Geekway to the West 2009 - Saturday

Finally getting around to posting about day two of the Geekway. Saturday is always interesting, because for us, its the last day and there is a ton of stuff going on. There are tourneys and of course the trade table. The trade table lets you put in 1-10 games and after everyone has a game in, they draw one lucky starter. That person gets to pick a game and then the person that got picked picks one and so forth until the table is empty. This year's table took about 10 hours for them to get through, but went smoothly. I took three games out this year: Shear Panic, Scotland Yard, and Qwirkle. Shear Panic was an ok game that I had played once, liked and traded for. Then had NEVER even pulled it off my shelf. I decided this was a good time to trade this, as I wouldn't have to ship the fragile pieces. I had received notice that Qwirkle Cubes had been released, so I ordered those before leaving and decided to get rid of Qwirkle. The wooden blocks in Qwirkle were too irregular for me and the colors were too hard to see in dim light - the cubes looked to be much brighter (they are a bit brighter). Lastly, Scotland Yard was a thrift find (the box was a bit worn, but the contents were like new) and I had another copy, so I decided to trade off the large box version here rather than try and ship it later. Qwirkle went early (to my surprise) and I grabbed a NIS copy of Hamburgum. A decent trade up, even if I just trade it away later. It took a while before I got a second pick, which ended up happening when Shear Panic was taken. At that point, there were a lot of bundles (not appealing since I had a limited space to take things back) and a lot of stuff I already had. I ended up taking a NIS copy of Arkham Horror. Ultimately tradable and I missed it a little. Now, Scotland yard was getting to be a really late pick. By the time it got taken, there wasn't much left on the table - however there was one thing I wanted. Scream Machine. Since I got Scotland Yard as a thrift find, it was an equal trade for me (and a huge trade up in space).
Before I begin the session reports: Yippie Aye A - Mini Sirloin Burgers. Game on - Galaxy Trucker! - 6:30 AM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter Saturday morning we arrived and I grabbed Galaxy Trucker off the Play to Win table as a good starter for us (Jason Easley, Justin Easley, Nathan Winchester and I). All of us had played before except Nathan, so we explained the rules and got started. The first round was quick and uneventful, but in the second round Justin had a small mistake which I caught while examining his ship. He had not flipped his board, so we had to redo round two. Then, in the third round, things got interesting. Galaxy Trucker. Nathan 51, Charles 44, Jason 35, Justin 24 and finished the last race with only his start pod. - 7:56 AM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter Jason started by almost immediately cutting of the right side of his ship. Then during the race, Justin's ship was picked apart until he had only his starting cabin and a sole survivor. He lucked out and there was not any open space left and he sailed across (drifted across) the line. He even managed to win the beauty prize as his four exposed sides were the least of all of us. Nathan managed to squeak out the win here and it was a good start to the day.

Age of Steam - Scand. Jay Moore, Michael Pennisi, Nathan and myself - 8:40 AM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter Next up for the day was a scheduled game of Age of Steam with Jay Moore. Neither Easleys felt like playing, so Nathan and I found Jay and he also grabbed Michael Pennisi to join us. We had a lot of maps to choose from and settled on Scandinavia. Jay, Nathan, and I all spent money early to get a sea lane, while Mike worked by himself on setting up a line across the bottom of the map. The sea lanes are not nearly as important as in Ireland and for the cost, are hit or miss. Mike struggled for the first couple rounds, but after that he was in great shape (as is usual when someone gets left alone in AoS). In the end, he won by exactly the amount he saved by taking less shares than me. Age of Steam final - charles 57, mike-69, Nathan-23, jay-45 - 11:08 AM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter

Crokinole vs chad stierwalt and bobby stierwalt. We won 100+ to 35. - 12:09 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter After the AoS game, we managed to get in our first Crokinole match of the day in Chester's Crokinole tournament. Justin and I played against the father-son combo of Chad and Bobby Stierwalt. We actually only played one game (not recognizing that it was best two of three), which we won. Later in the day, we realized the error and finished the match with a super fast game where Justin and I nailed a number of center shots. The board we played on was significantly slower than what I was used to, and it took me a while to not short shot everything. None of us were great, but we all had a good time.

Pulled Bombay from the play to win table to try out - 12:10 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter The Easley brothers and Nathan and I were trying to figure out what to play next, so I pulled Bombay off the Play to Win table. This Ystari game certain looks nice, so I thought we should give it a try. Though I don't have an official "Stinker of Geekway" award, this would be the 2009 winner for all of us (Manilla wins for last year). As we setup and went through the rules, Jay Little noticed us playing and pointed out that by passing each round, you could score 18 points and thus any score less than that should be considered an abysmal failure. Well, as it turned out, the scores were 18-18-18-14 (Nathan won the tiebreaker if anyone cares - we didn't). Nothing about the game was really compelling and we were all a little disappointed. Bombay is basically a pickup and deliver game that is short and with a bit of hidden scoring. Sounds good. Looks good. Nothing special. Bombay - Nathan 18(win), Charles 18, Justin 14, Jason 18. Jay Little pointed out that we could have passed and scored 18 points... - 12:41 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter

Next up is Confucius from the Play to win table. - 1:02 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter On the flip side of that stinker was this beauty - Confucius. This was also a Play to Win game that not many people checked out. Likely because nobody knew what it was. I wish we had played this first, because I would have liked another play of it. We pulled it down and started going through the rules, which took us forever. The rules are a bit wordy and filled with examples, we had trade table stuff going on in the middle - plus Justin and I had to finish our Crokinole match. However, once we got going, we had a great time. This is something of a action/worker placement game with a Chinese theme (duh). There are a limited amount of ways to earn victory points which makes things tight (most of the points are not awarded until the end of the game, so there isn't always a clear idea of who is leading either). The game also has a unique system where players can buy and then give gifts to other players, obligating them to you (or you to them). In many cases, the obligation is mutually beneficial and there are a number of ways to cancel the obligation. We all really liked this one and it moved to my must buy list. Nathan won a close game by a point, with the scores being 16-15-14-13. Rules on Confucius took forever for a number of interruptions - however, the game is pretty fun. This is now a for sure wanted item. - 3:20 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitterCrokinole round two coming up. The Droids UR Looking 4 (us) vs team War Rocket Ajax (Chester Ogborn and scott reed) - 3:33 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitterSomewhere in the middle of this game, Justin and I took 5 minutes of time out to go get killed by Scott Reed and Chester Ogborn in Crokinole. Like we had done to the Stierwalts, Scott did to us - center shot after center shot. It was bad. Totally schooled by War Rocket Ajax in Crokinole - 4:59 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter

Playing Chicago Express with Justin, Jason, And Nathan now. I still blow at this game - 5:01 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter Nathan wanted another shot at Chicago Express and I wanted another entry in it for the Play to Win table, so we grabbed this again. I warned Nathan that the four-player game would be dramatically different this time around. In fact, this game was unlike any of the other CE games I have played. Justin won red, Jason green, Nathan blue and I won yellow. I went before Nathan and managed to cut off blue almost immediately. We also diluted red immediately. Justin ended up with only one more share (yellow) the entire game. Where this got weird is that Justin managed to manipulate the game to an ending about 5 turns in. Despite his two stocks, he lost by only a point. I wasn't paying attention and bid on a share right before he ended the game. Had I not done that, I'd have easily won instead of placing fourth. Jason realized a nice win here, with Nathan being in a mostly confused 3rd. There are a lot of things that shape the game, including the initial turn order and seating at the table and initial line growth. I'm starting to see the strategies here and much like Samurai - once it started to click for me, became even more interesting. This has now moved into my top 10 games.

Crokinole - Nathan and me vs the Easley's - 5:56 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter Justin and Jason were planning to take off for the night (and con), so I talked them into a quick match of Crokinole to finish the Geekway (for them). Nathan and I took on the brothers and we squeaked out a win. This is really a great team game and can be played really quickly. I'm glad Chester was able to get a tourney going for the Geekway this year. After we were done, we went and grabbed a quick bite at Taco Bell and then said our goodbyes. I had a great time playing with those Easley brothers and wish they were closer as I really like playing games with them. Hopefully we'll see them again at a convention next year.

Going to try out 2 de Mayo - 7:33 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter Nathan had been wanting to try 2 de Mayo all weekend, but it had constantly been checked out. We finally were able to track it down and try it out. Basically, its an abstract (one guy tries to keep all his pieces on the board, the other has to move his to certain spots AND eliminate the other guy) themed around something that happened in Madrid on May 2nd 1808 between the French and Spanish. I'm the French - better just give up now - 7:41 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter I was the French and needed to surrender immediately (that's what they do, right?). Failed to kill all the guys and Nathan's spanish won - 8:16 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter I didn't manage to eliminate Nathan, nor did I effectively use my powers and lost by a wide margin after 10 turns. This one had a lot of plays and I need to give it another chance, but that evening I was tired and the game didn't impress me much.

Last effort to get in something - I taught him to play Race For the Galaxy. We got through the rules and played 1 card - 9:35 PM Apr 25th from TinyTwitter Nathan had asked about Race for the Galaxy - there had been a tourney and so on - so with about 15 minutes left before we had to go, I grabbed this and went through the rules for Nathan. Not really a play, but at least he got an idea of what the game is. I'm sure I'd have to re-explain before we could play again, but he got the jist of it.

Nice Service

I placed a pre-order for Timber Tom a while back (sadly after they sold out the allotted North America quota). The arrival date was listed as May, so being as I really want to get my hands on this, I shot an email off yesterday asking when we might expect this out the door. This morning I received a call and the caller identified himself from Lyon, France - which completely threw me for a loop as I know nobody in France. After a second it hit me and the caller explained that there had been a delay in production on the second edition and that he'd be sending me a copy from his first edition stock he had on hand. Now, I really want this game, but I understand the hobby and would have understood an email explaining there was a production delay. I'm actually blown away to have received an international phone call explaining the situation and even happier to know I'll be getting my game soon (assuming that the international carrier doesn't bone me again like they did with Le Havre). Kudos to Marco Bing.

Qwirkle Cubes

Woo hoo! Qwirkle Cubes arrived today. Qwirkle was ok, but I had issues with the production quality. Despite that, I liked what I had seen from the shots of the cubes, so I ordered it and traded Qwirkle away over the weekend at the Geekway. So the first thing that surprised me when I opened the package was the size of the box. I'm not sure why I'd have expected huge cubes, but I was, so dice sized cubes threw me off. That's not really bad news, it just wasn't what I expected for some reason. Anyway, the good news is the quality is really decent here. The colors are strong (though I wonder if they will be just as hard to see in dim light since the cubes are black) and consistent and the cubes appear to be uniform (like you'd expect with a die). I hope to get a game in tonight and see how the game plays. Its also smaller and lighter (and still has a draw bag to keep them in). The only bad news? The box is small enough that you have to literally stack them to get them back in - no dumping here. That's ok, I'll just use the bag.

Geekway to the West 2009

The Geekway 2009 Cast

Justin Easley	Jason Easley	Nathan Winchester	Bobby Stierwalt	Chad Stierwalt	Chester Ogborn	Jay Little
Jay Moore	Jon McDunn	Joshua Hessel	Lisa Padala	Michael Pennisi	Randy Sallwaser	Todd Dewitt

The Geekway to the West is a gaming convention in St. Louis, MO. I went last year due to being within driving distance of Omaha, NE and Illinois, where both Justin and Jason Easley reside. We had a great time and decided to go back again this year. I also talked Nathan Winchester into going out with me. This year I also chose to use a little technology to log everything and I created a Twitter account just for the purpose. So without further ado, here is the account of our journey.

nathan locked the keys in the running car at the airport. had to wait for guy to jimmy the car so niecy could drive home - 5:34 PM Apr 23rd from TinyTwitter The adventure began with Nathan and his fiance Niecy picking me up to take us to the airport. When we got there, Nathan managed to lock the keys in the car (while it was running), so we had a slight delay while we waited for someone to come open the car. Luckily we had loads of time, so after that was all said in done, we headed upstairs where Nathan bought a coffee and then realized we couldn't go through security with it. So we sat down in the Starbucks and I pulled out Hive (we played with the mosquito). I haven't played this a lot, so I pretty much had no strategy and just played it by ear. It appeared to work as my grasshoppers managed to hold Nathan in check until I could surround him for the win. flight delayed but beat nathan at Hive - 6:28 PM Apr 23rd from TinyTwitter Our flight was an hour delayed, which meant we were going to be getting in REALLY late (with the time change, it'd be like 2:00AM).

played twilight struggle on the plane (me US). nathan was on the ropes until the 8th round. he realigned w.germany then scored europe to win - 11:34 PM Apr 23rd from TinyTwitter Waiting wasn't bad though because I had printed out and laminated copies of the Twilight Struggle travel boards. We found a spot, had a beer and started a game. Nathan chose to play the USSR again (as he had when I taught him the game). We managed about 3-4 turns before having to get onto our flight. Once we were in the air, we continued the game. Everytime I'd get a good lead going, Nathan would have huge point swings. It was a good game of me dinking away at him and him gobbling up chunks of points. Going into the 8th round, I had managed to get back up on him by 10 points, only to see him break my hold on West Germany, which he translated into full control of Europe. Seeing the end coming, I could do nothing to stop him from winning as he played his Europe scoring card. All in all, a good gaming start to a long weekend. Unfortunately it meant we didn't sleep on the plane at all and didn't really get to bed until about 2:30AM local time. Our plan was to get up and have breakfast and hit the con early the next day which meant probably only 4-5 hours of sleep for us.

7:55AM - no easleys yet - 5:56 AM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter The Geekway opened at 8:00, but Justin and Jason were driving in and just like last year, weren't at the hotel on time for us to be first in line! No big deal since I knew there'd be plenty of gaming. I only mention this, because Justin called me to ask if I was still half asleep when he texted me, to which I was a bit confused as I hadn't been texting with Justin at all. He laughed at me like I was pulling something over on him, but I genuinely had no clue what he was talking about. When they finally arrived he explained what happened as something like this.

Justin (text to Charles): Is the plan still for us to pick you up?
"Charles": WTF?
Justin (text to Charles): Do you still need us to swing by and pick you up?
"Charles": Who is this?
Justin (text to Charles): Your Mom!
"Charles": I think you have the wrong number...

At which point he called me and the above conversation took place. Well, it turns out he was sending text messages to my old Union Pacific work cell number. I wonder who ended up with my old phone...

9:00 ice flow - jason, justin, nathan, me - 7:05 AM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter Well, we (Justin Easley, Jason Easley, Nathan Winchester and I) finally did get checked in and there was about double the number of folks that there were at 9:00AM last year there already. We took a look at the Play to Win table (which was LOADED with great games) and I pulled Ice Flow off it as a good starter game. Having been the only person to have played, I quickly went over the rules (making sure to get the bouncing polar bear rule correct this time). As expected, the game still felt the same overall - slowing a bit in the middle with an overly sudden end. 9:19 pulled out Exxtra to play during down time - 7:20 AM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter I had brought along my new copy of Excape (Exxtra) and actually pulled this out to play on the side during our game of Ice Flow. It worked pretty well playing both games and we'd just do our Excape turn right after we'd finish our Ice Flow turn. nathan wins ice flow. justin and I tied at 20 in exxtra - he rolls first - 8:06 AM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter Well, Nathan managed to win Ice Flow and Excape came down to me and Justin tied at 19 or 20 - except that he was going to get to roll first and he hit another double-3 (like his 5th) for the win there.

30 minutes of rules - ready to start Conan. - 11:23 AM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter. We had wanted to get Age of Conan to the table early on during the convention (since it was on the Play to Win table). So after finishing Ice Flow we grabbed this beast and sat down to the rules. The rules were not terribly long or complicated and after pretty much just a straight reading we got started. The bits are really pretty decent here (the exception being the purple emissaries which are not mounted units so I confused them with the army guys regularly) and there are loads of cards, thick chits and dice. Pretty much your standard Fantasy Flight quality game. Bits aside, the game itself is a strange mix of Ameritrash (lots of dice rolling for combat) and Euro game play. I like the occasional AT type game, so that didn't really bother me, but I didn't fall in love with it either. two hours later - about 1/2 way through Conan.
starting exxtra again - 11:24 AM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter Conan was a little slow at first (it isn't instantly obvious where the points are going to come from here) so I pulled Excape out again for another side game. done with Age of Conan. me 25, justin 22, nathan 21, jason 15 - 12:55 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter conan ok - would be faster 2nd time. its one of those once in a while games. - 1:00 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter Once we were about 1/2 way through Conan, it did speed up a lot and I can see future playings being much faster (even if I was teaching this to 3 new players), though I doubt I'll see this on the table again anytime in the near future since I do not own it. justin bet we'd all crap out in exxtra. and we did - 1:14 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter As for our side game, we all wound around the score track and anyone could have won the game. Justin sat a 6-4 on the 1-pt rung and watched us all crap out for the win.

playing Roll through the ages now - its a dicey-day so far - 1:29 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter We'd been playing Conan for so long, we all wanted something light and quick before we headed out to eat, so we grabbed Roll Through the Ages off the Play to Win table. Now, here is a game that is clearly a weak re-theme attempt. Its Yahtzee. Seriously. You roll three times and score something on your score sheet with the results. I was so bored, I wanted to play ANOTHER game of Excape during my non-turns. Roll Through the Ages: charles 37, jason 17, justin 19, nathan 34 - time to eat - 2:17 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter We played one too many rounds, but oh well. I'm ok with To Court the King and other Yahtzee variants, but this was not at all interesting. I'll pass. Not only that, but there were production quality issues with this version (one peg was too large to fit any hole and a number of dice were very light and you couldn't readily see what was on them). Also, there isn't a lot of downtime, but it is there and that'd bad for a game barely holding your interest anyway.

went out to bbq for diner. Jason taking a nap, so we pulled out Chicago Express. - 4:08 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter We headed out to a BBQ joint (yes Matthew, apparently I need to have BBQ when I go to conventions). I was pretty disappointed with the diner - it was ok, but really too dry. Jason wasn't feeling well and took a quick nap in the car afterwords, so I grabbed Chicago Express off the Play to Win table (well, technically not off the play to win table - I checked it out of the library, but the rule was if you played the game, you could enter to win). I really like this game a lot. I have yet to play two games that felt the same. Some are long and others are really really fast. I am so bad at Chicago express - 4:40 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter And yes, I do suck at the game regardless. Inevitably, I'll be in an auction and feel damned if I win it and know I've lost when I don't. Such a good game.
Since this game ended up just being Nathan, Justin and I, I really had no clue how to play it and just got killed. Game over: Charles 99, nathan 116, justin 128 - 5:21 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter I really enjoy the Queen edition of this, as I like what they did with the map - it makes explaining the game much much easier. I've gotten to where I can rip out how to play this (though not how to win it) now.

Ca$h and Gun$ with my new friends: Randy Sallwaser, Nathan, Lisa Padala, Todd Dewitt, Joshua Hessel - 5:42 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter Nathan and I then we trying to wrangle Jay Moore into a game of Age of Steam. Jason and Justin didn't feel up to AoS, so they headed off to find something else to do. As it turned out, Jay had something going on and we instead planned to play the next morning. Chester Ogborn wandered by and mentioned having room for two in a game of Planet Steam in about an hour, so Nathan and I reserved the spots. In the meantime, we were standing around as a group started calling for players for Ca$h and Gun$. Everyone got introduced and Randy and Todd explained the game to everyone that hadn't played before. taken 2 wounds already I'm toast - 5:50 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter Wow. It sure didn't take me long to rack up two wounds. Nathan had none and a load of cash, which took a little heat off of me. I figured I had nothing to lose and didn't back down the rest of the game, which worked out ok. Ca$h and Gun$ with my new friends: Randy Sallwaser(died), Nathan $105k, Lisa Padala $65k, Todd Dewitt $70k, Joshua Hessel(died),me $80k - 6:13 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter We did manage to kill off a couple of players, but "Baby-faced" Winchester managed to steal the most loot. As is the case with this game, its a nice light laughable game and this was a good group of folks that didn't take it seriously.

Coming soon - planet steam. Now playing Ninja vs Ninja while we wait - 6:16 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter Of course we hadn't used up an hour or anything, so we still had time to waste. I remembered reading that Ninja vs Ninja would be on the Play to Win table and Jay Little noted he could teach anyone the game in 5 minutes, so I grabbed this and Nathan and I sat down to play (besides, 2 de Mayo wasn't available - a running theme all weekend). And then who should walk by but Jay Little, who of course offered to teach this to us in 5 minutes. 5 minutes later, Nathan and I were moving plastic Ninjas across the board towards each other for secret scouting missions full of danger and mystery. Or something. All I seemed to be doing was moving and watching Nathan roll the right number each time to pick me off. Basically, you move your ninjas in a line or L shape - always to the opponents side, until you penetrate their territory. Then you have three turns to get back. If you get back safely, you score points for how deep into the other team's territory you got (this is called a mission). If an enemy is on your side and you can roll the exact amount you need to land on them, you capture them and they are out of the game. I did manage enough missions to out score him before he decimated my dojo, so I was able to win. I win N vs N 7-6 - 6:26 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter

Planet Steam - Jon McDunn, Chester Ogborn, myself and Nathan. Let the rules begin - 6:46 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter The big event of the night was Planet Steam. This was one of the Essen buzz games if for no other reason than the sheer size of the game. I'm pretty sure that the box was about Roads and Boats sized and the game board about like Railroad Tycoon. The reports were also correct about the great quantity and quality of bits. But on top of all that is a really decent production and stock manipulation game. Rules done, let the game begin...- 7:11 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter After about 20 minutes of rules (and eating) we got started. It didn't feel like many other games I've played and if this game wasn't $120 to import I'm sure it'd have been seen more. As it was, I think Chester taught this or played in something ridiculous like 6 games of it over the weekend. I had a good time, but it was the end of the night after 4 hours of sleep and I made a couple of silly-stupid mistakes that I recognized immediately and counted nearly 80-100 points I gave up in the last two rounds. That and this type of game make it hard to know how things will value out - especially with three players that have no clue. Also, Chester mis-lead us (not intentionally) a bit saying that the auction for the player actions didn't tend to go above 10, however after the first round losses I immediately realized that the first bid is easily worth about 15 in cost savings and getting first picks. That mistake didn't happen again and the bids were much higher in subsequent rounds, throwing Chester off his game. All in all, I think we all had a great time. Planet Steam is a decent game with nice bits and pretty fun. Worth it for the current price? ($120) - not quite. If this was $60 maybe - 8:48 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter Cost wise, it is probably worth $80 (retail). Its right up there with the quality you'd see from a Fantasy Flight game. However, I think $60 is the most I'd part with for it, so I won't likely own this anytime soon. Finished much better than I thought I would. I saw 100 pts I threw away which cost me the game. Finished about 70 pts behind Chester - 9:02 PM Apr 24th from TinyTwitter

Twilight Struggle

Well, the Geekway to the West 2009 is coming up, so I finally got around to teaching Nathan Winchester Twilight Stuggle. If you wonder how those are connected, I went ahead and printed and laminated the travel board for TS so that Nathan and I can play on the plane (and at the airport and hotel). All we need is the cards, a die, and a dry erase marker.
At any rate, Nathan got the game quickly enough, though understanding the rules and understanding the game are different. He played the USSR and did well enough that after six turns, we were tied. He had to leave for the night, so we called it a draw at that point. He saw a number of things almost immediately after they happened, so our next game will likely be very tense. Hopefully, we'll get a few games of this in over the weekend.

Twitterpated

Ok, I'm on twiter. http://twitter.com/charleshasegawa if you care. I really only plan to twit while at the geekway next friday and saturday as an easy way to log things until I get back for my full session reports here.

MaBiWeb

Well, nailed off a couple games on MaBiWeb recently. The normal motley crew - Nathan Winchester, Mike "The Fonz" Garrett, and at least for Mykerinos, Justin Easley. So, the first game was Mykerinos with all of us - last week. The first round I thought was a waste (as apparently did Justin). I used all my cubes and came away with very little that I hoped to. Mike saved a lot of cubes and I think Nathan pulled the sole brown patron. The next round didn't look great for me me either. Despite one round where I simply took my purple cube and didn't place anything, it turned out ok and when we headed into the final season, I was in a good position. As it turned out, I was in a fine position, though apparently it wasn't enough to outright win. Justin and I shared a 41 point victory. Mike, who had been hoarding cubes most of the game didn't get as much of a chance to use them, as we all got out of cubes much faster in the final round.
This week, we started by finishing a three-player game of Samurai (Justin bowed out). I can't ever remember what to take for three players, so I took some ships, my Ronin, and a couple of 3s I think. I was last in turn order, so I didn't figure there was much point in starting with 4s - my position would be dictated by where Mike and Nathan started. Nathan jumped on the capitol city, so Mike and I left him alone to spend his tiles there. Mike hit an island first, so I went north. After that, I had a fantastic draw of tiles the whole game. I used my totem swap early to steal a couple of pieces from "Mike's" island (and right after he called me aggressive). I also stayed away from the main areas until I was ready to leverage Nathan's need to finish the middle. In the end, we all had one majority, but I had a single piece more than either Nathan or Mike had to take the win.

BGG Top 100

So, out of the top 100 games on the BGG, how many do you own now? Um, before I answer that - why are we doing the whole inner monologue thing again? Probably because your style of writing isn't interesting enough by itself. You really need this extra superfluous crap or the whole thing becomes a series of monotonous drivel and your readers will give up on you. Well, first of all, I really only do this for my own amusement - its not like I'm part of a larger site that has to regularly publish stuff. True Dat boooooy! And secondly... ok, I don't have another point. Forget it, I'll answer your question. After a quick spot check, I show that I have 49 of the top 100 games. I used to own another 11 of those but I traded them away. WTF?!? You traded away highly ranked and well thought of games? If you don't watch out, there is going to be a picture of you on the FailBlog with something like "Game Collection Fail!" Whatever. Of those 11 I had only played 5 (Tigris and Euphrates, Race for the Galaxy, Memoir '44, Arkham Horror, Amun-Re, Ticket to Ride:Marklin). The other 6 were games I didn't really care about and mostly got for trade bait in the first place. Dude, there's something not right about that. Ok, I have to ask. How many of those 49 have you not played yet? Dude! You are me! Why do you have to call me out like that? Eight. Well, that's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. That's only like 16% of your "Top 100" collection. Yeah, that was lower than I thought it'd be for sure. I'll probably get a few of those knocked out in the coming month, what with the Geekway 2009 less than three weeks away. Oh? Like what? Well, I'd like to try and get Le Havre played both before I go and at the con. I'd kinda like to play Die Macher at some point. And of course, there is Shogun. Gotta play that. But that's really more of a "play my un-played stuff" thing than play the top 100 thing.

Update - Cult of the New

Ok, So here we are 3 months of the year gone. The collection now sits at 114 un-played games and expansions. I've played 17 new games and expansions so far this year. 76 of the 114 (2/3) of those are games, so 1/3 of that total are expansions, which I have dramatically increased thus far this year with additions of the entire Killer Bunnies set and the new Carc: Big Box. I still have not played Le Havre. I have acquired more Age of Steam maps, so need to get to work on playing those. At least so far this year, I feel like I've done a pretty good job of working through my un-played list as well as getting some old friends played. I've moved some other un-played items in trades. I know I'm not going to have everything played, but the more I can reduce the list the better.

Three player games

So, heard you played some three player games Friday night? Yeah. Amelia Boli and Nathan Winchester stopped by. Cool. What'd you play? Well, we started with End of the Triumvirate, which is a game none of us had played before. Its a three-player only game, so it seemed to be appropriate. Um, the box says 2 or 3... Yeah, but I can't see where two player would be interesting - its definitely a three player game (and possibly my new favorite with three). Basically, three players are fighting for control in the ancient Roman Mediterranean. Players can win through political dominance, military control, or by demonstrating proficiency in both on a skill track. The neat thing going on here is that when you are attacked and you lose, you get benefits. The first loss makes it so that the next attacker has an even great chance at you inflicting casualties. If you take a second (or third) consecutive loss, you actually gain skill on the proficiency tracks (thus pushing you closer to victory). There is no good way to protect "your" territories, so things shift around a lot (though not in a chaotic manner). It felt well balanced and was interesting and relatively short. Amelia had a lot of cash and used it to buy influence in the political arena. Nathan kicked butt all over the map with his armies. Taking beatings in both areas, I decided to focus on pushing up my proficiencies. At the end, Amelia attacked me after Nathan had, and I was able to then grab the last proficiency steps I needed to win the game. Because of the odd number of players, this game probably hasn't gotten much attention, but it is a really fun game for three.
Ok, then what'd you play? I know you didn't just play one game. That's true. Next, I un-shrinked a game that has been away from the table too long - Torres. I had to review the rules since it'd been so long, but it all came right back to me. I got slightly lucky - got my elevator card at just the right time and shot up near the top of Nathan's giant tower and that helped push me to the win in what was a pretty close game. Charles: 257, Nathan:235 , Amelia: 241 Hmmm, why in the world has this game sat in the shrink so long? I blame Jerry. He likes this, so nobody will play it for fear they'll have to play with him. I'm going to bring it along on occasion I think. I'll be happy to pull it out when I don't have to play with him.
Then what? Then what what? Then what did you play? Don't be stupid. I've obviously loaded a picture of the Rumis box, so why are you asking? And who are you anyway? Duh, I'm just your inner monologue. And duh! I'm asking because I was trying to transition you to your next game. Ok, but you can't come up with a better transition that "what next"? Don't try and blame me buddy! You are the one writing this whole thing. Why don't you stop having a fake argument with yourself and get on with the session report? Uh, yeah. So next we played Rumis, which Amelia had been wanting to get to the table for a little while. Amelia seems to enjoy abstracts (which apparently just aren't Matthew's thing - which funnily enough, The Fonz would argue that all Euros are abstract - but I digress). So we randomly selected the Chullpa board, which is the rectangle tower shape. Amelia felt abused at the start and I miscounted the height of the tower, pushing me right out of the game as Nathan covered me up. However, Nathan and I topping one another let Amelia pick the rest of the board apart for the easy win. Amelia: 10, Nathan: 6, Charles: 2.
Hahahaha - you only scored two points! Yeah, well I won the first two games and the last game of the night too, so shut it! Ah, so there is at least one more game to report on? Yeah, the closer of the night. A three player session wouldn't feel right if we didn't get to play San Marco (though again, End of the Triumvirate may have taken its place as my favorite three player). But, that's like apples and oranges - yes they are three player games, but the mechanics are not the same at all. Yeah, its true - San Marco delivers that delicious tension in splitting the cards and trying to tempt the other players to take the stack you don't want. This is a wonderful exercise in trying to understand how the other players are evaluating the board. There is nothing more fun that having a person agonize over splitting the cards and then in a second, taking a stack that you see as very valuable that they didn't think you'd ever take. And there is nothing worse than watching everyone "stick" you with the crap pile that you were sure that you wouldn't get. But enough on why I like this game - Amelia and Nathan hadn't played before, but the rules are pretty simple. This is the first time I saw all the bridges getting used in a game, though the Doge didn't move around much. He sort of sat to one side and stayed there. My first couple of attempts to banish were weak, but I did manage a good one near the end and some good swaps let me score a good amount for the win. Charles: 110, Nathan: 92, Amelia: 88.

Hansa Online

Played a quick three-player game of Hansa via www.michaelschacht.net with Matthew Frederick and Dion Garner. I started and had a pretty good run with the goods and board - quick lead and never really felt like Matthew or Dion would catch me. They didn't and we managed to finish just before Matthew had to leave for THE GATHERING. I had 58pt to Matthew's 32 and Dion's 46. I've played like 3 games this year, and I've probably had my fill for a while :)

Tikal Again

We fired off another online game of Tikal with Nathan Winchester, Dion Garner, and Matthew Frederick at SpielByWeb. Matthew ended the game with three 3-sets of artifacts while neither Nathan nor I managed better than a pair of 2s. Nathan however, was able to lock up a huge number of temples on one side of the board while Dion and I floundered around. In the end, it wasn't enough to catch Matthew. Final scored looked like - Matthew: 111, Nathan: 103, Dion: 91, Charles: 89

No Wisdom Game 2

Nathan Winchester got his wisdom teeth removed this week, so we started our second game of Samurai on MaBiWeb. Again, two players with the two-player Astroglide variant (the first player may not take his 2-ship in his initial tile set). This time I wasn't sure what would happen. I started much better and always felt like I had good tiles, but never felt like I had a good play. This game was near the end when I took the last Buddha and edged Nathan by one piece. Nathan: 1 - 5 - 9, Charles: 1 - 6 - 9

Hive

Nathan Winchester and I discovered BoardSpace.net, which lets you play a number of games online - the GIPF series and of course, Hive. We played a quick game and the interface is pretty decent. I did manage a win, though I still don't yet grok the strategy yet. Nathan and I both like abstracts, so I imagine this will continue to see play with us as it is fast and interesting. And yes, this picture is the outcome of the game (I was white).

No Wisdom For Nathan

Nathan Winchester got his wisdom teeth removed this week, so we started another game of Samurai on MaBiWeb for while he was at home. Two players with the two-player Astroglide variant (the first player may not take his 2-ship in his initial tile set). The game was close and we filled the board, but Nathan edged me by one piece for the game. I didn't take a great hand to start the game, and knew it was a losing effort from the start, but Nathan played well. We're likely to play a series of games here, so I suspect the play will evolve a little each game.

Game Night

Game Night was Friday for me again this week, so I headed out to the Gamer's Inn. When I arrived, I sat down with Dan Brugman, Noah Antwiller and his brother Miles Antwiller and we finally agreed to start with Rumis, which is short and sweet. Dan, having never played before, was at a disadvantage and Miles made it pretty obvious early on that he'd be winning this game. We played the pyramid, and Miles managed to isolate one whole side to himself. When we tallied it up, it was Miles-18, Charles-15, Noah-13, Dan-5.
Next up, Noah pulled out Citadels and we were joined by Rob Smolka, Amelia Boli, and Matthew Frederick. We pulled out the king and the warlord roles and replaced them with the Emperor and Diplomat roles from the Dark City Expansion. Now, as is likely to happen with this many players (and pretty much any Citadels game), a couple of players got hosed repeatedly and early (specifically Noah and Matthew). Pretty much Noah didn't get to play much in the first 3/4 of the game and by the last part, he simply gave up. I don't think I'll be willing to play this again with anything more than four players, and even then I have loads of other games I'd rather play with exactly four players. I also suspect that this won't see table time with the group for at least a year (if that soon).
After the Citadels fiasco, we decided to pull out something a little lighter - Smarty Party. This is a fun little trivia game that is marred by some sometimes strange answers in their lists. For example, if there were six characters from the Flintstones, you'd think it'd be Fred, Wilma, Barney, Betty, Pebbles and Bam Bam, but it might be not be Pebbles and Bam Bam - it could be Dino and some other random re-occurring character. Minor annoyances aside, this is fun enough to wash out the bad taste from Citadels. Dan and Noah tied for the win.
Dan and Rob went off to catch a movie and Miles had to work in the morning so he left. Noah, Amelia, Matthew and I decided to play Tichu with Amelia and I teaming up against Matthew and Noah. Noah started the game with a Tichu and 95 of the points, making things look not good for us to start the game. After 4 hands, we were down 130-475. After that, Amelia and I roared back with a couple of Tichu 1+2 hands and ended up winning 1055-850.
We broke up at that point, and Amelia and I were joined by Dave Thompson and Paul Contway for a short game of Nexus Ops (we only played to 10 points instead of 12). Amelia was the last player, and didn't immediately find a mine outside her base. I thought this would be a disadvantage to her, but she plowed through all of us for an easy win, hitting 10 well out in front of Dave or I. Had there been one more round, I might have got to 9 points, but would have needed like two more turns after that, as two of my energizer cards were for lava leapers and dragons and thus no help. Neither were any of my secret mission cards. I've commented before that this is a good short Ameri-trash game that should get played more, and I was right, this needs more table time :)

300

"We are Sparta", or something. The old collection hit 300 officially here recently. I say officially, because my BGG record shows 300. Actually, it shows 300 games and expansions. To commemorate this, I present #300 - Evo. This was picked up recently in a math trade (where else?). And yes, I know that it means it wasn't really the 300th game, but I don't record the games as mine until it arrives, so when it arrived, it pushed the count to 300. It all very complicated. So now I have a shrink wrapped Evo sitting here and I probably won't open it for a while. Evo is OOP and thus still worth a bit in trades. I never really expected to hit this number of games, not after I started trading. I suspect the collection will still grow and I'm waiting for the expansions to surpass the actual games. I don't expect that I'll actually end up with 600 games either, but time will tell.

Game Night

This week, my wife made plans with a friend for her and the kids, so I headed over to the Gamer's Inn for a bit of gaming. After waiting a little bit, we had a small crowd, so a few of us sat down and I grabbed Mykerinos for us. Joining me were Amelia Boli, Nathan Winchester and his fiance Niecy. I was the only person who had played before (which was no advantage at all, as I'm terrible at this game). After the first two rounds, I had a rainbow of patrons, which is not what I had hoped for. I was able to get a few people I wanted in the last two seasons/rounds, but Nathan had managed to get a large number of patron cards and he outscored me down the stretch to win by a point.
We had a few minutes to wait until other folks finished their games before we could start the main attraction of the night - Indonesia, so I pulled out Hive, which Nathan had asked about earlier. He had read the rules, but just needed to play it so it could gel. It was close and I managed to lock down his queen just before he could do the same to me.
As I said, Indonesia was the game of the night and we had 9 folks willing to play. We set up two games side by side and I covered the rules for everyone. At my board were Amelia, Matthew Frederick and Noah Antwiller. I took a rice company in Bali, then a southern shipping company. Noah took merges early in the game, and when he choose to merge the shipping of Matthew with my company, I outbid Matthew, which I believe to be the start of my downfall. Realistically, shipping as a strategy is viable only if the board has been setup in such a way to support it. Our first round did not have spice at all, and thus we immediately grew two cities to size two. Shipping works when you can eat half of someone's profits, not when you make 5 or 10 each time a company ships. At any rate, I ended up with a shipping company and a small hull. Nathan - as he did the last time we played - hung out and then scored a load of cash on rubber and won the Siap Faji company, which made it obvious he would win less than 2/3 of the way through the game. Amelia made an outstanding comeback, but Nathan held out for the win. Despite liking this game a lot, there are a couple of blemishes I'm starting to see. There is something of a runaway leader problem. If you allow any player to get way out in front, they are nearly impossible to pull back. AND, it takes a group effort to do so. No one player can really bash the leader. I've rated this an 8.5 and will probably drop it down to a flat 8. Its a good game, and I'll still play it, but the runaway leader issue makes the last hour of the game a bit tedious. If all the players can keep one player down, its a nice tense game all the way.

YAGoS

I started another game of Samurai on MaBiWeb - this time for four players and got Justin Easley, Nathan Winchester, and The Fonz (aka Mike Garrett) to play along. Mike was able to "steal" the capital city for next to nothing and whether by luck or strategic play, didn't play his ships or Ronin until the end of what was a really tight game. Justin had gone north, but Nathan intruded upon him and thus held him back a bit. I had committed to the main land areas was just trying to hold on - never felt like I had many opportunity plays in this game. The biggest thing was that Mike was EXTREMELY efficient with his play and at the end, I could neither force a tie nor win, so surrendered and ended the game (Mike was going to anyway).

Game Night

Friday, March 6, 2009 - Gamer's Inn
This was a game night that I hoped to get in a little Age of Steam - specifically I wanted to get in a new 4-player map: Secret Blueprints. When I arrived, there was not another boardgamer in the store and it was nearly six before Rob Smolka and Dion Garner arrived. Rob had a sub he was eating, so I pulled out Hive to have Dion explain it to me. Despite his clear explanation, I simply didn't pay attention and he worked me over in about 5 minutes. This is a nice little abstract and I'm sure I'll get some plays in with Nathan Winchester soon. It wasn't long after that that more gamers arrived, so I pulled out AoS. Joining me were Matthew Frederick, Amelia Boli and Ray Morgan (I can't believe I don't have a picture of Ray). Ray had not ever played AoS, so we explained the basic systems to him. I don't think this is even close to appropriate to the right map for a teaching game, but I wanted to try the Secret Blueprints out, so wasn't going to switch. The Secret Blueprints are 4 individual maps that each player works on independently and hidden from the other players. Each map is fairly small and has three cities on it (meaning players may not deliver any number of their goods). Unlike regular AoS where you can take "un-optimal" moves, in these maps you often just get screwed and have turns where you move nothing. Also, since you all work on individual maps, you can build and move each round simultaneously, which speeds up the game (unless you are playing with the new guy). Overall, it takes some of the tension of the main game and moves it. The trade off is that 4 experienced players could probably do this in under 90 minutes. Ray actually did well and ended up two points shy of me at the end of the game (two more tracks for me for the win!). The most annoying/cumbersome part was just finding a way to hide our maps. Turns out that four large box lids worked pretty well. I'd play this again assuming we were short on time.
We had Jake Troken and Dan Brugman waiting, so I pulled out Q-Jet 21XX (aka Ave Ceasar) for a quick game while we waited for the other group of gamers to finish Le Havre. I like this race game, because its tights and offers loads of chances to screw everyone else. As usual in a 6-player race, a couple of guys (Ray and Jake) came up short of the finish line. Being stupid, I let Dan have the outside lane on the last move and he finished ahead of me, making me last of the finishers. Matthew and Amelia jostled for first, with Matthew just crossing before Amelia.
Our last game of the night was a playing of Matthew's prototype Elven Craft. Dan doesn't care for the game, so Greg Perschbacher took his place. Since I'm not sure how much he wants details out yet, I won't go into too much detail about the current rules or my feelings about the playing since the next version may be quite different in feel. It was a bit different than my playing a few years ago and I'm glad to see my friend closing in on finishing this game.

Tikal

After teaching Nathan Winchester Tikal, I got him online in a game with Dion Garner at SpielByWeb. We played without the auction (since that just is painful online) and ended up Dion, Nathan, me for turn order. Nathan had done well getting treasure in our two player game and tried to translate that to this game, but that didn't pay off for him. Dion capped two 8s early on (the first costing him a huge number of workers including his prime). This was interesting because it kept any of the other pyramids from reaching 9, except for the one I got to 10 (and capped). I was able to push a load of stuff that was hard to get to to 6s and my treasures gave me enough of a boost for the win. I pulled this out 119-112-96

Le Havre

Without sticking my neck out too far, I'm making Le Havre the game of note for March. I know that it appears to be the current hot game with Matthew and Dion and I know that Mike G and Bobby like it. I suspect I'll really like it too, so I'd like to wrap my head around it before I sit down with the experienced sharks. Le Havre is Uwe Rosenberg (of Agricola fame). Apparently, Le Havre is also an "engine" game ala Agricola, PR, Caylus, etc, but more "gamery" than Agricola. I can't really go into more detail, because I just don't know any more than that. I suspect that I'll become a fanboy too - because what I really need is another longer game to grab my interest...

Revenge

Nathan insisted we play another game of Samurai after our face to face encounter the other night (and by insisted, I mean he created a two-player game and sent me the info). So looking for a little redemption (or revenge) I agreed. Ok, I would have said yes regardless. We started with random hands, and the random draws conspired to hurt me. I drew my 0-replace-a-tile tile very early and didn't see my swap tile until the last draw (never played it). I also didn't see but one ship that I got to play for effect. Interestingly, I wasn't in bad shape most of the game. I forced a tie in the 3-city and we each got one totem. In fact, Nathan followed that by gathering a huge number of rice - but that's almost the only thing he got and I finally positioned the game to end with him having nearly all of the rice, and only like a couple other pieces. My two majorities were then good for the win. I'm up to over 50 plays of this game, and I still love it - though as I told Nathan, I'm prone to playing a lot then avoiding it for long periods of time.