October 4, 2007 Session Report

Despite the absence of a couple of "regular" attendees, attendance was still strong, at 9, and we had two games going on for most of the evening and one new attendee: Estefani (known as Teffy to her friends) who arrived with Val. Paul, Doug, Gabe, Eric, Sarah, Clayton and myself rounded out the list of attendees.

We played a total of eight different games: Olympia 2000, Bang, Lost Cities, Thebes, Before the Wind (first time play for this new game at the club), Mamma Mia, The Nacho Incident and the ever-popular Category 5.

Here's some details. Olympia 2000 was our quick 6 PM filler game while waiting for others to arrive. Final scores were John 14, Paul 10, Gabe 9 and Doug 7. Then we were joined by Sarah, Clayton and Eric for a full 7-player Bang using the extra cards from the Dodge City expansion. Doug played the role of the Sheriff and always seemed to have enough bullets and beers to make life difficult to those on the outlaw side of the equation. Clayton started shooting at me, then Sarah started shooting at Eric, both Eric and Sarah took shots at Doug, then Clayton went after Eric while Gabe tried to take out Sarah, making me think both Clayton and Gabe were the deputies. I didn't have much time to find out as I was the first one out (as one of the three outlaws) when some dynamite (which most of us had dodged once or twice already) happened to go off at the wrong time. (Hate when that happens!) Doug and his two deputies (Gabe and Paul) managed to survive while all the outlaws and the one renegade (Clayton in this case) were wiped out. A win for the Good Guys, so to speak, although it wasn't clear who the Good Guys were for a long time.

Eric and I (first two knocked out of the Bang game) managed to get in a quick hand of Lost Cities which Eric won handily. Then it was two three-player games, one being Thebes which Paul won over Sarah and Gabe after Gabe missed on some key excavation pulls. The other game was a new one I wanted to try out, Phalanx's Before the Wind, a someone innovative card game which Eric, Doug and I took on its maiden voyage. Doug seized the early lead and managed to win, 50 to 44 for myself (I had Clayton watching as my teammate in this game) with Eric at 34, with all of us going into the final round within striking distance of the win (Doug hit the winning point score of 50 exactly). The game seemed to get thumbs up from both Doug and Eric, enough to warrant a second appearance some time soon.

Val and Teffy had arrived by this game, so a five-player Mamma Mia was arranged, and Val and I were tied for first with six orders apiece and also tied on the tiebreaker, number of ingredients in hand. Eric was not far behind with four orders while the game proved to be a learning experience for Sarah and Teffy, the two newcomers to the game. Not to be outdone on the food-related themes, Doug, Gabe and Paul hooked up for a game of Nacho Incident, which lasted the rest of the session, final scores: Paul 85 Gabe 79 Doug 76 (a close one!) Clayton joined the Mamma Mia group for a final hand of Category 5 which finished up just as the witching hour of 10 PM struck. Final scores were John 1, Sarah 2, Teffy 11, Eric 13, Clayton 22, Val 32. Teffy -- the one newbie to the game -- managed to avoid taking any negative points until the penultimate (9th of 10 cards) were played, when she wound up taking a full row but still did well to place third in her first game.

Hope everyone had a good time and look forward to seeing everyone again next week.