Friday, June 29, 2007

June 28, 2007 Session Report

We had a total of 9 gamers at last night's session: Eric, Paul, Gabe, Clayton, Sarah, Neil, Beth, Nicole and myself -- welcome back to Clayton who had missed the last few weeks.

We played a total of six games: Cloud 9, Wits and Wagers (twice), Falsche Fuffziger (aka Fake Fifties), The Bucket King and Beowulf.

For the Cloud 9 game, it was Gabe, Eric, Paul, Sarah and me who started the game -- later joined by Clayton -- Gabe eventually won the game -- I remember being all set to go to the top cloud and get 25 pts when Eric crashed the balloon for like the umpteenth time. We were then joined by Neil for two games of Wits and Wagers, first game won by Paul and second by me. Key moment was when Clayton was only three feet off the correct height of Mt. McKinley, unfortunately for Clayton he was off by three feet in the wrong direction (too high) and didn't get credit for the closest answer.

By then Beth and Nicole arrived and we split into two groups. One group of us (Beth, Neil, Eric and myself) tackled a game I had just recently acquired, Falsche Fuffziger (which roughly translates into Fake Fifties) which is about producing and laundering counterfeit money to then acquire rare coins which represent victory points. Unfortunately, nine o'clock came all too soon -- before we had a chance to finish the game. I was ahead at about the two-thirds point but no telling if the lead would have held up as everyone else seemed to be catching up on the learning curve rather quickly. Hope to get through a full game sometime soon, perhaps at next week's session.

The other group of five gamers (Gabe, Nicole, Sarah, Paul and Clayton) played a game of Bucket King followed by a Beowulf game that barely got completed as the Community Center started closing down for the evening. At first the scores showed a tie between Gabe and Paul, but then a five-point bonus for coming through the game unscathed was enough to give Paul a narrow victory.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

June 21, 2007 Session Report

Thanks to Eric Haas for filing this report on last week's session, which unfortunately I had to miss:

Attendees were: Gabe, Paul, Eric, Val, Sarah, and Neil.
We played:

Ricochet Robot: Gabe, Paul, Eric, Val, Sarah; incomplete, no winner
Tongiaki: Paul 24, Sarah 22, Eric 19, Val 16, Gabe 13.
Union Pacific: Gabe 102, Paul 89, Val 85, Sarah (?), Neil 66, Eric 66.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

June 14, 2007 Session Report

Pleased to see our largest attendance at the Club since March. A total of 11 gamers, including a first-time attendee, Carole Jackson, joined Doug, Gabe, Eric, Val, Sarah, Paul, Beth, Nicole, Neil and myself. A total of six different games were played: Lost Cities, Parlay, Princes of Florence, Citadels, Billabong and Wits and Wagers. The evening started with Doug and Gabe arriving a few minutes early and squaring off in a two-player Lost Cities that was won by Doug. Then, as we started playing Parlay (with more people than the six for which the chips are provided), even more people arrived, and we split into two groups for two longer games that wound up being the main events of the evening: a four-player Princes of Florence game and a seven-player Citadels game. I was in the exceedingly close PoF game which I managed to win with 66 to 64 for Neil and 61 for Beth while the game was a learning experience for Carole. The difference was managing to get all seven works completed (barely), while Neil came on like gangbusters with a late recruiting card while Beth and Carole were unable to get all their works completed.

I have less information about the Citadels game, which I hear was won by Doug. There was still some time left, and both groups raced against the clock to complete two more games-- Wits and Wagers (7-player) and Billabong (4-player). The Wits and Wagers game made it to the finish line, but alas the Billabongers wound up a few kangaroos short, although it seemed like Beth's blue kangaroos were on their way to victory.

Just want to let everyone know I expect to be out of town next week, but hopefully someone else will track the attendance and games played so they can be posted here.

John

Thursday, June 7, 2007

June 7, 2007 Session Report

We had a pretty good week attendance-wise with a total of 8 gamers: Gabe, Eric, Doug H, Paul, Sarah, Neil, Stan (welcome back Stan who hasn't been to the club in awhile) and myself. A total of six different games were played: Hey That's My Fish! (won by Paul), Age of Empires III (won by Eric, see comments in next paragraph). Tichu (the Gabe/Sarah team was successful), Boomtown (Doug claimed first in this one), Beowulf (Doug made in two in a row in winning this one) and finally two quick games of Category 5 (sorry don't have the results to report).

I spent most of the evening playing a longer game, Age of Empires III, which Stan was kind enough to bring and teach to Eric and myself. The game is about exploration/colonization of the New World and roughly designed to track the computer game, which I have never played. The game designer, Glenn Drover, was previously with Eagle Games where he produced several similar boardgames based on computer game counterparts, such as Civilization, Age of Mythology and Railroad Tycoon. During the explanation I glommed on to this one particular piece of advice from Stan about the importance of money, and after 2-3 turns I was earning like 20-30 a turn while Eric and Stan were still in single digits. This let me buy more buildings, but I am not sure in the long run, they were the better buildings. It was really close in the final score, with Eric winning with 112 to 109 for Stan and I brought up the rear at 106. Not sure what made the final difference, but I think I missed some nuances and didn't shift from money to points soon enough. One conclusion I think we all came to after just one play is that there seems to be no sure-fire, clearcut path to victory, which -- along with random draw of different tiles and buildings that makes each game different -- means a high replay value. Only negative about the game was a slight luck factor if you a short on colonist points when attempting a discovery -- Stan and I each got burned on this although I got real lucky in making one early discovery succeed with the minimum number of colonists (one). A bit of a learning curve, but it was an enjoyable game, one that I will probably add to my collection.