Game night Sept. 22, 2006

Friday Sept. 22, 2006

Friday night was game night for the AZ Boardgamers and the Gamer's Inn. We had also arranged to play a game of Memoir 44 - Overlord style. There were a number of people that were interested in trying this out and really looking forward to it. I started the night out playing a quick game of Schnäppchen Jagd with Noah and his brother Miles. Technically, it was not a real Schnäppchen Jagd deck, but one I put together from two Corsari decks. This is a fun little trick taking game with three players. Miles somehow killed us both. By then, a number of other players had arrived, including Jason S. I had asked Jason for a rematch in Backgammon (he had destroyed me earlier in the year). Backgammon is a classic game that I enjoy a lot, but don't play very often. The first game, I rolled a lot of ones and couldn't get my back pieces out to save my life. The next game, I rolled a lot of sixes, but most of the time it didn't matter because Jason had blocked out most of those moves. A few more players had rolled in, so we called it a match. Some day I'll give him a decent run. Jason and I joined (or were joined by) Steve, Scott, Rich, and Rob for a game of Power Grid (specifically Funkenschlag Atolla Modulis). I brought out my boards and we set about creating a nice map. I picked an area that I thought would give me good chances to get to 14 cities, but that also didn't look attractive enough that I'd have to fight with too many others. I put myself in good position throughout the game, but made a mistake in ending up with three coal plants and spent too much for resources to afford to build to 15 cities. Steve, who had the good fortune of picking the cheapest spot on the board, and competing against Rich (who has only played a couple time) meant that he was able to power 15 cities easily.

After a short break, it was on to the main event - Overlord Memoir 44. The teams were: Axis - Jason S (Supreme Commander), Matthew, Rob, and Bobby, Allies - Jason M (Supreme Commander), Dion, myself, and Matt. We sat down, layed out the game and went over the rules. Three of us (myself, Matt Cullinan and Matthew) were new to the game, and nobody had played the Overlord version. But, most of us were familiar enough with the system that we were able to jump right in. It ended being a pretty tight game. Both sides had a bad string of dice rolls just when it would have let us put the game out of reach. Fortune was smiling on the Allies this night though, as Jason M managed to get a large number of good cards that let us pull ahead at the end. Everyone agreed that the game had been quite fun and we all vowed to do this again.

After sorting the two games back into two games, we sat down for a quick game of Bang!. Playing were Scott, Jason S, Jason M, Matt, Matthew, Dion, and myself. Turned out to be far quicker game than anyone thought. I ended up as sheriff, and within a couple turns, Jason S (as Billy the Kid) opened up with his volcanic ability and took me right out. Given how fast that game was, we opted for another fast card game to end the night - Frank's Zoo in partnerships. My first hand was a good indicator of how the game was to go - I had two mosquitos, no elephants and a lot of crappy singles. Thankfully, the game ended after 3-4 hands.