This was the week before EuroQuest and, as promised, Mike and I brought some new Essen games we are slated to demo at the convention next week. That enabled us to draw a nice crowd, total of nine gamers present: Mike, Patrick, Doug, Tim, Alex, Rembert, Helen, Karl and myself divided into two groups to play Coal Baron (with Mike doing the teaching) and Lewis & Clark (my game to demo). Then, Mike's group got done first and had time for another game, Augustus.
Coal Baron, according to the scores, was a really close game and, according to Mike's notes, the endgame changed the order, much in the same way as Thurn and Taxis. The final score counts were: Rembert 103, Tim 98, Mike 96, Patrick 91. This same group fit in a second game, Augustus, and that one, like the first, was a win for Rembert: Rembert 74 Mike 70 Tim 58 Patrick 56. Rembert seems to be on a bit of a winning streak as I believe he won the last game played on our Halloween session.
With Lewis & Clark, I wanted to allow time for teaching and hope to finish a longer game without pushing, so I limited the number of players to four (the box says a half-hour per player). So, I sat out, prodding everyone to move quickly to keep the game from getting bogged down. The game is a card-driven race game that simulates the historic Lewis & Clark expedition. Helen made a big early move and shot into the lead, only to get bogged down when the Rocky Mountains appeared on the horizon. Doug got off to a really poor start, but made a big move to gain much ground on the other players, all of whom faltered in the mountains. Karl seemed to be in a position to challenge Helen for the win, and it looked like we wouldn't finish in time, until -- all of sudden -- Alex, the master of new games, shot past the finish line to take the win. Karl and Helen were very close for second, with Doug still trailing but not as much as earlier.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the new games, which will be featured at EuroQuest next week. ... which brings me to the following subject: Mike and I, along with several club regulars, will be at EQ next Thursday night, so while the Community Center will be open, those of you attending will be on our own. Hopefully someone will send me a report on what games (if any) get played. In the meantime, everyone is invited to attend EuroQuest which starts with a Wednesday night Pre-Con and runs through Sunday, November 17.
See everyone back at the club in two weeks, or one week before Thanksgiving.
OOPS, forgot to add that someone from the Community Center staff actually video-taped part of our gaming session last night. It's supposed to be posted on the Parks and Recreation Facebook page some time soon, there will be a link at the Community Center home page (see link to left of this blog).
Friday, November 8, 2013
Sunday, November 3, 2013
October 31. 2013 Session Report
Turnout of six for the first Halloween night club session in memory. Mike, Ben, Doug, Tim, Rembert and I were the attendees. We played a total of four games: Gipsy King, Power Grid -Quebec (three players plus the robot), Global Warming and Maori, and I am pleased to report that (1) I got to play three of them and (2) we had four different winners and a couple of very close games.
First up was Gipsy King, a nice short game while waiting for more people to show up. It was a four-player, won by Ben who came storming from behind with a 36-point caravan after I had seized an early half-time lead. Final scores were close, six points top to bottom: Ben 66 John 63 Mike 61 Doug 60.
Rembert and Tim arrived, and we split into two groups of three for the remainder of the session. One group (Mike, Tim and Ben) played Power Grid with the robot four-player and the Quebec map. Resources (especially coal) got real tight as the robot implemented a hoarding strategy. In the end, Tim built to 18 but could only power 15, so the winner was Mike at 17, followed by Tim at 15, then Ben and the robot with 11 but the record should show that Ben had more money than the robot.
I brought a game that was shown at Essen a couple of years back called Global Warming, and Doug and Rembert decided to give it a try.. It has a US designer but hadn't hit the mainstream market but I recently discovered it listed at Funagain, so I decided to order it. Like CO 2, the game has differing ending conditions depending on how much global pollution is generated. I may have benefited from having done a couple of solo plays and managed to win, hitting the endgame goal of 25 compared to 19 for Doug and 12 for Rembert; had the alternate scenario (of too much global warming) taken place, Rembert would have won because he contributed the least damage to the planet.
The three of us wrapped up the evening with Maori, which Doug had brought, and it was the closest game of the evening: 31-31-30 with Rembert edging me out on the tiebreaker for first (one shell to zero). Doug had three shells remaining, so he would have won had he been tied for first.
A reminder that next week, the session before EuroQuest, and Mike and I will be on hand with a couple of the Essen games that we have volunteered to demo -- we obviously would like to do a dry run to familiarize ourselves with the games. Mike will be demoing a game called Coal Baron, I will have Lewis & Clark. Hope we get enough attendance to get both games going at once! (We will be setting up around 6, so everyone is encouraged to arrive on time.)
First up was Gipsy King, a nice short game while waiting for more people to show up. It was a four-player, won by Ben who came storming from behind with a 36-point caravan after I had seized an early half-time lead. Final scores were close, six points top to bottom: Ben 66 John 63 Mike 61 Doug 60.
Rembert and Tim arrived, and we split into two groups of three for the remainder of the session. One group (Mike, Tim and Ben) played Power Grid with the robot four-player and the Quebec map. Resources (especially coal) got real tight as the robot implemented a hoarding strategy. In the end, Tim built to 18 but could only power 15, so the winner was Mike at 17, followed by Tim at 15, then Ben and the robot with 11 but the record should show that Ben had more money than the robot.
I brought a game that was shown at Essen a couple of years back called Global Warming, and Doug and Rembert decided to give it a try.. It has a US designer but hadn't hit the mainstream market but I recently discovered it listed at Funagain, so I decided to order it. Like CO 2, the game has differing ending conditions depending on how much global pollution is generated. I may have benefited from having done a couple of solo plays and managed to win, hitting the endgame goal of 25 compared to 19 for Doug and 12 for Rembert; had the alternate scenario (of too much global warming) taken place, Rembert would have won because he contributed the least damage to the planet.
The three of us wrapped up the evening with Maori, which Doug had brought, and it was the closest game of the evening: 31-31-30 with Rembert edging me out on the tiebreaker for first (one shell to zero). Doug had three shells remaining, so he would have won had he been tied for first.
A reminder that next week, the session before EuroQuest, and Mike and I will be on hand with a couple of the Essen games that we have volunteered to demo -- we obviously would like to do a dry run to familiarize ourselves with the games. Mike will be demoing a game called Coal Baron, I will have Lewis & Clark. Hope we get enough attendance to get both games going at once! (We will be setting up around 6, so everyone is encouraged to arrive on time.)
Friday, October 25, 2013
October 24, 2013 Session Report
Low attendance this week, don't know why, maybe it's the cold weather. Tim, Neville and I were the three attendees, and we only got in one game: Global Mogul, which seems to have become an instant hit at least with serious gamers in the gaming groups I frequent. Since all of us had played before, we bumped up the level of intensity and went with the Standard Rules. Tim managed to be the first to get all six of his action markers in play (perhaps as a result of his Agricola background), I believe on round three, while Neville and I followed a round later. Competition for control of regions was fierce. No one took turn order for the final turn, as we all needed to bring on more agent cubes. In the end, I won with 57 while Tim and Neville wound up tied at 47, with Tim having more money left over to break the tie for second. A brief post-mortem followed, and we found some better moves for Tim on the last turn that may have gained him a couple of points, cost me some, but the rankings at the end would not have changed. I managed to win without controlling any regions, something that happened in another recent play, so maybe that means people are focusing too much on controlling regions and not other things (like some juicy contracts or 5 VP markets that emerge late in the game).
Anyway, word from the CC is that they will be open next week, Halloween Night, so everyone is welcome. Also, EuroQuest is just three weeks away and the pre-reg deadline is coming up soon. Go to www.euroquestcon.com for details.
Anyway, word from the CC is that they will be open next week, Halloween Night, so everyone is welcome. Also, EuroQuest is just three weeks away and the pre-reg deadline is coming up soon. Go to www.euroquestcon.com for details.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
October 17, 2013 Session Report
Much bigger turnout this week, total of nine: Mike, Ben, Doug, Neville, Andrew (he's new to the club, works with Neville), Tim, Helen, Rembert and myself. We played a total of four games: Ultimate Werewolf: Inquisition, Race for the Galaxy, Lords of Waterdeep and Agricola.
Started off the evening with Ultimate Werewolf: The Inquisition, which is the first published design by Legend Dan Hoffman, who I imagine many of you know from his business (Canton Games) and/or at various GCOM gaming events and conventions. The game is a Werewolf variant with no player elimination, as the teams remain intact as the number of inhabitants of the werewolf-infested village shrinks until one side is control. In our game, we had seven (Helen and Rembert had yet to arrive) which meant three on the Werewolf side, four for the Villagers. A pretty deal for the Werewolves, if you ask me, since I was one of them. We got off to a good start when my fellow Werewolf, Ben, drew the #1 position and took the Seer. Tim, one of the Good Guy villagers, immediately took Sorcerer and vouched for Ben, who of course had taken a laid back approach to conceal his identity. This got Andrew confused, and he mistakenly called out both Ben and Tim as Werewolves. Then everyone kind of starting pointing fingers at everyone else -- good for the Werewolves, right? Well, something strange happened in the middle of the game. On one of the Night time turns, I passed two cards, one of which was a Werewolf, keeping the Villager (the character due to be eaten) on the bottom. But, by the time the cards were revealed, someone (presumably one of my fellow Werewolfs) had put the Werewolf on the bottom, meaning we were consuming one of our own! This may have helped, however, as it got some votes removed and four of the remaining six cards shuffled around and confused the Villager team even more. In the end, it came down to a 50-50 shot and Ben, as the Hunter, put three votes on the last remaining Villager to cinch the win for the Werewolf team of Ben, Doug and myself and with just about all the strong Villager characters having been lynched or eaten, the Good Guys couldn't stop us. Victory for the Werewolves! Hurray!
Anyway, in addition to the lack of player elimination, the other cool thing is just about everyone has the opportunity to be a special character, something you don't see in the regular game. Definitely superior to the regular Werewolf, and it plays alot quicker; our game, which clocked in a just under an hour, took about as long as possible as we had seven, several people new to Werewolf in general, and we went down to the very last two cards. I think some people (like me) who aren't big Werewolf fans will like this game, which plays a bit more like a regular Euro. Only down-side is the bit about passing the cards and closing your eyes; some of us did this better than others. (Not sure there's a better way to do this, though.)
On to the other games. Helen and Rembert missed out on Werewolf but ran through a few quick turns of Race for the Galaxy; it was mainly a teaching game for Rembert, who hadn't played before, so no scores were kept. We still had about two hours left in the session, and four of us opted for Agricola while the other five played Lords of Waterdeep. I was in the Agricola game with Tim, Ben and Andrew, who claimed to have an affinity for the game, until a Tim pointed out a rule he had missed about how the animals reproduce. For my part, I floundered around and was not as efficient in most of my actions, although I did manage to build two rooms at once at get them converted to Clay. In the end, though, it was Ben, who had grabbed a bunch of Wood and got all 15 fences down in one play, who edged Tim for the win. But my performance was not all that pathetic, as I managed to finish ahead of Andrew, getting all my spaces filled (albeit with no animals). Andrew just wasn't able to bounce back after the rules miscue. Final scores: Ben 35, Tim 33, John 26, Andrew 22.
No details on the Lords of Waterdeep game, won by Neville, except for the fact that the scores indicate it was really close: Neville 108 Rembert 106 Doug 102 Mike 99 Helen 95
I have been reminding everyone about my favorite time of the year, the EuroQuest convention, which is now less than three weeks away. Pre-reg deadline (with cheaper prices!) is Nov. 1. See www.euroquestcon.com for details. The club session the week before EQ -- Thursday, Nov. 7 -- I hope to have a few Essen games on hand. The following Thursday, though, many of us will NOT be at the Club although the CC will be open, and the club games will be accessible for anyone who shows up.
Started off the evening with Ultimate Werewolf: The Inquisition, which is the first published design by Legend Dan Hoffman, who I imagine many of you know from his business (Canton Games) and/or at various GCOM gaming events and conventions. The game is a Werewolf variant with no player elimination, as the teams remain intact as the number of inhabitants of the werewolf-infested village shrinks until one side is control. In our game, we had seven (Helen and Rembert had yet to arrive) which meant three on the Werewolf side, four for the Villagers. A pretty deal for the Werewolves, if you ask me, since I was one of them. We got off to a good start when my fellow Werewolf, Ben, drew the #1 position and took the Seer. Tim, one of the Good Guy villagers, immediately took Sorcerer and vouched for Ben, who of course had taken a laid back approach to conceal his identity. This got Andrew confused, and he mistakenly called out both Ben and Tim as Werewolves. Then everyone kind of starting pointing fingers at everyone else -- good for the Werewolves, right? Well, something strange happened in the middle of the game. On one of the Night time turns, I passed two cards, one of which was a Werewolf, keeping the Villager (the character due to be eaten) on the bottom. But, by the time the cards were revealed, someone (presumably one of my fellow Werewolfs) had put the Werewolf on the bottom, meaning we were consuming one of our own! This may have helped, however, as it got some votes removed and four of the remaining six cards shuffled around and confused the Villager team even more. In the end, it came down to a 50-50 shot and Ben, as the Hunter, put three votes on the last remaining Villager to cinch the win for the Werewolf team of Ben, Doug and myself and with just about all the strong Villager characters having been lynched or eaten, the Good Guys couldn't stop us. Victory for the Werewolves! Hurray!
Anyway, in addition to the lack of player elimination, the other cool thing is just about everyone has the opportunity to be a special character, something you don't see in the regular game. Definitely superior to the regular Werewolf, and it plays alot quicker; our game, which clocked in a just under an hour, took about as long as possible as we had seven, several people new to Werewolf in general, and we went down to the very last two cards. I think some people (like me) who aren't big Werewolf fans will like this game, which plays a bit more like a regular Euro. Only down-side is the bit about passing the cards and closing your eyes; some of us did this better than others. (Not sure there's a better way to do this, though.)
On to the other games. Helen and Rembert missed out on Werewolf but ran through a few quick turns of Race for the Galaxy; it was mainly a teaching game for Rembert, who hadn't played before, so no scores were kept. We still had about two hours left in the session, and four of us opted for Agricola while the other five played Lords of Waterdeep. I was in the Agricola game with Tim, Ben and Andrew, who claimed to have an affinity for the game, until a Tim pointed out a rule he had missed about how the animals reproduce. For my part, I floundered around and was not as efficient in most of my actions, although I did manage to build two rooms at once at get them converted to Clay. In the end, though, it was Ben, who had grabbed a bunch of Wood and got all 15 fences down in one play, who edged Tim for the win. But my performance was not all that pathetic, as I managed to finish ahead of Andrew, getting all my spaces filled (albeit with no animals). Andrew just wasn't able to bounce back after the rules miscue. Final scores: Ben 35, Tim 33, John 26, Andrew 22.
No details on the Lords of Waterdeep game, won by Neville, except for the fact that the scores indicate it was really close: Neville 108 Rembert 106 Doug 102 Mike 99 Helen 95
I have been reminding everyone about my favorite time of the year, the EuroQuest convention, which is now less than three weeks away. Pre-reg deadline (with cheaper prices!) is Nov. 1. See www.euroquestcon.com for details. The club session the week before EQ -- Thursday, Nov. 7 -- I hope to have a few Essen games on hand. The following Thursday, though, many of us will NOT be at the Club although the CC will be open, and the club games will be accessible for anyone who shows up.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
October 10, 2013 Session Report
Just five for this week's session: Neville, Rembert, Alex and myself, joined by Karl midway through the session. We started off with Love Letter, a quick-playing card game that Neville had brought. We picked it up with Neville winning, 3 to 2 (John), 1 (Alex) and 0 (Rembert).
Next game was Vegas Showdown, using the new edition which fixes the Sports Book printing error and also has a bit of thickness added to the player mats. This game went to Alex (45) ahead of John (39), Rembert (35) and Neville (28). The game seemed to end sooner than usual due to one particular stack running out fairly quickly.
By this time Karl had arrived, and we wrapped up the session with a game of Legendary, a quasi-cooperative. Didn't quite make it to the finish, but we scored anyway, with Karl ahead. Scores: Karl (15), Neville (13), Rembert (12) and John (6).
A friendly reminder, only a few weeks left to pre-register for EuroQuest at the cheaper rates (prices have been reduced this year!). Website: www.euroquestcon.com
Next game was Vegas Showdown, using the new edition which fixes the Sports Book printing error and also has a bit of thickness added to the player mats. This game went to Alex (45) ahead of John (39), Rembert (35) and Neville (28). The game seemed to end sooner than usual due to one particular stack running out fairly quickly.
By this time Karl had arrived, and we wrapped up the session with a game of Legendary, a quasi-cooperative. Didn't quite make it to the finish, but we scored anyway, with Karl ahead. Scores: Karl (15), Neville (13), Rembert (12) and John (6).
A friendly reminder, only a few weeks left to pre-register for EuroQuest at the cheaper rates (prices have been reduced this year!). Website: www.euroquestcon.com
Sunday, October 6, 2013
October 3, 2013 Session Report
Eight for this week's session: Neville, Patrick, Mike, Doug, Karl, John B (whom we haven't seen in awhile), Rembert and myself. We split into two groups for the entire session.
Four of us played a new release that is a meaty economic game that I believe will become fairly popular: Global Mogul. It's about investing in oversea markets, raising venture capital and producing goods to fulfill private and government contract. In our four-player game, the award for the top Mogul went to Mike. Final scores were Mike 56, John and Neville 52, Doug 45. I edged Neville on the tiebreak for 2d, but Neville was the best of those new to the game since Mike and I had played at prototype at EuroQuest before. Pleased to announce that Global Mogul will be the Hot New Wild Card game at this year's EuroQuest, and game designer Bill Crenshaw will be on hand to teach anyone that wants to learn the game.
The other four (Patrick, Karl, John B and Rembert) wound up getting in two games, although one got restarted once or twice as new players arrived. First game was Pastiche, and the winner was Karl (46) to 36 for John, 31 for Rembert and finally 30 for Patrick, who was teaching the game. Then they got in a game of Augustus, and this time Patrick did manage to come out the winner. Scores were Patrick 64, Karl 58, Rembert 56, John B 44.
Four of us played a new release that is a meaty economic game that I believe will become fairly popular: Global Mogul. It's about investing in oversea markets, raising venture capital and producing goods to fulfill private and government contract. In our four-player game, the award for the top Mogul went to Mike. Final scores were Mike 56, John and Neville 52, Doug 45. I edged Neville on the tiebreak for 2d, but Neville was the best of those new to the game since Mike and I had played at prototype at EuroQuest before. Pleased to announce that Global Mogul will be the Hot New Wild Card game at this year's EuroQuest, and game designer Bill Crenshaw will be on hand to teach anyone that wants to learn the game.
The other four (Patrick, Karl, John B and Rembert) wound up getting in two games, although one got restarted once or twice as new players arrived. First game was Pastiche, and the winner was Karl (46) to 36 for John, 31 for Rembert and finally 30 for Patrick, who was teaching the game. Then they got in a game of Augustus, and this time Patrick did manage to come out the winner. Scores were Patrick 64, Karl 58, Rembert 56, John B 44.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
September 26, 2013 Session Report
Alex, Mike, Neville, Tim and I were the attendees this week. We played three games: Gipsy King, Escape: Curse of the Temple and Power Grid, with the Scandinavia Map.
Gipsy King was a win for Mike, but we only played one round as it was a quck filler while waiting for more people to show up. Scores were Mike 58, John 50, Alex 48.
Escape: Curse of the Temple was a cooperative game that Neville had brought, with a built-in real-time component. We played through one round and managed to lose as most of us were unfamiliar with the game system.
Finally, there was enough time for Power Grid, using the Scandinavia map. I managed to convert a good board position near the center of the map to win with Mike, who also had begun in a good location (near Denmark) coming second. Scores were John 17, Mike 16, Neville 13 (+4 on tiebreak), Alex 13 (0 on tiebreak), Tim 11.
Gipsy King was a win for Mike, but we only played one round as it was a quck filler while waiting for more people to show up. Scores were Mike 58, John 50, Alex 48.
Escape: Curse of the Temple was a cooperative game that Neville had brought, with a built-in real-time component. We played through one round and managed to lose as most of us were unfamiliar with the game system.
Finally, there was enough time for Power Grid, using the Scandinavia map. I managed to convert a good board position near the center of the map to win with Mike, who also had begun in a good location (near Denmark) coming second. Scores were John 17, Mike 16, Neville 13 (+4 on tiebreak), Alex 13 (0 on tiebreak), Tim 11.
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