Saturday, November 23, 2013

November 21, 2013 Session Report

Five for this week's session:  Mike, Neville, Alex, Rembert and myself.  We played just one game:  Brew Crafters, a print-and-play version of game that is currently available for pre-orders on Kickstarter for just about two more days (closes at midnight Nov. 24th).

I liked the session so much that I wrote up this report for BoardGameGeek:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1075436/5-player-game-at-local-games-club-in-laurel

Congratulations to Neville, the winner!

Remember that we are off next week for Thanksgiving, next session will be Thursday December 5. Happy Turkey Day to everyone!

Friday, November 8, 2013

November 7, 2013 Session Report

This was the week before EuroQuest and, as promised, Mike and I brought some new Essen games we are slated to demo at the convention next week.  That enabled us to draw a nice crowd, total of nine gamers present:  Mike, Patrick, Doug, Tim, Alex, Rembert, Helen, Karl and myself divided into two groups to play Coal Baron (with Mike doing the teaching) and Lewis & Clark (my game to demo).  Then, Mike's group got done first and had time for another game, Augustus.

Coal Baron, according to the scores, was a really close game and, according to Mike's notes, the endgame changed the order, much in the same way as Thurn and Taxis.  The final score counts were:  Rembert 103, Tim 98, Mike 96, Patrick 91.  This same group fit in a second game, Augustus, and that one, like the first, was a win for Rembert:  Rembert 74 Mike 70 Tim 58 Patrick 56.  Rembert seems to be on a bit of a winning streak as I believe he won the last game played on our Halloween session.

With Lewis & Clark, I wanted to allow time for teaching and hope to finish a longer game without pushing, so I limited the number of players to four (the box says a half-hour per player).  So, I sat out, prodding everyone to move quickly to keep the game from getting bogged down.  The game is a card-driven race game that simulates the historic Lewis & Clark expedition.  Helen made a big early move and shot into the lead, only to get bogged down when the Rocky Mountains appeared on the horizon.  Doug got off to a really poor start, but made a big move to gain much ground on the other players, all of whom faltered in the mountains.  Karl seemed to be in a position to challenge Helen for the win, and it looked like we wouldn't finish in time, until -- all of sudden -- Alex, the master of new games, shot past the finish line to take the win.  Karl and Helen were very close for second, with Doug still trailing but not as much as earlier.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the new games, which will be featured at EuroQuest next week. ... which brings me to the following subject:  Mike and I, along with several club regulars, will be at EQ next Thursday night, so while the Community Center will be open, those of you attending will be on our own.  Hopefully someone will send me a report on what games (if any) get played.  In the meantime, everyone is invited to attend EuroQuest which starts with a Wednesday night Pre-Con and runs through Sunday, November 17.

See everyone back at the club in two weeks, or one week before Thanksgiving.

OOPS, forgot to add that someone from the Community Center staff actually video-taped part of our gaming session last night.  It's supposed to be posted on the Parks and Recreation Facebook page some time soon, there will be a link at the Community Center home page (see link to left of this blog).

Sunday, November 3, 2013

October 31. 2013 Session Report

Turnout of six for the first Halloween night club session in memory.  Mike, Ben, Doug, Tim, Rembert and I were the attendees.  We played a total of four games:  Gipsy King, Power Grid -Quebec (three players plus the robot), Global Warming and Maori, and I am pleased to report that (1) I got to play three of them and (2) we had four different winners and a couple of very close games.

First up was Gipsy King, a nice short game while waiting for more people to show up.  It was a four-player, won by Ben who came storming from behind with a 36-point caravan after I had seized an early half-time lead.  Final scores were close, six points top to bottom:  Ben 66 John 63 Mike 61 Doug 60.

Rembert and Tim arrived, and we split into two groups of three for the remainder of the session.  One group (Mike, Tim and Ben) played Power Grid with the robot four-player and the Quebec map.  Resources (especially coal) got real tight as the robot implemented a hoarding strategy.  In the end, Tim built to 18 but could only power 15, so the winner was Mike at 17, followed by Tim at 15, then Ben and the robot with 11 but the record should show that Ben had more money than the robot.

I brought a game that was shown at Essen a couple of years back called Global Warming, and Doug and Rembert decided to give it a try..  It has a US designer but hadn't hit the mainstream market but I recently discovered it listed at Funagain, so I decided to order it.  Like CO 2, the game has differing ending conditions depending on how much global pollution is generated.  I may have benefited from having done a couple of solo plays and managed to win, hitting the endgame goal of 25 compared to 19 for Doug and 12 for Rembert; had the alternate scenario (of too much global warming) taken place, Rembert would have won because he contributed the least damage to the planet.

The three of us wrapped up the evening with Maori, which Doug had brought, and it was the closest game of the evening:  31-31-30 with Rembert edging me out on the tiebreaker for first (one shell to zero).  Doug had three shells remaining, so he would have won had he been tied for first.

A reminder that next week, the session before EuroQuest, and Mike and I will be on hand with a couple of the Essen games that we have volunteered to demo -- we obviously would like to do a dry run to familiarize ourselves with the games.  Mike will be demoing a game called Coal Baron, I will have Lewis & Clark.  Hope we get enough attendance to get both games going at once!  (We will be setting up around 6, so everyone is encouraged to arrive on time.)