Saturday Gaming

Since we haven't had a session report in some time ...

I showed up and Rob, Ryan and Dory were setting up Stone Age, so I joined them. I was pretty negative on this when it came out and figured it would be a flash in the pan, but it's still hanging around (and not just at SABG). In any case, I've had good luck with a "card rush" strategy (usually grabbing the 1-2 resource cost card, even if some of the "city" spaces are still available) and this time was no different. I only gained one meeple and two agriculture, but I got plenty of cards. By the midgame, I had 3x tools and 3x huts in my scoring pile, and I managed to get 7 of each for a 42 point bonus. The rest of my cards earned me another ~20, enough to win.

Then we played Small World (yay!) with the new "Random Event Cards" expansion (Boo!). I may play with the expansion again, if we agree to play only 'mild' cards. The major ones turn it into a crap shoot.

Then I taught Dory Glory to Rome with Rob (while Ryan grabbed dinner). We were just going to play a few turns, but I quickly built a Temple then Catacombs to end the game. Rob had to leave, so Dory and I played another game ...

We played a hand of Escalation, then had Scott A and another player (I didn't catch his name, although I guess his nick is Hobbit) played Dice Town. I rather like Dice Town .... Scott eeked out a win. After that I left for dinner, although there were still 4-5 people....

See ya'll on monday.

We Stood .... There!

Anne, Chris, Fred, Scott and I started up Here I Stand at around 10am. Rob, who was scheduled to play, had an emergency plumbing event, and was late, so we had to switch roles around. As per the suggested rules, England and the Protestants joined forces (until such time as Rob could make it). So the players were:

• Ottomans -- Chris
• Hapsburgs -- Brian
• England -- Fred
• France -- Anne
• Papacy -- Scott
• Protestants -- Fred, then Rob, then Fred.

We were playing the 1532 scenario, which starts at Turn 4. Some of the events may have happened a turn earlier or later, but this covers the gist.

Turn 4 -- The Ottomans drove quickly on Vienna, but had a terrible time. The Knights of St. John harrased them, they had terrible weather, and bad luck. Poor infidels. The Holy Roman Empire, having already circumnavigated the globe, sent out another explorer to the new world, joined by both English and French explorers. The Pope granted Henry a divorce. (I'm not entirely sure what deals were made for that. I believe England gave away shiny baubles that had previously been rejected by the Manhattan Indians). Henry, disgusted with his new wife Anne Bolyen ("I shall never share here bed!") declared war on Scotland, which allied with French. Unbeknownst to the Scots, however, the French had been bought off, and they simply retreated out of Edinborough (the Scottish troops returning to Paris in the winter). The Protestants .... well, they tried, but the sweet smell of Popery made significant gains in Germany. About the only good thing the Protestants can say is that nobody was burned at the stake. Non-major powers fell like flies .... France took Milan (enslaving their artisans to help build Chateaus later on), the Hapsburgs took Metz and claimed the Electorate of Koln from the Protestants (while they were in the neighborhood). . I believe the Turks took Tunis, but that may have been turn 5. Eventually the explorers came back, with the de Gama discovering the Amazon, the French making a minor discovery (I think) and the English getting nothing. The Hapsburgs held the lead at 20 VP, with the Pope and Turks just behind, France in the mid-teens, and England and the Protestants in single digits.

Turn 5 -- By this point, the Protestants had fired their CEO and replaced Fred with Rob, who nailed an "Under new management" sign next to his Thesis. No major diplomacy happened ... apparently everyone was happy with their current war (or not). The Turks claimed Vienna, and started some Piracy in the Tyrrhenian against yours truly. I gave him a VP, to help encourage others to view the Turks as a threat. I built up my fleet completely, but was still outclassed by the Turks (I should have tried to get loaned navies ...). The Turks also put down an uprising in Egypt with brutal efficiency. Protestant Reformation II ("This time, it's biblical!") showed much more success than the first try. The French built a nice Chateau, sent more explorers to the new world, and also sabotaged the Holy Roman Emperor's ships. Jane Seymour gave birth to a healthy Edward the VIth, catapulting England into the pack. The Protestants held off all Papal barbecue attempts. The Ottoman push for Prague caused Charles to drop what he was doing in Europe and make a (slightly desperate) counter attack at Belgrade. Belgrade fell, Prague held out until the end of turn 6. At the end of the turn, England and France snapped up the last discoveries in the New World. At the end of this turn the pack was much tighter, spread from 20-15 points.

Turn 6 -- Charles made overtures to the Sultan to end the war on roughly even terms (returning Vienna for Belgrade). However, the Sultan felt that he couldn't make enough gains from Piracy and had no convenient target to declare war on. Charles didn't press the issue, a strategic blunder that was revealed when France declared war on the Hapsburgs (and Genoa, for good measure). The Pope (using the Genoese as an excuse) declared war on France. Still not yet alarmed, Charles sent some conquistadors to the new world. Henry, never one to turn down an opportunity, used his special ability to declare war in the middle of the round. So the Holy Roman Empire was at war with everyone but the Pope. This, as you can expect, does not lead to good long term prospects. I put up a valiant fight, including the "Should have been a storybook victory" Battle of Navarre, where a lone Spanish troop sallied forth against the French invaders ... and then mysterious reinforcements showed up (Landsknechts) and 1/3rd of the French army changed sides (Bribe Mercenaries). But then it was siesta time, so the French still won. C'est la Guerre. I suffed the indignity of being besieged by three seperate powers, losing Prague, Antwerp, Metz and Navarre. Charles rushed back to Spain to lead the Armada against the infidel Turks (trying to capitalize on Barbossa's death and the splitting of the Turkish fleet) but was repulsed. The remainder of his fleet conveyed the Spanish army to Marseille, which quickly fell. Beaten down, Charles ordered the founding of a 3rd colony in the new world, having little hope in the old.

Meanwhile, the reformation started to stumble again, so the Protestants switched gears and started littering Germany with soldiers, out to spread the word. The Jesuits showed up and dropped a bunch of universities in Germany (no surprise) and the still-totally Catholic London and Bristol (big surprise). France took Genoa. In the New World, the Spanish finally found someone they could defeat ... the Incas, which salvaged a few VP. The Turks ended the turn tied with England (I think), but without as many prospects, and the rest of the players a few points behind.

Turn 7 -- I finally saw some benefit from my (heretofore unproductive) colonies, but Raiders stole them my riches, so I had to content myself with what I looted from the Incans. Spain and France declared peace, and exchanged Marseille for Navarre. (We should have formed an Alliance, which would have let me spring deploy Charles into Brussels, threatening Antwerp and Metz from the get-go). I considered suing either England or the Turks for peace, but it would have given the Turks too many VPs (since they get a bonus for each war they win) and England could have just declared war on my again right away. Charles appeared in Brussels and quickly built up a new army. The Turks retook Belgrade, although they were slowed down when Ibrahim went back home to deal with a minor uprising. The Pilgramage of Grace put half of England into unrest, but Henry used the cover to proselytize against the Pope and placed troops in strategic locations (to get back the VPs caused by unrest). The protestants translated the new testament into French AND founded Calvin's institute, which doubled the number of heretics in Europe. Charles' attempt to take Metz ended in disaster when his mercenaries deserted. Antwerp, left without much of a garrison, rebelled ... and rebels had grabbed control of the artillery, so Spain retook the city. At this point, both the Turks and England were at 23 VP (and 25 ends the game). Suleiman landed in Italy to make an attempt at Naples, while Henry sent troops to Antwerp and Paris. In the end, though, Suleiman's gout was too much to bear, and his army loitered at Messina as both European cities fell to the Victorious English.

Overall, we spent about 8 hours playing the game (around 2 hours a turn), not counting setup, but we also had a lunch break and some plumbing delays. The first turn was closer to 3 hours (since those of us who had played before hadn't played recently) and there was quite a bit of rules lookup involved. I suspect next time we'll be able to shave 30 minutes a turn or so (I hope). We'll see.

Thanks to Anne again for hosting, as well as providing lunch.

You've been...Thunderstoned!

Let me join Rob (and jump the rest of the chorus) and thank Anne for hosting. Lots of new games were played, including Thunderstone. In my judgement (ha!) a pretty good game. And note (to Michael, Jon and Fred, and maybe Rob) we had a rule wrong, as Tim Isakson commented on my review. As for the other games played, I know about:

• Dominion (all expansions)
• Ticket to Ride: Europe (I think)
• Roll through the Ages
• Cuba (with expansion)
• Notre Dame
• Princes of Florence
• Eat a bunch of candy when the parents aren't looking
• That weird "Red White and Blue rectangular cube game on a city map" (Amytis?)
• I'm sure I'm missing a few ...
  

Let me also thank Rob ... I was skeptical about the whole meetup thing, but it's worked out well.

Anyway, our next (regularly scheduled) gaming is Monday Night, of course! I'll be there, looking older than normal. RSVP in the comments

Back to the Pacific

Hornsfan and I knocked out a scenario from the new Memoir '44 Sword of Stalingrad battle pack and, as you may surmise from the video, one from Combat Commander: Pacific.

The Stalingrad scenario we picked featured me as the evil Germans, unfortunately without our Zombie auxiliary troops this time, on the attack against a dug-in Soviet horde in a suitably gritty urban environment. I had half the German Army at my back, with support from air strikes and lots of artillery, but I might as well have been beating my head against the wall. Victory went to the good(?) guys, 9-5.

The CC:P game reversed our roles, with Chris' evil Japanese assaulting my dug-in Marines on a hilltop. Despite Chris' well orchestrated advance, laying smoke and spraying my boys with heavy MG fire, I was able to fortuitously draw hidden mines, hidden wire, hidden pillbox.... etc. By the time he had crested the hill, my reinforcements were pouring out the jungle and his troops were breaking. This time the fickle fate deck favored the USMC.

Other tangential news:

• Sold another Axis and Allies: Anniversary Edition copy. This time for $321. I love E-Bay and rich Europeans.

• I have one more WotR Gollum promotional figure (thank you, Spielbox!). Anyone interested, just make me an offer that will save me the trouble of E-Baying it.

• Power Grid Factory Manager, Roma II, and Twilight Struggle Deluxe appeared last night.

• Finally replaced my computer with a Falcon Northwest rig. Okay, Blizzard, you can release Diablo III and Starcraft II now...
  

• Republic of Rome from Valley Games is theoretically showing up later this week.

See you at the table sometime soon, or... perhaps at least across the virtual table via Vassal.

Say Psychic

Let's see ... Anne, Pat and I played Endeavour. Then we added Tiffany and Rob, and played Endeavour. Then some FITS (minus Anne and Pat, but adding Sean). By then Rob's friend Dan had arrived and we played Say Anything. Here our story begins.

Tiffany (I think) got the question "In my opinion, what would be the hardest thing to sell door to door." I quickly wrote an answer and tossed it into the middle. As did Dan. And then I took his answer and stacked it on mine. "These are the same."

Now I've met Dan for a session or two a while ago, and he's been at Dragon's Lair maybe fifteen minutes, but I was completely convinced we had written the same answer. When everyone else had put in, I flipped over our two tiles, then slid the top from the bottom to reveal ... the same answer.

If you care to guess the answer in the comments, we'll see if anyone else is psychic. During FITS I'm pretty sure that Tiffany was using her Ghostbusters training to see the cards ahead of time.

Then, just to ruin the mood, I came in last in a game of Race. I blame the luminous ether for not shutting the hell up.

(Be sure to check out the rest of the xkcd comic).

Quasimodo FTW

A crippled, diseased, wounded beast-man, scorned by all, wanders into Baghdad ... and wins! During the game I'd also been ensorcelled, imprisoned, and exiled. Needless to say, I quickly obtained the master level of "Enduring Hardships." Dennis almost won, since his years spent in the oubliette made for a good story. But he was merely wounded and pursued, and that don't compare with Quasimodo.

Meanwhile, Pat became fabulously wealthy and the King of Thieves (proving her worth by robbing a princely sum from a beggar!), found the valley of diamonds, the land of the Djinn and several treasures ... but she forgot that no story is meaningful unless you tell it in Baghdad, city of Peace. No doubt that bout of insanity played a part.

There aren't many decisions in TotAN, but lots of bad things can happen to you. So it's got that going for it.

Games Played on Labor Day

Let's see -- we had dice through the Ages and in the middle ages, Uruk and Uruk-Hai, Masters of Venice, and some Ubongo. And pizza.

Now that I've finally got the rules for Masters of Venice down (with a few pending clarifications) I'm happy with the purchase. I can see several ways to make money/VPs (and you'll probably wind up doing a bit of everything, but focusing on one or two ways). The turn order auction and selection mechanisms are brutal. It takes about a half game to get the mechanisms down, but it's certainly doable. Despite it being Scott's first game, I won on tie breaks ... after having taking the start player auction from Chris on tiebreaks (which gave me the extra VPs). There's a lot of mechanisms to learn in your first game, and while this lacks the elegance of other economic games, it's stealing ideas from the right kinds of games.

As for the other games, well, I'm sure they'll be showing up in future gaming sessions as well.

Middle Earth Quest and other Dark Tower Adventures

Chris and I played FFG's new Middle Earth Quest today. Chris played the forces of goodness and light, taking the helm to control not-Eomer and not-Faramir-if-Faramir-were-a-woman. I was thus forced, totally out of character, to play the Dark Lord Sauron. Making a long story short... after a tense, close fought battle, darkness won via a final fight between the Rohan character vs. Ring Wraiths by a nose. The fight came down to Chris needing to guess the correct combat card to play against my hidden combat card, but guessing badly. Alas, now the Lord of the Rings trilogy never happened, the End. All-in-all, the game is no War of the Ring, but I think it does a wonderful job at modeling the subject matter and feels like you're really in that critical time leading up to the Fellowship of the Ring.

Keeping with the Dark Tower theme, we then played the old Milton Bradley Dark Tower game. I had only actually ever played the on-line flash version, so playing Chris' fully functional and in excellent condition copy was a true treat. Chris had some really bad luck early on with plagues, getting lost in the wilderness, and being heavily beset by brigands (aka Orcs) and dragons, while I zipped around snagging keys in rapid succession. My first journey into the Dark Tower ended in utter defeat, so by the time I mustered for a second assault, Chris was hot on my heels. Luckily I was able to pull victory off just in the nick of time. Hooray!

Lastly, we stuck to the electronic board game theme by playing a quick game of Chris' Clue FX. The game is essentially Clue, only with out the roll/move mechanic, and suspects running around in the bushes, hiding and needing to be found in order to shake clues out of them. Overall, I think its a good, light family game, the sort of which I'm now much more interested in. Chris secured a solid, Holmesian victory!

Thanks for the wonderful day of gaming, Chris!

Where's the Toaster, the Silent Treatment, and Monday

Thanks to Jeff, Amy and Ian for hosting. In particular, Ian helped us figure out the differences between monkeys and giraffes, and knows the answer to "Where's the toaster?" Some thanks go to Papa Johns, who managed to get our pizza their quickly despite (because of?) having no phone service. Next time we know "Bacon + Mushroom FTW."

As for games played -- well, I played a game of BSG (as Cavil), a few games of Roll Through the Ages, and the St. Petersburg expansion. I taught Snow Tails, and saw that Warhammer Invasion (and many other games of BSG) hit the table. We also saw the Chicken Hat. Don't know what happened later.

As for Monday, I'll be at Dragon's Lair at the normal time, with my new games (Roll through the ages, Uruk, Snow Tails, Masters of Venice) as well as any old games I feel like inflicting on people.

By your command

Last night had about 7 gamers, two cylons, and a sleeper or two. (Pretty much the typical distribution). Dennis, Michael, Steve and I started with a bizarre little game of BSG which began like a Bill Cosby Routine. ("The Cylons have won the toss, so they get to kick first. Humanity, you sit here while all the cylons in the world pop up on the board.") Galactica was almost wiped out before the first jump, we'd lost all the raptors. Ye Gods.

As is so often the case, a terrible first jump means that the role of the cylons went to the care-bear understudies for the next few jumps. In fact, by the time we jumped to distance 8 I thought humanity had it nearly locked up ... but hitting 5 non-jump events in the first six cards (leading with a fleet) did us in. There are interesting strategy implications in not scouting that I'm still thinking about...

There were lots of other BSG games played (4, I think), but also a game of Ave Caesar, Glory to Rome, and several games of Wabash Cannonball...

Sunday Chillin'

On Sunday Hornsfan and I were able to set up a gaming session consisting of some old classics, along with something new.

When I arrived he had already set up Tom Wham's Search for the Emperor's Treasure, (and, link), perhaps the best game The Dragon Magazine ever published (issue #51 to be specific). Chris played the Black Knight, while I was the peace loving, perhaps even self-flagellating Cleric. The goal of the game was to find the most treasure through all sorts of adventuring across a wild fantasy continent. Sir Chris seemed to have a secret pact with the Pirates, as twice he somehow found the hidden Pirate treasure map pointing the way to 1D6 treasures! I was poking around in the desert, rolling for maybe one treasure every four turns, and he as literally falling ass backwards into the Seven Cities of Gold! As he sailed back from Skull Island with his plunder, I dropped a giant kraken, the ubiquitous ancient huge red dragon, and then the mother of all mega-whales upon him, but by then he was well equipped with vorpal sword and +99 plate mail. All loyal woodland friends of mine were swiftly sent packing. Nonetheless, I had been busy earning an honest living, and it all came down to a final turn. I plunged headlong into the maw of the forbidden Mines of Doom, to pluck forth the Emperor's Magic Emerald from the Crack of Doom (at the bottom of the Mines of Doom, of course). The game ended due to the fourth imperial treasure being found. We tallied scores, and..... a tie! Ugh! Good fun though.

Next I dared crack open the crusty seal on one of my rarest, and most prized games of yore: West End's Star Wars: Assault on Hoth. After my usual succint and captivating rules explanation, Evil Chris assumed the controls of an AT-AT and began deployment of the Empire's assault force. I loaded Luke Skywalker and his merry band into snow speeders and gun turrets, waiting to hold back the wave. The combat was intense... perhaps a bit more than necessary due to a rules mistake, but we'll ignore that for now... but anyway, it all ended badly (but, perhaps historically), as I soon heard Chris radio a nearby Star Destroyer: "Yes Lord Vader, I have reached the main power generators. The shield will be down in moments. You may start your landing." Boom, the shield fell, and Luke had to quickly scuttle off the planet in defeat. Boo!

Finally, continuing the frosty theme, we set up the latest Runebound expansion, Frozen Wastes. The theme of this game involves finding the crashed colony space ship containing the cryogenically frozen wife of a rampaging alien warlord before his robot minions burn the world to a crisp.... oh, all set in a fantasy world. Pretty wild theme, if you ask me. We were only able to make it halfway through the game before I had to cast Word of Recall and teleport home, but I have to say, so far this is the best incarnation of Runebound I've yet played. Its firmly lodged in my shopping cart.

Thanks, Chris!

PS: GMT is demoing the new Washington's War on-line tomorrow night at 1930 hours CST.

Monday report about games and our new overlords

Roll call -- Me, Scott, Sean, Pat and Jeff.

Scott and I started with San Juan and Race. By the time those were done Sean and Pat had arrived so we tried Ausgubremst, which is like slightly advanced Ave Caesar. I think I want to play with a slightly less fiddly version, but I'm not sure how to do it. Differences:

• It has 8 tracks instead of Ave Caesers 2 (16 if you go clockwise /anti)
• You can customize your deck (which we didn't do), choosing a "slow", "Medium" or "fast" deck (I think they have the same pips but I haven't looked). The slow deck has fewer sixes, so less likely to get stuck.
  
• You remove cards from your deck for the shorter tracks
• Pitting is optional, but adds back enough cards to pretty much ensure you'll make it.
• You split your deck into four parts (of your choice) and can pick from either deck, but you only have a two card hand.

All of these sound pretty good in theory, but add a fair amount of time. And I don't think the deck is quite lean enough (compared to the tracks). Also, four decks (with only six units) is clearly too many. I think just playing with a single deck (and three cards), but being a bit more brutal (making sure that the deck has enough points to finish if you don't get bumped outside too often) would work. And maybe we just played a care-bear track. Like I said, I'll have to look. But maybe tweaking some of these rules for Ave Caesar.

Anyway, the robots crushed us pretty well. They go first (not last) and one of them kept it almost until the end, when Pat raced by for the win. At this point Jeff had shown up, so we broke out Puerto Rico. Technically that makes it a theme night (with SJ and Race). So there.

After that, Scott bailed, so we settled in for a game of Phoenicia. Despite Sean's dada-esque luck (receiving roughly 1 '6' a turn and no fours until later in the game) I managed to pull out a win by getting an early City Center and public works. Sean's grotesque production (6 cards on the penultimate turn, I think, and seven on the next) couldn't overcome the 7 VP lead ...

After that the group broke up, Sean and I played Race and discussed implementing a genetic algorithm for a computer game. (Thanks for the tip).

We played games today!

What games did we play?

cquire! The game of hotel chains.









ge of Steam! The one with trains!









gricola! With sheeps and more!




ncients! The Commands & Colors War!





Yay! They all started with A!

Monday with teh awesome

Let's see ... at various points we had Me, Chris, Sean, Scott, Tiffany, Jeff and Roy. Dennis was at his "I could totally blow this off and you couldn't do jack about it" dinner, which was probably for the best. No doubt the discovery of Jon will make gruesome national news eventually. But seven was a good turnout. Make do with what you've got.

At one point, we had six people, but I'll just leave that hanging in the air, so as not to annoy.

Among the other games played:

• Air Baron -- I like this, but having London (worth $40) drawn 4 times helps. I don't think I'd suggest this with less than four, though.
  
• Agricola -- Sean and Tiffany, with some help from the Greys.
  
• Masquerade -- Much better with 4 than 3. Hoping to play again, still.
  
• Pandemic -- I'm not sure who won, but I don't think humanity did.
  
• Race for the Galaxy -- I got a pimped out mining league, with racing stripes, which let me pull away from the Alien Tech Institute's lowrider.
  
• Ticket to Ride 1910 -- Sean and I used the 2nd tiebreak. (Did you know TTR has multiple tiebreakers?) Four players instantly started in the mid-atlantic/new england/canada corridor. Much cursing.
  

The discount table was at 75%, but at the beginning of the night there were still a few good games. At the end of the night I decided to use my upcoming plane ticket to arbitrage those bad boys. Rum and Pirates is still there, though, and some people like it. (Ditto California).

There's loose talk of super-secret bonus gaming Weds night at the Drury Hotel (near the airport) where Roy is staying. But it's super-secret.

Monday report

Scott, Chris and I opened with Neuroshima hex. Scott took the middle of the board, with Cowardly Chris and Cowardly I huddled in corners. Surprisingly, this didn't hurt Scott at all. He won. By that point we had added Mr. Hog-abuser and Sean, so played Bohnanza and Pizarro. After that we lost Scott and Chris, and played Pandemic. We were doing really well when humanity died out. Then people wandered off, leaving me to contemplate an evening where my best finish was a clear "not last" iin a single game. Not a victory in sight. So Sean and I talked about all things Disney.

The discount table is at 75%, so people got some things. I picked up Masquerade, which I'm ready to play. It's not complicated, but it's not simple. I've got a summary on my page, to ease the pain. I also got La Citta, mainly to trade or dump on the prize table. I think our group also picked up Manhattan, Manilla, The Primordial Soup expansion and a few others. Still a few minor gems left.

Saturday Roll Call

I started off with Jon and Scott and the federally mandated game of Race. I'm pretty sure that Scott and my combined score beat Jon. Almost positive, in fact. After that Steve and Chris showed up for our US RDA of cylons. Humanity was looking good, so I figured I'd get dealt a cylon in the middle. Which, of course, happened. And (loyal president) Baltar quickly eliminated Boomer as a cylon, which meant I was practically forced to reveal. Anyway, Chris and I had back-to-back turns. Adama had been shot (good times) and boomer was brigged so we got a round or two of running roughshod on skill checks (including incoming nukes). Then the fleet showed up and we put on some boarders. Mainly for giggles. On the down side, humanity got the bonus point of distance which saved them a full jump. Still, wee managed to force the fleet to make a risky jump for the win, and they failed. It came down to a straight 50/50 shot, but both Chris and I had a decent chance to win on our turn, and almost any skill check would have been great.

I like our Roslin fix (and we need to make the Ambush super-crisis fix standard as well ... it only backs up the jump track one space).

After that we had newcomers Karl & Kathy, and Travis. After a caloric interlude, we split into Vinci and Through the Ages. [Actually, we started on Starcraft before Jon put on his Derek Lowe face and muttered something about "a lot of rules."] I must say that the 3rd editions "boards" (instead of card setup) are nice, although they still aren't clear about happiness. Anyway, after getting off to a slow start I Pillaged Karl and razed his two Cathedrals to the ground to make sure he didn't run away with it (and to show what is best in life). Then me and Captain Cook circumnavigated our way to a huge score.

The Vinci people will have to enlighten us on their day.

Anyway, thanks to all who attended. I still need to play Starcraft. Perhaps I'll read the rules again myself.

Public Service Announcement from SABG

#11: Your name is Michael or Dennis.

Brian, Dennis, and I started Monday gaming with a quick game of Glory to Rome in which Dennis picked up two early Legionnaire clients only to see Brian and me throw up Walls to block them. I was able to build a large vault and, using a building that let my Legionnaires take from opponents' clients directly into my vault, stock it with the dead corpses of Dennis' once loyal clients and earn a victory. Fun game that feels like a Race for the Galaxy rollercoaster careening wildly off the rails.

As we finished, Ted, Scott, and Jon showed up and we scratched our heads trying to figure out what game plays well with six. Since Michael wasn't around to help us answer that question, we brainstormed and came up with an answer he would have probably liked--Battlestar Galactica. Dennis took Helo, Scott took Roslyn, Brian grabbed Apollo, Jon took Adama, I played Baltar, and Ted in his first game (another SABGer introduced! The assimilation continues...) took Chief Tyrol. As luck would have it, no cylons were dealt out on the first deal, and the Good Ship Galactica sailed throughout the void with nary an interruption. Ted understandably asked more than once, "Is the game supposed to be this easy? I thought it was supposed to be hard."

Jon steered us to a planet that knocked fuel down into the red with the jump into the sleeper phase, turning me from a Cylon sympathizer into a brigged human sympathizer. With little hope of getting out of the brig (I still had two unrevealed loyalty cards), I used Baltar's once-a-game detector power from the brig to check Dennis' cards (I thought he was a Cylon from the get-go, but I was wrong; he's just a suspicious guy) and discovered that he was, indeed, a frakkin' toaster. As Brian pointed out, "Of course you're going to say he's a Cylon, no matter what he is!" So, even though Dennis was quickly arrested, I didn't earn anyone's trust with my discovery and stayed in the brig for most of the game. After Scott, Brian, and Jon all passed on opportunities to hose the humans after the sleeper phase, suspicion settled on Ted, who was likewise summarily arrested. Dennis revealed shortly thereafter, but Ted, unsure of who to trust, kept his identity secret until Galactica was well on its way to Kobol. Several Cylon base stars came out near the end, but the humans had gathered a full head of steam and could not be stopped, nuking one base star and waving at the other as we sailed on to our destination with a comfortable 5-5-5-5 human victory.

Asking a new player to play a Cylon on their first play of this game is a pretty tall order, especially when the entire game is one of "I don't trust you...or you...or you" and you just don't have a feel for what the right thing is to do in a given situation. Hopefully we haven't scared Ted off too much from BSG--it gets better when you've got a game or two under your belt and you know what to expect.

Still, it's an easy game when you know how to Spot The Cylon. Look for the guy named Michael. If he's not around, it's Dennis. We don't need no stinkin' spinner.

Jeff showed up toward the end, and we split 5-2, with Dennis and Scott going off to play Up Front, and the rest of us breaking out Ted's copy of Princes of Florence. Most of us started off leaving Jeff in the dust on the VP track with our early works. However, several bonus cards helped him start scoring exponentially, and at the end he managed to finish not-last, beating me by a few points as I overbid on several items and had to drop VPs to get enough gold to play my last work. Ted finished third, and Jon edged out Brian for the win with his "build lots of parks" strategy.

Scott, Jeff, and Ted departed, and Brian, Dennis, Jon and I finished with several rounds of Race for the Galaxy.

Good to see the turnout we had. Mondays have really picked up again the last month or two.

Saturday Gaming

Scott & Tiffany showed up for the afternoon of gaming. Scott arrived earlier, so we played the "Meeting of Patrols" scenario from Up Front. Scott's Russians got off an early sniper shot against my 2nd in command as the squads moved forward. For the life of me, I couldn't get my squads to move into a good defensive setup until after I had also lost my machine-gunner. One of Scott's squads got lost following a stream, but I had to spend some time to rebalance my setup. Eventually Scott's Right Flank squad was right on top of the Germans, but paniced and pinned. People were running around, fighting in hand to hand, and generally dying. But the center flank of the Russians were setup nearby in some buildings and eventually managed to break the Germans. Both sides lost about 6 people, but the larger Russian squads can handle that better...

We then setup Le Havre and played a 3 player game. Scott managed to do very well despite not having a ship for most of the game. The overall point spread was respectable, 200-180-175 (or so). Scott had the lion's share of the buildings, but I managed to ship goods twice (for about 75 points). Still liking that.

Then we played a quick game of "Maus Nach Haus." Aidan explained the rules and almost won. We finished up with Euphrat und Tigris. An odd game, all six monuments were built (and early), so I think that was the highest scoring game I've ever seen.

Cylon Wedding

Our first game (after Race) was .... BSG. Big shock. Jacqui, Travis, Chris, Dennis and Me. We had no cylons off the deal. After a horrific start (with something like one jump in the first 6 cards despite scouting and Roslin's power). As I declared in the middle of the game, I was destined to became a cylon with a brutal human victory.

So I becamse a cylon ... the only good news was that Dennis jumped on his turn right before my turn, and I was admiral. So I could pick a horrible jump, reveal (brigging the others) and hope. So I jump into an ambush, and Dennis's crisis forces him to brig someone if he fails. D'OH! So no brigging anyone for me. I did get the "Massive Assault" super-crisis, but it was too late. I never got another turn. Chris revealed as Roslin, which was a mistake, but the humans were going to win.

The second game added Michael and Tiffany and subtracted Dennis and Travis. I was Roslin and a cylon off the deal. Another horrible start, but with a sudden jump and cleared. I did some minor tweaking on the crisis deck, but basically played it straight, trusting the Maker to provide a good knife point. After the jump things got confusing a bit. I let Chris (as Boomer) get out of the brig. The problem was that he very well could have been a Cylon, so I wasn't sure what to do. Jacqui revealed on her turn, and it was open. I decided not to reveal on my turn, since Roslin's ability was so good, and re-brigged Boomer via Presidential Order. Then disaster struck. Both crisis cards I drew were a: non-jumps and b: not really horrible. [33 when lots of cylons were already on the board, and something else]. So now people were pretty sure it was me. (Adama jumped into an ambush or something to keep doubt alive for a bit).

But it didn't really matter. Boomer was in the brig, Michael grabbed the presidency and played two executive orders to boost morale, but forgot to assign the VP. Since I wasn't in the brig, I re-ran for president and won, and gave up all pretense of Humanity. I got to take advantage of a "President chooses" and generally messed things up. In the end, the married Cylons prevailed. Roslin is just immensely powerful.

After that Michael, Chris and I played Le Havre. I liked it, butI'll have to play a few more games to decide if on if it's good, great, or other. A few games of Race rounded out the evening.

In other news FFG published some variants, including a "No sympathizer" variant. (You start with a few less resources, and Cylons draw 3 cards instead of 2. I think that perhaps the Alexfrog/7 Spirit variant may address that better... reduce, food/pop/morale by one, the first cylon to reveal gets two super-crisis cards, the last cylon to reveal gets to take an cylon action after revealing...). I don't like the gami-ness of the Sympathizer, since it forces humans to act like Cylons and vice-versa.

The REAL Cylon Detector

It looks like a mere finger spinner.

Looks are deceiving.

I have seen Dennis unleash the might of this futuristic technology at the beginning of two Battlestar Galactica games. "To choose who goes first," he says. But clearly, it's no simple trinket but a technological marvel that always points to magnetic northEVIL.

Both times, he has brought it out and set it to work BEFORE the loyalty cards are dealt out, giving each of us our roles.

Saturday's Battlestar Galactica game: the finger spins and stops at Steve.
The cards are then dealt. Result? Steve is a Cylon.

Monday's Battlestar Galactica game: the finger spins and stops at Michael.
The cards are then dealt. Result? Michael is a Cylon (oh, and the Pope is Catholic).

DETECTION RATE: 100%

I recommend everyone to carry at least one of these things. You never know when you may have a Cylon in your midst. (Well, if Michael's around, you KNOW, but besides that...)

Monday night saw our attempt at a 7 player game (Scott, Dennis, Michael(cylon), Sean (playing his first game and, of course, being a Cylon), Jon, me and Brian) and it seems to work well. The dials increased by one also seems to be a good break point, as both times I've seen it played with dials at start position +1 at the beginning, it has been a narrow human victory (although I agree with Michael that Monday's game was not quite as close as the dials would indicate). I think I'm ready for some variant goodness.

Tiffany brought her friend Raquel to the group and played Tikal with her. Unfortunately, our BG game ran fairly long, and we didn't get to play games with Raquel or get to talk to her much. Hopefully, she makes a return appearance and we can find some fun stuff for her to play with the group.

Sean brought Wasabi! and taught Tiff and me how to play. Cute game with good production, easy rules and some player interaction in a short period of time. Short games always seem to go over pretty well in our group.

(On BGG, they say that you can pass without playing ingredients and instead discard as many recipes as you want as a legal move. This prevents the logjam of having recipes you can't legally complete, which just didn't seem to make much sense.)

Brian, Michael and Dennis Raced around the Galaxy several times, and Jon, Scott, Sean, and Brian got in a game of Dominion as well.

Dennis and I picked up our new WoW mini deluxe starter kits, and Tiff found a Harry Potter book. Just trying to keep DL in business.

In other news, I'm putting in my game order tomorrow night (shopping around for the best deal). Here's what I've got so far:
Me: Dominion and Neuroshima Hex
Michael the Cylon: Dominion
Jeff: possibly Race, possibly some other things
Tiff: possibly some games

Send me Geekmail or email or whatever before about 10pm tomorrow night and I'll add you in.