November 12, 2015 Session Report

Eleven for this week's session: Mike, Patrick, Greg, Lina, Tim, Arnold, Alex, Rouslan, Eugene, Rembert and myself. Games played: Codenames (played twice), Star Trek: Five-Year Mission, Lewis & Clark, Essen: The Game, 7 Wonders: Babel.

Codenames was the opening game and also played a second time as a filler later in the session. Teams for the first game were Greg, Patrick and Arnold versus myself, Lina and Alex. Second game was Eugene, Rouslan and Tim versus myself, Mike and Rembert. Didn't keep track of winners.

Star Trek: Five-Year Mission was won by Rouslan. Scores were Roulsan 60, Eugene 51, Rembert 48, Mike and Tim trailing with 43.

Lewis & Clark was a three-player, won by Arnold. Greg and Patrick were the other two players.

Essen: The Game was another three-player. Final scores were John 100, Alex 80, Lina 78. First play for Alex, who has been to Essen, and seemed to enjoy the game.

Finally, 7 Wonders: Babel was a five-player. No guilds were built. Winner was Eugene (58), followed by Rouslan (44), Rembert (42), Mike (42) and finally Tim (29).

No Session Report for Thursday, November 5, 2015

Mike and I, and a number of club attendees, were at EuroQuest, so no session report. If anyone was at the Club last week, please pass on any information to report on attendance and games played.

Several club members did quite well at EuroQuest. Including past as well as present attendees, eight events in total were won by club attendees. Eugene Yee won two tournaments. Co-Host Mike won one (7 Wonders) as did John Barringer (Power Grid). Jay Boring (2 event wins) and Moon Sultana (two) had attended club sessions in the past. I finished third in the Wild Card event, and Tim Carnahan was third in the 7 Wonders final.

Sad news to report, however. Long-time club attendee Doug Hoylman passed away some time shortly before last week's EuroQuest. He was a regular attendee at the club since its very early days of existence, back in 2005. Doug was also Host at two GCOM locations in Potomac and Capitol Hill, and co-Host at two others. It has been a pleasure to know Doug and play many many games with him over the years. He will be missed. I plan to ask for a moment of silence to remember Doug at our next session tomorrow night.

October 29, 2015 Session Report

Good turnout for this week, 12 in attendance: Mike, David, Patrick, Lina, Alex, Rouslan, Tim, Eugene, Neville, John B, Rembert and myself were the participants. Games played: For Sale, The Producer: 1940-44, The Voyages of Marco Polo, and Power Grid: Stock Companies.

For Sale was the quick warm-up game, which I managed to win. Scores: John W 57, Patrick 47, Lina 43, David 42, Mike 38, Rouslan 31. At this point in the session we split into three groups for the remainder of the evening.

The Producer: 1940-44, is a new Essen 2015 release, that I had just received earlier in the week and volunteered to demo at EuroQuest. It's a game about making movies with real actors, actresses, directors and scripts from the 1940-44 time period. David and Lina were my two guinea pigs, and we decided to pick it up after two of the scheduled three years. (David had to leave after year one, but he had already ordered a copy of the game via the Internet while we were playing). Final scores (not necessarily reflective of what would have happened had we finished): John W first, Lina second, David third.

Voyages of Marco Polo was another win for Rouslan. Scores: Rouslan 88, Alex 82, Rembert 77, Neville 62.

Finally, another new game, Power Grid: Stock Companies, won by Tim (781) ahead of Eugene (715), John B (671). Mike (540) and Patrick (score unknown, but apparently less than 540).

Anyway, this coming Thursday session conflicts with the EuroQuest convention near Baltimore. Mike and I, and many club regular attendees will be there. Anyone showing up at the club is advised to ask for the key to the closest where the game collection is housed, assuming no one shows with their own games to play. See everyone on Thursday, Nov. 12th.

October 22, 2015 Session Report

Wow, just realized that with EuroQuest coming around the corner and a bunch of new games to try out, I have fallen a bit behind in posting these reports, oh well, better late than never ...

Thursday October 22, there were 11 gamers at the club: Tim, David, Mike, Eugene, Alex, Rembert, Lina, Greg, Neville, Rouslan, Arnold and myself were the attendees. Between Two Cities (x2), Shakespeare, Russian Railroads and Concordia were the games played.

Between Two Cities was a five-player. Scores were Tim and Rembert 59, Greg 51, Mike and David 46. The tiebreaker went to Tim, whose best city was a higher value than Rembert's.

Shakespeare was a four-player, won by Alex. Scores were Alex 20, myself 18, Eugene 15, Neville 14. Scores were higher than in the first play (won by Greg) but still lower than what the rulebook predicts (which is 22) for a "tight four-player game."

Russian Railroads (three-player) was won by Rouslan with 424. There was a tie for second at 295 apiece between David and Rembert.

Concordia was won by Arnold, his first win I believe at the club, and it was a really close game: Arnold 98 Mike 97 Tim 96 Greg 89.

Finally, Between Two Cities was played a second time. Another close game, won by Greg (58), followed by Tim (57), then Mike and Arnold, both at 54.

October 15, 2015 Session Report

An even dozen for this week: John B, Mike, Rouslan, Doug, Greg, Alex, Lina, Rembert, Eugene, Arnold (back for a second time), Tim and myself were the attendees. Six different games got played during the course of the session: Portal, Between Two Cities, Shakespeare, Lords of Waterdeep, Machi Koro and Valley of the Kings.

Portal was a new game that Mike had brought that supposedly mimics a computer game that I have never played. The four players were Mike, Rouslan, John B and myself -- the first four early arrivals. By the time we have played a few rounds, more people had showed so we broke the game up. Not sure who was ahead or even what you needed to do to win.

I was in a group of four that played a new game, an Essen release called Shakespeare that had just arrived the day before. It's about putting together a play, getting actors, seamstresses, set builders, building sets, designing costumes, keeping the morale and quality of your performers high to score VPs. Greg did the best, winning with 15, followed by Doug and myself at 13, Lina with 12. (Doug took second on the money tiebreaker.) With the rulebook stating that 22 is a good score with four players, looks like we all have some ways to go to improve.

Between Two Cities was another new game that had just come out. Mike and I had played a prototype last year, and one of the co-designers (Ben Rosset) has been to the club and was the designer of Mars Needs Mechanics and one of my favorites, BrewCrafters. The game was a six-player, won by Tim (58). John B, Alex, Rembert, Rouslan and Tim were the other players.

Eugene arrived and set up a four-player Lords of Waterdeep. This game was won by Tim (143), with Eugene (139) second, Arnold (117) third, Rembert (79) fourth.

Meanwhile, at the other table, Mike won a really close game of Machi Koro, played with the Millonaires Row expansion. John B, Alex and Rouslan were the other players.

Finally, John B and Rouslan played Valley of the Kings. Believe it was a two-player as Mike and Alex may have left early. Sorry, no scores available, I was focused on wrapping up the Shakespeare game, which ran until the 9 PM closing time.

October 8, 2015 Session Report

Attendance of nine this week: Mike, John B, Lina, Greg, Rouslan, Matt, Tim, Rembert and myself. We split into two groups and played a total of three games: Power Grid-India, Nations:the Dice Game and the new version of St. Petersburg.

Power Grid-India was a five-player and took most of the session time. A blackout on the next to last turn hurt Tim who then lacked the funds to build out to 15 citites. John B managed to come from behind and beat Tim by one dollar on the tiebreaker. Scores: John B 14 (8), Tim 14 (7), Matt 13 (73), Greg 12 (68), Mike 12 (55).

The other table got in two games -- almost. First up was Nations: the Dice Game, won by yours truly on the turn order tiebreaker (second time I have seen a game decided by this). Final scores: John 29, Rouslan 29, Lina 21.

Second game up was St. Petersburg, the new version with a fifth set of cards for the Market. Didn't quite make it to the finish line (ended with one turn left), but by that point Lina was the clear leader. Scores when we picked up were Lina 80, Rouslan 62, myself 59, Rembert 53. Playing the Noble strategy and ignoring the new stuff in this game does NOT work.

October 1, 2015 Session Report

Eight in attendance this week: Doug, Mike, Eugene, John B, Neville, Rouslan, myself and one first-time attendee at the club, Arnold. We played four different games: Viticulture (with Tuscany expansion), El Grande, Vault Wars and Cheeky Monkey (x2). Since we started out with two longer games (Viticulture and El Grande), unfortunately Arnold (who came in a bit late) did not get into a game.

Viticulture was a three-player, won by me. Final scores were John W 31, Eugene 19, John B 11.

El Grande was a four-player, won by Mike. Scores: Mike 117, Neville and Rouslan (tie) 110, Doug 104 -- close game.

Each of the two groups had time left for some other games. Vault Wars (three-player) was won by Rouslan 32, ahead of Doug (15) and Neville (14). Cheeky Monkey was played twice. First game: John B 41, Eugene 27, John W 17. Second game: John B 36, John W 31, Eugene 27.