July 8, 2010 Session Report

We had six gamers for this week's session: Mike, Paul, Doug H (who had missed the last couple of times), Ben, Alan (whom we hadn't seen for awhile) and myself. Games played: San Juan, Citadels, Archaeology, Stone Age, Cloud Nine.

First up, four of us who were there by 6 started with San Juan. Paul got two 6 buildings, the City Hall and the Palace, and won with 27 points. I had no 6 buildings (didn't see one the entire game), but nonetheless I build most every turn with the Poorhouse and the Carpenter and came in second with 24, followed by Doug (20) and Mike (19).

Ben and Alan had arrived, so we played a six-player game of Citadels. Doug won, partly because the Warlocks didn't do their job and knock down his buildings quickly enough. Then I made the mistake of passing him the Architect when he had enough Gold to build his last two buildings. Game over. Final scores: Doug 32, Alan 25, John 19, Ben 15, Paul 14, Mike 13.

Citadels went quickly, and so there was still plenty of time left in the session. Alan had brought Archaeology which he taught to Ben and Paul. From what I could see, it looked like a set-collecting card game that played really quickly -- so fast they got in three games before Ben and Alan had to leave. Each of the three players won one of the games.

The rest of us (Doug, Mike and myself) opted for Stone Age. It took us slightly longer than the three Archaeology games to finish our one game, and it was a tie! Mike and I had 132 each, Doug wound up with 108. We checked the rules for a tiebreaker and I came out on top by 10 to 9, but I was happy to share the win with Mike.

Twenty minutes left, we pulled out an old favorite, Cloud Nine, trying to finish before time ran out. It was a quick, interesting game. Doug pulled ahead to an early lead when he played two Wild Cards for solo flights, but his efforts in that regard left him short of cards for the following series of balloon trips. Then Paul made a miraculous four-die roll -- all blanks -- to move from the 20 pt. cloud to the 25 pt. cloud. This propelled him and his one remaining passenger (Mike) into a commanding position on the score track. Paul went on to win, followed by Mike (46), Doug (40), yours truly way back in last at 31.

A good time was had by all. Hope to see many of you at the GCOM Family Picnic this Sunday.