April 7, 2008
OK. It's been a few months since we updated. It's not for lack of playing -- we've kept the club going steady on. There has been plenty of fun, and some serious drama, that I'm sure some readers would find, at the very least, interesting (my Rage game was ruined!). And instead of trying to catch up with all of that, I figured I'd just try to jump back in here and move forward. The game was good, as is usually the case, today.
I've also decided on a slight format change. We have gone thrugh many changes -- the most recent has been to list all the players at the top of the Blog entry. We will now follow that by a list of the games played; now we have both of the most important aspects of Game Club summarized at the start. And then, the game day will be more of a narrative.
Also, I got a new digital camera, so actual pictures of the games played will be included! No more Lolgames. (Although, I really enjoyed those.)
We'll try to keep up with this as we go forward... sorry for the session report gap.
On we go!
Here's the summary for today...
Players:
- Ashlei (p)
- Ashley (n)
- Brad (p)
- Brian (n)
- Cathy W. (p)
- Cengiz (p)
- Fenwick (p)
- Harper-Dylan (v)
- May (p)
- Phil (v)
- Sandy (v)
- Sean (p)
- Tyler (p)
- Victoria (n)
Games Played:
- 10 Days in Europa
- Bull in a China Shop
- Coda
- Cribbage
- Fiji
- FJords
- Quiddler
- Samurai
- Settlers of Catan
- Wallamoppi
While we were getting ourselves together,
Sean and Harper-Dylan grabbed
Wallamoppi at around 2:30. They did some stacking... this was Harper-Dylan's first run-through of the game, and had some trouble as he buried his own pieces in the stack. He couldn't hold it together, and knocked it down, giving
Sean the win. They attempted a second round, but gravity, and a slightly rickety table didn't allow the set-up to complete. The game was abandoned.
Around the same time as Wallamoppi, a game of
Coda was being organized. It's a favorite by
Phil, and Brian and Cengiz were summoned to join. After a bit of confusion as to how to organize the tiles, the game proceeded. It was a very close game of detection... but
Cengiz emerged victorious!
After the original short games for warm-ups were done,
Bull in a China Shop was pulled out. This clever game has been a staple of Game CLub since its introduction a few weeks ago. It is a strategy card game with lots of psycho-strategy -- you really need to pay attention to what others will likely do. There is some screwage factor, and strategies can often backfire. AND, a game usual takes about 1/2 hour -- that counts a Game Club quickie.
Brian, Cengiz, Harper-Dylan, and Ashley were the competitors here. I think Cengiz wrote the session report, and I will copy the relevant info he wrote from that here: Cengiz raped, pillaged, and plundered with 67. Harper-Dylan had 50. Brian finished with 48. And Ashely took it in the end with 35. So, if you made it through that report without being offended enough to change the web page you would have learned that
Cengiz wins!
As that was going on,
Sean and Fenwick went off to one of the smaller table for a game of
Fjords. Fjords has everything we need for a hotgame: Tile laying, continent building, area claiming, and area dominance. OH! And hexes. Those are always wonderful for gaming. A beautiful island was created -- Fenwick was easily thwarted. He had 10 areas settled, and Sean had 18.
Sean wins!Another game of
Coda was being played at this point with
May, Cathy W., and Brad. No results were recorded... but some kind of game of Coda occured.
After that, May recruited some folks to play a game of
Turn the Tide. I know the game was played. I'm not sure who played, or who won, but it happened! I saw it!
Knowing Fenwick would be down for it, Sean suggested a game of
Samurai. Oh, what a glorious game. Territory control. Hexes (did I mention I like hexes for some reason? Cuz I do.). GREAT bits. Geographically wonderful. They would have been fine with a 2 player game, but the call went out for 2 more players -- Cengiz and Tyler answered the call. So, the 4-player game of
Sean, Cengiz, Tyler, and Fenwick began. The screwage began quickly. Tyler elimanted a few pieces, each time making a gaming enemy. We will now refer to him, affectionately, as "Eliminator Douchebag". The strate
gy worked well. Sean and Tyler each had dominated a category, but you need TWO to win. The tie-breaker goes to the non-winning category pieces each had. Sean had 4, Tyler had 5.
Tyler wins!
The Bell-Bottomed Buddha
Sean and Fenwick wandered back towards game central and grabbed
10 days in Europe. This is such a classic Game Club game. Using the game mechanism pioneered by Rack-o, joined with geography, you get a happy, happy game. We played 2 games. First game:
Sean wins! During this game, Tyler watched, and got the hang of it by observation. He asked to join, and we obliged -- for game 2,
Tyler joins. Apparently he got the swing of things nicely, because for game 2,
Tyler wins!
The next table over was sporting a game of
Quiddler. This is THE quintessential Game Club game. It doesn't get a high rating on
Board Game Geek, which is completely inexplicable. This is a quick, clever, compact, easy-to-learn word game. And everyone we've ever played it with is a huge fan. It's no Scrabble or Boggle, but it is close, and possible even MORE accessible than those. I rant about the beauty of Quiddler a bunch, so I'll stop now.
Brad, May, Cathy W., Brian, and Ashley were the participants. After the full game,
Cathy W. emerged victorious!And now, a new game for game club!
Fiji has been toting to Game Club a bunch of times. We've never dragged it out, until today, due to some prodding from Fenwick. Not sure how everyone else found it, but I really enjoyed it. It goes quick, and here is some SERIOUS psycho-strategy. I am a huge fan of Fist of Dragonstones, an occassional Game Club feature, and this has some similar strategy. Or at least a similar game mechanic: Grab a fist of gems in an attempt to outwit your fellow players. Differring from other games of this type: There are FOUR different win conditions which you are attempting to fulfill (or NOT fulfill depending on the situation) with this single bid. You have 3 tries to make good on this... but the obvious choices may not always pay off -- a tie is cancelled out (Beat the Buzzard-style, anothe Game Club regular). OH! And the best part: you're bidding on SHRUNKEN HEADS! For this game, it was
Victoria, Sean, Sandy, and Fenwick battling it out. Sean got kind of shafted by the others playing similar gems, and him getting forced taking things he did not want. He ended with 3 heads. Fenwick had 4. Sandy was close to the win with 6. But
Victoria wins with 8 shrunken heads!
Earlier in the day, Ashlei requested a game of Settlers of Catan. That was brought out, and we wanted a small game of Settlers veterans. So the call went out for an intimate game of folks who knew Settlers. It turned out that
Sean, Ashlei, and Fenwick were the ones to answer the call. It was a fairly freindly game -- the robber robbing only when necessary, roads and buildings played generously, and trades made in a friendly way. There was little yelling, and mostly in joy, and mostly by Ashlei whenever her 3-sheep number was rolled. Sean was having trouble getting resources besides ones to give him Development Cards. He upgraded his 2 settlements to cities fairly early. He had 8 soldiers, easily earning him the Largest Army bonus. After building one more city and having some bonuses in his development cards,
Sean wins! Ashlei had 7, and Fenwick had 6. It was actually a quite satisfying game of Settlers, one of the best in a while.
Sean's first city (I was pronouncing it wrong the whole time, and probably actually have it wrong now, too.)
As we were winding down,
Ashlei and Fenwick dove into a game of
Cribbage. Yes, Cribbage. Probably one of the few "classic" games we drag out. I hate regular card games, EXCEPT for Cribbage. It is a wonderful blend of strategy, set building, and math. Ashlei took an early lead, and she cheered loudly nearly every time the shared card was revealed. She was on her way to skunking Fenwick soundly, but he snuck a few points in at the very end -- Fenwick had 92 points, when
Ashlei exceeded her 121 points for the win! Fenwick escaped 2 points away from a skunking -- he was still beaten rather soundly.
There were a few other games run here and there, but this was the vast majority of those played. And whatever we record for the blog is good! It's good to be back...
