Game Night Oct 6, 2006

Friday Oct. 6, 2006 - Gamer's Inn
This night of gaming turned out to be quite enjoyable as I got in a couple games I really enjoy in addition to playing three new ones. I arrived at the Inn at nearly the same time as Jason Sato and Bobby Warren. We were joined shortly after that by Jerry, so I pulled out Quandary for the four of us. This is the Milton Bradley production of the Knizia card game Flinke Pinke/Loco. I had purchased this one off EBay a while back and finally got it to the table. Standard Knizia stuff here and Bobby pulled out a win and I was very much in last place. For some reason, it takes me about 3-4 play before I figure out Knizia games regardless of how simple the game.

Noah and Miles Antwiller had arrived along with some others, so Noah joined us for Acquire. This is another game that I've never played, even though I had "acquired" the game back in February from Bobby for making him Atolla Modulus. I had read the rules before, so just needed a bit of a reminder and off we went. Despite playing with a bunch of sharks, I managed to pull out a commanding win.

As we finished Acquire, Matthew Frederick showed up with his newly revised Ants of Steam map for Age of Steam he had done a few minor tweaks to the map and redone all the graphics - it looked really good. We played another five player game (Matt Cullinan joined Noah, Jason, Matthew and I) and it played exceptionally well. Sounds like it'll be going to some other groups for playtesting, though I think its probably pretty close.

Next up on the plate was another game that was new to me. Jason had brought Vinci, as Matthew had put together an alternate map for him. He got it out as the five of us all sat down to play. With a brief explanation of the various civ powers, I found Vinci quite easy to pick up. It was pretty interesting, but I could definitely see how there is a kingmaker problem at the end of the game.

Our last game of the night is one I think is often overlooked due to its bright colors and dice combat - Nexus Ops. Looking back, I was surprised to discover this was my only play of this so far this year. The game is quickly played and has enough interesting tactical decisions to make we want to play again and again. For this game it was Matthew, Jason, Steve Bauer and I. I jumped out to an early lead with 4pts in mission cards after two quick fights. Jason and Matthew each score 3pts shortly after leaving Steve to lament his slow start. It didn't take long for Steve to make a move and roar into first place. Matthew left me an opening and I was able to score 4 more pts with one fight. At the end of that turn, I pulled a 4pt mission card! Of course the mission was more than impossible - take two dragons from the monolith and move them to an opponents home base and win a fight for a 3 mine. Needless to say, that didn't happen. I was able to score two more pts in an easy fight, but by then Steve had walked away with the win.