March 22, 2012 Session Report

Eight for tonight's session, including one first-time attendee. Patrick, Jay, Mike, Doug, Greg, Rembert, Adam (the first-timer) and myself were in attendance. Games played: Timeline, Vegas Showdown, Drum Roll and San Juan.

Timeline was our warm-up game and was won by Mike, with "Black Powder" being the winning card. Greg was second, Patrick third and surprisingly, Doug (who is our club expert at these sort of games) was a non-place. Alot of the "educated guesses" were off by a year or two, which made for an interesting game. Jay and myself rounded out the group as we had six for this one.

We split into two groups, and Adam and Rembert joined us. One group played Vegas Showdown, a long-time club favorite. This game was won by Greg, but it was a close one. Final scores: Greg 60, Adam 56, Mike and Jay 46, Rembert 41. I believe it was Adam's first play of the game, and he came home a creditable second.

Meanwhile, Patrick, Doug and I tackled Drum Roll, a fall 2011 Essen release which is about managing a circus. I had played just once before, first time for Doug and Patrick. The game moved slowly at first but picked up after people had mastered the mechanics. The strategy was another question. Patrick had done a good job getting money and collecting cubes with alot of bonus "Investor" cards. But Doug had done a solid job selling tickets for all three shows and emerged the winner, with Patrick a close second. I, obviously, came last, with my excuse being I was the teacher for the game. Hope to try it again soon.

We barely finished the game before the 9 PM witching hour, and the other table, which had started a San Juan game, did not finish. Mike, Jay, Adam and Rembert were the four players, and Mike and Jay had 10 cards down when time ran out.

Hope to see everyone again next week, including a couple of you who have been AWOL for the last session or two.