Saturday in the Cave with Gamers

Scott, Jon and I arrived in the morning and started off with Ticket to Ride: Marklin. Scott hadn't played before, but I have no excuse in my ~60 point loss to Jon, who smoked us by breaking 210. Then we paused for a caloric interlude, and to wait for Ben who was "On the way." Chad made a surprise appearance, and we Jon and I discussed the results of the latest math trade. [I'm fairly happy with my results, and Jon is moderately happy, although he messed up a want list with the easily predicted result of winning a poor trade].

After that we played Cosmic Encounter. Most of us got to 4 bases, which meant that it would be a group win (for some). Chad, as the Vulch, had a stack full of edicts and no attack card, but he got into a position to trade the win with Scott, leaving the rest of us losers.

We then played Stage II (which also provides the title reference for this post).

Jon left, so Scott and I sent up our P-51s up against the Luftwaffe. Sadly the game we played was called Rise of the Luftwaffe, and soon our parachutes were floating gently towards the earth. So we played again, and we lost again. (Despite the fact that I got the "Hit Fuel Tank and blow up enemy plane" card all three times through the deck). The Down-in-Flames series (of which RotL was the first entry) is actually a fairly simple game hiding under insanely complicated rules. Still, I enjoy it. Next time we'll have to try it with more people.

Having been shot down from grace, Scott and I left Ben and Chad to play Tannhauser.

And some misc updatage -- I've been promised another Top50 list early next week, so I'm delaying the results until Tuesday or Weds.