August 2005 - Posts

• Gaming in Stillwater, Part 1

  I spent the weekend in Stillwater, OK helping Karl (my uncle) pack up his apartment for a permanent move to Tampa, FL.  It was hard work, with Friday and Saturday spent sorting through what he wanted to take, packing it up in boxes, and trashing the rest.  We made one trip to the city dump (not fun!) and hauled two van-loads of trash to the dumpsters behind married student housing.  (don’t tell!)  Karl had a storage room in his place, and most of it was taken up with boxes from his last move that hadn’t been unpacked.  The amazing thing about this room is that it was about 80% full of games. Karl has been a gamer all his life, and has heard of (if not played) just about anything you can think of.  Most of it he has kept with him over the years, eventually winding up in the aforementioned storage room.  It was fascinating going through the boxes on Saturday.  It was like traveling back in time or opening up a gaming time capsule.  I beheld numerous treasures.  There was the complete set of Talisman and expansions.  (even TimeScape!)  There was a first edition of Cosmic Encounter with all the Eon expansions.  Sadly, this edition was practically destroyed, as it went with Karl on patrol when he was a submariner in the Navy.  I even marveled at the three complete sets of original first edition D & D books, including one copy of the original Chainmail rules. It was a lot of fun going through his huge collection of games.  Since he wanted to travel light, he wound up giving me a large chunk of his collection.  It was incredibly generous of him.  I’m going to have a lot of fun going through some of the more historical stuff, including the big box of micro games.  He also passed on the bulk of his CCG collection, so I envision lots of card gaming at future Friday night Lumbersmiths nights!  I can’t wait to try out Legend of the Five Rings (I haven’t played it in years), Vampire, and 7th Sea. Saturday evening we headed over to Distraction Games, the newest game shop in Stillwater.  Karl has raved about the store for the last couple of months, and I was eager to see the place.  It didn’t disappoint.  There was a wide selection of Euro games, including many of my favorites.  The store was bright, clean, and uncluttered.  They had a great spot in the back with tables for in-store gaming, which get used on a regular basis.  Saturday night they had a number of people playing the Star Wars Miniatures game.  I love seeing a store with a community of people that come into the store to play.  Having players in the shop adds a sense of community to the place.  That’s something that Dallas stores don’t have.  Jared and Sally are the owners, and after talking with them for just a few minutes I felt like I had known them for years.  They’re an amazingly cool couple, and two of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.  I think they’ll have great success with their store for years to come.  I wish I could have gotten a picture or two inside their store, but I forgot to bring my camera.  (doh!)  I’ve been told they’re fans of my humble website, so hi Jared & Sally! We did manage to finish each night of packing with a quick game of Zombies.  I hadn’t played before, but that wasn’t a problem as the rules were extremely simple.  The basic mechanics involved rolling a d6 to move, another d6 to attack, and another d6 to move the zombies on the board.  Each player had a hand of 3 cards that let him do something special, like double-move, place new zombies on the board, or wield a weapon for increased attack power.  In the first game I was lucky, drawing a Fire Axe (+1 to hit) in my opening hand.  The Fire Axe could only be played if I was standing inside the Fire House, which I drew on the second turn.  This allowed me a huge advantage throughout the game, and I was able to pull out a victory by being the first to kill 25 zombies.  Karl followed up with 23, and John trailed with 19.  In the second game, I again took an early lead, wracking up a number of kills.  While it looked like I would cruise to victory, Karl drew the heli-pad and was able to play a card that meant no zombies could attack for a full turn.  This let him make it to the heli-pad, but he died while fighting the last zombie in his path.  The unlucky roll let John slip in behind him and escape on the helicopter before I could pickup my 25th kill. Zombies was a fun little beer & pretzels game.  It was certainly just the game we needed after an exhausting day of packing.  It’s not my usual cup of tea, but if someone pulled it out when I was in the mood for something light, I’d play it again. That ended the first part of the trip.  Karl drove down to Dallas yesterday as part of his first leg of the trip to Florida.  We played a couple of games with Christina and Brandon, so I’ll have another write-up done soon.  Posted Aug 30 2005, 03:16 PM by Jeff with no comments Filed under: Session Report, Boardgames

• Weekend Gaming: Cities & Knights and Anno 1503

  Gaming has taken a back-seat to real life lately, though I did manage to get in a couple of games over the weekend.  Brandon and Joe came over Saturday afternoon and I finally managed to get in my first play of the Cities and Knights expansion to Settlers.  After hundreds of plays of the base game, this was the first of the expansions that I’ve played.  I enjoyed the way it changed the strategy of playing Settlers, while keeping the major mechanics.  Some of the rules felt a bit “tacked-on”, but for the most part it was cleaner than I expected.  Unfortunately, we had bad luck with the barbarian attack, rolling several black ships early.  I was never able to get a sheep card, nor enough of any resource to trade for one.  The turn I was able to produce a sheep was the same turn in which the barbarians attacked.  Left without a knight, my first city was demoted to a settlement.  For the rest of the game, I was playing catch-up, and was never able to overcome the loss.  Still, I enjoyed the different game-play and would love to try it again. After Cities and Knights, we waffled on what to play, and decided to try a game of Anno 1503.  Brandon and I had played this with Jay a couple of weekends ago, and it was Joe’s first time to play.  I love the rules in this game.  They are unambiguous and easy to explain.  Brandon and Joe chose to try a building strategy, which gave Brandon an eventual victory point for having four public buildings.  I played mean, and wound up building Joe’s fourth public building, even though it did nothing for me.  That would prove to be a big mistake, as I was already a bit behind Brandon.  Had I used those resources to further my own goals instead of hamper Joe, I might have been closer to winning.  It was evident a couple of turns before the end of the game that Brandon would win.  He snatched his second victory point for having four outposts, and since he had two public buildings that gave him a bonus for selling resources, all he had to do was sell off any resource he got.  I did well, snatching up three trade agreements and improving 3 of my colonists to their maximum value.  All I needed was a fourth outpost, but Brandon was able to get 30 gold for his third victory point before my ship could make it to an unexplored island tile. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures over the weekend, so this will have to be a text-only session report.  Tonight is the Dallas Gamers weekly Borders event, but I think I am going to have to skip this week.  I have a lot of things to do this week.  I’m taking off work on Friday to drive up to Stillwater, OK.  I went to school at Oklahoma State, and my uncle who lives there is going to be moving to Tampa next week.  My uncle is the man who introduced me to gaming all those many years ago.  He made me cut my teeth on games like Star Fleet Battles, The Awful Green Things from Outer Space, Car Wars, Talisman, and other old-school games, some of which I can’t even remember.  It’s going to be sad to see him leave Stillwater, but rest assured we’ve already scouted out all the good game stores and player groups in the Tampa area.  Between all the packing and cleaning, I’m sure we’ll get in a few games this weekend. Posted Aug 23 2005, 03:09 PM by Jeff with no comments

• Borders Gaming: Alhambra, Cape Horn & Diamant

  Last night I stopped by Borders again to game with the Dallas Gamers.  I convinced Brandon to come along, and we met up with his friend Eran, who I’ve heard about and seen before, but never officially met.  There were several other people standing around looking for games, and eventually a game of Robo Rally was started.  I wanted to play, but opted out to teach a couple of other players how to play Alhambra.  This was my third game of Alhambra in four days, so I may have to lay off for a while.  I played with two guys named Jason and Mike, who took to the game well.  So well, in fact, that they crushed me.  Jason took to the strategy immediately, always picking up two currency cards if possible, and buying with exact change very often.  I know I’m not particularly good at the game, but I did suffer from some poor luck for most of the game.  I rarely had the opportunity to buy buildings in the colors I needed, settling for purchasing ones I didn’t.  That ensured I rarely scored first place, and wound up with a lot of third place finishes.  It was not my best effort, but I’m glad I got to introduce another two players to the game.  It continues to be one of my new favorites. Shortly after I finished up with Alhambra, Brandon and Eran ended their game of Robo Rally.  From what I hear, they were playing some sort of partner scenario.  I’d like to get my hands on a copy of the rules to see just what’s changed from the different versions.  The three of us sat down to play a game of Cape Horn, and were joined by John as a fourth.  This was a new game for me.  Fundamentally it is another race game, but just like Around the World in 80 Days, it plays much differently than how I expect a racing game to play.  The limited selection of tiles a player may play, along with the opportunity your opponents have to fiddle with your plans gives the game a nice feel.  All four of us grabbed the first flag fairly quickly, but due to some lucky tile draws I was able to beat everyone to the second set of flags.  While everyone else went for the 3–flag victory condition, I raced for the finish line with 2 flags.  I made a mistake getting there that very nearly cost me the game, but at this point everyone was trying to keep everyone else from winning.  I had just enough time to cross the finish line the turn before Eran grabbed his final flag.  I really enjoyed this game, and loved how it could be played quickly. We finished up the night with two quick plays of the filler game Diamant.  Again, this was a new game to me.  It is very light, but enjoyable with the maximum 8 players.  At its heart it is a bluffing game.  There are 5 caverns that the players explore in sequence, making up 5 rounds of play.  Each round, a series of cards are flipped face-up representing the next section of the cavern.  There are two basic possible cards – a hazard card or a numbered card.  If a numbered card is turned, a number of jewels matching the number on the card are evenly divided between the players.  Any remaining jewels are placed on the card.  The players then secretly decide whether to leave the cavern and keep any accumulated jewels or press on, risking what they already have.  Any players who vote to leave evenly split any remaining jewels on the cards and sit out the remainder of the round.  However, the jewels they accumulate are “safe”.  Any remaining players keep playing.  When a hazard card is turned up, a check is made to see if it is the second of that type (there are 5 different types of hazards).  If not, play continues.  If it is the second of a type, the players in the cavern lose any jewels they have accumulated, and play moves on to the next round, with all players participating. Diamant is simply a bluffing / guessing game where you weigh risk versus reward.  If you leave the cavern too soon, you risk other players collecting many, many more jewels.  Too late and you may wind up with nothing.  The game is very simplistic, and I wouldn’t want to play with less than a large group.  It plays very well for a large-group filler, and was a nice way to relax at the end of a night of gaming. I had another fun night playing with the group at Borders.  The biggest advantage is being able to draw from such a large game library.  I love to play new games, and there is always something new with this group.  This was also the third straight time I’ve seen Louis XIV being played, and the third straight time I missed out!  One of these nights I’m going to get to try it out.  Pictures are in the gallery. Posted Aug 17 2005, 11:12 AM by Jeff with no comments Filed under: Session Report, Borders Gaming

• Weekend Gaming - Alhambra (x2) and Anno 1503

  This weekend was a slow gaming weekend.  Friday night we had more scheduling conflicts with the regular Friday-night Lumbersmiths group, so we punted to Saturday.  It was just me, Jay and Brandon, so after a quick lunch of cheap Chinese food we tried out my un-played copy of Anno 1503.  I had played Anno 1503 once before with the Borders group, but it has been several months.  The rules were very concise, so after about 10 minutes we were underway.  I started off the strongest thanks to some lucky rolls, but Jay quickly caught up by building many ships to discover island tiles.  Eventually he acquired the building that gave his ships twice their movement, and he looked very strong.  Brandon opted for a balanced strategy of buildings and ships, and I went strictly building, acquiring all three of the bonus trading public buildings, as well as the fire brigade for defense.  Brandon had quite a scare when there was only 1 public building left.  He had 3 public buildings, needing just one more to achieve a victory condition, but it looked like Jay was going to be able to steal the last building from him.  Fortune was on Brandon's side, as Jay rolled the Pirate event.  This event caused Jay to lose just enough money so that he couldn’t buy the last building, and Brandon was able to lay claim to it the next turn.  In the end, I was able to squeeze out a victory 1 turn before Jay, scoring points for having 30 gold, 4 public buildings, and (surprisingly enough) 3 trade agreements.  Everyone enjoyed their first play, and thought it was a good alternative to Settlers. We had the energy for another game, so we played our second game of Alhambra.  In our first game, Brandon made heavy use of the currency card action and was able to receive many free actions for having exact change.  The rest of us took note and tried to employ the same strategy, also making sure we didn’t box ourselves in with wall pieces.  Jay jumped out to a sizeable lead after the second scoring round, and managed to score first place in three colors in the final round to keep the lead.  Brandon made a valiant effort, scoring an insane amount of points from his palace walls.  I was the dog in this game, not able to win first place in more than 1 color in any round.  We all agreed the three players is a good number for this game.  We were gamed-out after only two games, and retired for dinner at Gloria's followed by a few games of pool. On Sunday, my girlfriend Christina came over and asked to play a game.  Coming off my last Alhambra loss, I wanted to play again to see if I could improve.  I was also interested to see how the 2–player variant plays with the inclusion of a phantom 3rd player.  The mechanic seemed lame when I first read about it.  I was envisioning an “active” third player, who would be interrupting the flow of the game.  Quite the contrary, the phantom player was simply dealt a hand of tiles after each scoring round, and affected how many tiles would be needed by the human players.  We had some incredible bad luck with the 3rd player (called “Matt” in the rulebook).  To start the game, “Matt” drew six tiles, which turned out to be one of each color!  That meant any color that Christina and I neglected, Matt would score first place.  Needless to say, Matt took a lead after the first scoring round.  Immediately after that, the phantom player gets dealt six additional tiles.  Again, one of each color!  Unbelievable!  Matt now had 2 of each color, enough to ensure he would score lots of points in the second scoring round.  In the end, Christina and I wound up being beaten by a player who didn’t even exist. It would be remiss not to point out that Christina played beautifully, and beat me on the final turn of the game.  I had 3 purple tiles in play, enough for me to score 1st place by myself.  She and Matt each had 2 tiles.  Even though she had other options, she chose as the last play of the game to purchase and place another purple tile, tying me for first place.  With her wall points, this was enough to let her pass me and take first place among the human players. I’m very excited that Christina has enjoyed all the games we’ve played.  Settlers was a little bit intimidating for her, since she was playing with three people who had played many (many, many) times before.  But she’s really enjoyed our games of Balloon Cup, Lost Cities, and now Alhambra.  We still haven’t played Odin’s Ravens, so that may be the next one we try.  I'm lucky to have a girlfriend who will play games with me. There are no pictures from this weekend, as I completely forgot to bring my digital camera along.  This Friday night Jay is out of town and Brandon is back in school, so we probably won’t do Friday night gaming for a third straight week.  Assuming work doesn't beat me down, I'll head to Borders tomorrow night to get my gaming fix.  I’m such a junkie. Posted Aug 15 2005, 04:01 PM by Jeff with no comments Filed under: Session Report

• Tuesday Night Borders Gaming

  Last night I met Jay (another Lumbersmith founding member) for the Dallas Games regular Tuesday night gaming at Borders.  I haven’t been to one of the meetups at Borders in a few weeks, and I picked a great night to remedy that.  The unofficial count was 33 gamers packed into the cafe, with 7 simultaneous games!  It might not have been a record number, but it was definitely impressive. San Juan Jay and I arrived at 5:30 and several games were already in-progress.  We met up with Dustin, who was also waiting for a game to start, and played an incredibly quick game of San Juan.  Jay started off with a tremendous collection of buildings letting him produce and sell multiple goods with stacking bonuses.  We all thought he would cruise to a victory, but I made some clutch violet building draws and was able to play the Triumphal Arch to score bonuses.  Going in to the final turn I thought I had an easy victory, but Dustin pulled an incredibly sneaky victory, plunking down the Guild Hall worth 14 points from his 7 production buildings!  It was refreshing to play this game with veteran players, as it really sped up the game. Final Scores:  Dustin 32, Jeff 30, Jay 26 Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix We finished up San Juan just as other players arrived, and we wound up with 6 people.  Danny had a copy of Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix, so we sat down to learn this 6–player racing game.  The game is played over 3 races.  Each race, players receive a handful of cards, with each card allowing specific cars to move a specific number of spaces.  Players look at their hand and try to determine which of the 6 cars they think they have the best chance of winning with, based on their hand.  The cars are then offered for auction, with each player winning 1 car.  The race starts and each player playing a single card in turn and moving all of the cars as indicated on the card.  The strategy comes in playing the cards that move other cars.  You don’t want to play them and advance other cars, so you wait until cars are blocking the track so that movement gets wasted. I had a good hand of cards in the first and third races, but apparently other people had similar cards.  I had competitors for those auctions, and wound up paying $70k and $80k to get the car I wanted.  I managed to finish 1st in one race and 2nd in another, so I made a profit.  I thought taking first and second place would be enough for the victory, but wily Tim and Danny had played a “budget” game, picking up cars on the cheap and finishing in the middle of the pack.  They wound up tied with $10k more dollars than me, so I had to settle for third!  Tim decided the prettiest competitor was the tiebreaker, and claimed victory.  Jay had a bad hand of cards for two of the races, and suffered from some bad luck on wasted movement of his cars.  I highly enjoyed this light racing game, and much preferred it to my previous plays of Formula De.  I may pick up a copy for our office gaming nights. Final scores:  Tim $430k, Danny $430k, Jeff $420k, Steve $390k, Dustin $340k, Jay $300k Around the World in Eighty Days The last game of the night was a new one for everyone except Tim (funny how that works).  When he described it as “another racing game”, I was hesitant, but this game turned out to play very differently than a traditional car racing game.  The mechanics can be found on Board Game Geek, so I’ll just say this played much more like a traditional Euro game than a racing game.  Dustin had to leave, so a newcomer named Mike stepped in to fill the 6th spot.  A couple of players make quick moves through the first two cities, while Danny and I were stuck in London due to the detective.  Things evened out around Bombay, with Steve and Mike past the city and the four other players holed up in Bombay hoping for an elephant draw.  I decided to take the twelve day penalty rather than find an elephant, and moved the detective into Bombay to force everyone else to make the same choice.  Eventually, Steve would be the first player back to London in 84 days.  Mike would be on his heels, finishing in 74 days.  Danny was the third to finish with 81 days.  Jay, Tim and I were all two cities behind, and crossed the finish line on the same turn.  Everyone finished, and I was able to play a double ship and a “2” train card into London to squeeze out a victory. The game was a lot of fun, and different than other racing games.  The rules were quick to explain, and turns went by quickly since players had a limited selection of things to perform.  I would definitely play this one again. Final scores:  Jeff 71, Jay 73, Tim 73, Mike 74, Danny 81, Steve 84 Crossing order:  Steve 1st, Mike 2nd, Danny 3rd, Jay / Tim / Jeff 4th There are a few photos in the gallery, but I'm struggling on finding the correct settings with my digital camera.  The camera shake was just too much tonight. Posted Aug 10 2005, 02:26 PM by Jeff with no comments Filed under: Session Report, Boardgames, Borders Gaming