it's all gone. Bummer. Anyway, by the time I'd chatted with Derk Solko and then Richard Bethany, it was around 10.30am by the time I got to the fair. I wasn't working until 4pm, so I had plenty of time to wander around.

I checked in with the Sunriver booth to check if anything was needed, but they were good. So, off I went.

The first thing I found was a 8-player fussball table, with one player short. When they saw me take an interest they immediately beckoned me to join at forward, and I proceded to knock in 2 goals, to loud complaints from the other team that I was a ringer. We managed to win in a close game, and it was cool with all the players there.

After browsing for a while I met Lorna and Ben, who was with Eric (someone?). We played Lucca Citta from DaVinci, a decent card game. Each player is building palaces, represented by the cards in 6 colors. Each card has a number of shields, total shields int your incomplete buildings being used to determine player order, windows, which are totalled for the points for completing the building, and a number, which is used to break player order ties. Cards are selected by choosing a set of 3 laid out, 1 set for each player plus an extra set, kind of like Industrial Waste, and added to the buildings. When a building in a particular color has reached (8-[number of players], i.e. 4 in a 4 player game) it is completed, and scores the number of windows in the building. Players may also choose to have a party at a completed building, where it scores 2 points per card on any other building of that color that has been completed (but not held a party) and 1 point for each card of that color in an uncompleted building. Controlling the shields in your incomplete building, and so the player order, is a large part to scoring. The 4-player game only runs to 6 rounds, so it doesn't last long, about right for the content. I bought a copy.

After this it was time to go buy some more games, so we headed over to the Warfrog booth to pick up the AoS France/Italy expansion, the Lunar expansion and Byzantium. Martin Wallace was there demoing a game, I got the expansion autographed. Neat!

Other games were bought and I ran out of cash. Again. I then spent a couple hours showing Havoc, before refreshing the cash situation and heading off to get more crack. Err, I mean games.

I started at the Splotter booth, where I picked up Bus and Cannes. This would have been 20€ but they pointed out that for 30€ I could get those 2, Voc, Ur and Oraklos as a package deal. Hmmm, 3 games for 10€, works for me.

Next door to them was the JKLM booth, where Celtic Quest was explained to me. It's a pick up/delivery game, where the prices are determined by supply and demand, the Romans can get in the way, and a couple of other interesting mechanisms. Sounds right up my street. I also looked at Whisky Race, which has the Scots producing whisky and the English trying to tax it. Wasn't sure about it, but anything with Scotland and whisky can't be all bad, so I bought both. I also picked up Third World Debt, an economic game based in the third world. (Bet that surprised you.) All about buying and selling goods, and looked interesting enough to add to the bag. I also persuaded them to thow in Fruit Bandit for free as I had bought 3 games. This is a very light, wacky game. Each player turns over a card from their stack that shows the value of the fruit produced. Each player then plays a card (blind) that says which field they want to go to. All turn over, and you get points for harvesting your own field, or robbing someone else's field. However, if too many bandits appear at a field that harvest is ruined and nobody gets points. Very similar to Pick Picnic, kids will love it.

I also picked up a few games that I have no idea what they are like. Shear Panic from Fragor was ordered based on the buzz from their previous game, that they're from Scotland, and that it's about sheep. Enough said! Caylus has been getting good buzz as well, so it went into the bag as well. I'll have to look at it at some point.

By this time it was my shift at the Sunriver booth, so I spent more time demoing Havoc. So far they've done almost 100 sales, which is great considering that we haven't even hit the weekend when most people are there.

A quiet dinner with KC and his friend, Norbert, was followed by a game of Havoc and then Lucca Citta. Instead of going to bed at this point I started sorting through the games to decide which I would take back in the suitcase and which ones I'd ship. I've way too many to fit in my bags, so I'm going to have to ship them. And there's still the whole weekend to go!

Here's some more pics from around the fair. I'm not working the booth tomorrow, so I'm going to spend more time playing and I promise to take some pics this time.