Geekway to the West 2010 - Sunday and Wrapup

The last day of the Geekway went quietly. Nathan Winchester and I had a flight at 2:00, which meant leaving about noon. We had no real plans, but Nathan and Jason Easley had a Crokinole match to be played at some point. We found Steve Wicklund wandering about and decided to try and get something played with him until Jason and "My Little Pony" could show up for their Crokinole match.

Since there were exactly three of us and I couldn't find End of the Triumvirate in the library, I went with the three-player standby: San Marco. Steve had played before but needed a quick refresher and then off we went. I was still a bit tired, but this was a good wake-me-up. For once, I wasn't in the lead of this game after two rounds and thus was able to team up with Steve to BASH Nathan in the third round. It was pretty tight down the line, but Nathan did manage to hold on by a single point to finish the game with a win.

San Marco is one of the best three player games out there. It technically plays four, but I have yet to play it that way. The game is a simple area control game, but the genius of the game is the actions that are available each round. Random cards are drawn and then sorted into three piles by player A. Player B then chooses  a stack and executes their actions. Then Player C does the same. Player A (the divider) gets whichever stack is left over. Then the roles switch and you do it some more. A number of actions in the game can deliver points to other players, so when playing three ways, its almost always best to give the losing player points. Thus games are typically close. Three is always an odd number for gaming, but this is one game I have for exactly that number.

After San Marco, Nathan and Jason sat down and got their rears handed to them in much the same way Justin and I did by the My Little Pony team. While they were playing, The Game Nite store folks showed up to their booth with a couple of copies of Bisikle. Bisikle is a game I had heard about and was interested in. Basically, it is a dexterity race game - similar in idea to Pitchcar. The biggest difference being that instead of a puck, you are flicking a ZBall - a marble with a unique internal mechanism of weighted ball bearings which allow for some unique controlled shots. Anyway, I had done some looking and the game runs about $40 online (plus shipping). However, Game Nite was also selling it for $40 - 15% off! With tax, I got the game for less than $40. Justin wondered what I was buying and I explained it to him and he went ahead and snagged their other copy. I was quite pleased. A good way to wrap up the Geekway.

One thing I forgot to talk about - the trade table from Saturday. I had brought out 4 games that I hoped not to bring home: Hoity Toity, Gulo Gulo, Tales of the Arabian Nights, and Hamburgum (which I got off the trade table LAST YEAR). Steve heard I was dumping Hoity Toity and asked for it, so I sold it to him. I was selling Gulo Gulo to John Davis, so for the trade table I had Tales and Hamburgum. I hoped to move Tales as it is insanely heavy and I didn't want to ship it. Hamburgum is really a long box, so shipping that wasn't ideal either. As it turned out, Hamburgum was a pretty early pick - before Tales! With an early pick I quickly scanned the table and decided to go with a package deal of Amyitis and Municipium. Shortly after that pick, I got choosen again and went with another combo of Lost Valley, Space Dealer and Castle Merchants (Castle Merchants becoming my yearly donation to the game library). Sadly, I missed Paths of Glory on the table or I'd have likely taken that instead of one of the packages. Oh well. With my new bundles of games and Bisikle, I still came home 3-4 lbs lighter in games.

Nathan and I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare (especially since the plane was late coming in). We finished up our game of Twilight Struggle we had started Friday morning - I was able to really jump all over a load of points in the fourth round while there was nothing Nathan could do.

And that's it. That was our Geekway. As usual, we didn't play 2/3 of the things we wanted to. I did get to play a number of new games (though for the most part they were disappointing this year). I got to play some old favorites, though no really big games. Oh well. This was one of the smoothest Geekways yet. Unfortunately, neither Nathan nor I won a door prize nor a play to win game - again, oh well. Next year they may be adding another day and expanding the space. I hope so