May 29, 2008 Session Report

This was our first 2008 session with the shortened summer hours, and our second session with the expanded games inventory. A total of eight gamers were in attendance: Sarah, Clayton, Paul, Ashley, Gabe, Ben, Nick and myself split into two groups for most of the evening. We played a total of six different games: Cloud 9, Blackbeard, San Juan, a handmade prototype game, Executive Decision and Ticket to Ride-Switzerland. (Because we were pushing it on time, the last two games did not get completed.)

First up was Cloud 9, and the balloonists were Sarah, Clayton, Paul, Nick and myself. Turned out to be a three-way tie as Paul and Sarah reached 50 and then I bailed out at 35 for 15 more points with Nick left holding the bag as the pilot with a bad die roll. Oh, well ...

The Blackbeard game was a four-player using the game with the new GMT edition. Ben (whose two pirates were Lowther and Tew) won the game, which used the shortened victory conditions. Ashley had the colorful "Calico Jack" Rackham and Quelch as her pirates: Gabe had Conant and Taylor, and Nick had De Lusan and Roberts after losing his initial pirate (Bonnet) to a first-turn mutiny ... gosh, I hate when that happens.

The four of us at the other table played a hand-made prototype game that I had put together based on a recent playtest; final scores on this one were John 35 with Sarah a close second at 32. (Sorry, can't post more details here, the final version of the game is expected to be released some time later this year, however.) We then played San Juan, and Clayton ended the game by building to 12 with a Smithy, Guild Hall and bunch of mills. Paul had all purple buildings, and I got lucky and got three bonus "6" buildings down. Turned out I needed all three of them as the final scores were really, really close: John 30, Paul 29 Clayton 28 Sarah 21.

The final two games of the evening were Ticket to Ride-Switzerland, with Clayton and me playing as a team versus Paul and Sarah. When we had to clean up, Sarah had a huge lead with like 45 in completed tickets so we declared her the winner. The other game, Executive Decision, and old 3M/AH classic, barely finished one or two "months" activity before being called with no winner.