Saturday, January 23, 2010

January 21, 2010 Session Report

Great turnout for this week's session, a total of 13 overall, including two first-time attendees and a few others whom we hadn't seen in awhile. Roll call of attendees: Greg, Gabe, Doug H, Paul, Don, Ron, Mike, Alan, Steve (new to club), Clayton, Patrick, Susie (also new to club) and myself. We played a bunch of games, had to move in an extra table for more room, so this report may not be as complete as I would like in keeping track of all the action as it was a real three-ring circus for just about the entire session.

When I arrived there were two games being set up: Cape Horn, which Mike had brought, and the Adventurers, which Gabe had brought. Cape Horn I know is a racing game from the age of sail, Adventurers I hadn't seen before but it looked like the you were trying to use your character to capture the most treasure and survive. For Cape Horn, the players were Alan, Mike and Ron, and Alan won. I had Gabe down as the winner of Adventurers with Paul, Greg, Don, and Doug H all participating.

Right after these games started, some more people arrived so the third game was Vegas Showdown, which was a four-player won by Steve with 53 ahead of Doug M (46) and John (46), Doug M getting second on the money tiebreaker, with Clayton (37) filling out the field. Steve and Doug had not played before, so they seemed to pick up the game just fine.

Next round of games saw Patrick arrive and introduce a self-designed game that we simply call Patrick's racing game which involved simulating a lap around the circuit used near RFK stadium when there was some sports car racing event there a few years back. Ron, Don, Gabe and Patrick participated and I believe Ron was the winner. Susie had also arrived and we started her out in a four-player Dominion game, which wound up with yours truly as the winner: scores were John 33, Doug M 27, Susie 21 and Steve 19. Susie did quite well considering everyone else had played before, with a helpful assist from Patrick. In the meantime, there was a Small World game taking place, final scores reported as Alan 73, Greg 73, Doug H 69, Paul 58 and Mike 51 -- Alan taking the win on a tiebreak which I believe gives him a nice winning streak of games at the club going back to last year some time.

There was still time for a final round of games, with Ron and Don sneaking in a couple of games of Thunder Road (sorry don't have complete results). I do know there was a four-player Pandemic (Alan, Paul, Steve and Susie were the four players) and the note on the sheet says "the game won" which doesn't sound like good news for those seeking to stop the spread of disease. Patrick, Doug M, Mike and I tried to finish a game of Homesteaders but wound up a couple of turns short, so we picked it up without doing any final scoring. There was also an Ave Caesar game of chariot racing, I believe Don, Greg and Ron were the participants, but sorry -- no report on the results on that game.

Thanks to everyone for making this week's session a fun one, and hopefully we can continue the momentum from this week with some strong attendance at upcoming sessions as well.

Monday, January 11, 2010

January 7, 2010

Attendance of eight for our first session of the new year: Patrick, Doug H, Doug M, Ron, Paul, Greg, Clayton and myself played a total of four different games. Games played (one of them twice): Homesteaders, Jet Set, Giro D'Italia Card Game (x2) and Steam Barons.

I brought Homesteaders while Greg set up Jet Set, and these were the first two games that lasted for about half the session. Homesteaders was a three-player, won by Patrick (57), John (49) and Clayton (46) in a close race for second. JetSet was won by Doug M. (40) ahead of Greg (37), Doug H (35), Paul (30) and Ron (27).

Second set of games saw Greg win Steam Barons (a game that both he and Doug M had brought) by a wide margin, 81 to 60 for Doug and just 40 for yours truly, but the win was somewhat tainted because of an illegal tile play by Greg which we didn't catch until a round later. The other game was the Giro D'Italia Card game, a bicycle race simulation game brought by Ron. Two games were completed, both race won by Paul with Ron, Doug H and Patrick being the other participants.