Session Report or how Tiffany finally got to play some Euros

So despite the best intentions to get to DL early -- for me at least -- I arrive at about 6. And look at the clearance section, and acquire a new game from Ben, who was playing Neuroshima Hex with Chris.

Al, Scott and I end up playing Cheeky Monkey to pass the time (Knizia, you really need to re-think some of these game themes. Just saying). Then I realized that I was far far far hungrier than I thought I was, and ran away to get some food. Wingstop for the win. When I got back, Al, Scott, Sean, Travis and Chris were playing Jericho. And I ate my food. Nummy food.

They finished up, and we were trying to decide what would play six (for shame, no BSG???? (I really was OK with that one)) and jeff arrived. So we split. Chris headed off, Sean, Travis, Jeff and myself played Amyitis, and Al and Scott played something else. Memoir 44 maybe?

I am pleased with my new game. Though it took about 2.5 hours I guess, since we were all learning how to play. There is one rule that we were not playing correctly, but that does not change the fact that I like the mechanics of the game. There is a lot going on. Very much a resource management to score VP kind of game.

Then Jeff left, and Travis, Sean and I played a quick game of Wasabi. Which is another game I like. And need to play more often. So I will be brining that to table more, I hope, as well.

There was some discussion of week time gaming, some purchases from the table of clearance, and a game trade. All in all, it was a good night.

Monday Planning Post...

...goes here.

I'll be there at 5pm.

Planning for Mon night

Events of the upcoming and "non" varieties

It seems my last post was an over-cautious non-event. Better safe than sorry.

Anywho, did you hear about the festival next weekend downtown SA? There will be "roving street poets" and at least one"guerrilla music ensemble."

Check it out.

Mon night

I think I'll be able to make it Mon night, but I'm really not sure. Don't know what games I'll bring.

Post in the comments.

I'd Like To Offer You My Protection

I arrived at Dragon's Lair around 6ish. There was a game of Through The Ages being played by Brian and Chris - I don't know much about this game, but it looks complicated and long. Sounds fun! For $70, it better be...

I missed what game Simon and Steve were playing when I arrived - you guys need to chime in and let us know. My first game was my newly-opened box of Nexus Ops. (ooh, the smell of a newly opened... gah - WHAT is that smell???) For a game that is/was being sold for a fairly cheap price, it's got a LOT of nifty glowy bits. I need a play or two more to figure out what to do with this game - I defended my territory pretty well, but managed not to score any victory points. Steve ran away with it by amassing a huge pile of pink bugs, dragons, robots, and (we think) a human somewhere in that pile. Jon arrived and started stacking the mission and energize decks to try to give Simon the edge, but it was too little too late.

For our next game Simon pulled out Bootleggers - a game of prohibition-era moonshine distribution. I had the brilliant idea to man a smaller speakeasy early in the game, but failed to plan for the larger bar that Jon manned to capacity. I also used up my mobster influence too early, instead of holding the potential destruction over people's heads for extortion and bribery. Jon was clearly winning the game until he revealed his hatred for success - he self-destructed by inviting the copper into his distillery for a personal tour. This let the game continue for one extra turn, where Steve took advantage of his non-threatening, not in the limelight strategy to amass enough money for the TKO. Hmm. The prevent-Steve-at-all-costs strategy clearly needs some tweaking.

At this point most of the crew left, and we had time for one quick game of Race for the Galaxy. I managed to draw all military worlds with zero military strength for the first four turns, crippling me for the game, but I WAS working on a pretty decent comeback strategy involving alien goods and developing-for-profit. Chris pulled a win out, scoring 2 more than Brian, and I finished a distant third.

Monday, Monday, So Good To Me

Let's not let the momentum fade... who's coming to DL on Monday? Dennis could bring Pizza Box Football. Tiffany could bring Mr Jack. I'll have the bag (I've decided I need a bigger bag). I'll be there about 6ish.

Workers of the World Unite!

I don't know if any of the gamers with MLK off made it to Dragon's Lair - the "workers of the world" made it to the table at around 5ish. Brian and I played a few more games of Race For The Galaxy - the 2-player 2-actions-per-turn version. I have to say - if you like the game and haven't tried this version, you really need to give it a whirl. It amps up what is possible to do, and makes for a very fast-paced two player game. I continue to improve, and finally am at a place where I'm not self-destructing on a regular basis. In fact, I even took away a victory or two last night. Thanks, Galactic Federation! I can never keep count (and it's always "just one more"), but I think we landed something like 6 games before Al showed up around 7ish.

We played one more game of Race, this time with three players, and it was a pretty tight contest. I think Al scored close to 35 points, I had 41, and Brian a few more than that. I think I had played twice the games Al has before I came close to the 30 point mark, so kudos for that. As much as the game is a competition amongst each other, I've found that I am also trying to beat my previous "bests" in the game. That's not always points, depending on how quickly the game ends, but also avoiding past mistakes, combining good cards, planning ahead for the end-game, and other various game activities. I don't know that there's a game I've played this many times that I still am this interested in...

Finishing up the night was Vegas Showdown - I was suprised to learn that my game was unpunched... apparently we've always played someone else's copy at game night. After a few turns I caught/passed up everyone on the income track, but some lack of foresight on my part and plenty on Brian's let him grab a Nightclub for 8 vp. A handfull of turns later he also was the only one holding enough cash to pick up the theater, which is worth 12 vp. The rest of the game was a battle for the small stuff. I think I suffered from a little too much "analysis paralysis" as I tried to conceive of some way to make up a 20 point deficit, but it was a losing battle. This is a great game, but with three seemed to suffer a little from the runaway leader syndrome. I'm going to blame the game instead of my poor play. :)

On a side note - I miss everyone! Mondays have gotten a little slim lately. Is this temporary? I know that semesters/holidays/etc go in phases...

Enter The Dragon - Monday January 14th Planning

Anyone going to make it tomorrow? I once again will make it in about 6ish, which is computer geek speak for 6:30 (at least the last few weeks). I'll bring my usual assortment of games, including Power Grid, Tongiaki, and Race for the Galaxy (are there other games besides Race?). Comment if you're coming so we can look for you, and also comment if you're interested in meeting folks who are available earlier.

"Race" indeed...

It turns out that 6ish means 6:30, unfortunately for Dennis who thought it was much closer to 6:00. Everyone else apparently was well versed in this convention, and showed up much closer to the designated time. I was the first of those who arrived at the correct time, so Dennis and I attempted Shear Panic again, this time as a two player game. It definitely works much better with two rather than three players, but this game sadly does not live up to it's incredible production values. And I'm not just saying that because I lost. I'm not seeing too much "plan ahead" ability on this, so it's really more a matter of timing when the scoring hits than positioning for said scoring. It's too bad - I WANT to like this game.

Chris and Brian showed up mid-game, and so they played a quick game of To Court The King, which I think they consider superior to my "it was only a buck" Knights... I must admit I've forgotten much of how to play that one, so I'll leave comments to them.

We followed that up with Race For The Galaxy. Race is a bit of a misnomer, as my galaxy resembled the black hole sucking and spewing radiation in the photo... No, it's not that bad. I love this game, and I'm getting better and better at it, which means I don't make the same mistakes I did ten games ago. That doesn't always mean my scores improve, but it's something. My one complaint is that the card draws can be infuriating... the card you need, the card that has to be there SOMEWHERE in the deck, has a nasty habit of coming into your hand the turn AFTER you've abandoned your losing strategy and gone for a thumb-in-the-dike move instead... I guess that's what they like to call "interesting decisions". Dennis and Brian kept trading wins, and I don't remember who won that last one, but after a few more "just one more game"s we finished up the night at post 11pm with seven? games of Galaxy under our belts...

In Which We Carry Boats Everywhere...

I arrived at Dragon's Lair a little early, and found Jeff and Chris playing Jambo. I was reviewing some player aids for some new-to-me games when Dennis arrived. We started a two-player game of Knights while waiting for Jambo to finish, but as soon as we had started Jambo finished! So Chris and Jeff joined in and we restarted... Knights is a dice-fest - you are rolling six dice three times trying to "beat" the dice shown on a card you are attempting to take into your hand. The twist is that any 6 you roll is dead - not useful in your hand, and cannot be re-rolled. The cards have different abilities, and the one we vastly underrated at game start were the "dice" cards, which gives you an extra die of a given number virtually - it's in addition to the six dice you are rolling. Chris got one of these early, and proceeded to use it to clean up. The game was still pretty tight, but there was no way to slow him down with that advantage.

As we wrapped (or rolled) up that game, Jon and Tiffany arrived, so we searched the bags for a six player game. Out came the odd little trivia game Fast Figure... In this game the answers to the question are always numbers from 1 to 100. Previously answered cards stay on the board, and the first person to put their answer card in the correct gap wins the question - so if the question is "number of US states at the time of the Pearl Harbor bombings", then Dennis would win if his answer card was down between the already-on-the-table 41 and 70. The game feels very frantic, and I've learned I'm no good at trivia-under-pressure - but it's fun to play the odds and drop your card in a "gap" of about 60 numbers... The game came down to the last hand, where Jon gathered enough points to come within 1 of Jeff, and Chris won the final question to race past me, leaving me in last.

Next out was the Dilbert version of The Great Dalmuti, called Corporate Shuffle. I have nothing much to say about this one, except that executive leadership stinks and art imitated life - I remained stuck in the lower-middle-class of the corporate world.

Tiffany needed to leave at this point, saying something about us giving her a pain in the neck I believe (hope that gets better!), and we pulled out a Tanga cheapie called Tongiaki. I actually really like this game - there are only a few actions you can take each turn, but it can still be a brain burner. Everyone populates "islands" with their boats, and once a beach is full the small fleets ship out in search of new islands and territory to explore. You need help, since ocean passage is treacherous - if you uncover an ocean tile with a number, you need at least that many different colors of boats (each player is a color) to survive the trip. The person who initiated the journey chooses the dispersement of ships on the new island if everyone survives. Each island has a point value between 2 and 5, and you score at game end for each island you have a boat presence on. The few other times I've played this game there are many an opportunity to screw your neighbor as you ship everyone ELSE'S boats off to certain doom at sea - but in this game the concept of islands was slightly skewed. I think we wound up with two large land masses at game end... there was still plenty of strategy available, but not nearly enough ocean voyaging, or watery graves. It seems like boats were not the optimal travel vehicle for the game we played...

Our final game was Prophecy, an RPG that with the two-treasure variant clocked in at just over 90 minutes with five players. This game is a lot of fun, and incredibly frustrating all at the same time. Gathering items, experience, and bonuses you build your combined "strength" and "willpower", and battle monsters and villains with those strengths. There's tons to explore, and many different paths to take toward victory - but Dennis is the master of them all. The rest of us kept fighting monsters with three lives, only to lose the third battle... I wish I was better at this game, and think I'll try to study up some - some games just come to me naturally, and others I don't seem to grasp the correct strategy at all for several plays - and this one falls in the latter category. I at least got close to winning one of the treasures in this game - I was a turn away from grabbing my first one at game end - but it was far too little too late. All I know is next game I want to be the "Master of Pain" - that dude is cool.

A Fistfull of Points

I missed the "everyone show up at noon" gaming session, but was able to make it after work. I showed just at Ted was leaving, which left us with four, and a game of Tichu began. Michael led off an unorthodox "wish for something fun" strategy, playing the mahjohng and calling for random things he HADN'T passed to his left. It actually worked quite well 3 of 5 times, and only mildly stung his partner (ME) once. We called the game early before Brian and Jon could stage a come-back once Ben showed up, but my favorite Tichu trick ever made it memorable. Brian had called Tichu, and was well on his way unopposed. He led a full house, 10's full of 5's - 40 points right there. I countered with Q's and 3's... But Brian was prepared - he laid down K's & 8's - now the hand is worth 70 (out of 100 possible per hand) points - at which point I bomb in with 2222, and play the Dog to let Michael go out, breaking the Tichu... So one trick stole 70 points, and set up the -100 for the opponents.

Jon decided to bow out, and with the arrival of Al we had five - this led to the obligatory Stage II, where we discovered that you people have played this much too often - starting from opposite ends of the box we've officially met in the middle and are out of cards. It didn't help much on the answers to the questions, but made guessing the theme easier.

Minus Ben, Phoenicia followed with the random beginning money variant, and I engaged in the only good strategy I know - buy both trackers, and a bunch of workers. Luckily my opponents were trying to save money, so delayed auctioning off both of the forts during my low-dollar phases, so the game paced itself perfectly for me to pull out a two-point win... I thought up a strategy question - the items that buy you a large discount - everyone knows that you now NEED those items, and bid you up - does this negate the value of the discount items? I suppose this applies to items that others don't require to win, else they've got to bid over you... but if no one wants it, and just bid it up to a "retail price" level, has the discount helped at all?

Michael had to jet (how did the cat situation turn out??), but Jon returned and next to the table was Ticket To Ride: Marklin. Al had limited experience with TTR, and I've only played the original... after a quick rules recap we were off. The passenger riding is a new twist that I didn't plan well for - Brian and Jon were competing for some big opening points quickly with some well-timed travels. It seemed like everyone needed to cross paths in the southwest corner of the board, as we went from no trains down to about ten different links in that region. I believe it was Brian who brought up that TTR is a giant game of chicken - how long can I wait before you block my route? Jon got connections into three different countries, and completely blocked Denmark from anyone else entering, which limited the long routes available to others. Coming down to the end everyone kept drawing destination cards trying to soak up some extra points, and Jon kept drawing already completed cities... It all came down to the route scores, and although Jon and I tied on number of completed routes, I had one more long route than he did, and squeaked out a victory... ironically, if he had kept his fourth destination card at the beginning of the game (for which the cities needed were linked by his trains at game end) he would have earned a 22 point card, plenty enough to pass me up.

Finishing up the night was Glory to Rome, where Sean gets distracted by all the cool abilities of the buildings he is creating, and ignores the end-game conditions of actual victory points. Brian and Jon ran away with it, Jon with patrons and Brian with his vault, but the vault strategy paid off. I think I almost understand the entirety of this game now, but of course everyone else has played it to death...

As the night wrapped up, it was suggested I should buy a game that everyone wanted to play... :) I'm actually not opposed to the idea, as I'm happy to contribute to the group's enjoyment and all of my "gamer's games" are a few years out of date to y'all. But nothing persuaded me yesterday - maybe some suggestions here are in order, so that I can browse the info and reviews online, and pick out a game or two.