Laurel Community Center Games Club

January 26, 2012 Session Report

2012-01-31T08:20:00.000-08:00

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.

January 19, 2012 Session Report

2012-01-23T12:51:00.000-08:00

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.

January 12, 2012 Session Report

2012-01-13T12:03:00.000-08:00

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.

January 5, 2012 Session Report

2012-01-12T13:34:00.000-08:00

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!

December 29, 2011 Session Report

2012-01-04T17:21:00.000-08:00

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.

December 22, 2011 Session Report

2011-12-28T08:18:00.000-08:00

We had a small but mighty band of six for this session, three days before Christmas: Greg, Ron, Mike, Doug H, Tim and myself. We played two games, all as one big group: Ticket to Ride - the new Asia map -- and then 7 Wonders. Ron went undefeated, winning both games although he had some help in the first one, and maybe a little bit of advice in the second one.

First up was the new Ticket to Ride - Asia expansion, which Mike had brought but Doug had played before. It goes up to six with the players playing as teams. We randomly selected teammates by pulling out the colored trains, you were the teammate of the person whose color you pulled. Mike was paired with Greg, Ron with Doug, and Tim and I were paired together. Each player gets 27 trains (the expansion comes with nine extras), and there's a common area where they can share train and destination cards. At the start, you share one destination card each and keep the others secret. When you draw train cards, one goes to the common area and one to your hand. Face-up Wilds (locos) go to the common area. You can forego a regular turn (laying track, taking train or ticket cards) to put some of your destination cards in the common area. This is what Ron and Doug did and it worked out well for them as they wound up winning the game, aided by some fortuitous ticket draws. Tim and I came in second after a rough start where it appeared we were getting blocked on a key West to East route that eventually opened up after we had to build through the Himalayas. I found the game to be a refreshing and challenging variant from the regular Ticket to Ride and am looking to try it again. The map is extremely tight with six players, and we didn't even get to the version that is played with the flip side of the map. Final scores: Doug/Ron 198, John/Tim 147, Greg/Mike 110.

The second (and final) game of the evening was 7 Wonders. Ron had to be talked into playing and needed a refresher on the rules. Then he proceeded to win the game, a close one, by two points with Tim second. Ron had a perfect 18 in Military and added a couple of Guilds worth 15. Final scores: Ron 59 Tim 57 Greg 47 John 46 Mike 45 Doug 43. Well done, Ron!

Hope to see everyone this coming Thursday. A reminder, if there is inclement weather, just remember to call the Community Center by around 5 that day to check and see if they are going to be open.

December 15, 2011 Session Report

2011-12-16T05:03:00.000-08:00

We had a group of six for tonight's session, as Mike, Tim, Neville, Greg, Doug H and myself were in attendance. We played the following games: Martian Dice, 7 Wonders, Power Grid - U. S., Tanto Cuore and King of Tokyo.

Martian Dice -- Tim got off to a great start, with a remarkable score of 12 his first roll. However, he could not sustain his lead as Neville passed him on the last of five die rolls -- we played to 20 instead of the usual of 25. Final scores: Neville 20, Tim 18, John 14, everyone else at 10.

Then we played 7 Wonders which used to be played every week but which we hadn't played for so long that some of us needed a refresher on some of the rules. Mike got 43 in Science which was enough to give him the overall win, just two points ahead of Doug. Scores: Mike 57, Doug 55, Neville 50, Greg 49, Tim 43, John 39.

Then we split into two groups to play a couple of longer games that really didn't last all that long. There was a three-player Power Grid, won by Mike with 15 (he had the most plant capacity and built out on the final turn) ahead of Greg and Tim who each had 14. The other game was Tanto Cuore, the Japanese-based Dominion knock-off featuring Maids and Chambermaids and Private Maids that drew lots of jokes from the other table. Anyway, it was a close finish with Doug and Neville each finishing with 38, while I trailed with 32. We looked up the tiebreaker -- which was most non-VP scoring maids, but unfortunately we couldn't figure that out since we had started to pick the game up.

Last game of the evening was, once again, King of Tokyo. Like last week, the game didn't last very long and it was a big free-for-all. Tim and I were first to be knocked out, then Mike won the game by delivering the final blow to the remaining players.

December 8, 2011 Session Report

2011-12-12T11:46:00.000-08:00

Seven in attendance for tonight's session, as it was Doug, Patrick, Ron, Tim, Mike, Neville and myself. We played three games: Belfort, Panic Station and King of Tokyo.

Belfort was a three-player game, with Patrick, Tim and Mike participating. Patrick overcame and early deficit and was the successful come-from-behind winner in this one. Final scores: Patrick 47, Tim 39 Mike 38.

Panic Station, a quasi-cooperative game was a four-player, with Ron, Doug, Neville and myself. Ron and Neville had played a few times before and tried to help us "newbies." Turns out there was a great deal of mistrust as Ron shot Neville's human early in the game before we were sure who was infected. But it turned out Doug was the Host, and I also became infected so it was Doug and I (the bad guys) against Ron and Neville (the good guys). Neville and Ron had all the keys and managed to lock one of each of our guys in a room while the key room with the Hive was on another side. However, it all came down to Ron's human survivor (Billy) who recovered from some earlier rooms and eventually won after making a mad dash for the Hive with three gas cans. With some more experience with the game, it seemed Doug and I should have won, but it was really close and down to the wire.

Final game of the evening had players from both games, six of us (Mike, Neville, Patrick, Doug, Tim and myself) playing King of Tokyo. Doug, Tim and Mike were the first ones to be eliminated, and then, with the session time about to run out, I bought a card that let me deal some more hits to the remaining players (Neville and Patrick) to win the game as the sole surviving creature. Otherwise, Patrick had collected more VPs and was set up to possibly win.

Enjoyable session, learned a couple of new games. Hope to see everyone next week.

December 1, 2011 Session Report

2011-12-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Into the final month of the year, had a total of seven for tonight's session: Mike, Patrick, Neville, Eugene, Ron (back in town), Rembert and myself. Eugene said he could only stay for a short while so we played For Sale, after which Rembert arrived. The For Sale game resulted in a win for Mike, scores were Mike 51K, John 45K, Eugene and Patrick 44K, Neville 41K, Ron 36K.

After the For Sale game, Eugene left and so we split into two groups. Patrick and Rembert played Eminent Domain, which turned out to be a win for Patrick, 41 to 24. It was Rembert's first game. The rest of us played Junta, Viva La Presidente, a recent Z-Man release which is a shorter, card game version of the original Junta. After going back and forth for a few turns, Mike turned out to be the winner -- first to six points although Neville would have made it the same turn. Ron and I each had four points at game-end. We then tried Panic Station, a game Ron had brought that Neville had played once before at EuroQuest. Mike and I were new to the game. It was kind of a cooperative game but there was a traitor among us who was hosting an infected virus. The game never reached completion, but it turned out the traitor was Neville who had done a good job of convincing one of us (me) he was really with the good guys. Would have liked to see how the game would have played out. Oh, well ... see everyone next week.

November 17, 2011 Session Report

2011-11-22T21:31:00.000-08:00

It was a smaller crowd than usual for our last session before the Thanksgiving holidays: Ben, Patrick, Neville and myself were on hand. We played a warmup game of Martian Dice, then Olympus which Patrick had brought, then wrapped up the evening with another quick game of Martian Dice. Ben managed to win all three times.

Scores: Martian Dice Game #1 -- Ben 29 Neville 18 John 17 Patrick 15. Played to 25, Ben did not fail to score on any turn. Game lasted six rounds.

Olympus: Ben 42 Neville 33 John 30 Patrick 28. Ben won by getting more things to the end which picked up most of the bonus cards.

Martian Dice Game #2 -- Didn't quite finish but played five complete rounds. Final scores: Ben 19 Neville 13 Patrick 12 John 9.

Ben and Neville finished 1-2 in all three games, while Patrick and I brought up the rear.

Hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving Holiday, next session will be Thursday December 1st.

November 10, 2011 Session Report

2011-11-13T08:05:00.000-08:00

Missed last week's session because of EuroQuest, so no report from any club session. But here's a recap of games played at EQ this year:

http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/74479/euroquest-2011-recap

This week there was a group of five -- Neville, Mike, Doug H, Tim and myself -- we were joined in mid-session by Michael who had come to EuroQuest last week but was new to our group. Played three games: Martian Dice, Potion-Making Practice and Belfort, but Belfort did not quite make it to the finish line.

Martian Dice, which we called after five turns apiece, went to Tim: Tim 18, John 13, Doug 9, Mike and Neville 7.

Potion-Making Practice, which was named as the best Russian-produced boardgame of the past five years in 2010, has recently been made available in an English edition through Right Games, LLC. Our game was won by Doug with 29 pts but Neville came from behind with a big 10-point play near the end to finish second with 26. Tim (22), John (19) and Mike (16) were also in the game, so to speak.

One more session before the Thanksgiving holidays.

October 27, 2011 Session Report

2011-10-30T19:35:00.000-07:00

Hate to admit it, but with all the EuroQuest prep stuff going on, I have managed to misplace the information from this week's session, so I will have to compile the report from memory. I know the group was Mike, Neville, Rembert and myself, plus Jonpatrick whom I knew from other gaming events -- conventions like EuroQuest and PrezCon -- but who was attending his first Laurel session. During the session, John Goon and Stan stopped in, with John picking up a Crokinole set that Stan and his brother Carl had put together.

The one game of the session was Ristorante Italia. It was one of eight new Essen games I had picked up the prior day (Wednesday) for this year's EuroQuest, courtesy of Alliance Game Distributors. Mike had borrowed the game and was scheduled to do a teaching demo at EQ next week, and he did an excellent job of explaining the rules. The game was about running a restaurant, securing ingredients and putting together starters, first courses, second courses, desserts and eventually complete meals served with wine. The best Italian restaurant won the game.

Can't recall exact scores, as I recall the game was between Mike and Jonpatrick, while Rembert and I were close for third, with Neville coming home a bit further back. It seemed very important to get a second chef's hat to do the more complex recipes, and unfortunately Neville was one spot short at the end of the game.

Anyway, while the club will remain open last week, expect attendance to be sparse. Mike and I, along with most of the club regulars will be at EuroQuest in Pikesville. Hope to see many of you there. Will return in two weeks.

October 20, 2011 Session Report

2011-10-23T16:05:00.000-07:00

Attendance of seven for this week's session: Mike, Eric, Neville, Doug, Greg, Rembert and myself. We played a total of four games: Jet Set, Eminent Domain, Fresco and Black Friday.

Jet Set was won by Greg. Final scores: Greg 30, Eric 25, Rembert 21, Neville 16.

Eminent Domain was a win for Mike. Final scores: Mike 31, John 20, Doug 18.

Next round of games, and Greg and Mike won again to go undefeated for the evening.

Fresco, no scores, it was Greg, Doug, Eric and Rembert.

Black Friday, scores were Mike 20 John 16 Neville 14. John bailed out of all his stocks too soon which enabled Mike to coast to a comfortable win.

A reminder that EuroQuest is now less than two weeks off, we will have a session next week and, while the club will be open the Thurs. of EuroQuest, it's possible there may not be that many in attendance that night, Thursday Nov. 3.

October 13, 2011 Session Report

2011-10-16T15:14:00.000-07:00

There were eight of us for this week's session: Doug H, Mike, Tim, Patrick, Greg, Eric S, Neville and myself. We played three different games: Pastiche, Princes of Florence and, for the first time at the club -- Belfort.

One group played the two "P" games: Patrick narrowly won Pastiche, 36 points to 35 for Doug and then 32 for Greg and Eric. Then the results were reversed in Princes of Florence, won by Eric with 71, followed by Greg (66), Patrick and Doug (55).

The other game was new release from Tasty Minstrel called Belfort, which I had brought. First play for everyone (although I had a solo play under my belt to get the rules down.) That one experience stood me in good stead as the game has a bit of a learning curve. Score count was John 43, Neville 36, Mike 30, Tim 29.

A reminder that the EuroQuest pre-reg deadline is less than one week away, on October 20th, next Thursday. Walk-in rates are $5 per day or $10 (for all four days) higher. Check out the website at:

http://euroquest.gamesclubofmd.org

October 6, 2011 Session Report

2011-10-07T17:09:00.000-07:00

We had seven regular attendees tonight -- Patrick, Doug H, John, Tim, Alex, Eric S, Neville and myself -- and we were briefly joined by two ladies (Alicia and Ant) who played a quick couple of games of Connect Four. Other games (which took much longer to complete) were: Alien Frontiers, Age of Empires III, Pastiche, and Tsuro. Actually, Tsuro didn't take all that long (it was a two-player) but Pastiche actually did not quite make it to the finish line.

First up was Alien Frontiers which Patrick had brought, back for a return appearance t the club. Four-player game, turned out to be very close, won by Neville. Final scores were Neville 8, Tim and Patrick 7, Doug 6.

Meanwhile, three of us tackled Age of Empires III which took up most of the session time. Another close finish, at least for two of us. Final scores: John 108, Eric 106, Alex 81. Alex got a little behind the curve on income generation, but he was the king of the exploration and discovery part of the game.

Neville, Tim, Patrick and Doug tackled Pastiche, which Doug had brought. Unfortunately, the game was unfinished when time ran out -- most people seemed to think Doug was close to winning. Eric and I stayed after the AoE III game and Eric won, getting some measure of revenge for the outcome of the earlier game.

Looking to see many of you tomorrow at the Congress of Gamers in Rockville.

September 29, 2011 Session Report

2011-10-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

A nice jump in attendance to 10, doubling what we had last week. All of last week's attendees (Eric S, Mike, Neville, Tim and I) were back, along with Patrick, Alex P, Ben L, Greg and Doug M. Three games were played: Troyes (which took most of the session), Princes of Florence and Vegas Showdown.

Princes and Vegas turned out to be four-player games. Final scores were as follows. Princes: Doug M 66, Eric S 65, Greg 60, Tim 59, seems like a really close game. Vegas Showdown: Eric 80, Doug 65, Neville 54, Tim 48.

As much as I like the other two games, since I had brought Troyes and offered to teach it, I stuck with it and it turned out the two players who were totally new to the game wound up finishing 1-2. Final scores: Ben 47 Mike 39 Patrick 36 John (Alex played as my surrogate teammate) 35. I blame Alex for my low score; instead of listening to me, if he gone ahead and figured out his own moves, I am sure he would have done much better.

This Saturday is Congress of Gamers; for details and location, check out the website:

www.congressofgamers.org

September 22, 2011 Session Report

2011-09-24T15:33:00.000-07:00

It was kind of a down week weather-wise and also attendance-wise. Five (Tim, Mike, Neville, Eric S and I) so that meant only one game going for the entire session. We wound up playing two games: Power Grid (Brazil map) and 7 Wonders (without the Leaders expansion, since we were a bit pressed for time).

Both games were won by Mike, but both were fairly close. Power Grid was a three-way tie at 16 cities, with Mike taking it on the money tiebreak. Final scores were Mike (16/48), Eric (16/7), John (16/5), Neville (14) and Tim (12). Neville had tons of cash left over but lacked the plant capacity to contend. Mike started in a nice central location and effectively hemmed the rest of us in until Stage 2 was reached. Eric and Tim started along the Coast in the South, Neville and I up North, and at times we all had problems reaching new city locations. Interesting and well-played game.

7 Wonders actually had somewhat lower scores than we have seen recently, or maybe I have been spoiled by seeing the high scores possible with the Leaders variant. Mike won with a score of 56, which sometimes doesn't get you in the top three. The rest of the group was Eric 54, Neville 52, Tim 43 and I had a miserable game winding up with 38.

Hoping for a bigger turnout next week.

For those of you interested, Congress of Gamers is now just two short weeks away. Flyers can be downloaded directly from the website here:

http://www.congressofgamers.org/downloads/Cog2011.pdf

September 15, 2011 Session Report

2011-09-20T20:03:00.000-07:00

Total of eight for this week's session. Tim, Doug H, Mike, Neville, Rembert, Alex, Patrick and myself were the attendees. We broke into two groups that wound up being on different time sequences for most of the evening.

Game 1: Mermaid Rain. Players were John, Doug, Neville, Tim and Mike. Tim thought the game had some clever mechanics. Mike was looking for a more "manly game" and seemed disappointed when Puerto Rico broke out at the other table. Final scores were really close, except for Mike who brought up the rear: John 56, Tim 55, Neville 53, Doug 51, Mike 47. I believe Neville and Tim were new to the game, playing it for the first time.

Game 2: Puerto Rico. Rembert was a spectator for awhile, but then Alex and Patrick showed and they got into a three-player PR. Alex, who is pretty good at the game, won with 42. Patrick (26) and Rembert (24) were left competing for a distant second.

Game 3: Vegas Showdown. Same five as for Mermaid Rain. First time for Neville. Mike got his revenge for the first game with a close, one-point margin of victory. Final scores: Mike 67, John 66, Doug 58, Neville 48, Tim 45. Mike's notes say "Neville gets [the] no whiner award." Not sure what that means, except maybe that the four us not named Neville were doing some whining during the game.

Hope to see everyone this coming week.

A reminder: the cheapest gaming convention in the area is now just 3 weeks off -- Congress of Gamers, Saturday October 8th at the Rockville Senior Center. On-line pre-registration is now available. For more information, go to the website at www.congressofgamers.org
and click on "Register"

September 8, 2011 Session Report

2011-09-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

Only five for this week's session: Mike, Greg, Patrick, Neville and myself. Only had one table going, which means we got in just two games -- Quarriors and Founding Fathers. Since Quarriors only plays four, I sat out and kibitzed on the game. Mike got out to a quick lead but faded quickly. Neville, who has been teaching the game to some middle schoolers, was doing well while Patrick, who had also played before, had a longer term strategy. I believe Greg pulled out the win, having a huge seven-point turn as Neville failed to knock out his big creature. Interesting game, can see why it's popular -- kind of like Dominion with dice.

Next game (and final game of the night) was Founding Fathers. We barely finished. Final scores were John 16, Neville 12, Patrick 11, Greg and Mike 10. Enjoyed the game alot, I had the advantage of having played the game alot, but also getting George Washington and Ben Franklin in my starting hand did not hurt!

Hope to see a bump up in our flagging attendance next week.

September 1, 2011 Session Report

2011-09-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

Good turnout, resulting in total attendance of 10. One new attendee, Philip, joined us for the first time. We also had Doug H, Neville, Jonathan, Paul, Mike, Patrick, Greg, Rembert and myself. Good to see Jonathan and Greg who had been away for awhile. Turns out it that this week may be Paul's last time at the club as he is moving out of the area soon.

We played a total of five games: 7 Wonders (basic version), A Few Acres of Snow, Union Pacific, Ascension and Black Friday. I wound up being occupied for just about the entire evening in an intense two-player game with Greg, Martin Wallace's latest release called A Few Acres of Snow, which is the British vs. the French in the pre-Revolutionary French and Indian War. The game takes the deck-building mechanic of Dominion to a new level, where you have a board and pieces, using the cards to improve one's position on the map. It was a really close game that we were worried would not quite finish by the 9 PM closing hour. With just time for a few turns left, we began counting points and I had a six-point lead (61 to 55). But then Greg extended the game by launching a couple of well-timed sieges that cut my margin to nothing. Then, on the final turn, he added a point to claim a hard-fought 58-57 victory. Both of us enjoyed the game alot, and expect to see it hit the table again.

Since I wasn't involved in the other games, will just report the scores from the scoresheets without any comments:

7 Wonders: Paul 56 Jonathan 49 Neville and Patrick 47 Mike 42 Doug 40 -- it was Jonathan's first play

Union Pacific: Patrick 127 Phillip 115 Doug 92 Paul 80

Ascension: Doug 40 Paul 36 Phillip 35 Patrick 32

Black Friday: Jonathan 20 Mike 16 Neville 16 Rembert 12

August 25, 2011 Session Report

2011-08-26T14:08:00.000-07:00

We had a total of seven for tonight's session: Tim, Paul, Mike, Neville, Rembert, Alex and myself. We played 7 Wonders (with Leaders), Ra, Puerto Rico and finished up with 7 Wonders (without the Leaders expansion).

I am pleased to report I managed to win both 7 Wonders games. For the first game, I got an excellent combination of leaders that went well with a Science-based strategy that resulted in a whopping 73 science points (including two bonuses worth points each from two science-related leaders). A few other points here and there and I wound up with 85, highest score seen thus far. My strategy was aided by the fact that none of the other three players scored any Science points. Final scores: John 85, Mike 69, Paul 53, Tim 52 in a really high-scoring game.

By then Neville and Rembert had arrived and we split into two groups. One group played Ra, which turned out to be a big win for Paul (63), with Mike (50) and Rembert (40) being the other players. The other group played Puerto Rico, and Neville (who claimed to have played PR just once before) took the game, 51 points to 46 for John and 41 for Tim. Tim finished last despite building and manning three large buildings by game-end.

Alex had joined us so it was a full table of 7 for the final game of the evening -- 7 Wonders. This time is was luck, not strategy, that won me the game as I had finished my wonder with one remaining play, and then Paul (seated to my right) passed me a Guild card I was able to build for free and score 1o points. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good! Final scores: John 56, Mike 52, Alex 49, Neville 47, Rembert 45, Paul 43, Tim 43.

Hope everyone stays safe during the anticipated storm this weekend, looking to see you at the club next week.

August 18, 2011 Session Report

2011-08-21T19:42:00.000-07:00

Attendance of eight this week, and we had one first-time attendee (Tim's daughter, Cassandra) along with Tim, Mike, Paul, Patrick, Doug H, Neville and myself. Started with a game of 7 Wonders (without the Leaders expansion) before breaking into two groups for the rest of the evening. Other games played: Alien Frontiers, Puerto Rico, Quarriors and Settlers of Catan.

For the 7 Wonders game, Tim had a huge score (best I have ever seen in any game without the Leaders expansion) of 79, which included 55 point in Science. Second was Doug with 60, followed by Mike (57), Paul (50), Patrick (47), John (40) and Cassandra (28) -- it was Cassandra's first game.

We split into two groups of four each for the remaining games. One group played Alien Frontiers, which Patrick had brought, and Quarriors, which Neville had brought. Final scores for Alien Frontiers: Paul 9, Patrick 5, Cassandra and Neville 4. No scores for Quarriors, which did not finish, but Paul was leading when the game was picked up.

The other group played Puerto Rico and Settlers. Puerto Rico was a narrow one-point win for Mike, 43 to 42 for John, followed by Doug (33) and Tim (29). Settlers was also won by Mike, first to 10 points with Doug second at 8, I had 6 and Tim 5 when Mike ended the game.

August 11, 2011 Session Report

2011-08-15T06:12:00.000-07:00

Good turnout of 11 for tonight's session. Attendees were Paul, Mike, Tim, Eric, Ryan, Nathan, Doug H, Rembert, Neville, Patrick and myself. We played the following games during the session: Paris Connection, Lost Cities, Power Grid-Korea, Monopoly Deal, Too Many Cooks and Ra.

Tim proudly displayed his first place plaque for winning the Speed Circuit tournament at this year's WBC. Congratulations, Tim!

Paris Connection was the first game while waiting for everyone to show. It was won by Paul (107) who went first and had collected the maximum number of stocks. Mike and Eric followed at 83, then John (77), Neville (71) and Tim (64). We then split into two groups as more people arrived.

One group (Eric, Mike, Paul, Rembert and Tim) played Power Grid-Korea. Believe it or not, the game had to be picked up -- unfinished -- at 9 PM. But Eric did get in a game of Monopoly Deal with his son, Ryan. Ryan wanted to play the game badly, and the score reflected his desire to win, 3-1 over Eric.

The other table got in two games. Nathan joined Doug H, Neville, Patrick and I for Too Many Cooks. For awhile it looked like a runaway win for Doug, but Patrick came on strong in the end to take an eight-point win, 27 to 19 for Doug and John, followed by Nathan and Neville at 15.

Patrick departed and Nathan decided to look elsewhere for his fun, so it was just three of us for Ra, which was the closest game of the evening, score-wise: Neville 47, John 45, Doug 44. Congrats to Neville for the win.

I did confirm with CC staff what Mike had reported earlier -- the CC will be closing at 9 PM year-round, which means our sessions will be ending at 9 PM after Labor Day, not 10 as in the past.

WBC Information Posted

2011-08-11T07:39:00.001-07:00

For anyone interested, here's a GeekList by me about my time at WBC this year.

http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/70732/2011-wbc-week

If you search the Geek for WBC under Geek Lists and Forums, there are quite a few more that have been posted.

People from our club I saw at the WBC include Doug G, Doug M, Tim, Don T as well as some past attendees, such as Nick, Beth, Ben, Pete P and Nicole. A good time was had by all.

For you 7 Wonders fans out there, they had 170 or so show up for the tournament and there's even a video of a tournament game in progress. Here's the link:

http://www.nextlevelcardgames.com/2011/08/wbc-coverage-7-wonders-preliminary.html

Finally, WindUp Films was there making a movie about the WBC. Not sure when the full version will be released, but there's a trailer you can see here:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=146928142055615&oid=160429884011245&comments

Enjoy!

August 4, 2011 Session Report

2011-08-07T23:26:00.001-07:00

I was at WBC and missed this week's session. However, Mike Brazinski was on hand and filed this report.

"Tonight, the attendance was pretty good with Patrick, Paul, Doug H., Eugene, Rembert, Neville and me at the club. Five of us (Neville and Rembert came a little later) started out with Queen's Paris Connection, a reissue of Winsome's SNCF. The game played quickly with Paul ending it abruptly by running to Marseille. It was a good move as he won the game. The scores were: Paul 80, Mike 71, Doug 67, Eugene 51 and Patrick 37.

After this we played two games of 7 Wonders, the first without the Leaders expansion, the second with. Neville, playing the Pyramids B, dominated the game with a score of 71. This included 20 points from the completed wonder and 16 points from military with only building 3 shields! The next best score was Eugene with 49, then Mike 45, Patrick & Rembert at 39, Paul at 37 and Doug with 33. The Leaders game wasn't nearly the blowout with Eugene winning with 70 followed by Paul & Doug at 61, Patrick at 60, Mike 57, Neville 42 and Rembert at 25.

At this point we split into two groups. Paul, Eugene, Rembert and I played Paris Connection a second time with Paul winning again with 154 points, Eugene at 140, yours truly at 138 and Rembert last with 112. Eugene then had to leave and the three of us played a quick For Sale game with me winning at 73 points, Paul with 60 and Rembert with 55.

The other group played Ascension. Patrick won the game with 50 points, Doug 47 and Nevile 39.

All in all, it was a good showing considering WBC. Paris Connection was well received and will probably get played again soon.

Now for the bad news. Due to PG county budget issues, we were informed that the community center will NOT extend its hours to 10pm after Labor Day. The 9pm closing will be maintained for the foreseeable future."

Sounds like a good session, sorry I missed it. Strong performance by Neville, smoking Eugene in that 7 Wonders game, a game where Eugene has done well in the past. Looking forward to seeing everyone soon, expect to file a WBC recap on BGG in a day or two.

July 28, 2011 Session Report

2011-07-30T05:44:00.000-07:00

Attendance was down a bit this week. We had eight (Doug M, Mike, Paul, Rembert, Eric, Ryan, Nathan and myself.) We played four games: Rails of New England, Carcassone, Cheeky Monkey (twice).

Rails of New England was a four-player game that took the entire session, and we still didn't quite finish. We played with a quick start and a set of starting cards recommended by the game designer. Mike (Maine) was the runaway leader and, despite a last turn flood which wiped out a good portion of his income, held on to win (i.e. he had the most points when we had to pick up the game after 11 turns) with a score of 336. I was second with New Hampshire, had a score count of 307. Doug, who faced some adversity during the game and had to sell some businesses just to raise cash, rebounded to finish third with 262. He was the Connecticut player. Paul (Vermont) rounded out the field with 248. Despite its length, I think everyone enjoyed the game as it was a good mental challenge.

The other games played were supplied by Eric. First up was Carcassone. Scores were Eric 272, Ryan 224. Then Rembert joined in and played Cheeky Monkey with Eric and Nathan. Rembert was the winner in both games. Game one scores: Rembert 49, Eric 35, Nathan 5. Game two: Rembert 45, Eric 28, Nathan 27. Gee, maybe Nathan has lost his magic touch at this game, he seemed to win most of the time before, and congratulations to Rembert on winning both games.

Next week I will be away at the World Boardgaming Championships in Lancaster, PA. However, the club will be open and there will be a session, someone please track games played and attendance if at all possible.

July 21, 2011 Session Report

2011-07-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

Thirteen gamers turned out for this week's session, one of our biggest turnouts of the year. Neville, who was new to our club, was here for the first time, as well as Alex, who was making his first appearance at our club since last fall. We also had three Dougs (Doug G, Doug H and Doug M) plus Mike, Patrick, Paul, Eric, Derik, Kyle, Rembert and myself to make up the Baker's Dozen for this week. Games played: 7 Wonders (with the new Leaders expansion), Egizia, Power Grid-Benelux, Glen More, Ra, For Sale.

First up was 7 Wonders with the new leaders expansion, and we had a full table of seven. The winner was Patrick, with 76 points, who won with very balanced scoring of at least 5 pts. in all seven categories. Other scores: Paul (67), Eric (66), Neville (65), Doug H (62), Mike and John (46) with Mike forcing me into last on the money tiebreaker.

A game of Egizia broke out as more and more people began to arrive. Derik kept his undefeated streak alive, in a fairly close game: Derik (96), Doug M (91), Doug G (85) and Kyle (78). This game finished fairly quickly and they proceeded to the next game, which was Ra. Derik won again, with 60 to 44 for one of the Dougs (scoresheet doesn't say which), 42 for the other Doug, 19 for Kyle. Then, one final game between these four, and finally Derik tasted defeat at the club for the first time, as Kyle was the winner in a game of For Sale: Kyle 72, Doug G 70, Derik 54, Doug M 51.

Rembert and Alex had arrived and joined in once the 7 Wonders game was concluded. Rembert joined Eric, Mike and Paul in a four-player game of Power Grid on the Benelux map that just beat the 9 o'clock witching hour. No need for tiebreaks, as the number of powered cities at game-end was Eric 18, Mike 17, Paul 15, Rembert 13.

Alex joined Patrick, Doug H, Neville and myself in a game of Glen More, which Neville had brought. The game was quite warm from sitting in the car on a hot day! Doug ended the game but suffered a 15-point penalty for having more tiles than anyone else. The winner wound up to be Alex, who had only 10 tiles in his village but made the most use of them. Final score counts: Alex 39, John 35, Patrick 32, Neville 27, Doug H 20. Lesson: more tiles in the city isn't always a good thing!

Thanks to everyone for coming, beat the summer heat and join us for our next session!

July 14, 2011 Session Report

2011-07-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

Another good week, total attendance of 10, we actually set up a third game for part of the session. Two new attendees, Derik and Kyle, rumored to be relatives of Doug G, who was back for the second week in a row. Also, a rare appearance from Jonathan, whom we welcomed back after not having seen him for awhile. The rest of the group was Doug H, Paul, Mike, Patrick, Rembert and myself. Games played: For Sale, Automobile, Settlers, Galaxy Trucker, Ticket to Ride-Switzerland, Ascension.

Details followed. The For Sale game was underway when I arrived. Mike won with 70K, followed by Patrick (64), Doug H (48) and Paul (42). Then more people arrived and we split into groups. One group: Doug H, Paul and Rembert, played Settlers. This was a runaway win for Doug (10) to 6 for Paul and 3 for Rembert, completed in record time, it seemed. The three of them followed with Ticket to Ride-Swiss, recorded as a win for Paul (150) to 115 for Doug and 67 for Rembert. I believe it was Rembert's first time with this version although he has played the US game before.

Four of us played Automobile. Patrick stepped aside when more people arrived, so the game was Doug G, Jonathan, Mike and myself. The game was characterized by alot of overproducing and loss cubes, and Jonathan managed his auto company the best, winning with a score of 4030 compared to 3800 (John), 3560 (Mike) and 3250 (Doug).

Patrick set up Galaxy Trucker which he taught to Derik and Kyle. Derik picked up the game quickly, beating Patrick, 29 to 17. Kyle didn't fare as well, as his spaceship got destroyed before he could score any points.

The two tables combined to play Ascension while the Automobile game was winding down. Derik won this won as well, going undefeated his first time at the club. Scores: Derik 40, Doug H 34, Kyle 31, Paul 29, Patrick 28, Rembert 26.

July 7, 2011 Session Report

2011-07-14T11:56:00.000-07:00

Attendance of eight for this week, we welcomed one newcomer to the club (Doug G, who has moved into the area), along with regulars Tim, Patrick, Paul, Mike, Eric, Rembert and myself. We played four different games: 7 Wonders, 7 Wonders (with the Leaders expansion), Agricola and For Sale.

The first game of 7 Wonders was the closest game, scoring-wise, that I have seen yet. Each of us finished a point apart. Final scores were: John 51, Eric 50, Paul 49, Rembert 48, Mike 47. It was Rembert's first game although he had seen it played once or twice before.

The same group played 7 Wonders again, this time with the new Leaders expansion. The game was a romp for Eric, who had a good combination of leader cards plus the new Rome wonder which made it cheaper to play his leader cards, and also allowed him to get more of them into play. Final score count: Eric 82, Paul 65, John 63, Mike 60, Rembert 40.

The other group (Doug, Patrick and Tim) played a three-player Agricola game that filled most of the session time. Doug wound up the winner, 42 to 33 for Patrick and just 2 for Tim. Tim said he tried "something different," and whatever it was, it didn't work.

We wrapped up the evening with a game of For Sale. Final scores: Eric 59 K, John 54 K, Mike 51 K, Paul 45 K, Rembert 43 K.

June 30, 2011 Session Report

2011-07-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

Eight for this week's session: Mike, Paul, Eric, Nathan, Tim, Patrick, Rembert and myself. Six games were played: Hey That's My Fish, Vegas Showdown, Cheeky Monkey, Sid Meier's Civilization, 7 Wonders and Ticket to Ride - 1910.

Results of those games for which scores were kept:

Hey That's My Fish; Mike 31 Eric 27 Paul 23 Nathan 14
Vegas Showdown: Eric 65 Mike 55 John 47 Paul 42
Cheeky Monkey: Nathan 44 Eric 23 John 21
Ticket to Ride 1910: Mike 151 John 116 Paul 115 Eric 108
7 Wonders: Paul 66 Eric 62 Mike 50 John 46

The Civ game lasted most of the session and was not completed, no word on who was winning. Players were Patrick, Tim and Rembert.

June 23, 2011 Session Report

2011-06-29T08:12:00.000-07:00

Attendance was down as we only had six for this week's session: Doug H, Paul, Patrick, Mike, Rembert and myself. We played a total of six games: Ascension, Lost Cities, Ticket to Ride - Switzerland (played twice), Black Friday and For Sale.

Ascension was a four-player, won by Mike. Scores were Mike 55, Doug 51, Paul 47, Patrick 39.

Lost Cities, Rembert and I played two hands. First one was low scoring, John 37 Rembert 23. Next hand, scores were quite a bit higher: John 106, Rembert 60.

Ticket to Ride-Switzerland: Game 1, Doug doubled the scores of each of his opponents. Doug had 154, Paul (76) nosed out Patrick (72) for second. Game 2, Doug 135 Paul 102.

Black Friday, another three-player game, won by John (17). Mike was a very close second (16), Rembert was third with 10.

Final game of the evening, For Sale. Scores: John 68K, Mike 50K, Doug 45K, Rembert 39K, Paul 36K.

June 16, 2011 Session Report

2011-06-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

Hard to match last week's attendance, but we were still in double figures this week with a total of 10 attendees. Mike, Paul, Patrick, Doug H, Tim, Eric, Rembert, Doug M, Eugene and I were the group for this evening. We got a total of three games in: 7 Wonders, Airlines Europe and Black Friday.

First up, it was a full table of seven for 7 Wonders. Patrick emerged as the winner. Final scores: Patrick 62, Doug H 56, John 53, Paul 51, Tim 43, Eric 41, Mike 39. Patrick won with a fairly balanced set of scores, going negative in Military (-1) but garnering 22 points in blues, 10 in Science (green) and then a huge 18 for three Guilds in Epoch III to clinch the win.

By then, three others had arrived and we broke into two five-player games for the rest of the evening. One group played Airlines Europe, which Eric had brought. Eric was the winner with Tim a close second. The scores were reported as follows: Eric 98, Tim 87, Paul 80, Doug H 72 and Rembert 66. First play for Rembert and perhaps one or two of the others.

The other game was Black Friday, which I had brought. We barely finished before the 9 o'clock witching hour. Eugene won with 13 silver, others were John (12), Mike (10/76), Doug M (10/9) and Patrick 9. The second number is remaining cash which was the tiebreaker between Mike and Doug for third.

Hope to see everyone next week!

June 9, 2011 Session Report

2011-06-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

A big crowd for this most recent session, total attendance of 14 -- our highest in a long time -- credit goes mainly to Eric, who brought his family. We had one first-time attendee (Ryan) along with Rembert (back for his third week in a row, qualifying him for GCOM associate membership) and the rest of the group, which included Doug H, Doug M, Patrick, Greg, Mike, Paul, Eugene, Eric, Mary Jean, Nathan, Ryan S (Eric's son) and myself.

With such a large group, quite a few games were played. Here's my best effort at a recap. Surf's Up Dude, a Moon/Weissblum game depicting surfing, was a five-player that came down to the wire with Rembert taking a narrow win. Final scores: Rembert 59, Doug M 58, Doug H 57, John 47, Patrick 42. Patrick and I got off to a bad start, while Doug M collected five (!) beach babes. Doug H had the early lead but kind of got hammered on the later waves due to the big bulls eye on his back by that time.

Ryan S won a three-player game of Monopoly Deal. The others in the game were Mary Jean and Nathan. Meanwhile, Ryan's Dad, Eric, won a five-player game of Airlines Europe (another Alan Moon game), nosing out the other Ryan (86 to 80). Others in the game were Paul (77), Greg (64) and Mike (51).

For the next round of games, Eugene joined Rembert, Doug M and myself for a four-player Vegas Showdown and came away the winner. Final scores: Eugene 72, Doug M 64, John 63, Rembert 49. I believe it was Rembert's first game.

The other games were Puerto Rico and Cheeky Monkey. Cheeky Monkey was won by Nathan, with a nice score of 36 ahead of his Dad, Eric, in second with 33. Ryan S (9) and Mary Jean (6) brought up the rear.

The four-player Puerto Rico game saw Paul try an unusual tobacco denial strategy (taking tobacco plantations during the Settler phase just to deny them to other players). The strategy did not work, and the final scores were Mike 44, Doug H 39, Paul 36, Ryan D 25.

Thanks to everyone for the good turnout. Let's keep it up.

June 2, 2011 Session Report

2011-06-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

Attendance hit nine for our first session of 2011 with the summer hours. Attendees included Patrick, Mike, Paul, Doug H, Tim, Rembert, Brian, Doug M and myself. Games played: Cheeky Monkey, Thurn and Taxis, Settlers of Catan, Ra, Cloud Nine.

First up was Cheeky Monkey, a relatively short game while waiting for everyone to show up. Patrick, who was the last to join the game, was the winner, with 23 points. Paul tied for first with 23 but the tiebreaker -- highest bonus tile -- meant Patrick, who had the most money, was the winner.

We then split into two groups as more people arrived. One group played Settlers of Catan. It was a close game, filling most of the remaining time, won by Doug H who came from behind. Final scores: Doug (10), Patrick (9), Tim and Rembert (7).

The other group got in two games: first, Thurn and Taxis, which we haven't played at the Laurel club for a long time. Winner was Mike (26) ahead of John (22), Doug M (19) and Paul (5). By then Brian had arrived, and we played a five-player game of Ra. Mike scored an even more crushing win, with a total of 68 (!) points, almost double that of second place, who was Doug M (38). John (32), Paul (31) and Brian (16) also played.

Finally, we wrapped up the session with a quick game of Cloud Nine which featured two 25-point balloon trips. Brian took the win with 63 points, ahead of Paul (55), Mike (43), Doug H (39), John (35) and Rembert (32).

After the session I learned Brian is planning on moving out of the area, so we will miss him at future club sessions and wish him well. He did say he will try to stop in from time to time if his future travels in connection with work bring him close to Laurel on Thursday evenings.

May 26, 2011 Session Report

2011-06-01T17:49:00.000-07:00

Very good turnout of 11 for our last session before the shortened hours (6 - 9 PM) for the summer season. We had one first-timer, Rembert, along with Greg (who we hadn't seen at the club for awhile), Ron, Paul, Mike, Tim, Eric S, Patrick, Doug M, Brian and myself. Games played: Settlers of Catan, Cheeky Monkey, Power Grid, Ascension, 7 Wonders, Vegas Showdown.

One group opted for Settlers (second week in a row). Tim was the winner, first to 10 points, ahead of Ron (9), Paul (8) and Patrick (5). The other group, waiting for others to show, played Cheeky Monkey. Mike came away the winner (44) over Greg (40) in a close one; Eric and I were the also-rans.

The four of us were joined by Rembert, whom I had met at the Beltsville Day gathering a couple of weeks before. We taught Rembert Power Grid, and he managed to finish in the middle of the pack in his first game, played with the US Map, new deck. I had what could have been a winning position spoiled on the last two turns by being unable to buy needed resources (in this case, Oil). This enabled Eric to take the win ahead of Mike on the money tiebreaker, with both being able to power and supply 15 cities. Rembert who got to 14 cities, all powered with nukes, took third. Greg had the capacity to power 15 but could only build to 13, having bought some extra resources to extend the game. Meanwhile, I could only power 10 and wound up last.

The other group welcomed Brian and played 7 Wonders. Paul won with a high Guilds score. Final scores were Paul 68, Patrick 59, Brian 54, Tim and Doug 53, Ron 49. Four of this group then played Ascension, a game Doug H had introduced to the club a few weeks back. Doug M emerged the winner, with 57 points compared to 53 for Patrick, 49 for Tim, 48 for Paul.

Brian joined four of us at the other table for a game of Vegas Showdown. Brian is still new at the game, but he has an impressive unbeaten streak that he managed to maintain -- barely. In an extremely close game, it was Brian once again the winner (47) to John (46), Eric (44), Mike (43) and Greg (42). Five points top to bottom, one of the closest games of Vegas I have ever seen.

So, six different games played, six different winners. A really good session headed into the summer season.

May 19, 2011 Session Report

2011-05-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

Nice turnout for this week's session, we had nine gamers: Paul, Mike, Ron, Rodney, Doug H, Tim, Don, Brian and myself. We had two games going throughout the session.

First up was a game of Roll through the Ages that was unfinished once more people showed up. We then split into two groups. One game was Ascension, won by Mike (56) Rodney (45) and Doug, who brought the game (43). This group was joined by Don for a game of Puerto Rico, which came down to the tiebreaker. Don won over Rodney (each with 50 points) on the basis of having one more coin/good. Mike (44) was third, followed by Doug (38).

The other group played Settlers. I scored a rare victory in this game after it looked like Tim had the upper hand. The players and scores were: John (10), Paul and Tim (6) and Ron (5). I believe it was Ron's first time playing this game.

Next games were Pastiche and Vegas Showdown. Pastiche was won by Rodney (39) followed by Paul (32), Doug (31) and Don (23). Another great job of teaching the game to new players by Doug. Vegas Showdown was another runaway win for Brian, who had won a game last week as well. Scores: Brian 59 John 37 Don 36 Tim 35 Mike 30

Last two games were 7 Wonders and the cooperative game, Forbidden Island. 7 Wonders was a triumph for Don (with a nice score of 63 points). Others: Rodney 58 Tim 54 Mike 45 Paul 44. Forbidden Island, the four of us (Brian, Doug, Ron and myself) tried real hard but the waters kept rising and rising, so we lost. Thus ended the session.

May 12, 2011 Session Report

2011-05-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

We had a good post-Game Days attendance, with nine showing up: Paul S, Mike, Alan (whom we hadn't seen for some time), Doug H, Tim, Brian, Doug M, myself and (back for the second week in a row), Paul J. For the first time in awhile, no 7 Wonders games were played, and we had two games going for the entire session. Games played: Pastiche, Power Grid - Japan, Race for the Galaxy, Homesteaders, Vegas Showdown and For Sale.

Pastiche was a three-player, won by Alan (49) with Doug H a close second (48), and Paul S. was third (33).

Power Grid-Japan was a five-player, I managed to build to 15 for the win with one dollar to spare. Others: Tim (12) in second ahead of Doug M (also 12), while Mike and Brian, each with 11 cities, brought up the rear.

Race for the Galaxy used the Gathering Storm expansion. Winner was Paul J. (38) just in front of Paul S. (36). Doug H was third and last with 26 but the best of the non-Pauls in that one. This same group went on to play Homesteaders, another win for Paul J (66) to Doug's 49 and Paul S. (41) and wrapped up the evening with For Sale, with Paul J. going on to win three in a row (77 to 59 for Doug, 51 for the other Paul).

The other table finished up with Power Grid and moved on to Vegas Showdown. Scores: Brian 63 Doug M 54 Tim 48 John 45 Mike 40.

May 5, 2011 Session Report

2011-05-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

I was at Game Days, but there was a club session, and here's the report:

Six in attendance, including two first-time club attendees: Paul J. and Eric, who joined Paul S., Mike, Tim and Patrick. Two games of 7 Wonders were played, and also Carson City. Scores on those games were:

7 Wonders, game 1: Mike 55 Patrick 54 Tim 45 Paul S. 45

Carson City: Patrick 47 Mike 40 Paul S. 30 Tim 25

7 Wonders, game 2: Mike 63 Paul S. 58 Paul J. 56 Patrick 45 Tim 43 Ed 41

Footnote on this last game: Mike had the Mannekin (B side), and there was a question of how you interpret the wonder, so the win may have come with an asterisk because of this.

April 28, 2011 Session Report

2011-05-02T10:43:00.000-07:00

Good attendance again this week, as Eric brought his two sons (Ryan and Nathan), joining Mike, Paul, Tim, Patrick, Doug M and myself for an evening of gaming. Games played: Monopoly Deal, Cheeky Monkey, Agricola, Too Many Cooks, Innovation and 7 Wonders.

Monopoly Deal is a quick-playing card game based on Monopoly. I managed to win by being the first to collect three sets of color-coded properties (aided by a Wild Card property or two). The others in this game were Eric, Ryan, Mike and Paul.

Next up was Cheeky Monkey. Eric won this one. Scores: Eric 23, Tim 17, Ryan 15, Paul 13, John 9, Mike a big zero.

After these two games, we split into two groups. One table engaged in an exciting game of Agricola. It took slightly over two hours (fairly quick for that game) and the scores were Doug M 37, Paul 27, Tim 24, Patrick (who brought the game) 15. I believe it was Tim's first time playing the game.

The other table played a game of Too Many Cooks. The winner was Nathan (21), followed by John (19), Mike (14), Eric (11) and Ryan (4). Nice job by Nathan, the youngest player in the game.

At this point and Eric and his kids (he also brought younger daughter Rebecca who deigned not to play with the rest of us) took their leave, which left two of us (Mike and I) waiting for the Agricola game to finish. We opted for a two-player Innovation. Mike won, 6 - 2, taking all the point-based achievements while I could manage just two of the Specials via short-cut Dogma effects.

That left six of us to wrap up the evening with a final game of 7 Wonders. It came down to the tiebreakers, as it was a tie for first, tie for third and a tie for fifth. Final scores of this very close game: Tim 55, Paul 55, Mike 54, John 54, Doug M 46, Patrick 46. Congratulations to Tim for winning this one with a well-balanced scoring consisting of Guilds, blue cards and Military.\

Next week is Games Days, so I suspect I will not make it back in time for the club session. Left some scoresheets and attendance forms, expecting a full report from those who do attend.

April 21, 2011 Session Report

2011-04-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

We had good attendance of ten for this week's session. Mike, Tim, Eric, Doug M, Doug H, Ethan (making his first appearance at our club), Brian, Patrick, Erik and myself were the players. We had two games going on at once for most of the session, and it turned out there were just two winners tonight, Brian and Eric, with Brian going undefeated.

At one table, Ethan, Brian, Doug H and I played a new game from the Mensa convention called Pastiche which Doug had brought. It was about matching colors, had some trading involved, then completing works of art by various painters to see who could score the most points. Final score counts: Brian 39, John 37, Ethan 33, Doug H 30. Erik joined us for the next game, which was Hoity Toity. Brian won that one by one space with John second, followed by Ethan, Doug and Erik. Brian kept his winning streak going by taking a four-player Cloud Nine, passing Doug on the final turn. Scores: Brian 56, Doug H 51, Ethan 42, John 26.

Meanwhile, at the other table, there was a five-player game of Automobile. Eric, who had not played before, won with a very good score of 5330, followed by Patrick (4320), Doug M (4100), Tim (3960) and Mike (3710). I believe it was Tim's first game, while the others had played before. Next up, the group started but abandoned a game of Innovation, then went for 7 Wonders. Final scores: Eric 57 Doug M 53 Tim 52 Mike 33.

Not being one to rest on his laurels (ooh, bad pun, given where we were playing), Eric joined the four of us at the other table for one more game of Cloud Nine to wrap up the evening's festivities. It came down to Brian and Eric, the two players who had won all their preceding games, and Brian won by a narrow margin. Final count: Brian 52, Eric 49, Doug H 39, John 35, Ethan 24. A big 25-point balloon trip helped Brian win that game.

April 14, 2011 Session Report

2011-04-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

Six for this week's session: Patrick, Paul, Tim, Brian, Doug M and myself. Only had time for two games: Shogun (brought by Patrick) and then the obligatory 7 Wonders.

Shogun, we got through one of three scoring rounds and did not finish. Scores at that point: John 23, Patrick 20, Tim 14, Paul 9, Brian 8.

The 7 Wonders game wound up in a win for Doug. Scores were Doug 59, Tim 53, Paul 50, Patrick 49, Brian 47, John 43. Paul scored 32 points just from Guilds alone.

April 7, 2011 Session Report

2011-04-11T08:31:00.000-07:00

Six showed for this week's session, and Mike, Paul, Doug H, Tim, Don and I played a total of four games: Ascension, Lost Cities, Power Grid - Spain and 7 Wonders.

Ascension, which Doug had brought, was a four-player game with an extremely close finish. Final scores: Doug 54, John 53, Paul 52, Mike 49.

Don and Tim arrived a few minutes late and played a couple of hands of Lost Cities. Word has it Don prevailed.

Then, all six of us played Power Grid with one of the newer maps, Spain, which had some interesting rules. It was a very close game, everyone finished with either 15 or 14 cities powered the final turn. The top three were: John 15/64, Paul 15/47, Don 15/25. However, Don had the capacity to power 16 but was a dollar short of making the connection that would have won him the game.

Wrapped up with another 7 Wonders game, won by Mike. Scores: Mike 55, John 51, Tim 50, Doug 45, Paul 40, Don 38.

March 31, 2011 Session Report

2011-04-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

Six in attendance this week: Mike, Paul, Tim, Doug M, Patrick and myself. Games played: Speicherstadt, London, Puerto Rico, Ticket to Ride - Switzerland and the new second edition of 7 Wonders (which Mike had brought). Some details follow.

First up was The Speicherstadt, five-player game, very close scores (for four of us, at least): Mike 25 Paul 25 Doug 25 Tim 24 John 14. Mike won on the money tiebreaker, while Paul and Doug tied for second.

Patrick arrived, so we split into two groups for the next round of games. Three of us elected to play London. Final scores: Doug 89 John 55 Patrick 16. Not a real close one as Doug managed to build the most districts and ran away with the game.

The other group of three got in two games in the same time frame. Puerto Rico wound up a win for Mike: 60 to 45 (Paul) and 44 (Tim). Ticket to Ride-Swiss was a blowout win for Mike, with Tim second and Paul conceding after being blocked from several key runs.

The final game of the evening was a five-player 7 Wonders. Mike had brought the new edition, which included the eighth Wonder expansion as well as some new components but the rules were basically the same. Tim emerged the winner, preventing a four-game sweep for the evening by Mike. Final score count: Tim 65 Doug 60 Mike 55 John 53 Paul 39.

March 24, 2011 Session Report

2011-04-04T17:26:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I missed this session and had to rely on the recollections of those who attended. Attendance was at five -- Eugene, Paul, Tim, Don and one other -- possibly Bryan, can't say for sure. Games played: Vegas Showdown, For Sale and Puerto Rico. No report on the scores or the winners.

CORRECTION: I believe from subsequent conversations that the fifth attendee at this session was Erik, not Bryan.

March 17, 2011 Session Report

2011-03-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

Attendance hit double figures this week, as we had Paul, Doug H, Mike, Eric S, Patrick, Erik, Eugene, Don, Doug M and myself available to play games. One group played Railroad Tycoon on the new Western US Map, which Eric had brought. The five of us (Eric, Doug M, Patrick, Don and myself) took around three hours or so to complete the game, which was won by Eric who had jumped out to a large lead and only had two bonds (which he took out to finance his initial bid and track build). Final scores: Eric 72, Don 61, Doug M 60 and the rear was brought up by myself (43) and Patrick (35).

The other group played three shorter games. Ascension, won by Eugene. Scores: Eugene 59, Doug H 57, Mike 55, Paul 43. 7 Wonders, also won by Eugene. Scores: Eugene 58, Erik 55, Mike 52, Doug H 42, Paul 41. Then Eugene took his leave and the next game was Settlers, won by Mike who had the largest Army, with 10, followed by Doug H (longest road) 8, Erik 8, Paul 5.

There was time for a second game of 7 Wonders with those of us who stayed for the final hour. That won was a big win for Eric S, with a score of 70 -- tied for the highest I have seen, as he obviously benefited from starting to my left. Others were far behind, paced by Doug M 54, Erik 46, Don 44, Paul 40, John 37.

Good turnout, good night for Eugene and Eric who won all the games they played.

March 10, 2011 Session Report

2011-03-12T15:42:00.000-08:00

Attendance held firm at eight for tonight's session despite some rainy weather: Mike, Patrick, Paul, Doug, Eugene, Erik, Tim and myself were the attendees. Games played: 7 Wonders, Settlers of Catan, Imperial 2030, Pandemic and Ingenious.

First up was the obligatory 7 Wonders game, believe we had six players (Erik and Tim had not yet arrived), and the winner was Patrick. Then we split into two groups for the rest of the session. One group (Paul, Erik, Tim and Doug) opted for some shorter games, including Settlers (won by Doug), Pandemic (no report on how that one came out) and Ingenious (won by Tim).

The rest of us played the longer Imperial, using the newer map and 2030 version. It was the first play for Patrick, Mike and Eugene, and we didn't quite manage to finish the full game after the leading country (Russia) was brutally attacked and brought to its knees. The two best countries (ending up at x4) were Europe and China, hence the contest was between Mike and Patrick, with Mike emerging victorious by a point (a tie would have favored Patrick). I came in third with Eugene in fourth after Eugene's last bond buy left him a few bucks short of being able to squeeze in a final taxation with India, in which both he and I were heavily invested. A good time was had by all.

March 3, 2011 Session Report

2011-03-05T10:47:00.000-08:00

Finally getting caught up with the two session reports prior to PrezCon, so the most recent session attracted eight attendees: Mike, Doug, Ron, Tim, Bryan, Don, Patrick and myself. Four different games were played and it turned out to be a very good night for Tim, who won all three games he played.

First up (once again) was 7 Wonders, and we had a full table of seven. Tim won the game with a very impressive score of 69, ahead of John (57), Mike (54), Doug (48), Ron (43), Bryan (37) and Don (36). We then split into two groups for the rest of the evening.

One group got in two games. First was Union Pacific, which turned out to be a close finish between Tim and Mike with Doug not far behind. Final scores: Tim 104 Mike 102 Doug 98 Ron 87. Then it was Speicherstadt, with Tim completing the trifecta with 29, Mike again second (26) followed by Doug (22) and Ron (18). These seem like fairly high scores based on my limited experience with the game.

The other group elected to play Automobile, which Patrick and I had played a few days earlier at PrezCon. We barely got the game in, as they were collecting tables and chairs while we were hastily calculating the final scores. What we came up with was Patrick 5450, John 4770, Don 4500, Bryan (for whom it was the first play) 3580. These scores, particularly Patrick's, seemed really high for a 4-player game, and afterwards Patrick thought he may have been paid twice for his cars sold in the final round. So, it will have to go down as a win with an asterisk for Patrick.

February 24, 2011 Session Report

2011-03-05T10:31:00.000-08:00

While some of us were away at PrezCon, there was a group of four at this session. Don, Paul, Ron and Mike were present, and they played three different games: K2, Ticket to Ride (US Map) and Iliad. Iliad did not make it to the finish line, but the results for the other two games follow (courtesy of Mike for providing this information).

K2: Very close scores, well at least for three of the four players. It was Don 23, Paul 22 and Ron 20. Mike lost both climbers when he was blocked from advancing and wound up with just 2 points.

Ticket to Ride: Winner was Paul 123, followed by Don 106 (including the longest route bonus), Mike 104 (most tickets bonus), Ron 92.

February 17, 2011 Session Report

2011-02-21T08:45:00.000-08:00

I am afraid this will have to be a very incomplete session report as I had to leave early due to a conflict with another event later that evening. Attendance remained strong, with at least ten of us (Paul, Patrick, Ron, Eric, Erik, Doug H, Mike, Greg, Brian and myself) present. One game played was 7 Wonders, but don't have access to the final scores. Hope to supplement this report with more details after I return from PrezCon, which is going to cause my absence again on the 24th. Hope to catch up when I return.

March 5, 2011 Update: Here are the results from games played on February 17.

7 Wonders: Paul 66 Doug 64 Erik 56 Greg 48 Mike 47 Ron (with an assist from John) 34

Power Grid (New Deck, Japan map): Ron 14/112, Mike 12/232, Eric 12/221, Doug 12/10, Greg 11/95

Monopoly Deal: Ron 3 Doug, Eric and Mike 0

Wits and Wagers: Greg 38 Ron 23 Doug 18 Mike 0

Looks like I might be missing a game or two for Paul, Erik, Brian and Patrick, but that's all I have in the way of results from Feb. 17.

February 10, 2011 Session Report

2011-02-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

We had attendance of 10 for this week's session, including one first-time attendee, Brian Burk. Also present were Ron, Paul, Mike, Doug H, Lee, Eric, Doug M, Patrick and myself. Games played: Glen More, Power Grid-Russia, 7 Wonders, Roll Through the Ages and Innovation. A brief report follows.

Paul, Ron, Patrick, Doug H and I played a new game that I had brought called Glen More. It was a tile-laying game a bit reminiscent of Alhambra where you placed some tiles, but here certain (usually the adjacent or touching tiles) were activated for production or movement. Anyway, the game seemed to go over fairly well. The winner was Ron with 54. Other scores were John 44, Patrick 42, Paul 38, Doug H 27.

The other game was Power Grid, using the Russia map. Turned out to be a close a competitive game, coming down to the money tiebreaker as three of the four players were able to power 17 cities on the final turn. Winner was Brian (17 cities/93 money), second Mike (17/73), then Eric (17/17) and finally Lee (16/92).

At this point there was alot of discussion as to what game to play next. There wound up being a couple of games of 7 Wonders, plus one Roll Through the Ages and then Innovation, which Doug M had brought. Roll Through the Ages was a 3-player, won by Doug on the most goods tiebreak with Ron in second and me in last.

7 Wonders Game #1: Paul 49 Patrick 47 Mike 46 Doug M 45 Brian 42 Eric 41 Lee 36.

7 Wonders Game #2: Eric 48 Lee 46 Paul 41 Doug H 34.

Finally, Doug M, Brian, Patrick and I fooled around with a game of Innovation but did not finish. I managed to get two achievements, Doug got one. The game was new to Brian and Patrick.

February 3, 2011 Session Report

2011-02-08T13:57:00.000-08:00

There were eight participants this week: Ron (whom we hadn't seen in awhile), Doug, Paul, Mike, John, Erik, Tim, Eugene and myself. Ron had brought K-2, a game about mountain-climbing, which was played twice, as was 7 Wonders. Also, a 5-player game of Puerto Rico broke out.

The first game of K-2 included Don, Ron and myself and it was brutal as the rough weather conditions and crowding as we tried to assault the summit led to some tragedy -- all three of us had to sacrifice one climber to try to maximize our potential. Ron was the first to get to the top, but he had trouble getting his climber back to the lower levels. Doug proved slow and steady was the wisest approach, getting both climbers in position before being forced to sacrifice one of them. Doug then got a man to the top, returned him safely for an additional three-point bonus. My climbers struggled, getting one group to level 7 before they perished. I finally got the second group to the end. Final scores: Doug 13, Ron and John 11, with Ron getting second on the tiebreak for reaching the top earlier.

Second game of K-2 saw things go a bit smoother, Ron and Erik both got 20 points, Ron winning on the tiebreak. Only Eugene, who came in third with 11 points, lost a climber. Erik got both his climbers to the top but none returned to the bottom. Ron got one to the top and safely returned and a second to level 7 to secure the win.

Two games of 7 Wonders finished thusly:
Game 1: Erik 59 Tim 54 Paul 53 Mike 40
Game 2: Tim 57 Erik 49 Mike and Eugene 44 Paul 36.

The Puerto Rico game finished as follows: John 50 Doug 47 Mike 43 Paul 37 Tim 33. It was Tim's first game of PR.

January 27, 2011 Session Report

2011-01-29T08:10:00.000-08:00

Some inclement weather kept some people away (perhaps also because the CC center had an erroneous message on their automated answering line suggesting that activities might be canceled), but four intrepid gamers made it to this week's session: Patrick, Eugene, Mike and myself.

Mike and I got there first and fooled around with a two-player game we had both bought, Railroad Barons, but we didn't really play it. Then I introduced the group to Era of Inventions, and we had fun inventing stuff for much of the evening -- Patrick invented the telephone and the camera, Mike invented the typewriter, Eugene the phonograph and eventually the airplane, I came up with the cash register, sewing machine and automobile. Eugene and Mike expanded their factories, while Patrick and I spent time recycling cubes and money by cashing in on bonuses for producing inventions. Final scores were John 34, Eugene 30, Patrick 24, Mike 20.

Then we wrapped up the evening with 7 Wonders, which wound up a runaway win for Eugene, who had 47 just in science. Final scores: Eugene 60, John 49, Mike 48, Patrick 41.

January 20, 2011 Session Report

2011-01-22T05:14:00.000-08:00

For the third week in succession we had nine attendees, including (making his first appearance at our club) Karl Musser, the host at GCOM-Brunswick. Rounding out the attendees were Greg, Mike, Doug, Paul, Erik (back for his second week in a row), Patrick, Tim and myself. We played Word on the Street, De Vulgari Eloquentia, Tales of Arabian Nights and Ingenious (twice).

First up was a two-team tug-of-war of words, Word on the Street, which Greg had brought. It was a close contest, won 8-7 by the team of Greg, Doug and Paul over the team of myself, Mike and Patrick, after my word "fluff" which would have dramatically shifted the balance of power was rejected.

We then split into two groups after more people arrived. I had brought a fairly new game, De Vulgari Eloquentia, where players were scholars in Renaissance Italy going around collecting stuff, possibly becoming Cardinals and even Pope. Five of us started the game, but Karl had to leave around 9 and the game still had a bit to go. The game actually went the entire 16 turns and turned out to be a very close one, ending a tie: John 50 Paul 50 Patrick 49 Mike 44. I managed to eke out the win on the most knowledge tiebreak, but Paul ended the game as Pope. Just call him "Pope Paul" when he shows up next week.

The other group (consisting of Doug, Erik, Tim and Greg) played Tales of Arabian Nights which was won by Doug. They then had time for a couple of games of Ingenious, which were won both times by Erik.

January 13, 2011 Session Report

2011-01-19T15:49:00.000-08:00

For the second week in a row, we had nine in attendance but not the same nine as the prior week. Erik (first time at our club) was there, along with Mike, Doug, Paul, Lee, Greg, Rodney, Patrick and myself. Games played: 7 Wonders (three times!), Princes of Florence, Power Grid - Japan, Navegador. Some details follow.

First game up was 7 Wonders. After some shuffling, we wound up with a five-player game and I recorded my first win after about 10 tries. Not a high score, however, final count was John 49, Rodney 46, Doug 45, Paul 40, Eric 33. The other group of four played Power Grid-Japan, which was won by Lee (15 cities powered) ahead of Mike and Patrick (12 cities each) after Greg, who came in last with just 9 cities powered, kingmakered the game for Lee. At least that's what I was told.

Erik, Doug, Rodney, Paul and I played Princes of Florence -- the newer version (which Greg had brought) but without the new rules. Erik was new to the game, but he managed to come in second. Final scores: John 62, Erik 53/200 florins, Doug 53/100 florins, Rodney 50, Paul 31. By then the Power Grid game was finished and we re-split into two groups.

One group played 7 Wonders two more times. Final scores: Erik 55, Mike 51, Rodney 44, Doug 43, Paul 40. Second game: Doug 65 (high score of the night and perhaps at the club thus far), followed by Mike 56 Rodney 53 Erik 51 Paul 29.

The other game was Navegador, Patrick and I introduced it to Lee and Greg. Greg seemed to catch on, Lee did not. We only managed to get into the third shipping age when time ran out. We scored anyway: Greg 52 Patrick 51 John 48 Lee 35

January 6, 2011 Session Report

2011-01-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

Started off the New Year with a nice jump in attendance -- a total of nine, and we had a literal three-ring circus with three games in progress for much of the evening. Joining me for this initial 2011 session were Mike, Greg, Doug, Patrick, Paul, Neil, Eric and Tim. Games played: 7 Wonders, Poseidon, Navegador, For Sale (played three times) and Railways of the World, using the Mexico map.

First up was 7 Wonders, which is rapidly becoming a new club favorite. Paul, who had won the prior week, continued his winning ways but this time it was much closer in the final scores: Paul 62, John 60, Doug 50, Patrick 49, Greg 49, Neil (assisted by Eric) 47, Mike 45. My game score was improved by 48 points in Science, good enough for second but not good enough to win, given my lack of Military points.

Tim arrived and, after a few minutes of discussion, we split into three three-player games. At one table, it was Greg, Mike and I playing Poseidon, an 18xx-style game based on shipping to ancient Greek islands that Mike had brought. Since I had pre-ordered the game, I was interested in seeing how it went. Pleasantly surprised, although it turned out we missed one rule and also were unable to reach the finish, getting to the start of the final set of operating rounds. We counted up and had a really close finish: John 2764, Greg 2538, Mike 2538 -- a virtual tie for second!

The Railways of the World game, which Eric had brought, also took up most of the rest of the session time. Final scores were reported as: Eric 87 Doug 77 Tim 67.

The other group, consisting of Paul, Patrick and Neil, played Navegador, and Paul continued his winning streak, but Patrick came much closer than the game from last week. Final scores were Paul 83 Neil 78 Patrick 67 -- heard Paul used the Explorer strategy which once again paid off. This threesome then played three games of For Sale to wrap up the evening, the first two of these were won by Paul, but then Partick succeeded to take the final game, thus preventing a clean sweep for Paul, who had won four games in a row to that point.

December 30, 2010 Session Report

2011-01-02T19:13:00.000-08:00

There were just three of us (Patrick, Paul and myself) for the final session of 2010. We played three different games: 7 Wonders, Navegador and finally Family Business.

First up was 7 Wonders, as we went for a short game in the hope that others might show up. Paul won, playing just for the second time. Scores were fairly close, Paul 48, John 44, Patrick 41. Paul had a perfect 18 pts in Military, completed his Wonder, added some blue points while ignoring Science and Guilds. I had 25 points in Science which wasn't enough to make up for weaknesses in other categories. Patrick did well in blue, green and purple but was the weakest in military points.

We then played Navegador, the fourth in the series of rondel games -- other games include Imperial and Hamburgum. This was a close game, Paul coming out on top again, scores: Paul 85 John 84 Patrick 69. Paul dominated in the Explorer category, collecting seven tokens with a multiplier of 7. I was strong in Factories and Churches but weak in exploring and shipyards. Enjoyed the game, think it will play better with four or five.

Final game was a Mafia game, Family Business, brought by Patrick. I got out to an early lead and was targeted by Paul, which made me the first one to have his gang eliminated. But Patrick had the last laugh, as he had the most gangsters remaining when the Mob Wars accelerated toward the end, thus preventing Paul from sweeping all three games.

Hope everyone has a Happy New Year and looking forward to seeing more of you at our sessions in 2011!

December 23, 2010 Session Report

2010-12-29T12:50:00.001-08:00

Four (Patrick, Paul, Doug and myself) of us in attendance, we played just two games (Inca Empire and 7 Wonders).

Inca Empire is a remake of a game with a really long name beginning with a T I don't know how to spell or pronounce. I had played it once before; this game had superior graphics but was still on the long side, consuming most of the session time. It turned out to be really close, as heading into the final turn we were separated by just six points with the leader (me) at 100. I thought I was headed toward defeat because I wasn't connected to enough high scoring locations when I drew one of the Wilderness cards that let me connect. This gave me 10 extra points, which turned out to be the eventual margin. Final scores: John 143 Patrick 133 Paul 129 Doug 125.

I guess I probably like the game a bit more than the initial version played several years ago, so would play it again but probably still a "no buy" for me.

We wrapped up the evening with 7 Wonders, all but Paul had played this hot new Essen game before. I am still getting the hang of it, and the game wound up a tie between Patrick and Doug at 51. Doug had more coins at game-end, which was the tiebreaker. Other scores: John 44, Paul 40. 7 Wonders is a good, solid, quick-playing game that also has the advantage of playing well with 7.

December 16, 2010 Session Report

2010-12-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

Not much to report for this week. It snowed the day of our session but, because the CC decided to stay open, I dutifully showed up at 6 PM with a couple of games. No one else came by 6:30, so I left. Everyone who stayed home probably made the right call, as driving conditions were a bit treacherous. Hope we can enjoy a session this week, as I have managed to snag a copy of 7 Wonders, this fall's hot new Essen game, and hope to have a couple of other new games on hand as well.

December 9, 2010 Session Report

2010-12-12T19:55:00.000-08:00

Nine in attendance this week, and seven different games were played. Roll call: Doug, Ron, Paul, Mike, Don, Greg, Eugene, Rodney and myself. Games played: Speicherstadt, For Sale, Founding Fathers, Vegas Showdown, London, Igel Agern (the Hedgehog racing game) and Ingenious -- Card Challenge.

First up was Speicherstadt. It was a close game, Paul kept taking the Firemen to the frustration of Ron and Doug who didn't get any. This gave him enough points to come in third, but he didn't get any contracts. To my surprise, I came away the winner with 19 ahead of Mike in second (17), followed by Paul (16), Doug (11) and Ron (10). Like the unique bidding mechanic but somehow the game seems a bit too short and shallow.

The other group, while waiting for Speicherstadt to finish, played For Sale. Rodney was the winner. No scores, but Don, Eugene and Greg were also in the game.

Then we split up, one group played Founding Fathers and the other group wound up playing London. Founding Fathers finished first, with Greg (20) the narrow winner; John (19), Don (17), Paul (12) and Rodney (10) were also in the game. The London game was even closer, coming down to the tiebreaker (least poverty). This gave the win to Mike over Eugene, as they each had 47 points. Not far behind was Ron at 45 (good effort for his first game) with Doug at 40, last, but still within 7 of the winner.

Meanwhile, a five-player Vegas Showdown was won by Rodney (45) ahead of Paul 36, John 34, Greg 27, Don 18. This was one of the lower-scoring and quick-finishing 5P games of this I have seen, as one stack ran out while the other two had plenty of tiles remaining. The Theater did not even come out.

Final games of the evening were Igel Agern, the Hedgehog game, won by Mike and then a three-player Ingenious-Card Challenge, won by Greg over Paul and myself just before closing time. We thought the game may have had a kingmaker/endgame stall problem as it turned out all three of us needed the same color (purple) to win. Greg finally broke the stalemate by moving another color to 10, earning another turn which enable him to get the one purple point needed to cinch the win.

December 2, 2010 Session Report

2010-12-05T09:41:00.000-08:00

A good turnout of nine for this week's session: Ron (who was back in the area for most of the rest of the year), Patrick, Paul, Doug, Mike, Eric, Tim, Don and myself were the attendees. It turned out to be the night of the incomplete games, or more accurately, games without winners as there were a couple of games that were unfinished, plus some cooperative games where the cooperation among the players wasn't enough to defeat the game system.

Patrick and I had both brought the same game (once again), which was the recently released Civilization Board game, the third such game issued trying to capitalize on the popularity of the computer game series designed by Sid Meier. Tim and Mike joined in, we probably got less than halfway through after a half-hour of rules explanation and three hours of playing. Mike had a well-developed city but had taken it on the chin in a couple of battles. I was gradually collecting Coins while Patrick had developed a strong military presence. Everyone seemed to enjoy playing the game although obviously it was too long for a four-hour time slot.

The other group of five (Ron, Don, Doug, Eric and Paul) took Tales of Arabian Nights for a spin. After about two hours, the game was picked up -- unfinished. Noticed a couple of thumbs-down from some of the players. There was some mention of Power Grid, but that never got going. Don and Eric played a two-player game, leaving Ron, Paul and Doug to try to cure some diseases by playing Pandemic. Again, two games were played -- the players lost both. These same three tried their luck in another cooperative (Forbidden Island) but again, no success. Turns out Eric, who won a two-player Patrician game over Don, was the night's only winner, and the two of them left early.

November 18, 2010

2010-11-20T08:12:00.000-08:00

Good turnout for this week's session, as we had a total of nine. Included (for the first time at the Laurel CC) Laurel residents Lee and John Mewshaw, who had helped arrange for a joint Laurel-Columbia meeting in the spring of last year. Back after missing a few sessions were Neil and Tom, along with Mike, Greg, Paul, Patrick and myself. Games played: Carson City, London, Speicherstadt, Slide 5 and Cloud 9.

Patrick taught Carson City, joined by Neil, Tom and Paul. Final scores: Patrick 46 Paul 37 Neil 34 Tom 27. The other game was London, a three-player with Greg, Mike and myself. That wound up John 69 Mike 64 and Greg (eaten up by loans and poverty) at 19. Lee and John joined us for a 5-player Speicherstadt, which had John M. the winner (24) followed by Mike (17), Greg (13), John W (9) and Lee (5). Got to have some Firemen to put out those fires at the end of the game!

There was still time for one more game at each table after the longer games were concluded. Neil, Paul and Tom played Slide 5, final scores (remember low is best): Paul 32 Tom 94 Neil 96. The rest of us (Patrick had left by this time) played Cloud Nine, won by yours truly (51), then Greg (43), Lee (42), John M (30) and Mike (26).

Next club session will not be for two weeks due to Thanksgiving holidays. Happy Turkey Day, everyone!

November 11, 2010

2010-11-17T13:02:00.000-08:00

No session report for the prior week (November 4). Just about everyone who would have come, myself included, was at EuroQuest. See post here concerning this year's EuroQuest convention:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/60818/2010-euroquest-recap

Post-EuroQuest, we had a good session as Nov. 11 happened to be Veterans Day, meaning a few people could come who might otherwise not have made it. We had a good attendance of eight: Clayton (back this time because his brother-in-law had the day off and was able to drive him to the session); Mike, Paul, Doug H, Greg, Patrick, Eugene and myself were the group. We split into two groups of four.

One group (Mike, Doug, Paul, Eugene) completed two games. First was Speicherstadt, which was won by Doug (23) on a tiebreak from Paul (23), Eugene (21) and Mike (20). Very close game. I like the unusual bidding mechanic but the game seems to end a bit too soon. Second game for this group was Settlers of America, and Doug once again was victorious. Looks like it was very close for second between Eugene, Mike and Paul.

The other group (Greg, Patrick, Clayton and myself) played Age of Empires III, which I had brought, at Greg's request. It took up most of the session time, and it turned out to be a very close finish between Greg and me. Final scores: John 116, Greg 108, Patrick 72, Clayton 40.

After the AoE III game, we still had some time left and decided to fool around with Martin Wallace's latest game, London, which I had received in the mail the day before. It was my second play (having learned it at EuroQuest), but Patrick had played the game like 4-5 times. Didn't get much out of the A deck, hope to play it again soon.

October 28, 2010 Session Report

2010-10-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry to report another down week attendance-wise, just four of us: Patrick, Mike, Paul and myself. We played three games: For Sale, Go-Su and Homesteaders.

First up was For Sale, there were three of us playing as Patrick had not yet arrived. It was actually a bit longer with three, as there were 10 rounds of bidding for stuff. Final count scorewise was John 95K, Mike 81K, Paul 63K.

Patrick brought an interesting game called Go-Su which however began to drag a bit as anyone who got out to a lead was subject to multiple attacks. Also, it seemed to be tough to actually make progress in the game at times. We picked it up after Mike, Pat and I had each got one victory token, but you need three to win, so the game still had a ways to go.

We then played Homesteaders which Patrick had brought; turned out to be a highly competitive game, scores were six points from top to bottom. Patrick and I tied for first with 45, Mike had 43 and Paul had 39. The tiebreak was most remaining silver, and I had one more than Patrick. Very satisfying win for me as I had never beaten Patrick before at this game in several previous attempts. However, scores in the high 30s to mid 40s seemed a bit low in comparison to previous games, but maybe it meant we were bidding more for the good tiles late in the game.

The club will be open next Thursday but many of us will be at the EuroQuest convention at the Hilton in Pikesville, Maryland. See everyone in two weeks then.

October 21, 2010 Session Report

2010-10-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

We had seven for this week's session: Doug H, Paul, Patrick, Eugene, Doug M and myself were joined by David for the first time. David was interested in playing some chess, so Patrick obliged him. They completed three games in just over an hour; David won the first one, Patrick the next two.

Other games played: started with Cheeky Monkey, final scores were John 33, Paul 28, Patrick 26, Doug H 10. Then, while the chess games were going on, the rest of us completed a five-player Vegas Showdown; blowout win for Eugene: Eugene 73 Doug H 57 Doug M 54 John 49 Paul 47.

We then split into two groups for the rest of the session. Three of us played Constantinopolis, which was a big win for Patrick, 55 to 45 for Doug M and 39 for yours truly. There was a three-player Settlers game, won by Doug H. Then Eugene left, and Paul and Doug H played a two-player TTR-Switzerland that ended in a tie. Then, it was more two-player action with three games of Slide 5, Paul won two and Doug H won one.

And that wrapped up our session for this week.

October 14, 2010 Session Report

2010-10-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

Attendance took a nose-dive this week, only four people showed up. On the positive though, there was one first-time attendee and one attendee whom we had not seen in a LONG time.

The group this week was Mike and myself, joined by Jonathan (who had been unable to make many sessions since last year) and Alex (a first-time attendee whom I had played a game with at Congress of Gamers the prior weekend).

Mike had brought his Alea Treasure Chest so we decided to try out the expansion for Puerto Rico. Mike, Jonathan and I set up a three-player game and got about a third of the way through when Alex showed up. We decided to re-start it as a four-player and played it out to the finish. Alex was the winner, and scores were a bit higher than the standard PR game: Alex 63 John 57 Mike 51 Jonathan 43.

I enjoyed the new expansion as it seemed to add some interesting options to the game. I went for a heavy Noble strategy, getting the building that let you get an extra noble per Mayor phase and later adding the bonus building that gained you extra points for nobles. (I believe I had like 10 or 12 by the end of the game!) But Alex had the best income generation, got three large buildings, to take the win.

After this, it was around 9 but Jonathan and Alex wanted to leave early. I convinced Mike to stay for a quick round of Lost Cities. We both earned the eight-card bonus, so it was a high scoring affair: John 112, Mike 103.

But, where were the rest of you this week? I know the weather was bad, just hoping for some better attendance next week.

John

October 7, 2010 Session Report

2010-10-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

We had an attendance of seven for this week's session: Doug, Paul, Don, Greg, Rodney, Patrick and myself. After the usual discussion of what games to play, we split into two groups: One group played a series of shorter games, while the other group (of three) played basically one game, Shogun, which Patrick had brought and wanted to get in some teaching and playing time because he's demoing at another gaming event. His opponents in the game were Don and Greg. Either Patrick was a really good teacher or a really bad player, either way he came out on the bottom: final score count was Don the winner (39), Greg second (31) and Patrick third and last (25).

The other group played the following games:

1. ShowManager. Four-handed, which meant we had two "dummy" par values on the board to occupy the remaining two slots. Final scores: John 52 (a rare victory for me in this game), Doug 50, Rodney 42, Dummy #1 34, Paul 25, Dummy #2 17.

2. Vegas Showdown. I tried a different strategy, going for income early and sort of ignoring the points-paying buildings (except when there was Fancy Lounge out there). It worked! I managed to get the Theater one turn and then have enough dough for the Space Age Sports Book a turn or two later. Final scores: John 77, Rodney 62, Doug 56, Paul 51. Game note: Paul monopolized all the Table Games (getting all 3) and the High Roller Rooms (getting both). As you can see from the scores, that strategy did not work, at least in this game.

3. Innovation: Three of us had fooled around with this new card game a couple of weeks back, but this is the first full playing at the club. Turns out Rodney came away the big winner, getting four achievements when no one else had more than one. Seems to me there may be a front-runner problem with this one, don't like the idea of not having to turn in any cards at all from your score-pile when you claim an achievement (other than a Special Achievement). Reviews on this game so far are mixed at best.

4. Final game of the evening, after Rodney took his leave, was Parlay. Doug started off like a house on fire and had over 300 points after the first 2-3 hands. Looked like he was headed for a runaway win until he stalled out, then Paul started putting together some long words, lot of points, etc., and he wound up the winner with 610 (first to 500 wins), Doug had 435, I had a paltry 245 (the only hand I think I won was when the other two folded when they had more points than me).

Anyway, looking forward to the third edition of Congress of Gamers this weekend in Rockville, hope to see many of you there; if not, hope to see y'all next week.

September 30, 2010 Session Report

2010-10-02T08:07:00.000-07:00

Final session for September on a very, very rainy evening which may have helped keep attendance down to a total of six: Paul, Ron, Rodney, Patrick, Eugene and I were the participants. Games played included Defenders of the Realm, Constantinopolis, Forbidden Island, Slide 5 and Cloud Nine.

Ron had brought Defenders of the Realm and also made up a set of very nice-looking new characters for the game. He and Paul spent the first half of the session trying to beat the game for the third time, and for the third time in a row, the game won and the players lost.

Meanwhile, the rest of us played another recent offering, Constantinopolis, which both Patrick and I had brought. (Great minds think alike!) Well, either we are great teachers or bad game players or both, as Eugene and Rodney wound up battling for the win. It was a close one, final scores: Eugene 62, Rodney 61, John 44, Patrick 43. Patrick and I had a close race for third, but boy, did we get smoked by the other two guys!

Comments on the game: It's a typical Euro, borrows heavily from other games like Puerto Rico, St. Petersburg, Homesteaders. Different paths to victory, you often have to make a decision between the short term and long term. Money is tight for the first few turns, then more prevalent later on. You have to be very careful with how you invest your initial capital as it will take some doing to get the money flowing, and you need to constantly finance expansions to produce more resources each turn. After two plays, this is one of my favorite new games from this year.

Other games played, Paul and Ron played Slide 5, which was won by Ron. Rumors were that Forbidden Island was played, another cooperative game, normal start, players lost (same as Defenders of the Realm).

When we put away the Constantinopolis game, there were about 20 minutes or so left, so we played a game of Cloud Nine. I managed to get to 50 and hung on for the win just as the clock struck ten.

Thanks to everyone who put up with the inclement weather to attend this week.

September 23, 2010 Session Report

2010-09-26T18:19:00.001-07:00

We had a total of nine participants this week: Don, Paul, Mike, Doug, Greg, Clayton, Patrick, Rodney and myself were the attendees.

Games played: San Juan, LeHavre, Carson City, Slide 5. Two rather long games and a couple of short ones.

Paul, Mike and Doug were first to arrive and they contested a three-player San Juan. Final scores: Paul 33, Mike 32, Doug 23.

Don, Greg and I played LeHavre, which Don had brought. It was Greg's first play. The game occupied just about the remainder of the session. Greg proved a quick learner, winning by a fairly impressive margin with 172 points. Don, who was behind on building, constructed a Luxury Liner to pull into second, 145 points to 143 for yours truly.

Patrick arrived and he and Clayton played Carson City with the three from the San Juan game. Final results: Patrick 52, Mike 36, Doug 31, Paul 27, Clayton 24.

Final game of the evening was Slide 5, which was won by Rodney, who had patiently waited for the Carson City game to finish. Looks like seven rounds were squeezed in right before closing time. Final scores: Rodney 62, Paul 76, Doug 78, Clayton 128. (I keep trying to tell Clayton this is a game where high scores are bad, low score wins!)

EDIT: One late addition. After finishing the LeHavre game, Greg, Don and I had a few minutes so I introduced them to Innovation, we played a few turns but were nowhere close to finishing. Greg and Don each had one achievement, I had none, which meant I was losing at the time we were forced to pick up the game as the session ended at 10.

September 16, 2010 Session Report

2010-09-17T07:03:00.001-07:00

We had eight in attendance for tonight's session. The group consisted of Ron, Paul, Doug, Gabe, Tim, Don, Clayton and myself. We had two games going for just about the entire session. Games played: Defenders of the Realm, Tour-Cycle Free, Beowulf and Ticket to Ride-1910. Some details follow.

Ron had brought Defenders of the Realm back for a second try; Paul, Doug and Gabe were the other players in this cooperative game. No details, except that, for the second week in a row, the players lost. From what I could tell, the game went a bit faster this time, ending around 8:30 or so.

I convinced the rest of the group to try Tour-Cycle Free, a new cycling game I had downloaded the rules and most components, using some plastic cyclists from other games. The game has six-man teams of cyclists based on real-life performance in races like the Tour de France. Tim took the purple cyclists from the SaxoBank team, featuring Fabian Cancellara (nicknamed Spartacus) from Switzerland and two-time Tour de France runner-up Andy Schleck. Don opted for the RadioShack team (wearing red) included Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer. I went with the winner of the last two Tours, Alberto Contador and the Astana team (in yellow). Clayton, who arrived while we were still setting up, wound up with the blue team (featuring Cadel Evans of Australia). To test the game over various terrain types, we used a stage from this week's Tour of Spain that seemed particularly challenging.

The race took an interesting turn when Tim put his top rider, Andy Schleck, in an early break. The rest of us stayed with him, but with lesser cyclists while holding our top guys back in the Peleton. Tim really stomped on the pace at the front of the Peleton with Cancellara, who was rated high on everything except the challenging high mountains that were coming. Since this was my first play of the game with live humans, there were some rules issues -- not sure I had all the right answers. Anyway, we decided to end it early after the finish of the first really tough climb. With this understanding, everybody sent their key men out on a break. It came down to a battle of six cyclists with the top rating on the mountains, and in a sprint, it went to Contador (John's team) by a narrow margin over Evans (Clayton's team). Third was Schleck (Tim's team) followed by Leipheimer (Don's team). Lance Armstrong didn't figure in the final sprint as his mountain rating in this game was one lower than the others.

Thus abbreviated, the cycling game was on its final turn when the other table was finishing up. So, we re-split the groups and played two more games: Ticket to Ride and Beowulf. Ticket to Ride, using the 1910 Mega version with the US map, finished first, with Doug coming out on top with 146, John 122, Tim 101, Clayton 61. Tim went for long routes but didn't take additional tickets. I focused on additional tickets but most of mine were of the single digit variety although I did get the bonus for most completed tickets. Doug had the winning plan, completing all his tickets, most with higher point values than mine. We actually forgot to award the 10 points for longest train (as you can see from the scores, it didn't matter), but I think Doug would have gotten that as well.

The Beowulf game barely got done before closing time. Final scores were Ron 28, Gabe 26, Paul 20, Don 9. Sorry, no details on the game, as everyone had to pick up and leave.

September 9, 2010 Session Report

2010-09-11T21:25:00.000-07:00

Attendance of nine (9) for this week's session: Mike, Ron, Doug, Don, Rodney, Eugene, Tim, Clayton and myself. List of games played: Defenders of the Realm, Settlers of America, Chess, Lost Cities, Quiddler, Wits and Wagers. Slide 5.

Ron brought a new game he had just brought, Defenders of the Realm. It is a cooperative game. Ron, Don and Doug were the players. Took most of the session, and the players lost when there were too many negative tokens on the board. Seemed to take awhile to sort out the rules. I was originally in the game but dropped out when Clayton arrived and we had an odd number.

Clayton and I played a series of three player games: three games of Chess (I won them all); Lost Cities (three hands, Clayton won two out of three); Quiddler (full game of eight rounds, very close up until the end, final scores were John 242 Clayton 221.

The other table had Eugene, Mike, Rodney and Tim playing the new Settlers of America game which Eugene had brought. This game also took most of the session and came down to a very close finish with Mike winning. Clayton and I then joined the four of them for a six-player Wits and Wagers. Very close finish with Eugene and Rodney going into the final question as the two leaders, with Clayton not far behind. Rodney went "all in" on what proved to be the wrong answer. Clayton wound up the winner with 24, Eugene 16, John 11, everyone else (Rodney, Tim and Mike) wound up with all they started with (two free chips and no money). We went on to play a second game without Clayton, who took a break. I managed to win by remembering that Julia Roberts, who certainly looked like a million bucks in the movie "Pretty Woman," made a lot less than a million for playing that part.

There was time for one final game after the Defenders of the Realm game finished. It was Slide 5, we got in one hand, final scores Rodney 0 John 7 Doug 9 Ron 11 Mike 11 Clayton 19 Tim 25 Eugene 29. We had to keep explaining to Eugene that it was low score, not high score, that wins.

Thanks to everyone who attended and we hope to keep the momentum going next week.

September 2, 2010 Session Report

2010-09-04T11:09:00.001-07:00

End of the summer brought a really good crowd out this week -- a total of 14 people were in attendance, but really only 11 people actually participating in playing games, so here is the list: Ron, Paul, Mike, Eric, Doug, Clayton, Patrick, Tim, Eugene, myself, and (joining us for the first time), Dee. Also present for part of the time were Eric's wife, Mary Jean and two sons Ryan and Nathan, also saw his daughter Rebecca very briefly. Hard to keep up on all the games played, but here is at least a partial list: San Juan, Can't Stop (played twice), Forbidden Island (played at least twice), Puerto Rico, Hollywood Blockbuster, and Ryan and Nathan were playing with dominoes not to mention several of the other items in the storage room.

Started with San Juan and Ron joked he might be playing with "John 1" and "John 2" since he'd only played the game once before and Mike, Paul and I had played it quite a bit. Actually, it turned out to be "Paul 1" and "Paul 2" as Paul, sitting on the same side of the table, was Ron's main adviser and it worked out well with a 1-2 finish for Ron and Paul. Final scores were Ron 30 Paul 28 John 25 Mike 20.

Meanwhile, the next four to arrive (Eric, Clayton, Doug and Patrick) played a four-player Can't Stop. Word has it Eric won the game, Pat and Doug got one number to the top each while Clayton got shut out -- zero.

Then Tim arrived and we re-split the groups. Five of us (Mike, Eric, Clayton, Patrick and myself) played Puerto Rico while Ron, Doug, Paul and Tim tried their luck at the cooperative game, Forbidden Island. I heard the players won the first game but got no report on the second or any subsequent games. Then Eugene arrived and that table continued with a five-player Hollywood Blockbuster. Turned out to finish right before closing time, with a big win for Eugene: 111 (Eugene) with Ron in second (59), Paul (52) Doug (48) and Tim (39 but no Academy Awards) were the also-rans.

By this time, our Puerto Rico game had finished. No one had a manned large building when the game ended, and I had the Factory-Harbor-Wharf combination, something you don't often see in the same player's hands. I mayored as Governor on the final turn when I saw my two main protagonists, Eric and Mike, had the money to buy a large building but no one else did. This led to a narrow win, John 42 Mike 40 Eric 39 Patrick 30 Clayton 24. Fun game, Mike and Eric were very competitive as the scores would indicate.

Dee who I have seen at other gaming sessions in the Baltimore area happened to be in the area and dropped in while we were trying to wrap up our Puerto Rico game. Unfortunately, there were only about 10-15 minutes left so we got her into a quick game of Can't Stop with Mike and Eric -- but time ran out before anyone could get even one number to the top.

Eric informed he is in the process of setting up something in the gaming session arena for a Wednesday night, once per month session, at the West Laurel Community Center. Will try to keep everyone informed as to dates and times when we have something more specific to report.

For next week, we should be back to our regular non-summer hours of 6 PM to 10 PM, and also back in our regular meeting room, the pre-school room although being in the larger Multi-Purpose Room (closer to the storage area) these past few weeks was nice.

August 26, 2010 Session Report

2010-08-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

It was good to see a couple of new faces at the club this week, as David and Tanay joined us for the first time; we certainly hope that they will return soon and perhaps become regulars at the club. Paul, Mike, Eugene, Tim and myself were also present which gave us a total headcount of seven for this week. Games played: Bottle Imp (3 times, maybe more), Founding Fathers (twice), Ticket to Ride -- USA and For Sale (once). Have to admit it's possible I might be missing a game or two here; we had two tables going for most of the session.

When I arrived -- actually a few minutes early -- four people were already there, including newcomers David and Tanay, along with Mike and Paul, and Mike was teaching a new card game he had brought called Bottle Imp. As far as I could tell, you score positive points by taking tricks but the catch is you don't want to get stuck with the Bottle Imp, because you lose all positive points and gain some negative ones. Anyway, two hands were played, looks like Mike (who understood the game a bit better than anyone else) had the best of it for the two hands that I witnessed, although we didn't really track scores.

By this time Eugene and Tim had arrived, so we broke into two groups. Three of us (Mike, David and myself) played Founding Fathers -- this time with the correct rules which that sharp-eyed Doug Hoylman (who I assume was co-hosting at his once-a-month club in Rockville this week) had pointed out to me at another club recently. I managed to pull ahead with some debate tokens at the end. Final scores were John 30 Mike 24 David 21, so it was a fairly close game. The other four played Ticket to Ride, and the winner (no surprise here) was Eugene, final scores: Eugene 146 Paul 106 Tim 94 Tanay 67. I believe it was the first play for both Tim and Tanay. This same foursome played another hand or two of Bottle Imp, sorry no results to report.

After a brief break, Mike and David were willing to give Founding Fathers another try, and we were joined by Paul who had played once (probably with the wrong rules). This time I did not fare so well, and Mike and David put to use what they had picked up in the earlier game to finish 1-2: Mike 25 David 21 Paul 19 and yours truly in last at 17.

There was still 20 minutes or so left in the session, so the four of us played a quick game of For Sale. Scores on that one: John 71 David 62 Mike and Paul (tie) 51. Now, I am probably missing one game as I know Tim, Tanay and Eugene were certainly not idle at the other table. I know Bottle Imp may have been played again, but I am thinking there may have been another game or two that I, as host, did not record in any way. I guess that second game of Founding Fathers was just too intense.

Anyway, a reminder that next week is our last week on the summer schedule. Starting after Labor Day, club sessions will last until 10 PM instead of 9.

August 19, 2010 Session Report

2010-08-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

For this week, we were moved to the more spacious Multi-Purpose Room across the hall as there was some work being done to our regular room. Unfortunately, we didn't have the attendance to fill the room, but it was a good crowd nonetheless. There were six of us (Paul, Doug, Eugene, Neil, Tim and myself) and we played a total of four different games: Lost Cities, For Sale, Settlers of America and Twilight Struggle.

First to arrive, Paul and I got through a quick hand of Lost Cities. I managed to get down more handshakes to win, 90-27. Then Doug arrived and we played a three-handed game of For Sale. This is one game that probably takes longer with fewer players, because you still use all the cards so the game lasts twice as many rounds as with a full table of six. Nevertheless, it was a very very tight game. Final scores: John 82K, Paul 81K, Doug 80K.

Eugene then joined us for what became the main event of the evening, first play at the club for Settlers of America: Trails to Rails. This is a new Settlers game based on the Westward expansion in the 1800s in the USA. It combines elements of Settlers with Railroad Tycoon, as the objective is to be the first to deliver all your goods cubes which are generated by founding new cities on the board. Catch is, to deliver goods cubes, you need trains and rail lines to get you to other players' cities. It took us about 2 1/2 hours (much longer than a regular Settlers game) and we barely finished when 9 PM rolled around. Eugene emerged the winner despite being targeted as the early leader while Paul made a late surge. Doug and I, who had played before, didn't manage to do quite as well.

At the other table, Neil and Tim relived the Cold War years by trying out Twilight Struggle, this being the newer 2d edition game which Neil had brought. A couple of times when Tim asked me for advice, I realized how long it has been since I actually last played the game! The game didn't quite finish, but two turns were completed and Tim, who was the Russians, held a narrow 2-point lead. Fairly typical for the initial turns which tend to favor the Russians.

Thanks to everyone for coming. We will continue with the 9 PM close time for a couple of more weeks, then after Labor Day it reverts to 10 PM for the rest of the year.

August 12, 2010 Session Report

2010-08-14T15:02:00.000-07:00

Now on to this week's session to bring this blog up to date. Attendance was seven: Mike, Paul, Doug, Greg, Patrick, Eric and myself. We played five different games: Lost Cities, Hotel Samoa, Infinite City, the Railways of the World Card Game, For Sale. Results and details follow.

First up was Lost Cities. This was Mike versus Paul. Two hands were played. Mike had a slight edge in hand one, but really did well in hand two, winning that hand by 100 (119 to 19) for an aggregate score of Mike 164, Paul 50.

Next we played a six-player game of Hotel Samoa. First play for everyone but myself; it was my fourth game but I am still yet to figure out how to win. It's a quick-playing game over 12 rounds where you are trying to attract tourists to your hotel. Final scores: Mike 134, Doug 110, Patrick 104, Greg 102, Paul 95, John 74.

By this time Eric had arrived, so we split into two groups. One group (Doug, Patrick and Paul) played Infinite City. Two games were completed. Scores of game 1: Doug 23, Patrick 21, Paul 15. Game two finished: Patrick 23, Paul 17, Doug 7.

The other game was another new one, the Railways of the World Card Game. It seemed a bit like a cross between Railroad Tycoon and Ticket to Ride, except you get new cards every turn in addition to taking one of five actions. Eric pulled ahead on the score track, but things changed when we tallied up the final scores for being connected to cities. These calculations put me ahead. Final counts were John 61, Mike 55, Eric 52, Greg 47.

Finally, it was down to six of us with 20 minutes left in the session for the final game of the evening: For Sale. This one was a really tight game, Doug winning by a point. Final scores: Doug 50 John 49 Greg 45 Eric 40 Mike 37 Paul 35.

August 5, 2010 Session Report

2010-08-14T14:42:00.001-07:00

I was not present for this session, thanks to those who attended and kept track of the games played.

Based on those notes, I see we had five attendees (Eric S, Doug H, Paul, Mike and Tim). Two games were played: Power Grid and Slide 5.

Power Grid (no word on what map was played), final results were: 1. Eric (16 cities, 48 electros) 2. Tim (16 cities, 7 electros) 3. Doug (15 cities, 39 electros) 4. Paul (15 cities/20 electros) 5. Mike (15 cities/1 electro) -- seems like a fairly close game from top to bottom.

Slide 5: Tim 19 Paul 23 Doug 31 Eric 54 (Eric would have won both games except for the fact that lower scores are better in Slide 5.)

Anyone interested in reading what I was up to during the week of gaming at WBC in Lancaster PA can check out this post on BGG:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/57547/2010-wbc-diary

July 29, 2010 Session Report

2010-08-02T11:57:00.001-07:00

For the last session of July, we had a total of five in attendance. It was Ron, Paul, Gabe (back after a long hiatus), Clayton and myself. Games played: Forbidden Island, Founding Fathers and Roll Through the Ages.

First game was Forbidden Island, a cooperative game that we have played a few times before. Hopefully we had the rules down right this time. We started at the "normal" difficulty level and managed to get off the island without too much difficulty.

Then it was the initial play of Founding Fathers, a game that I had been waiting for for about six months (it was a pre-order) that had arrived just the day before. The game is about the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and each card in the game features one of the delegates to that convention. Turned out to be a very close game after Gabe (in the guise of Founding Father Roger Sherman) appeared to be running away with it. He was brought down by Ron (masquerading as William Paterson) by an admittedly "very nasty" card that cost Gabe five VPs. Nevertheless, Gabe came back and wound up tied with Clayton (aka Charles Pinckney) for first with 16, while Paul (James Madison) and I (Alexander Hamilton) were not far behind at 15. Ron, who performed the nefarious deed and literally "took one for the team" wound up in fifth at 11.

Final game of the evening was Roll Through the Ages. Clayton had taken a break and was a spectator although he became the designated die-roller when my turn came up. Another close one, and a low-scoring game to boot, Ron and I were tied at 10 with Gabe at 8, Paul at 5. I decided to end it on five developments once it became apparent Gabe (with seven cities) would crush us if he got Empire, which he didn't. While I was happy to share the win with Ron, we later checked the tiebreaker and found out I would have won because I had one good left over at game-end.

Next week is WBC, myself and a couple of others who might come will not be there. Based on an informal survey, it looks like there are going to be at least three or four of you who are planning on coming, so there will be a session. Please use the game record sheets I left in the club notebook to track attendance and games played, etc., so we can post a session report. Thanks.

July 22, 2010 Session Report

2010-07-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

Attendance of seven for tonight's session: Ron, Mike, Paul, Greg, Clayton, Ben S and myself were the attendees. Got to play two of my favorite games: Maillot Jaune and Puerto Rico, plus Ben had brought Blox, which was also played.

Last week of the Tour de France, so I dusted off my prize OOP game called Maillot Jaune. We randomly rolled for a course with a nice downhill finish and played with the all-time great teams set I had put together last year. I had the US team and managed to set up Lance Armstrong for a nice win. There was a four-way sprint for second, which went to Greg (with Indurain, Spanish team) ahead of Ron (Eddy Merckx, Belgian team), Mike (Coppi, Italian team) and Paul (Zoetemelk, Dutch team). Clayton (French team) and Ben (German team) also participated but were at a bit of a disadvantage since they came in late and couldn't close down the distance on the leaders.

Still had almost an hour and a half left in the session, so we split into two groups for the second half. Ben, Ron and Greg played Blox, won by Ben (who had brought the game) with 57 to 56 for Greg and 45 for Ron. Greg and Ron were complained they hadn't figured out the strategy, but it looks like Greg came close to beating Ben, the "teacher" for this one.

Mike, Paul, Clayton and I played Puerto Rico. Mike and I seemed to be on parallel tracks when we built the Harbor on the same turn. Then I got the Small Warehouse, Mike went for the Factory, I got the Guild Hall while Paul and Mike scarfed up the other large buildings (two each). I had a good shipping position and managed to win by just two points over Mike. Final scores: John 52, Mike 50, Paul 37, Clayton 23.

July 15, 2010 Session Report

2010-07-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

Eight for tonight's session: Paul, Ron, Mike, Doug, Clayton, Patrick and I were joined by Ben L, who was making his first visit to the club. We played the following four games: Olympia 2000, Word on the Street, Fresco and Automobile.

First up was Olympia 2000, turned out to be a five-player while waiting for others to show up. Paul was the winner with 12, followed by Doug and Mike (9 each), Ron (3) and John (1).

Doug had brought Word on the Street, which we played as teams. The games with a timer, and you respond to a question by "spelling" a word, pulling all the consonants in the word to your side of the table in a kind of tug-of-war. First team to collect eight letters wins. Really close game, came down to the final word when the team on Doug's side (Ron, John, Doug) pulled it out 8-7 over the other team (consisting of Ben, Paul and Mike).

We then split into two four-player games which took up the rest of the evening. One of the games was Fresco, when Ben won for his first win at the club. Final scores: Ben 110, Paul 100, Patrick 93, Paul 92. Seems like a really close game.

The Automobile game also came down to the wire. I prevailed, with 4420 in cash and factory value to 4290 for Mike. Turns out, had Mike not cut the price of his low-price cars on the final turn, he would have prevailed. Other players in this game were Clayton (3500) and Ron (3120).

July 8, 2010 Session Report

2010-07-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

We had six gamers for this week's session: Mike, Paul, Doug H (who had missed the last couple of times), Ben, Alan (whom we hadn't seen for awhile) and myself. Games played: San Juan, Citadels, Archaeology, Stone Age, Cloud Nine.

First up, four of us who were there by 6 started with San Juan. Paul got two 6 buildings, the City Hall and the Palace, and won with 27 points. I had no 6 buildings (didn't see one the entire game), but nonetheless I build most every turn with the Poorhouse and the Carpenter and came in second with 24, followed by Doug (20) and Mike (19).

Ben and Alan had arrived, so we played a six-player game of Citadels. Doug won, partly because the Warlocks didn't do their job and knock down his buildings quickly enough. Then I made the mistake of passing him the Architect when he had enough Gold to build his last two buildings. Game over. Final scores: Doug 32, Alan 25, John 19, Ben 15, Paul 14, Mike 13.

Citadels went quickly, and so there was still plenty of time left in the session. Alan had brought Archaeology which he taught to Ben and Paul. From what I could see, it looked like a set-collecting card game that played really quickly -- so fast they got in three games before Ben and Alan had to leave. Each of the three players won one of the games.

The rest of us (Doug, Mike and myself) opted for Stone Age. It took us slightly longer than the three Archaeology games to finish our one game, and it was a tie! Mike and I had 132 each, Doug wound up with 108. We checked the rules for a tiebreaker and I came out on top by 10 to 9, but I was happy to share the win with Mike.

Twenty minutes left, we pulled out an old favorite, Cloud Nine, trying to finish before time ran out. It was a quick, interesting game. Doug pulled ahead to an early lead when he played two Wild Cards for solo flights, but his efforts in that regard left him short of cards for the following series of balloon trips. Then Paul made a miraculous four-die roll -- all blanks -- to move from the 20 pt. cloud to the 25 pt. cloud. This propelled him and his one remaining passenger (Mike) into a commanding position on the score track. Paul went on to win, followed by Mike (46), Doug (40), yours truly way back in last at 31.

A good time was had by all. Hope to see many of you at the GCOM Family Picnic this Sunday.

July 1, 2010 Session Report

2010-07-06T18:50:00.000-07:00

Seven in attendance for this session: Ron, Mike, Paul, Don, Greg, Ben and myself. Games played: Lost Cities, San Juan, Jet Set, Macao, Roll Through the Ages.

Paul and Mike arrived first and finished one hand of Lost Cities (won by Paul, 44-10) when others arrived. There was a four-player San Juan that got started but abandoned after a couple of turns. Then, we split into two groups. One group played JetSet, which Greg had brought, that game was won by Ben, scores were Ben 44, Don 41, Greg 39, Paul 32. The other group played Macao, which I had brought. The Macao game, which included Mike, Ron and myself, took the rest of the evening. I managed to win, pulling ahead in the end after trailing most of the way. Sorry, didn't write down the final scores.

The other table played Roll Through the Ages after finishing with JetSet. Ben won again, final scores were interesting: Ben 28, Paul 18, Don 12, Greg -1. Love to hear Greg explain how he managed to wind up with a negative score.

Hope everyone had a nice 4th of July holiday weekend, looking forward to this week's session.

June 24, 2010 Session Report

2010-06-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

Just four of us for this week's session: Mike, Greg, Patrick and myself. We played just two games: The World Cup Card game and Homesteaders.

Since the World Cup was in full swing, first up was the World Cup Card game, which had all 32 World Cup teams. We played through Groups G and H, then when with the pairings based on the results in the real-life World Cup. Greg, Mike and I picked four teams each, the remaining four starting as "bank" teams. Greg's teams did the best and we had to give one of his teams (Holland) to Patrick who arrived in time to contest the second round of elimination games. Turns out Holland was the team to win the tourney, so Greg and Patrick share the credit for the win.

Patrick had brought Homesteaders, which everyone had played before, and that game took up the rest of the session. Patrick was the winner, final scores were Patrick 61, John 53, Greg 48, Mike 41.

Attendance has been a bit sparse recently, hope to see more of you next week. It was good to see Patrick back at the club once again, and he proved he's still a tough hombre when it comes to Homesteaders.

June 17, 2010 Session Report

2010-06-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

Attendance this week (7): Ron, Mike, Paul, Don, Doug, Greg and myself. Games played: Power Grid (Italy map), Cleopatra, Forbidden Island (x3), San Juan. Some details follow.

Cleopatra was the first game to finish. Final scores: Don (59) was the winner, followed by Doug (49) and Paul (32). Ron was the one eliminated for being the most corrupt.

Power Grid was played, using the Italy map and the new power plant deck. Close finish, with John building to 17 even though he could only power 16. Final scores: John (16/74), Mike (16/46), Greg (15). Greg had plant capacity of 16 but overspent on the cool-looking Flux Capacitor and couldn't build to 16 on the final turn.

San Juan (three-player): Mike 30, Greg 22, John 20. Mike got the Library down very early and was able to use it effectively to take a fairly comfortable win.

Forbidden Island: The four players (Paul, Ron, Don and Doug) had a struggle on their hands, losing two in a row before finally pulling out the third game with just two land sections left that had not flooded. Fortunately, they included the final take-off spot to helicopter off the island and on to victory!

June 10, 2010 Session Report

2010-06-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

Attendance was up some this week, total of eight: Mike, Paul, Ron, Doug H, Don, Greg, Tim and myself. We played a total of six different games: Lost Cities, Cheeky Monkey, Forbidden Island (x3), Fresco, Top Race and "Speed" Settlers -- a Settlers of Catan variant.

First up was Lost Cities, Mike versus Paul. They got in one hand waiting for others to arrive, final score: Mike 78, Paul 28.

Next game was Cheeky Monkey, won by Greg (29) ahead of John (25), Doug (19), Mike (9).

Three games of Forbidden Island were played. This time we played with the correct rules which mean you flip six areas which go underwater at the start of the game. Much tougher, and tonight the players won once, the game won twice. Ron, Paul, Don and Tim were the participants.

Meanwhile, the four of us at the other table played Fresco, which Doug had brought. Much closer than the first playing, final scores were Mike (67), John (65), Doug (61) and Greg (59).

We reshuffled for the final two games of the evening: Top Race, played twice, one race won by Tim, another won by Greg. Don and Ron also participated. Doug, Paul, Mike and I played my "Speed Settlers" variant where you roll four die instead of two, pairing them together for two production numbers a la Can't Stop. Turns out we didn't quite finish, but conceded when Mike informed us he had the necessary cards to clinch the win.

June 3, 2010 Session Report

2010-06-09T08:32:00.000-07:00

First session of this year's summer session with the 9 PM close time. We had a total of six in attendance: Mike, Doug H, Paul, Ron, Don and myself. Played a total of four different games: San Juan, Forbidden Island (x4), Maori and Fresco. It was the first time for Forbidden Island and Fresco at the club, as both games are recent new releases.

First up was San Juan, a four-player. Scores were John 35, Doug H 30 Paul 25 and Mike 21. I got the Guild Hall, City Hall and a Chapel to run away with the game. Mike discarded an early Guild Hall and then had trouble getting a high bonus building.

Ron brought Forbidden Island, which wound up being played several times. It is a cooperative game where the players are trying to collect some treasures and exit the island before it sinks. First game, all six of us played although the rules suggest you limit the number of players to four. We found that with six the negative cards came up too quickly before players could react and prepare damage. For the remaining three games, Ron, Don and I played with three, losing the first one but winning the last two, including one where we started at a higher difficulty rule and played with a variant that the turned in treasure cards are removed from the game, making it more difficult as the negative cards came out sooner.

The other three (Mike, Doug H and Paul) played a couple of games that Doug had brought. Maori, an island-hopping game, proved to be a close one, won by Mike. Scores were Mike 50, Doug 47, Paul 34. Doug pulled away to win the Fresco game, scores were Doug 97 Paul 74 Mike 72.

May 27, 2010 Session Report

2010-05-29T06:46:00.000-07:00

This week's session had six gamers in attendance: Paul, Greg, Clayton, Ben, Ding and myself. A total of eight different games were played in our last session this year before Memorial Day (and the CC goes to its summer close time of 9 PM).

First up was Lost Cities. Paul and I played a quick hand waiting for everyone to show up. I got the best of it and won, 65 to 26.

Four of us played Tinners' Trail, first time play for everyone. It's a Martin Wallace game that just got re-released as a reprint. Very close scores: John 94, Clayton 88, Greg 86, Paul 78.

By this time Ben and Ding had arrived and occupied themselves by playing a couple of two-player games, first of all TransAmerica and then a couple of games of Ingenious. No details except for the fact that Ben won all three.

Next we played two games of Olympia 2000. Ben won both games, I was last both games, everyone else was somewhere in between. First play for Greg and Ding. Clayton was taking a break but came back for the last round of games.

We then split into two groups for Ticket to Ride-Switzerland and Ra. Ra was a three-player, very close game won by Ben 37 over Greg 36 and myself at 31. Ben took 5 pts. from Greg on ending sun values and that was the difference. The Ticket to Ride Swiss game was a romp for Paul, who make 14 of 15 tickets and won with a score of something like 175. Ding was second, Clayton was third.

We had 20 minutes left, so we wrapped up the session with some balloon-flying with Cloud Nine. Ben, who had not lost a single game yet, was leading most of the way and was the first across the line to 50. However, the balloon trip kept going. At the 20 level I rolled all four die and Greg jumped out to pass Ben and take the lead. But, I had a Wild Card left and managed to win -- an exciting finish. Final scores were John 65, Paul 64, Greg 62, Ben 54, Ding 40, Clayton 36. Probably the highest-scoring game of Cloud Nine ever, three players above 60, finishing with a 25-point trip!

Final reminder, next week we're back to the summer schedule, the sessions will still start at 6 PM but finish at 9 instead of 10.

May 20, 2010 Session Report

2010-05-23T11:38:00.000-07:00

A bit of a dip attendance-wise this week, as we had six gamers for this week's session: Paul, Mike, Doug H, Eugene, Jane (back for a second session) and myself. Missing some regulars, notably Clayton. Games played: Cheeky Monkey (x2), Ra, Wits and Wagers, Settlers of Catan.

Started with five of us playing Cheeky Monkey. Got in two games, Eugene won both. Scores of game 1: Eugene 35, John 30, Mike 15, Doug 9, Paul 6. Game 2: Eugene 45, Mike 24, Paul 10, Doug 9, John 8. Eugene was the only one of us who had not played the game before.

Next up was Ra, which we haven't played that much recently. Something unusual happened, I actually won a game of Ra. Final scores: John 45, Doug 40, Eugene 35, Paul 19, Mike 18.

At this point Jane arrived and Eugene left. Jane wanted to play Wits and Wagers which she had learned last week. I managed to win a close one over Mike after the last question was a sports question about when Jackie Robinson made his major league debut.

There were four of us left for a final game, so we chose Settlers. We played with the quick start variant where your second placement is a city with an extra road. It was a close game with three of us in contention. I managed to eke out a win, Mike and Paul were one point short at 9 while Doug, who got pounded mercilessly during the game, still had 6 points by game end.

A reminder that with Memorial Day coming up in a week or so, we have one more week with the regular 6 PM - 10 PM schedule, then the Community Center will have a 9 PM close time during the summer months, starting with the week after Memorial Day.

May 13, 2010 Session Report

2010-05-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

Nine gamers in attendance for this session. We welcomed two first-times to the club (Art and Jane) along with Mike, Paul, Clayton, Don, Eugene, Ben and myself who were among the "regular" attendees. Counted a total of seven games that were played over the course of the evening: Can't Stop, LeHavre, Vegas Showdown, TransAmerica, Wits and Wagers, Homesteaders and Cloud Nine.

Here's a few details. First up was Can't Stop, it was a four-player, with Clayton, Mike, Paul and myself. Clayton had been on a bit of a winning streak, but this time he couldn't pull it off despite some very strategic decision making. It turned out to be a really close game, I won over Mike who was one space short of his third number. Clayton only got one number to the top and came in third, ahead of Paul who was shut out.

Don was itching to play LeHavre, which Mike had brought, but it turned out Mike wasn't up to playing it, so I took on the role of "teacher" and Eugene, who had not played the game before, was the third player. Even though we started around 6:30, the game ate up all the rest of the session time and we still were three rounds short of completing the required 18 turns. We totaled up the scores after 15 turns (each person had an equal number of turns going first), plus one extra turn, Eugene did well with some late building to take the win in his first game, I came second and Don, who got off to a good start with some strong buildings, seemed to flounder when he picked up a couple of loans which he eventually paid off, and came third but everyone was over 100 points, so it was a fairly good game.

Vegas Showdown was a four-player, very close game, with Paul ending the game by filling all his Casino spaces (unusual for a four-player game). Mike scored well on diamond points to win a squeaker, 57 to 54 for Paul and 53 for Ben, with Clayton bringing up the rear with 38. With LeHavre still going on at the other table, this same group tackled Homesteaders. This time Ben came through with the win, with a very good score (65) to 58 for Mike, 51 for Paul, 22 for Clayton. Seems Ben has a knack for doing very well at this game, even going back to the days it was still a prototype a couple of years back.

Art and Jane had arrived and while I tried to get them interested in Lost Cities, they settled for TransAmerica instead. I understand they played two rounds, with Art winning both times, while waiting for the Homesteaders game to continue. Then Art and Jane joined Paul and Clayton for Wits and Wagers, with Paul winning by a wide margin while Art edged June by one for second. Once again, Clayton finished in last. Final game for this group was Cloud Nine, looks like it came down to the wire, final scores were Paul 52 Art 51 Clayton 48 -- don't have any scores for June who I don't think participated, at least for the full game. Well, at least Clayton was the most consistent performer this week -- last in every game. CORRECTION: Clayton was actually next to last in one game, so this statement is incorrect.

Mike, I have your LeHavre game and will bring it to next week's session. Thanks for letting the three of us play with it.

Also, thanks to everyone who showed at the Laurel Main Street event last week. While it was quite windy (such that we had to take the tent down), everyone had a good time and I am hoping the club got some new members (Art and June, who were at the Festival the preceding Saturday).

May 6, 2010 Session Report

2010-05-10T17:55:00.000-07:00

Seven in attendance for this session: Clayton, Paul, Mike, Don, Doug, Ron and myself. Games played: San Juan, Top Race, Mermaid Rain, Homesteaders, Can't Stop, Hab & Gut, Cloud Nine. Some details follow.

San Juan, first up, four players (Mike, Paul, Doug, John). I got the Guild Hall/Smithy combo going and won with 35 to 30 for Mike, 28 for Doug, 27 for Paul.

Top Race. Three players, Clayton, Don and Ron. Won by Don, Ron was second. This is the newer version with nicer components, maybe a couple of new rule changes from the original.

Mermaid Rain. Four players, John 60 Doug 50 Mike 41 Paul 36. Doug and I had played before while Mike and Paul were new to the game.

Homesteaders. Four players, very close game. Doug won by a point (54) to Mike (53), Don (51), Paul (44). Mike and Don had more buildings but Doug got alot of points by building the Church fairly early in the Town phase.

Can't Stop, three players, won by Clayton (who else) -- Clayton did not bomb on a single roll in this game. Ron and I also played, Ron was the only other player to get a number to the top.

Hab & Gut, a popular quick-playing stock market game I discovered recently. Taught it to Ron and Clayton. Close game, I won by a narrow margin over Ron, who probably would have won had he not donated to charity on his final turn. Clayton was third, eliminated after donating the least to charity.

Cloud Nine, final game of the evening, we had to call it short as time ran out. Five players, final scores: John 41 Clayton 36 Doug 31 Paul 30 Ron 24.

Main Street Festival Information

2010-05-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

Here is the information for the Laurel Main Street Festival, which will take place on Main Street this Saturday May 8th 9 AM - 4 PM.

Once again, the Games Club of Maryland will be running a booth at the Laurel Main Street Festival, promoting the club and club events. Our booth location this year will be 512-A-B which will be the south side of Main Street between 5th and 6th near the entrance to the Highs store. We expect to have several of tables of games set up for people to play. Please join us at this open air, come rain-or-shine event.

For more information about the festival, see:

http://www.laurelboardoftrade.com/home/events/MSF.wgs

Here's hoping for nice weather this Saturday for the event!

April 29, 2010 Session Report

2010-05-01T08:47:00.000-07:00

Things were a bit back to normal this week, attendance at nine. We had Mike, Paul, Don, Ron, Steve, Clayton, Tim, Eugene and myself for a total of nine. Games played: Stoplights, Sam Grant, Nostra City, Ticket to Ride-Switzerland, Tribune w/Expansion and Lost Cities, the first three games were new to the club.

Started off with a quick card game, Stoplights, three-player between Mike, Paul and John, Paul won after about 10-15 min. It's a quick playing card game where you try to get your color (or the neutral white color) lights in a row of five on your turn.

By then Ron and Don had arrived and started a game of Sam Grant. Not sure it was completed, Ron was the Union and Don the confederates.

Steve had brought Nostra City where Mike, Tim, Paul, Steve and I tried our hands at organized crime. Paul and I were "snitches" and when the verdict against the crime boss was Guilty, the two of us finished at the top although the other three thought they were competing for the win. Even though I was next to last on the all-important "Respect" track, I won the game and Paul, who was last on the track, came in second, because we had turned Snitch and ratted out the boss.

Then we had three games going for awhile as Clayton, Paul and Tim and played Ticket to Ride-Switzerland, a very very close game with Tim coming out the winner (97) by just one over Paul (96) and Clayton not far back in third (85).

Eugene had arrived, and we played a recent favorite (Tribune) that Mike had brought, using the expansion. Players were Eugene, Mike, Steve and myself. Game lasted four turns and it came down to the tiebreaker between Mike and myself. Mike won by one, but with an asterisk -- we had a rules question that wasn't answered (after checking that evening and also today just before this posting) on BGG. The question was whether a Tribune counted as a Scroll for the pre-requisite of obtaining a Favor of the Emperor tile. If the answer was Yes, then I would have won with five more points on the tiebreaker. Still, a fun and close game.

Speaking of close games, Clayton and I wrapped up the evening with a quick one-hand game of Lost Cities. I got too many handshakes (in four different colors), took some negative hits, which enabled Clayton to win a squeaker, 34 to 31.

April 22. 2010 Session Report

2010-05-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I missed this session due to Game Days. Attendance was four (Don, Ron, Paul and Clayton). Games played: Top Race, Ticket to Ride and Manuever.

Scores for Top Race: 1. Clayton 360 K 2. Ron 290 K 3. Paul 260 K 4. Don 200 K

Scores for Ticket to Ride: 1. Don 125 2. Paul 121 3. Clayton 85 4. Ron 72

Sorry, no report on the Manuever game, played between Don and Ron.

April 15, 2010 Session Report

2010-04-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

Had a real nice jump in attendance this week, mainly through the appearance of the Sheas (Mike, Lynda, Lexi and Jordan) who were in the area from Connecticut for a few days looking at potential colleges for Lexi. They joined the club "regulars" Paul, Mike B, Doug H, Greg, Clayton, Ben and myself for this week's session. Games played: Dominion (x2), Puerto Rico, Vegas Showdown, Ticket to Ride, Lost Cities, Ben's prototype game, Medici, Wits and Wagers and Cloud Nine. So, it was a fun-filled evening with lots of games played, turns out the big winner was Lexi who went through the evening undefeated, sort of duplicating the feat of Doug a few weeks back.

First game up was Dominion, which we actually played with five (although the game was meant for no more than four) while waiting for more people to show up. Final scores on this one were John 30, Mike 22, Doug 21, Greg and Paul 12.

By this time the Sheas had arrived, as had Clayton, so we split up into two groups of five. One group played Puerto Rico, turned out to be an interesting game (it almost always is!) with Lexi pulling ahead with the Wharf near the end after having gone for the Hospice as her first building. I had the Harbor, Small Warehouse and Customs House but was still far behind Lexi on shipping VPs when the game ended. Final count on the scores were Lexi 58, John 48, Mike S. 47, Mike B. 43, Paul 30. Vegas Showdown was won by Greg, with 56 to 47 for Jordan, 45 for Clayton, 41 for Doug and 32 for Lynda. (Sorry, no details although I know Clayton did quite well when the Lounge Lizard card came out.)

At this point, Ben arrived with a new prototype game of his own invention. Mike B, Greg and I were the guinea pigs for this one. The theme was you are running a company, trying to promote employees, research new technologies, produce products, establish trading partners and then, later on, conduct espionage on your former trading partner. Ben won the game (no surprise), afraid I messed up the endgame scoring and don't have an accurate count, but I believe I finished in last, behind Greg and Mike.

At the other table, it was a four-player Ticket to Ride game, using the US map, very close scores, 13 points top to bottom: Doug 138 Mike S. 133 Paul 126 Lynda 125. In the meantime, Lexi and Clayton played some Lost Cities, Lexi winning that one. Then Lexi extended her winning streak by taking a three-player Dominion game from Jordan and Clayton.

There was still about an hour left in the session, time for some more games. Medici was won by Doug, another close score: Doug 115, Paul 109, Lynda 100, Mike S. 93. The rest of us played Wits and Wagers, and Lexi came on strongly to take the win over Greg and myself with Mike B, Clayton and Jordan joining us.

Final game, which barely got completed at closing time, was Cloud Nine. Lexi kept her winning streak intact, jumping out on the final balloon trip when Jordan didn't have the needed cards. Still, it was a fairly close finish, as Greg was in position to win had Jordan not crashed on the final balloon trip.

Thanks to the Sheas for joining us and making this week's session a memorable one. Next week we will be up against Games Days, so while there will be a session, some of us will be at the convention in Timonium. (I left some attendance sheets in the club notebook just in case I don't make it back to Laurel by 10 that day.)

April 8, 2010 Session Report

2010-04-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

Attendance of seven this week: Paul, Mike, Doug H, Clayton, Tim, Ben and myself. Games Played: Lost Cities (x2), Tulipmania 1637, Anno 1701, Ticket to Ride-Swiss, Cloud Nine, San Juan.

Some details. Mike had brought the Tulipmania, played with Doug H and Paul. Winner was Doug with Mike second, Paul third. It's kind of a stock market game with a tulip selling theme. (The tulip futures market, perhaps?) Anyway, in the meantime, Clayton and I got in three hands of Lost Cities, final count John 248, Clayton 169.

For the next round of games, we were joined by Tim and Ben. One game was Anno 1701, which I had brought, which Doug was keen on trying for a second time. The game was new to Paul and also Ben, who joined us a bit late. Fairly close game, the objective is to get 5 "favors" placed. Ben and Doug were in Riot early on, but a late surge gave Ben the game. Paul and Doug were not far behind. I was doing OK until Ben took over my Trade VP, then Ben and Paul beat me out to the 7 colonies bonus.

Meanwhile, Tim, Clayton and Mike played Ticket to Ride with the three-player Switzerland map. Mike won that one, as I recall with something like 15 completed tickets! Scores were Mike 170, Clayton 107, Tim 96.

Tim and Mike played Lost Cities, this one was a win for Tim (his first game won at the club, perhaps) by a narrow score of 35 to 27. Perhaps all the coaching from yours truly the week before was beginning to rub off.

Two more games to wrap up the evening: Cloud Nine, a 5-player which ended in a flat-footed tie between Ben and Doug; we checked the rules, and it was a tie for the tiebreaker as well (most cards in hand), so a shared victory.

Finally, a close San Juan game, final scores Doug 33, John 30, Paul 27, Clayton 15. Paul did well to get that many points without any "6" buildings. I got bonuses for the Guild Hall and the Palace, but Doug built out the Triumphal Arch for the win.

Hope to see everyone next week, as I am expecting a group of out-of-town gamers who have expressed interest in visiting our club.

April 1, 2010 Session Report

2010-04-03T06:44:00.000-07:00

April Fools Day Session, we had nine gamers in attendance tonight, one newcomer to the club (Sulma) along with Doug H, Mike, Greg, Clayton, Tim, Ben, Ding and myself. We played a total of six different games (Gloom, Lost Cities, Can't Stop, Ticket to Ride, Automobile and R-Eco) with two tables in play for most of the time.

Sulma had brought a few games, one of them was Gloom, which several of us had not played before. It's a game with a rather macabre theme where you have bad things happen to your family members, gradually killing them off during the course of the game to score point. Doug and Sulma, who had played before, seemed to be doing well, but it was one of the newbies (Greg) who came through with the win. Final scores: Greg 220, Sulma 105, Mike 100, Doug 65, John 60.

While the Gloom game was going on, Clayton and Tim had arrived and I got them going on Lost Cities, which Tim had not played before. Tim had trouble his first hand, partly my fault for skipping over the rather important rule that you have to play the cards in ascending order. They got in a second hand which was much closer (five point margin), with Clayton coming on top. Ben and Ding arrived and the four of them played Can't Stop, which Ben won.

While the Can't Stop game was still going on, the five of us who were playing Gloom started a game of Automobile. Turned out it took most of the rest of the evening, which was a bit longer than Sulma had planned on, but Clayton took over her position for the final turn. Everyone played fairly conservatively and there were few losses taken in turns one and two, but things changed -- particularly in the final turn when three of us with triple low-cost car factories overproduced. A very tight finish, three of us within 150 and no one really out of it: John 3990, Sulma/Clayton 3890, Greg (who had taken out two loans but had the highest factory value at the end) 3840, Doug 3690, Mike 3240.

The other table got two more games in after finishing with Can't Stop. Ticket to Ride: Ben 138, Ding 95, Tim 93 and Clayton 61. Then, finally, R-Eco, which ended in a tie but a check of the rules found the tiebreaker favored Ben. Scores: Ben and Tim 8, Ding 4, Clayton 2. Thus, a good night for Ben, who went four-for-four and decided to leave with a half-hour left in the session.

Hope to see everyone back next week, as well as some of you who have missed the past few sessions.

March 25, 2010 Session Report

2010-03-25T20:46:00.000-07:00

Attendance took a bit of a dip this week, we only had five gamers in attendance: Doug M, Clayton, Patrick, Tim and myself. Five games were played: Lost Cities, Can't Stop, Ticket to Ride-Swiss, Endeavor and Slide 5.

First up was Lost Cities, Doug M and I got in one hand. I had a positive score, Doug did not.

Clayton arrived, the three of us played Can't Stop. Clayton won. It was still just the three of us at this point, Clayton suggested Ticket to Ride-Switzerland. It was a close game, we gave the win to Doug M although he got confused on a couple of tickets between Locarno and Lugano, so it goes as a win with an asterisk.

By then Patrick and Tim had arrived, Patrick brought Endeavor. It was a four-player game, won by Doug with Tim second, Tim's first play of the game.

Finally, to wrap the evening up (we had about 20 minutes or so until 10 at this point), it was Slide 5. Close game (again time for just one hand) Doug 3 and Clayton 4 had the low scores, first time for Doug and Patrick.

Everyone had a good time, hoping for a better turnout next week.

March 18, 2010 Session Report

2010-03-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

Turned out to be a good night for Doug Hoylman at this week's session, as he won four out of four games played. Still a bit short of the all-time record, but very impressive. Overall, attendance was down a bit to eight, but we did welcome Steve back for his third session, along with Doug H, Clayton, Paul, Ron, Don, Doug M and myself. We played a total of six different games: R-Eco, Manoeuvre, Ad Astra, Automobile, Hoity Toity and Hollywood Blockbuster. Some details follow.

R-Eco was first up and took about 20 minutes or so while more people were showing up. Doug started his winning streak, taking the final chit to score 13 with Clayton (8) in second, Paul was at 6, Steve and I at 3. It was Steve's first play.

Steve had brought Ad Astra, which was new to some of us but had been played by a couple of people once before. It wound up being a three-player game as others moved on to other games after the explanation. Final scores were Doug H 71 (win #2 of the evening), Paul 55 with Steve at 53, a close race for second.

Ron and Don had arrived and once again played Manoeuvre (hope I have the spelling right). It was a repeat of last week, Don winning with the French over Ron's British. Ron vowed that Don will not be allowed to play the French next time.

Doug M, Clayton and I played a three-player Automobile that wrapped up in about an hour and half (the game goes much quickly with just three). Very close finish, I edge Doug by just 10 dollars, 4740 to 4730. Clayton, who won his first game, seemed to be slipping in this one, dropping to third at 3480.

Don and Ron were still going at it at Manoeuvre, so six of us played Hoity Toity and Doug H won his third game. I got to second with the best set at the end but still couldn't catch Doug. Paul (with second best set) nosed Doug M for third, and Clayton and Steve rounded out the field.

Final game was Hollywood Blockbuster which we barely completed under the wire. This was Steve's first time with the game and he did very well, falling just four points short of Doug who once again could not be denied. Final scores: Doug H 79, Steve 75, John 67, Clayton 46, Paul 38.

Hope to see everyone next week. Would be nice to get back into double figures attendance-wise, once again.

March 11, 2010 Session Report

2010-03-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

This report from last week's session should serve to bring the blog up to date.

Attendance (10): Paul, Mike, Greg, Doug M, Doug H, Ron, Don, Tim (back for the third week in a row), Clayton and myself.
Games Played (7): Maneuver, Power Grid - Spain/Portugal, TC Tennis, Campaign Manager, Roll Through the Ages, Vegas Showdown and Ingenious.

A few details on some of the games.

Maneuver (two-player, Ron versus Don): Not much in the way of comments, but Don won by what appeared to be a fairly decisive margin.

Power Grid (6-player, full table): Won by Doug H on a tiebreak by $5 from Tim. Greg, Doug M, Paul and Mike were also in the game. Good result for Tim, who I was informed was playing Power Grid for the first time.

TC Tennis: This was a beta of a game I am signed up as a playtester for Victory Point Games. My opponent was Clayton; he was Jimmy Connors while I was Ivan Lendl. Our matchup ended in a win for Connors (Clayton) in a tiebreak.

Campaign Manager 2008: Clayton and I then changed into the roles of Presidential candidates in another two-player game, the recently released replay of the most recent U. S. Presidential election. This time McCain (John) beat Obama (Clayton), although I probably had a slight edge from having played before. It came down to the final three states.

Roll Through the Ages: Four player, Ron gets his revenge on Don, winning by three (43 to 40) with John (24) and Clayton (22) far behind. We used the new "Late Bronze Age" variant which has more player options but also makes the game quite a bit longer.

Vegas Showdown: Four-player, Doug H won and Paul was last. Greg and Doug M were also in the game, no report on who got second and third.

Ingenious: Three-player, won by Greg (13). Paul and Doug H had 8. Nice win for Greg.

We've had a good run attendance-wise, so hopefully we can keep it up for next time!

February 25, 2010 Session Report

2010-03-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a session report, courtesy of Mike, for the session I missed. Better late than never:

I found the sheet from a week ago last Thursday. Attendance included: Mike (me), Patrick, Paul, Ron, Don, Clayton, Doug the Younger (Doug M) & Tim. Games included:
- Megacorps, with Clayton winning with $92, Paul & Doug each with $90, me with $72 and Patrick with $61.
- Snow Trails twice: with the races ending Ron - Don - Tim and then Ron - Tim - Don
- Roll Through the Ages: Ron ended with 29 pt, Tim 15
- Homesteaders: Doug ended with 58 pts, Pat and I had 51 pts and Paul had 47 pts
- Can't Stop: Ron beat Clayton is the only score I have.

Thanks to Mike for keeping the notes and providing this report.

March 4, 2010 Session Report

2010-03-10T17:39:00.000-08:00

Attendance of ten for this past week's session: Mike, Doug M, Doug H, Paul, Greg, Ron, Don, Clayton, Tim C (whom I had not seen in a long, long time) and myself. Games played: Power Grid-Factory Manager (game was actually abandoned midway through the first turn), Pitchcar, RoboRally, Homesteaders, Vegas Showdown, Qwirkle Cubes, Mississippi Queen, San Juan, Roll Through the Ages. Some details follow.

First up was Power Grid-Factory Manager which a couple of us were willing to play but, for some reason, the game was abandoned once more people showed up with other games in mind. So, it wound up with one table setting up a Pitchcar game (Don, Ron and Greg were the participants) while the rest of us (Mike, Doug M, Paul and I) played Homesteaders. No results on the Pitchcar, Homesteaders was won by Doug M (56) ahead of Mike (51), John (48) and Paul (40).

Then my scoresheets have Greg, Ron, Doug H, Don and Tim playing RoboRally, will the win going to Greg ahead of Doug and Don. Apparently Ron and Tim dropped out and may have played a Thunder Road game in there (I was finding it difficult to keep track of everything, obviously). Meanwhile, Clayton had joined the four Homesteaders players in a five-player Vegas Showdown. Once again, Doug M was the winner, scoring 65 to best John (57), Mike (54), Paul (45) and Clayton (38).

Clayton took a break and Mike, Paul and I played San Juan -- close game, as reflected by the scores: Mike 35, Paul 34, John 30. Qwirkle Cubes was next up for the other table, final scores Ron 105, Doug H 97, Don 73, Greg 71. Then, the four of them moved to the riverboat racing arena for a game of Mississippi Queeen, and Don was the winner ahead of Ron, Greg and Doug.

Final game of the evening, Roll Through the Ages, won by John 25 ahead of Clayton 24 with Paul at 20.

Apologize for no report on last week's session -- due to attending the PrezCon games convention -- still hope to post attendance and games played here if someone gets the information to me.

February 18, 2010 Session Report

2010-02-19T09:40:00.000-08:00

Back after a two-week hiatus after some record snowfall levels in our area had cancelled the prior week's session. Nine in attendance: Mike, Ron, Paul, Greg, Doug H, Doug M, Clayton, Steve (back for a second session) and myself. We played a total of five different games: World Cup Skiing, Homesteaders, World Without End, Roll Through the Ages and Tribune with the new expansion.

First up was a game celebrating the season and also the Winter Olympics, called World Cup Skiing from Lambourne games in UK, we each selected a real-life skiing great and took off on the Whistler downhill course. Unfortunately, everyone seemed more interested in trying out another game so we ended the race after the second time check. Winner was Paul, who selected Kristian Ghedina as his skier. Also in the race were Jean-Claude Killy (yours truly), Franz Klammer (Ron), Bill Johnson (Mike) and Helmut Hoeflehner (Doug H).

We then split into two groups. One group (Mike, Greg, Clayton and Doug M) played Homesteaders and this time Mike made up for a subpar performance in an early game, winning with 54 to 49 for Greg, 42 for Doug, 40 for Clayton. Seems like a fairly competitive game. The other game was World Without End, which I had brought -- as the game was new, it was everyone's first play. Doug H went out to an early lead, fell back, then Paul did the same, finally I pulled out the win (perhaps due to having studied the game for a bit). Scores were John 46, Doug H 39, Ron/Steve (who played as teammates) 37, Paul 34.

Still time for some more games, so at one table it was Roll Through the Ages, which saw two games completed, one won by Paul (against Ron and Steve) and the second, a four-player, won by Steve (against Ron, Paul and Clayton). Mike had brought Tribune with the new expansion, but with some new players and a new rules set we only completed three turns. Doug H and I both had three out of four victory conditions at the end, Mike (who had brought the game) had one victory condition on turn one but none on the second and third turns. Greg and Doug M were the other two participants.

Next week is PrezCon, a gaming convention in Charlottesville, Virginia. Greg and I plan to be there, but the club will be open on Thursday as usual (providing the weather cooperates, of course).