More Heroscape

Ashton asked for some more Heroscape, this time asking to play with the frozen terrain. I pulled out the booklet and built The Battlefield of Frozen Souls and we played the Storm of Frozen Shards scenario. I ended up the defender of the glacier, which meant I got 450 points and had to have the Dzu-Teh as part of the army. Ashton thought that was un-fair, so he took a set for himself. After our draft, this is what we had - Ashton: Cyprien Esenwein, Sonlen, Warriors of Ashra, Dzu-Teh, Shades of Bleakewoode, and Kozuke Samurai. Me: Isamu, Dzu-Teh, Major Q9, and Nilfheim. Ashton has been dying to use the ghosts and I've been wanting to play with a dragon. It worked out for both of us. What didn't work out was Major Q9 vs Cyprien Esenwein. Ashton moved Cyprien first and rolled a 20 for his special, which hit Major Q9 for 6 points (and knocked him out) before I got to even do a thing. That single stroke of luck pretty much sealed my chance of winning. Though I was immune to the storms that happened each turn, thanks to a glyph, Ashton used Cyprien to take that from me. The first two storms helped me to kill a couple of Ashton's guys, but after losing the glyph, two storms knocked me out of the game. Ashton had two full squads still left as we finished the game.

Heroscape With My Son

Well, since I still had the map setup from playing with Nathan last night, my son asked if we could play Heroscape this morning. Well, that's fine with me - it lets me try out new combinations of guys. This time, I not only introduced him to the advanced rules (he doesn't really remember all the guys powers, but he does like them) but also threw in the glyphs. This one was a 300pt army + 160pt reinforcements. I let him pick a guy or two for his army, then helped him finish it out and he ended up with: Agent Carr, Ninjas of the North Wind, Crixus, and for his reinforcement - Sonlen. I got Valguard, the Tarn Viking Warriors, Finn the Viking Champion, Me-Burq-Sa and Major Q10 for my reinforcement (he was too cool last night not to take again). Ashton made straight away for the initiative glyph, since he loves going first. His Ninjas arrived and also grabbed the defensive glyph before I could get my Vikings over to stop him. Valguard took the attack glyph, and I got Major Q10 almost immediately. It didn't look good for my son as I wasted his Ninja's quickly, but he killed Valguard with little effort and took the attack glyph with Agent Carr. I moved Major Q10 into place to shoot Agent Carr up, but by the time I got a few hits, he managed to make it to the heal glyph, erasing the damage. Having his guys on the attack glyph was bad for me. Sonlen was rolling 6 attack dice at range and picking off my troops and I couldn't make a dent against him. In fact, the ninjas were his only casualty. I hardly had a chance.

Game Night

My wife was off doing something for work this weekend, so Nathan Winchester stopped by after I had the kids in bed. I guess even before that, I started the night with a game of Pokémon with Ashton. He had earned a new deck (with Mightyena on it) and wanted to try it out against a new deck I had picked up for $6 at the Game Depot. Well, my deck was not a good match for his and he wasted me with his Charmeleon in about 5 minutes flat. That's ok, it happens in this game, and I enjoy the glee on his face when he wins that big. And I also like that when he wins REALLY big, he feels bad for me. Mostly I just like playing games with the guy - he's turning into a good gamer.
So, back to when Nathan arrived. I pulled Ido off my shelf for us to try. Nathan is of course almost always willing to play an abstract (a good thing), so off we went. Ido is this strange game where you have two sizes of blocks. Each block is only allowed to move to a space which is the appropriate size for that type of piece and the goal is to move the pieces across the board from your start to your exit space. The trick of the game is that there is a grid "overlay" that you can move - moving it changes the board and possibly moves your pieces around. I'm not sure I saw the strategies or anything, but I apparently grok'd it better than Nathan and pulled off a win. He wants to play again, but he didn't get it out of the gate.
After Ido, Nathan indicated he'd be willing to try out Heroscape. I showed him the folder of cards to look through as I setup the battlefield. I put together the Foresaken Waters battlefield and we played the "advanced game" scenario Winter Holdout (without glyphs). This scenario was 300pt teams, with a 160pt team of reinforcements that can enter the game between turns if you roll 16+. Nathan built a team of mostly Marro: Ne-Gok-Sa, Me-Burq-Sa, Marro Stingers, Marrden Hounds, and Isamu (whom he took with his last 10 points). His reinforcements were Arrow Gruts and Grimnack (he should have taken Krug, but whatever). My army was a mishmash of guys. I had: Syvarris, Theracus, Minions of utgar, Iskra Esenwein and Major Q10 as my reinforcements. I started strong, using my Minions of Utgar to take out Me-Burq-Sa before he could do anything. I also used Theracus to get Syvarris into prime sniping position. Nathan's hounds made up for it and then some, taking out nearly everything else of mine. Luckily, I got my reinforcements on the third round and the Major went to town with his deadly multiple attacks each round. In fact, I was down to a 2hp Major looking at a number of Nathan's squads. Fortunately he didn't have much left in the firepower department and the Major made short work of Nathan's troops. It was close at the end though. Nathan had two gruts left and they had the highground. The Major had one HP left and all it would take was one bad roll for Nathan to swipe away the victory I had fought for. The Major made his defensive rolls and his wrist rocket attack left two smoldering spots where only moments before had been two orcs with bow and arrows.

Heroscape

Heroscape. I have it on the brain lately. I think I've had it on the brain for a long time really. I mean why else buy all the waves of expansions without having ever played it? The appeal has always been obvious to me - miniatures with variable powers, armies drafted and built for different play styles, and terrain that can be built however you like. Plus, its really easy to play - no stupid living rules that get updated and cost a fortune. No painting armies (yeah, I'm looking at you Warhammer). So far, my only true disappointment with the game is that the superhero branch has apparently died. The first Marvel-Heroscape set came out and then the followup never happened. We saw figures, but nothing ever came out and most doubt they ever will. That's ok though. There is a fan site - heroscapers.com where a number of the contributors have built custom figures and cards using Heroclix guys. For a small amount of money (to buy the figures) and some printing, it looks like I can expand the hero side of this game dramatically.
Unfortunately for me, in poking around the site, I've had an overpowering urge to start making custom terrain. I really like the custom pieces folks have made - especially some of the trees and the broken columns. There are also some nice crystal pieces that started ideas running around my head (I keep seeing the Fortress of Solitude). I'll try and suppress those urges, but don't be surprised if you see me poking around the cake decorating section of the local Hobby Lobby...

Blah Blah Blah part III - Revenge of the Blah

• Placed that last order with Boards and Bits, now I have to see if I can truly avoid buying more games until July.
• Sadly, avoiding buying more games is not the same as spending no money in the gaming arena though. I'd certainly be willing to trade a game, and then of course paying for shipping is just part of the trade.
• I'm also likely to upgrade a few things here or there. For example, I pulled out Heroscape over the weekend and decided that I need to get some different storage for my armies. It is way to hard to sort through a bin of guys (when you have at least one of all the armies) to find three guys. (The exception is apparently the three bright white snipers - why the hell would snipers be bright white?) I'll go to Wal-Mart and pick up some Plano boxes.
• Heroscape is good light fun. I played just the basic game with my son over the weekend and he had a great time.
• Marvel Heroscape was not meant to be played in the basic form. BOOOOORING.
  
• After playing Combat Commander: Europe, I can see a couple of the chits that could be replaced with wooden pawns or disks for the various tracks. I also need a wood piece here or there for some other games, so I may have to place a parts order. Bobby replaced the wood in Pandemic with disks - they are much better to play with.
• I need to finalize my poker chip designs and order the labels for those. That's been on the backburner for too long
  

Game Night

Friday Night was game night at the Gamer's Inn, though it was a generally quiet night. Mike Gingold and Bobby Warren arrived just before I did and had started a game of Race for the Galaxy, so I went and grabbed some card sleeves and another cardboard card box for my son's Pokémon cards (I had found another couple of cheap pre-built decks at the Game Depot earlier in the day). When they were done, we pulled out Qwirkle Cubes so Bobby and Mike could try it out. I think they both preferred the original over this version, but hey - its Qwirkle. 5-6 other gamers had showed up at this point and they were all facilitated with watching us play, as they didn't pull out any games until we were done. One thing of note in this game was that the vast majority of the first set of cubes played were all stars. Since we all focused on the stars (they were scoring a lot of points, so it was hard not to), it was hard to get a lot of other things going. Bobby went out first and won with 125, I had 117 and Mike 109.
Mike then pulled out Steel Driver and Greg Perschbacher joined us. Steel Driver is something of a stock game with a vaguely Chicago Express feel to it. It is sufficiently different that I'm likely going to end up owning this as well. I probably played this a little too much like Chicago Express and didn't end up making enough money on any one company to compete with the 4 (of 5) shares in black that Mike had. The scores were all close (though I apparently lost them - I'll update when I get them from Bobby), but it was Mike for the win (he was the only one to have played before).
Bobby had time for something short, so he pulled out die Weinhändler - a little card auction / set collection game. I'm not sure what our deal was, but Greg and I were agonizing a bit much over the values of everything and then game dragged on a bit longer than it needed to. I believe that Greg pulled off the win with a very one colored pyramid of wine cards.
Bobby was leaving, so I got Mike to pull out Combat Commander: Europe. This is a really well done sqaud level WWII, CDG (card driven game). Yes, it has chits for the units, but not stacks of them. Yes the rules are a bit technical looking, but they are clear and after Mike explained it, they are not terribly complex. The game is extremely engaging and was a lot of fun. As we started, it looked like I was going to get a newbie squashing, but I took a little risk and was able to eliminate one flank of Mike's Russian troops. My other group of men holed up in a house and were nearly impossible for Mike to dig out, even with his heavy machine gun - thanks in part to TERRIBLE rolls. You'd think I was playing Jason Sato or Rob Smolka (btw, Jason would have LOVED this game). Just when it looked like beginner's luck was going to rule the day, Mike slowly was able to push me back a bit and finally flushed me out of the house and took it over. Now the tide had gone back the other way. The game's timer was getting close to the end and I was pretty sure I was ahead by a few points, so I started discarding cards rapidly when I didn't have orders to fire at the Russians (the goal being to eat through both our card decks to advance the timer further). Mike managed to avoid most of the time cards by re-rolling, but the decks running out forced the end of the game around 8 I believe. We tallied it all up and I had managed a 4 point win. The game took about 2.5 hours with him explaining the rules and this being my first playing - also, as I said, Mike avoided a lot of sudden death checks. I imagine this gets much faster. I need to get my copy punched and cards sleeved. I really can't wait to play this again.

More blah blah blah

• Yet another Boards and Bits order placed. Won't see this one until the end of June though (Nathan added the Dominion expansion to the order).
  
• I ordered a bunch of C3i magazines for the C&C:Ancients and Combat Commander stuff. Jason Maxwell did geekgold auctions for the remainder of the stuff included in the magazines - I might have to do that.
• Added Flaschenteufel to my order. I love card games.
• Been playing some Le Havre solo on the computer (short game only). Best score was 115, but that game was one where the cards all were ordered perfectly. That's the only game I broke 100 so far (about 5 plays).
• I ordered Union vs Central. For $50, I got 180-ish some odd "cards" and a bunch of micro-dice. I'm considering re-doing all the cards and doing an arts-cow set. The game looks pretty fun, but it'd have to be really fun to redo 90 cards (there is a set for each player). I figured this was a safe order, because there is a good amount of demand for this game. Apparently, a bunch of people that wanted this dragged their feet, so Winsome offered to folks that had bought before. After I said yes, a bunch of folks suddenly decided that they should honor their initial indication that they wanted a copy. A bunch of others have now asked for a copy. Winsome indicated that the micro dice were a huge pain to get and they probably won't do that again. I bet this one will fetch a good trade down the road here.
• Board Games With Scott did an episode about Excape/Exxtra. It is 9 minutes long. That's about how long it takes to play the game. How do you have a review that is as long as it takes to play a game?
• If I promise not to buy any more games in June, will I be able to do it?
  

Mykerinos

Another game of Mykerinos has come and gone on MaBiWeb. This time out, Nathan Winchester destroyed Mike Garrett, Justin Easley and I. Everyone likes screwing me, and so after the first round, I had no chance of ever catching up. In fact, I managed to only score 24 points for the game (about the same number of points Nathan scored for one of his patrons). Nathan score 46, which was more than Mike's 35 and Justin's 38 but a good amount.

Misc blah blah blah

• I ordered Confucius after liking it so much at the Geekway. I hope to play it very soon.
• After finally getting to play Le Havre, the computer (Java 6) version was done. I played a couple of solo short games (4 rounds). I still don't quite get it. I think I'll play and play and then all the sudden it'll click. And by then nobody is going to want to play it anymore.
• I still have something like 86 unplayed games (not counting expansions) in my collection. Some of the ones that really need to get played? Imperial, Die Macher, Doom, Khronos, Senji (that aborted attempt does not count), Medieval Merchant, Combat Commander: Europe, Shogun, etc etc
• Geez, there is another laundry list of classic games to play too...
• And expansions
• Been playing a bit of Pokemon with my son. I'll be the first to admit that there is a lot of luck involved. I still beat him a lot, because he doesn't always understand the value in certain actions, but it is just as easy to suddenly find myself down 4 pokemon to nothing. I'm glad he doesn't just want to collect and look at the cards.
• Speaking of my son, he is now done with Kindergarten. I promised to teach him a new game. A big game. Not sure what yet, but it'll probably be full of dice and figures. Maybe its time to start really playing Heroscape. He already loves the guys so...
• Sadly, I think I need more shelves...
  

Game Night

Gamer's Inn Friday May 8th - this evening started out with Nathan Winchester and I playing a not-so-quick game of Hive (with the mosquito). I got cocky and when it looked like I'd win again, Nathan blocked me and extended the game. Thinking this was just an annoyance, I didn't do a very good job at just ending the game and we both went back and forth blocking each other until I finally wasn't able to stop him. Really a good game played and I didn't mind losing this time.
Of course, a lot of folks had arrived by then and we ended up breaking into two groups. Matthew Frederick and Dion Garner joined Nathan and I for a playing of Antike. Interestingly, this was the first time I've played with less than 6 players - though it was fine, I actually prefer the full complement. Sadly, I was placed between Matthew and Dion who both went for squishing me (I don't know why everyone hasn't figured out that Nathan is the one that normally needs sqooshing). My only hope was gold and vps from knowledge - I placed temples on gold sites. Tragically though, Nathan had been left to his own devices for the early part of the game and he managed to be just ahead of me in money each time and grabbed the points before I could. With Matthew smashing his way through me and Dion spending his time fortifying against me instead of attacking Nathan, I had no chance. By the time Dion realized he needed to smash Nathan, Matthew had already plundered half the board (I couldn't keep him in check thanks to Dion and Nathan had turtled up) and was easily in position to win. He marched his way around and pretty soon had the 9 VPs he needed to win. Nathan was second, 2 points behind, with Dion and I in the rear at 6 and 5 points.
After that, we pulled out Le Havre, which I still hadn't tried out. Le Havre is a near cousin to Agricola, and sadly I treated Le Havre as if they were too similar. Agricola feels much more like an engine game - you need to build a food engine which then allows you to focus your efforts on gathering resources to score points. Le Havre is similar - you must figure out a food source, but you don't really build a unique food engine. You can acquire buildings, but that just means that you can get a discount for using it - others can use it and in fact block you from using it. So rather than an engine game with resource management, La Havre is ALL about the resource management. You want to find a strategy to effectively use the resources you can acquire. Agricola and Le Havre have a similar feel and pace, but are different enough that they don't feel quite like a rehash of the other. At any rate, for this game, Nathan and I just kind of went with the flow. I grabbed a load of buildings, but never positioned myself for a ship and ended the game having never got one and never having shipped goods. Dion had ships and moved goods a number of times and easily won the game. Scores were: Dion-124, Matthew-114, Nathan-107, Charles-102. Much like Agricola, I think it takes a couple of plays to grok the flow and then it is pretty straight forward. I know that this game has been described as a more "gamery" version of Agricola, but I don't think that the game is really that much more of a gamery feel. I can't say that I actually have a preference of one over the other at this point (assuming you played Agricola with a card draft).

Mid-week Gaming

Just trying to get caught up on session reports now after the longer ones from the Geekway! Couple weeks ago, Matthew Frederick, Amelia Boli and Nathan Winchester stopped over for a few games. I pulled out Hamsterrolle to start us out for the night. This was supposed to be one of the better dexterity games out there and I hadn't even taken off the shrink yet. Sadly, one of the "shelves" in the rolle were missing - though we played it twice anyway. It is an interesting take on the stacking genre and I enjoyed this. Ameila won the first game and Matthew won the second. This needs a die like in Tier Auf Tier ;)
Next up, I pulled out Wabash Cannonball. Matthew and Amelia had played before, though that was a little while ago. I'm now over 10 plays and starting to recognize a couple of the subtle little things that go into the bidding and play. None of that helped me, as I got shut out of red, then couldn't end the game fast enough to keep the other's shares from paying out well. Nathan won by $3 with his rainbow set of shares with Matthew a close second. I'm not sure if Matthew cares for this or not, but I'd really like to get some more of this in soon (and I know Nathan likes it, so hopefully other takers will be there).
Being the middle of the week, we planned to end around 9:30, so we had time to teach Nathan Tichu and play a few hands. Amelia and I took on Matthew and Nathan. We got killed the first few hands, but Amelia had a good hand on our last to make the scores look a little better (285-215). This is another that should see more play now that Nathan knows the game.

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.