May 17, 2012 Session Report

Another good week attendance-wise, once again in double-figures, with 10 this session.  Thanks to Jay, Alex, Tim, Mike, Doug, Neville, Patrick, Alan (whom we hadn't seen for awhile) and one newcomer, Ben Auer, for joining me as the club host for an interesting evening of gaming.  We played five games:  Pairamid, Trajan, Agricola, Settlers of the Stone Age and 7 Wonders.  We also had three games going for most of the session, filling up the table space fairly well.

Doug brought Pairamid, a Knizia design I had not seen before, and taught it to Neville and myself.  I managed to eke out a narrow win, 21 to 18 for Doug and 17 for Neville.  The other games were still going on, so we then played an old favorite, Settlers of the Stone Age.  The game was new to Neville who was familiar with basic Settlers so the game was a snap for him to pick up.  I had an early lead which began to erode as the other players traveled successfully to Australia and the Americans while I was stuck in Europe and Asia.  I got to 9 VP but ran out of city-sites in Asia and Europe and belatedly moved to the Americas.  But Doug, who had the max allowable movement, got to claim the last VP token there to take the game, which was extremely close, well-played by all.  Final scores:  Doug 11, John 9, Neville 8.

Ben, Mike, Tim and Patrick played Agricola and managed to finish in less than 2 1/2 hours.  Patrick was the winner.  Final scores:  Patrick 34 Tim 32 Mike 29 Ben 27.

Alan had brought Trajan, and Alex and Jay joined him for a game of this new, hard-to-get ahold of 2011 Essen release.  First time the game has made an appearance at the Laurel club, I believe.  This game finished around the same time as the Agricola game, and it was a win for Jay.  Score counts:  Jay 111, Alex 103, Alan 97.

There was a little more than a half-hour left in the session, and those remaining played a 7-player game, 7 Wonders.  The game moved quickly, for some of us -- too quickly.  The winner was Mike with yours truly in second.  Scores were Mike 64, John 56, Ben 55, Jay 49, Tim 48, Doug 43, Patrick 42.  A nice 1-2 for the club Co-Host and Host.

Thanks again to everyone for coming.  Ben, the one newcomer, had learned of the club at the Main St. Festival so I hope to see him at future sessions.