January 22, 2015 Session Report

Despite some snowy weather earlier in the week, we had a good crowd of 10 for this week's session: Doug, Mike, John W, Greg, Neville, David, Will, Rembert, Eugene and myself were the attendees. Games played: Scoville, Hollywood, Red 7, Biblios, Greenland, Yardmaster and Machi Koro.

Scoville was won by Mike (66) ahead of Doug (63), followed by Greg (56), John W (49) and Rembert (42). Hollywood, which Neville brought, was a new game about putting together movies which a weird bidding mechanism where even the losing bidder pays. Ties were also not friendly, as Eugene and I found out first time around when we went down to our last dollar. As it turned out, I got a lucky draw off the top and wen on to a narrow victory, 123 to 122, over David who was a close second. Will was third with 117, followed by Eugene (114) with Neville last (109). Second round of games, and for one group it was Red 7 (Won by Will, while Neville and myself also played), Biblios (won by Neville with 8 points, ahead of myself at 4 and Doug at 2) followed by Yardmaster (unfinished, I believe Neville was winning). Another group tackled Greenland, played by David, Rembert and John W, also unfinished. Similarly, no scores reported for Machi Koro (played by Mike, Greg and Will).

Again, a friendly reminder, if you are uncertain as to whether or not a club session might be cancelled due to inclement weather, feel free to call the CC and check out closing reports (if PG county schools and govt' offices are closed, then it's likely the CC will be closed as well).

January 15, 2015 Session Report

Second session of 2015, and a huge throng of 16 gamers descended upon the Laurel Community Center for what turned out to be our largest attendance in some time -- certainly larger than any of the sessions last year (when 15 was the high), didn't go back any further to check but I seem to recall we hit 17 or more once or twice. Anyway, the attendees were Alec, Tim, Mike, Greg, Will, Patrick, David, Eric, Lina, Eugene, Neville, Rembert, Moshe (back for a second time) and myself, plus two first-time attendees at the club, Laura and James. Games played (and it was tough to keep track of everything with four games going on at once): Scoville, Essen: The Game, Castles of Mad King Ludwig (played twice), Greenland, Biblios, Colt Express and Red 7.

Here's what I collected from the scoresheets and various reports: Castles of Mad King Ludwig: 1. Laura 114 2. Neville 103 3. Eric 79 4. Eugene 76 Scoville: 1. Will 66 2. Alec 64 3. Tim 50 4. Mike 37 Essen - The Game (it's a game about collecting the "hot" games at Essen): 1. Greg 86 2. Lina 70 3. John 58 4. Patrick 55 Biblios: 1. Eric 5 (+2) 2. Laura 5 (+0) 3. Eugene 3 4. Neville 0 Red 7: 1. Laura 2. Neville 3. Eric 4. Eugene Greenland: 1. Rembert ~ 40 2. James ~ 15 3. David 3 Colt Express: 1. Greg 1750 2. Patrick 1650 3. John 1300 4. Lina 0 (partial score, as we scored after three of five rounds, having run out of time) Not sure of the scores, but I believe there was a second Mad King Ludwig game featuring Mike, Tim, Alec and Will after they finished Scoville, perhaps the game did not make it to the finish line.

January 8, 2015 Session Report

First session of the New Year and despite some inclement weather earlier in the week, we had a group of eight hardy gamers -- Patrick, Mike, Ben A, Lina, Neville, Will and myself plus one first-time attendee (Manuel) -- and a total of three games were played: Nothing Personal, Imperial Settlers and Red 7.

Nothing Personal was a four-player, and Neville emerged the winner by a wide margin after a big surge on the last two turns of the game. I was in the lead, but of course my guys got bumped off or sent to prison. Final scores in this gangster-related game (reminiscent of Avalon Hill's Kremlin) were: Neville 74, John 38, Line 34, Manuel 31. Lina and Manuel got embroiled in a huge battle for control of the Capo on the final turn, allowing Neville to swoop in and claim just about all the other gangsters, while my strong early position faded badly down the stretch. The four of us also played a few hands of Red 7 but unfortunately we did not quite make it to the finish.

Imperial Settlers was played at the other table, and the winner (playing the Egyptians) was Patrick, with a score of 64. Second was Will, as the Barbarians, with a score of 57. Third was Mike, as the Japanese, with 49 while the Romans (played by Ben) brought up the rear with 30. Interesting, because I had heard that the Japanese and the Romans were the two strongest factions -- not true, if you go by the results of this one game. A reminder that the GCOM Winter GameFest is coming up soon, weekend after next, Jan. 17-18, at the Rockville Senior Center. Check out the link at the GCOM website, gamesclubofmd.org.

December 18, 2014 Session Report

With the Holidays (Christmas and New Years) coming up, this would be our final session of 2014. Total attendance of nine, consisting of Mike, Patrick, Greg, Ben A, Lina, Tim, Rembert, Will (back for his third session) and myself, having recovered from some necessary surgery the prior week. We played the following games: Camel Cup, Russian Railroads, and Uruk II. Some details follow.

Camel Cup (which Patrick brought) was kind of a fun, quick-playing lighter game built around the theme of betting on camel races. No tiebreaker in the rules on this one, so it was a shared victory for John and Rembert (19), followed by Lina (17), Greg (16), Patrick (12), Ben (9), Tim (8) and Mike (5). By this time Will had arrived, so we split up into two games for the rest of the session. Russian Railroads was a three-player, won by Mike (264) just ahead of Tim (262) with Ben not that far behind in third (227). Uruk II is a card-based civilization game that I had brought that did not quite make it to the finish. Once we got close to 9 PM, we scored after everyone had an equal number of turns, and the winner on this basis was Patrick (15), with the rest of us not far behind: Rembert and Will (at 14), then John and Lina (at 13). Our next club session will not be until next year: Thursday, January 8th, 2015. For those of you looking for some gaming at other locations, particularly on the weekends, these coming events (all with no admission charge) are highly recommended: Brunswick Games Day, all day, Saturday January 3, 2015 (check link on GCOM website for more info) GCOM Winter Game Fest, two days, Saturday and Sunday, January 17, 2015 (also a link on GCOM website with more info) Unpub 5, Saturday and Sunday, February 8-9, 2015 (click link at unpub.net for more info) Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to everyone!

December 11, 2014 Session Report

I didn't make it to this session but plan to be back next week for what will be our last club session of 2014 (Christmas and New Years to follow, meaning the CC will be closed the following two Thursdays). Quick report from co-Host Mike: Attendance of 9. Games Played: Sushi Go, Concordia and Castles of Burgundy. More details to follow later (hopefully). And here are some more details from Mike on this session. Attendees: Mike, Lina, John Wittkamper, Ben A, Greg, Rouslan, Dave (back for his third session), Rembert and Will (back for his second session). Sushi-Go: One round completed with four players (Mike, Lina, John and Ben) and then the game was abandoned after more folks showed. Then, Concordia was played to the finish. Scores: Mike 113, Ben 101, Lina 87, Rembert 54. Castles of Burgundy was a four-player with John W, Greg, Rouslan and Dave; the game did not finish and unfortunately, Will did not get in a game (something that would be corrected the following week).

December 4, 2014 Session Report

Back after the Thanksgiving break, and this was another good week for first-time club attendees, as we had three newcomers (Moon, Jake and Will) plus Dave (back for a second time) along with club regulars Mike, Doug, Patrick, Tim, Eugene, Rembert and myself. We played a total of four different games: Colt Express, Power Grid Deluxe (North America map), Bruges and Concordia, and the last two games did not quite make it to the finish line before the 9 PM close time. Colt Express is a new release that Patrick brought where players take on the role of train robbers trying to gather more loot while avoiding getting shot and other disasters over the course of the five rounds of play. Somehow, I managed to win, having score a big bonus for being the only player to earn the "Gunslinger" award after having unloaded all six bullets before the end. Final scores: John 2250, Patrick 1750, Moon 1650, Jake 1550, Tim 1000, Doug 550. The other game was Power Grid Deluxe, the new version of Power Grid, using the North America map, which adds the special rule that the lowest number plant has an automatic minimum bid of 1. This causes the plants to cycle through a bit more than normal. This game came down to the money tiebreaker between Eugene and Mike, with Eugene coming out on top. Final scores: Eugene 17 (44 cash), Mike 17 (15 cash), Dave 16, Rembert 15. The other two games were Bruges and Concordia, neither of which made it to the end-game condition. We scored at the end of a particular round as if each game had finished. In Bruges, the score count was Jake 37, John 31, Doug 26, Patrick 23. Concordia, it was Moon 41, Will 36, Tim 29. Good job by Jake and Moon, who were new to both games.

November 20, 2013 Session Report

Circumstances have caused me to miss the last few sessions. No report for Nov. 13 (likewise for Nov. 27 -- CC was closed due to Thanksgiving). But my co-Host Mike has provided this report from Nov. 20: On the 20th, we had pretty good attendance. At the club that night was me, Patrick, Lina, Claire, Matt, Evan, Neville, Eugene and, for the first time, David. The night started with Patrick, Lina, Matt and I playing Machi Koro. The game was competitive but Matt pulled out the win with never rolling more than 1 die. Neville, Evan, Claire and Eugene played a few hands of Love Letter but they wrapped up early to start the later games. We shuffled the groups and broke into 2 games. Eugene, Evan, Dave and I played Russian Railroads. This was Dave's first play but the rest of us played before. Eugene miscalculated (how often do you get to say that) the first player marker allowing me to get the engineer bonus but still pulled out the win in the end with 356 points. Evan came in second with 346 maxing out the second railroad line and I came in 3rd with 332. Dave brought up the rear with 234 points. The other table played Settlers of Catan. Matt won his 2nd game of the night by stealing longest road and scoring 10 points. Lina was close with 8 pts with Patrick a distant 3rd at 4 pts and Neville only eked out 3 points. Everyone started heading home but we got one more game of Sushi Go! in. Evan easily won with 47 points with Eugene, David and I scoring 32, 31 & 30 points respectively.