It was looking for awhile like the hot weather may have kept many people away, but in the end we had a total of 10 for this week's session, including three first-timers. The attendance roster was Ben, Tim, Jay, Neville, Patrick, John S (who had been to the club once before) and myself, plus the newcomers: Scott (who had driven all the way down from PA) and two local Laurelites, Troy and Heather. A total of three games were played: Tour: Cycle Free, Outpost and Cheeky Monkey, which was played twice.
Scott had come specifically to try out Tour: Cycle Free, a free PnP Tour de France style cycling game designed by Luke Morris that I have been championing for awhile. After a bit of coaxing, we were able to talk Patrick in to joining us. I gave everyone their choice of teams. Scott went for the bag with the green cyclists (representing the Italian Liguigas team). Patrick originally had the bag with the yellow cyclists (representing an Albert Contador-led SaxoBank team) but then said he wanted the team with "that British guy" who had just won the Tour, so I handed him the black cyclists pieces of the Sky team, led by Bradley Wiggins who just recently had become the first British Tour de France champion ever. I selected red cyclists representing a hand-picked Radio Shack squad, mainly because I knew they had Sammy Sanchez (drafted on to the team for my 2011 replay series) as he had done quite well in my recent 2011 Tour de France replay. We only had time for one stage, so we tackled the very tough Stage 19 from last year's Tour, the Alpe d'Huez stage, partly because it was a section shorter, but also because it would likely provide some exciting action.
Each of us put a cyclist in the early break, I went with Johnny Hoogerland, can't remember who the other two were, but I noted they were doomed because of using up too much energy early. Undeterred, Patrick made the unusual move of sending Wiggins out to chase after the break, eventually joining his teammate up the road. Then all heck went loose when Scott decided to attack with both his top guys, Cunego AND Basso. This put me in a tough spot, so I rotated three guys (Brajkovic, Greipel and Horner) at the front while trying to save some energy with Sanchez and my #2, Andreas Kloden. Water bottles came out around turns 4 and 5. Next thing I remember was the break being reeled in but then Patrick sent Geraint Thomas off on a power move. So, heading into the final climb up the Alpe, Thomas had a minute on the Peleton, but I had messed up with an illegal play with Kloden, trying to escape with both he and Sanchez at the same time, which of course shot my whole strategy to you-know-what. In fact, I never got Sanchez out ahead of the Peleton in a small group where I would have a chance to use his special 8-star ability. Anyway, we finally had an incident on one of the downhill sections, which seemed to please Scott (who was cheering for more and more carnage), and we each lost a couple of guys but one of them was Scott's best guy (Cunego) who lost a minute and never caught back up.
To make a long story short, Thomas got reeled in on the final climb, and everyone -- including the aforementioned Bradley Wiggins -- got tossed back to the cars except for five guys: two from Patrick's team, two from mine, one from Scott's Liquigas team. It came down to a sprint for the win, and who had the most form points remaining (which we had kept secret the whole time). Sanchez, not a great sprinter, had one left, so 6 +1 = 7 but Scott had Sagan at the front with a higher sprint rating and a form point left over. Patrick's guy at the front, Gadret, had no form points left and was out of it but , wait a minute -- his second guy, Uran, was in the middle and had THREE form points left. However, this just left him tied with Sagan and ties go to the guy in the front over the guy coming from the middle. So, final results: 1. Sagan (Liquigas) 2. Uran (Sky) 3. Sanchez (RadioShack) 4. Kloden (RadioShack) 5. Gadret (Sky). Everyone had a fun time, and I enjoyed playing a game I usually only get to play solitaire or via email.
Sorry for the long post, but on to the other games. Outpost was a 5-player, won by Jay, he had 76, Ben was second with 68, Neville and Tim had the same score (59), John S was in the 40s but that doesn't include his final turn. Jay won by collecting both Data Labs and ignoring the Titanium stuff. He the got into Science and Research in a big way, had four New Chemical plants up and running by game end.
Cheeky Monkey was played by Troy and Heather, no word on who won. I then played a game with Scott as Patrick took his leave, and the Outpost game was still going on, gaining some measure of revenge for my defeat in the cycling arena, scores were John W. 53 Scott 41.
Next week I will be away at WBC in Lancaster PA (as will Tim) but expect Mike to be back after a hiatus and taking over as Co-Host. Hope to see everyone in two weeks' time then.
Special thanks to Scott for coming down and playing the cycling game, it was alot of fun.
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