December 9, 2010 Session Report

Nine in attendance this week, and seven different games were played. Roll call: Doug, Ron, Paul, Mike, Don, Greg, Eugene, Rodney and myself. Games played: Speicherstadt, For Sale, Founding Fathers, Vegas Showdown, London, Igel Agern (the Hedgehog racing game) and Ingenious -- Card Challenge.

First up was Speicherstadt. It was a close game, Paul kept taking the Firemen to the frustration of Ron and Doug who didn't get any. This gave him enough points to come in third, but he didn't get any contracts. To my surprise, I came away the winner with 19 ahead of Mike in second (17), followed by Paul (16), Doug (11) and Ron (10). Like the unique bidding mechanic but somehow the game seems a bit too short and shallow.

The other group, while waiting for Speicherstadt to finish, played For Sale. Rodney was the winner. No scores, but Don, Eugene and Greg were also in the game.

Then we split up, one group played Founding Fathers and the other group wound up playing London. Founding Fathers finished first, with Greg (20) the narrow winner; John (19), Don (17), Paul (12) and Rodney (10) were also in the game. The London game was even closer, coming down to the tiebreaker (least poverty). This gave the win to Mike over Eugene, as they each had 47 points. Not far behind was Ron at 45 (good effort for his first game) with Doug at 40, last, but still within 7 of the winner.

Meanwhile, a five-player Vegas Showdown was won by Rodney (45) ahead of Paul 36, John 34, Greg 27, Don 18. This was one of the lower-scoring and quick-finishing 5P games of this I have seen, as one stack ran out while the other two had plenty of tiles remaining. The Theater did not even come out.

Final games of the evening were Igel Agern, the Hedgehog game, won by Mike and then a three-player Ingenious-Card Challenge, won by Greg over Paul and myself just before closing time. We thought the game may have had a kingmaker/endgame stall problem as it turned out all three of us needed the same color (purple) to win. Greg finally broke the stalemate by moving another color to 10, earning another turn which enable him to get the one purple point needed to cinch the win.