Game Night (Wherein Mike and Charles Have a Few Laughs)

Friday - Jan. 25, 2008
Mike Garrett and I headed out to the Game Shoppe for a bit of gaming. They were having a Ticket to Ride tourney, but I didn't think Mike had much interest, and so I brought a load of stuff to play with Mike and his friend Mike Linder. When we all were there, I asked Mike what he was up for and told him what I had brought - he said we can either play Starcraft or a whole lot of other games. Well, it was no surprise to me that he choose Starcraft. We saw Scott sitting around not playing Ticket to Ride, so we invited him to join us, and another of guy Mike knew named Conrad Engel also joined us. We pulled out the game, picked sides and I started in on the rules. The players /factions were: Charles/Green/Zerg, Mike G/Blue/Terran, Mike L/Orange/Protoss, Scott/Red/Terran, Conrad/Purple/Zerg. As I was going through the rules, another guy Scott knew (Tom) joined us for the 6th player (Tom/Yellow/Protoss). Having played before, I started as first player - Mike G the only other player to have tried out the game would be second. We got setup with a fairly interesting board. Unfortunately for me and Mike L/Orange, we both drew the only two worlds without a conquest point space on our first draws. This ended up being really bad for Mike L/Orange, as his second world was the two area world, leaving him resource short to start the game. I ended up a bit on the fringe and was happy. We played through two rounds and then Mike G pointed out something to me that we had both overlooked in our first playing - special victory conditions can only happen in the 3rd stage of the game. We had taken that to mean the third phase (place order, execute orders, regroup) and had thus ended our first game really early. Mike and I both looked at each other and laughed, realizing that we hadn't been planning on the game lasting this long. We both immediately took a turn to regroup and concentrate on upgrades. We also agreed not to tell the Justins until we had to. The fighting started almost immediately, with yellow attacking randomly. This proved to be his downfall, as he got immediately squashed (and eliminated) by Conrad/purple. This turned out to give the game to Conrad, who then spent the rest of the game turtled in his Zerg swarm with his special victory condition in place, and a good lead on us in the conquest points. The rest of us were busy battling back and forth. After about 4 turns, Scott had to leave, but his place was taken by Sam who had played three times before, so he jumped right in. Interestingly enough, we corrected him on a couple rules, which probably changed the game for him a bit, he also didn't have much of a chance having to take over for someone else. He did managed to nearly eliminate Mike/Orange. Mike/Orange somehow managed to stay alive and then hoped to try and last to 15 before the third stage could hit. It was not to be, and after 6 turns, we hit the third stage. Conrad had been pulling as many event cards as he could to speed up the game and it worked. four of us hit our victory conditions but we were all at least 3 points behind Conrad. It was a long game, but I'm still pretty sure that if everyone knows the rules, its maybe 45 min a player. My only real complaint so far is that the game takes up a huge amount of space - more than any game I know.
We finished up and Mike grabbed Ca$h and Gun$, which was the same brain-refresher we needed after the last Starcraft game. Sam left, and we were joined by Becky and her boyfriend Heath. The smack talk started before we even had all the pieces out and we were laughing the rest of the game. A good end to the night (plus I won).

** Um, I didn't win. Mike G and I tied. Then of course the tie breaker is the guy with the least shame (tie) and then the guy with the most wounds. Of course, I hadn't been shot, but Mike had, and he won.