Tuesday, January 31, 2012

January 26, 2012 Session Report

There were six of us for this session -- it was Mike, Greg, Neville, Tim, Rembert and myself. We played a quick game of Cloud Nine as a starter, followed by two longer games: Agricola (which Tim had been hoping to play for some time), Power Grid with the new Robots expansion, and finally Lost Cities.

The Cloud Nine game was a four-player as we were hoping for more people to show up. Final scores were Mike 50, Greg 35, Neville 34, John 33. Mike got to 50, bailed out, and waited for the balloon to crash -- which it did. Good strategy there.

The Agricola game was also a four-player, with Tim and I introducing two new players (Neville and Rembert) to the game. We unfortunately were a couple of harvests from finishing, but it was clear that Tim, who had expanded twice early on with one action, was off to a big lead. Neville seemed to pick up the game and was probably second, while Rembert and I were playing catch-up.

Mike and Greg took on the new Power Grid expansion with the Robot as a dummy third player. It was mostly a case of figuring out how to apply the robot special abilities. No word on who won the game, except that the two human players did outperform the robot. Mike and Greg played a couple of hands of Lost Cities after that, which ended with a big margin in Greg's favor after Mike went negative on hand #2 after trying to close a fairly solid lead that Greg had from the initial hand.

Missed some folks this week, hope to see more of you next week.

Monday, January 23, 2012

January 19, 2012 Session Report

Eight of us attended this week: Mike, Neville, Eric, Doug H, Patrick, Tim, Rembert and myself. We played Cloud Nine, Core Worlds and Sodbusters, the last two games running overtime.

Cloud Nine was a warmup game consisting of the first five people who showed. The final scores were John 57 Eric 54 Doug 50 Mike 48 Neville 35. Doug was the first to hit the 50 mark, but in the same balloon trip, Eric passed him, then I passed Eric right before the balloon crashed.

The Sodbusters game was Patrick, Tim and Rembert. Tim won by a wide margin, paying off his mortage fairly early in the game. Rembert was second, with Patrick third, when the game was picked up -- not sure they got through all 20 turns.

Core Worlds was a five-player, the first play for everyone, but we skipped the beginner setup and went with the card draft which took some time which meant finishing on time was going to be a close call. Interestingly, the order of finish mimicked the starting positions, with Mike (who went first) winning. Final scores: Mike 31 Neville 29 John 27 Eric 20 Doug 19.

Friday, January 13, 2012

January 12, 2012 Session Report

Attendance was down a bit, but we still had seven which meant two games going for most of the session. Doug, Tim, Patrick, Neville, Greg, Rembert and myself were the attendees and we played a couple of lower games, Steam and the recently released Ora and Labora, plus Rembert and I played a game of Can't Stop while the longer games were going on.

Ora and Labora was the latest game from Uwe Rosenberg, creator of Agricola, Bohnanza and LeHavre, and the game definitely had a LeHavre-like feel to it. Neville, Doug and I were the guinea-pigs for this one, where the players play the role of monks building up the economy in the area around their monastery. It was an extremely close game, final scores were John 174, Neville 172, Doug 164 -- I pulled it out with a nice build and cash-in on the final play although Neville pointed out he could have claimed a tie with a better location for one of his last settlements. I actually thought Doug was winning, that's how close it was.

The other game (Steam) was played by Greg, Patrick and Tim and it, too, was a close finish that came down to the tiebreak. Greg and Tim were tied at 59, Patrick was not far behind at 50. The tiebreak was highest income level, which meant Tim was the winner.

The Can't Stop game turned out to be another come from behind win for me, I got three numbers to the top after Rembert cashed in on the 2 column -- but he didn't get another number the rest of the way, bombing out with some bad rolls at crucial moments.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

January 5, 2012 Session Report

Apologies for the delay in posting this ...

Got the New Year off to a good start with attendance of ten, which meant two games for most of the evening. Patrick, Doug H, Tim, Mike, Alex, Neville, Greg, Eric, Philip and myself were the attendees. We played five different games: Puerto Rico (with the new 10th anniversary edition, which Patrick had brought), Power Grid, 7 Wonders, Vegas Showdown and Nightfall. Some details follow.

Puerto Rico was a five-player, and it took a bit longer than usual. It was a close three-way battle between the three players with the most experience, and it turned out to be a narrow win for Doug. Scores: Doug 48, John 47, Alex 45, Neville 39, Patrick 37.

The other table opted for a "speed" game of Power Grid (at Greg's request) using the Central Europe board and the New Power Plant deck. The game finished in just a little over an hour and Greg, who requested the quick game, dominated. Final scores: Greg 13 (he built to 17 to secure the win when noone else could power more cities), Tim 12 (74 money), Eric 12 (13 money), Mike 10. Greg even had time to play another short game, so it was the four of them and Philip for a five-player 7 Wonders. Greg won that one, too, with three guilds for a total of 57 points, ahead of Mike (51), Tim (48), Eric (41) and Philip (38). Greg then retired for the evening, after going undefeated.

Final round of games was a five-player Vegas Showdown and a two-player Nightfall, as Alex and Patrick departed. The Nightfall game, brought by Neville, has won by Doug. The Vegas Showdown game was very exciting, as Eric got off to a huge lead but then John gradually clawed his way back, scoring well enough in endgame scoring to take a narrow win. Scores: John 58 Eric 55 Philip 45 Mike 42 Tim 35.

Good turnout for the New Year, let's hope we can keep it up!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

December 29, 2011 Session Report

We had a group of five for our final session of 2011: Ron, Mike, Neville, Alex and myself. Started out with a game of Martian Dice. First play for Alex and Ron. Neville and Mike tied at 22, and Mike won the special tiebreaker roll by the low score of 1-0. (Note the tiebreaker is the number of Saucers which are on two of the die faces, each player rolling six dice.)

Second game up was Panic Station. Neville and Ron were the two experienced players, Neville spent most of the game in sick bay. Ron started out as the bad guy, at least that's what most of us suspected, when he went in a Parasite room and unleashed four parasites. Nonetheless, he managed to slip the virus to Alex (who was new to the game) and myself, by cleverly confronting two of our guys on successive moves, figuring out we didn't have two gas cans. Mike had lost his human so it was just a matter of getting to Neville's one remaining guy in sick bay. Neville managed to turn back one of us bad guys, but eventually the three of us ganged up on him, and Mike's force (down to just one guy) wasn't much help.

Final game of the evening was Martian Dice, as we lacked access to any of the shorter playing club games. Final scores: Alex 25, Ron 13, John 12, Mike 9, Neville 5.

Next week I plan to bring a couple of shorter playing games (like Cloud 9 and Cheeky Monkey) just to make sure we have them available if needed.