November 20. 2008 Session Report

Last session before Turkey Day, and we welcomed back a couple of attendees who had been MIA for way too long -- Abe and Brandon, who joined Mike B, Ben, Paul, Ron, Greg and myself for a total of eight gamers in attendance. We played a total of six different games, a couple of which were played for the first time at the club this week: Ingenious (played twice), Le Havre, American Megafauna, Can't Stop, Citadels and Cloud Nine.

Started off with a four-player Ingenious, and Paul won with 16 after everyone else's colors got shut down. Final scores were Paul 16 John 14 Mike 10 Ron 9. Greg and Ben had joined the group and, after much discussion, we split up into two tables to try the two games that were new to the club: LeHavre (a recent Essen release) and American Megafauna (which Ben had brought). Mike and I played LeHavre, first time for Mike, second play for me; some hard lessons learned in my first game (also a two-player short game version) paid off as I managed to outbuild Mike for a 156-117 win. Brandon and Abe joined the group, and played a two-player Can't Stop while waiting for the other games to finish. I had Abe down as winning that one, 3-1.

The American Megafauna game was a close win for Ben, not sure how well received it was judging from the reactions on some people's faces. Paul, Abe, Brandon, Mike and I played a five-player Citadels, which got off poorly for Paul as his first three character selections got assassinated, and Brandon won with 26 ahead of Mike in second with 22. Greg, Ben and Ron played Ingenious (also won by Ben) and then a quick game of Cloud Nine that was abandoned with Ben in the lead.

Again, a reminder that the Community Center will be closed next week due to Thanksgiving. I do recommend the special day-after-Thanksgiving gaming session at Damascus Community Center, which starts at 2 PM and should last well into the evening. Our next session at the Laurel CC will be two weeks hence, on Thursday, December 4.