February 11, 2006

Last Saturday, fifteen brave souls ventured out into the impending threat of the snowstorm to join us at our house for some gaming. In addition to the Jones family, no less brave for not having to venture into the storm, were Dan Korn and Rachel Silber, Dave and Noreen Fair, Bill, Stephanie, Jason and Alex Ruvinsky, and Scott Percival. The remainder (children) of the Korn, Fair and Ruvinsky families also attended, mostly occupying themselves by playing X-Box and running about with lightsabers.

We started a bit after 1PM and ended around 5AM. Carol made excellent tacos for dinner and won three games out of the seven she played, including both games of Railroad Tycoon! The Fairs managed to escape at 5:30AM even though nearly 10 inches of snow had fallen while Alex and Jason couldn't get their car out of the parking spot and so had to crash on our couches until later on Sunday.

The tote board is below (winner listed first):

• The Bottle Imp - Bob, Carol, Dave
  • Bob: Played only one round out of three before others arrived. Great trick-taking game with a lot of strategy. Especially good for three.
• Poison - Rachel S, Noreen, Dan, Carol, Bob, Dave
• Railroad Tycoon - Carol 52, Bob 50, Dave 42, Noreen 37, Dan 33, Rachel S 32
• Acquire - Carol $33600, Bob $30200, Dan $22900, Noreen $22300, Dave $17500, Rachel S$14100
  • Bob: We haven’t played Acquire in a long time. Very few mergers meant that most players were cash poor for most of the game.
• Die Sieben Siegel - Alex (tied), Jason (tied), Scott
• 6 Nimmt - Alex 17, Bill 31, Scott 37, Stephanie&nsp;39, Dave 58, Noreen 67
• San Juan - Bob 28, Dave 24, Alex 22
  • Bob: The card game of Puerto Rico features a lot of choices and plays very quickly. One of my favorite card games. Alex put more cards in the Chapel than I’ve ever seen in one game.
• Through the Desert - Dave 79, Scott 77, Alex 75, Noreen 48
• Attila - Dan 97, Carol 95, Jason 91, Bob 86
• Streetcar - Jason, Bill, Stephanie, Carol, Noreen
  • Bob: Clearly a game in which you must pay attention to detail. A couple of sloppy mistakes (by her and others) caused some difficulties for Carol.
• The Bottle Imp - Alex 148, Dave 90, Bob 63
• Railroad Tycoon - Carol 64, Jason 51, Dave 47, Alex 45, Bob 44, Noreen 43

Thanks to everyone for coming. It was a good time.

Bob

January 7, 2006

Hey folks! Below is the gaming report from last Saturday. We had a huge group as almost all the big families made it. Attending were Bob, Carol and Rachel Jones, Dan Korn and Rachel Silber, Dave, Noreen and Andrew Fair, Stephanie, Jason and Alex Ruvinsky, Paul Bartholomew, Scott Percival and Eric Haas. Plus, we had the usual assortment of rugrats and pre-teens.

Pictures are here.

I hope to have another session in early February. Will send an e-mail around soon. See you!


The tally is below. Winner listed first.

• Blokus (travel) Bob, Dave
• Poison Dave 9, Eric 24, Carol 28, Bob 34 (This has become our filler of choice. It's quick, fun and has a decent amount of strategy)
• Verflixxt (That’s Life) Bob 16, Eric 15, Noreen 11, Dave -4, Carol -6
• Wits and Wagers Dan 240, Bob 200, Scott 140, Carol 80, Dave 0, Noreen 0, Eric 0 (A pretty good trivia party game. I find it somewhat annoying that I got right 5 out of 7 questions and still didn’t win because of the final bet.)
• 6 Nimmt! Carol 40, Bob 42, Scott 43, Dave 45, Dan 54, Noreen 74, Eric 89.
• Diamant! Dave 34, Scott 19, Eric 13, Carol 11, Andrew 11, Bob 7, Rachel J 0 (We played with the Forbidden Idol variant. Sadly, Dave took it every time.)
• Antike Scott 9, Dave 6, Jason 6, Paul 4 (An excellent “Civilization Lite” game. Nice bits, some clever mechanics and a reasonable playing time.)
• Die Sieben Siegel Paul 9, Scott 9 (tie), Dave, Jason
• Rheinlander Andrew 39, Rachel J 36, Bob 35, Eric 26, Carol 23 (Rheinlander has quickly become one of my favorite games.)
• Buy Low, Sell High No winner. Eric, Bob, Carol (Aaargh! I want to play this correctly some day. We had to abandon the game two-thirds of the way through because we screwed up the rules again. My bad.)
• Top Secret Spies Rachel J, Carol, Bob, Dan, Noreen, Eric (I mistook my red guy for orange and so helped Rachel to an easy victory. After screwing up the rules to BLSH and then this, I was starting to think I should retire.)
• Cartagena Stephanie, Scott, Alex
• Railroad Tycoon Dave 69, Bob 63, Alex 62, Carol 61, Scott 55, Paul 53 (What a fantastic game! Great theme, quick yet deep gameplay, and amazing, sumptuous bits. One of my favorites after only two plays.)
• Around the World in 80 Days Stephanie 72 days. Dan 81, Eric 81, Noreen 84, Jason did not finish
• Poison Eric -11, Jason -15, Dan -22
• Titan: The Arena Eric 12, Jason 10, Dan 2

November 12, 2005

Greetings!

Last Saturday, several of us gathered to play some games. In attendance were Bob, Carol and Rachel Jones, Dave and Noreen Fair, Scott Percival, Eric Haas, Dan Korn and Rachel Silber, and Alex Ruvinsky.

Scott, Eric, Rachel, Dave, Alex and I started with our long-postponed follow up to last August’s Wooden Ships and Iron Men game. We scaled it back considerably to finish in a reasonable amount of time. The scenario was that three Spanish treasure ships had gotten separated from their escort and were making a run for a fortified spanish coastline in the Caribbean. Unfortunately for them, identical French and British fleets found them and raced to intercept before the Spanish ships could get under the protective cover of their coastal batteries. The goal of the French and British fleets was to capture (or sink) the treasure ships and do as much damage to the enemy fleet as possible. Both fleets had nine ships, four ships of the line and five frigates. Dave, Alex and I were the French while Scott, Eric and Rachel J. were the British.

On initial setup, neither fleet sent their faster frigates after the treasure fleet, instead choosing to slug it out in the middle of the map. After several turns, multiple ships had struck their colors with the British taking the heavier losses. After this initial (and largely fatal) engagement, Alex and then Dave peeled off a couple of frigates to intercept the treasure fleet which they did just before the ships entered the firing range of the coastal batteries. The British attempted a similar maneuver but had no frigates left by this point. When the treasure ships struck their colors under fire from the French frigates, the British had two ships of the line still engaged while the French had two ships of the line and two frigates. The remaining British ships fled the battle.

We played on a really big playing surface comprised of a blue/white cloth covered by a crystal megamat. There were two islands and the coastal area to add some obstacles. The ships were the miniatures I got from copies of the old Milton Bradley game, American Heritage Broadsides which I hand-painted over the last few months. In the pictures you can see that the British have lighter decks, red flags and white stripes compared to the French darker decks, blue flags and yellow stripes. All of these elements added a great deal of atmosphere to the game. From start to finish, we played for two hours and forty-five minutes and came to a conclusive end. With two plays under our belts, the French are now 2-0!

Some time ago, Glenn put together an excellent Excel spreadsheet with templates for the Turn Order Sheets. This made it very easy for me to print out customized, individual ship sheets for each player. Thanks, Glenn!

After WS&IM was over, Alex left for several hours while we were joined by Carol, Noreen, Dan and Rachel S.

Not sure when the next session will be. I’m thinking of hosting Texas Hold ’em sometime in December. Possible nights would be the 3rd or the 10th. I’ll send around an invitation when I know more.

Bob
Tote Board

• Wooden Ships & Iron Men French: Bob, Dave, Alex; British: Scott, Rachel J, Eric
• Dungeon Twister Eric, Dave
• Tsuro Dan, Bob
• Tsuro Dave, Bob, Dan, Eric
• Wings of War Dan, Bob, Rachel S, Dave, Carol, Noreen, Eric Bob: Ace of Aces without the book. A nice, fun, easy system of WWI dogfighting which can play large numbers of players.
• Cash’n Guns Bob $135,000, Carol $75,000, Noreen $70,000, Dan $50,000, Dave (killed), Eric (killed) Bob: Basically, “Reservoir Dogs, the Game.” Fun game of pulling guns on your opponents. Are you bluffing or will you really shoot?
• Poison Eric -14, Dan -18, Carol -28, Bob -32, Dan -47 Bob: Knizia card game where you’re trying not to take cards, especially the dreaded Poison cards.
• Edel, Stein & Reich Eric 64:11, Dave 64:6, Carol 48, Bob 35, Noreen 24 Bob: Eric won the tie-breaker with Dave.
• For Sale Bob 60, Carol 46, Alex 45, Eric 35, Dave 35, Noreen 13
• San Marco Bob 66, Dave 58, Eric 58 Bob: A really excellent game for three players. Should make it to the table much more often.

October 29, 2005

Hey everyone! Just a quick update on last weekend’s gaming. Thanks to everyone who made it. We had Bob, Carol, and Rachel Jones, Dave and Noreen Fair, Scott Percival, Eric Haas, and Bill, Stephanie, Jason and Alex Ruvinsky. Tragically, only the Joneses were hip enough to come in costume. :-( We had a good time nonetheless. Carol made some excellent tacos.

Reminder, our next gaming event is next Saturday, Nov. 12 at 1PM. We plan on starting with Wooden Ships and Iron Men and then moving on to whatever. If you aren’t interested in playing Wooden Ships, you can still come and set up a side game. If you will play Wooden Ships, please let me know so I can set things up for the right number of players.

Bob
Tote Board

• King Solomon’s Mine Scott 56, Carol 49, Dave 49, Eric 31, Bob 31 Bob: An interesting game with a mechanic that’s impossible to get over if you have trouble visualizing the board in three dimensions. I had a lot of trouble easily telling which tile was on which level. Scott had no such problems.
• Finstere Flure Bob, Scott, Carol, Dave, Eric, Noreen, Rachel J
• Caylus Eric 56, Carol 47, Bob 46, Dave 44, Scott 44 Bob: Fantastic game with many roads to victory. Looking forward to continued plays of this. Watch for this to stay in BoardGameGeek’s top ten for a long time.
• Pecunia Non Olet Eric, Bob, Scott, Dave, Carol, Noreen Bob: This game is about, believe it or not, privy renters in ancient Rome. You run a latrine with three holes and you are trying to get customers to come in, get rid of their load, and pay you as quickly as possible. Very similar to Guillotine but without as many fun action cards. Notable mostly for the brown logs that represent . . . well, you know.
• Big City Dave 85, Jason 83, Carol 76, Eric 75
• Paris Paris Bill 46, Stephanie R 27, Alex 25, Bob 17
• Princes of Florence Bob 67, Eric 50, Jason 49, Dave 49, Carol 48 Bob: Still a classic. Very good game.
• Power Grid Jason 15, Scott 13:16, Eric 13:14, Bob 12, Dave 11 Bob: We played the Italian map. Very tight. The lesson learned was not to let one player alone in the south while the other three fight for space in the north.

September 3, 2005

Greetings! I hope everyone had a good weekend. I had a great weekend, especially Saturday, a day which involved spending time with friends, running through a darkened maze blazing away at enemy stormtroopers, and lots of game-playing. Thanks to everyone who came. It was a very fun day. I have attached several pictures for your enjoyment.

The group met at Shadowland around 10:00AM. Attending were Bob, Carol, Rachel and Ben Jones, Glenn and Laura Bramer, Scott and Liz Percival, their nephew, Paul and his friend, Henry, Kimberly Stern, Eric Haas, Dave, Andrew and Corwin Fair, Stephanie, Alex and Rachel Ruvinsky, and Dan and Zachary Korn. We quickly divided into teams and started the first game.

The teams were:

• Blue - Corwin Fair, Laura Bramer, Rachel Jones, Bob Jones, Liz Percival, Scott Percival, Rachel Ruvinsky, Glenn Bramer, Stephanie Ruvinsky, and Alex Ruvinsky.
• Red - Ben Jones, Carol Jones, Kimberly Stern, Dave Fair, Andrew Fair, Zachary Korn, Dan Korn, Eric Haas, Paul and Henry.

Luckily, there were no walk-ins so we had the arena to ourselves for both our games. There were some intial technical glitches which were quickly resolved and we proceeded to running around blasting each other. Dave Fair had hurt his leg earlier in the week and so was reluctant to play. He decided to go for it and his “stand in one place and not move” strategy proved bizarrely workable. At the end of the game, Dave had scored the most points followed by Rachel Jones and me. The final score was Blue Team 20,463, Red Team 20,089. Amazingly close. After we emerged from the arena, everyone was talking loudly and happily about the game so it was easy to see that everyone enjoyed it.

Since the two teams seem so well matched, we kept them for the second game. There was a bit less running around in this game as many members of both teams set up positions and engaged in a fierce firefight. Alas, the addition of the rapid fire option elevated scores considerably and produced a much greater disparity of scores. The Red Team decimated the Blue Team by a score of 44,601 to 31,381. Coming out of the arena, Dave and I agreed that I had the upper hand of him this time. To our great surprise, not only had I not bested Dave, he shot me 89 times!

Dave was again the leader followed by Dan Korn and Andrew Fair. We suspect a computer glitch for Dave the Cripple’s continued domination. :-)

After Shadowland, most of us went to Cici’s Pizza for lunch. We then proceeded to the Jones’ house for gaming. We were eventually joined there by Rachel Silber and Bill Ruvinsky. We had sandwiches for dinner and some stayed to game until around 3:30AM. The tote is below (winner listed in bold), followed by Eric’s notes.

Thank again to everyone who attended. I believe we’ll make Shadowland a quarterly event (or as often as people would like to do it). Looking forward to next time.

Bob

Tote Board

• Parking Lot Prototype Dave 46, Carol 46, Dan K 44, Eric 42, Glenn 39, Bob 32
  • Bob: This is my prototype, version 2. I tightened it up from its first version. This playtest gave me a bunch of good ideas for further improvements. Thanks for playing!
• Goa Dave 56, Dan K 45, Eric 32, Stephanie R 27
• Pirate’s Cove Bill 36, Carol 33, Andrew 31, Kimberly 30
• Australia Bob 109 (won on tiebreaker), Scott 109, Rachel S 103, Noreen 75
• Einfach Genial Bob, Scott, Noreen, Rachel S
• Guillotine Dan K 30, Kimberly 28, Carol 25
• Power Grid Scott 15, Dave 14, Bob 13, Eric 12
  • Bob: This was a great game of Power Grid. It was close until the end when Scott surpassed us in power generation and we couldn’t catch up. Well played
• Blokus Kimberly 20, Dan K -7, Carol -13
• Shadows over Camelot Carol, Dave, Bob, Kimberly, Eric, Scott
  • Bob: Also a tremendously fun game. Good was on the ropes when the Traitor, Scott, made a disastrous mistake and accused Kimberly. This actually revealed Scott as the Traitor and assured victory to the forces of light. Had Scott not misunderstood the results of a false accusation, he would have been the sole victor.
• Vino Kimberly 22, Carol 21, Bob 20, Dave 19, Eric 18

July 30, 2005

Hey everyone! We had a great time on Saturday. It took a while for everyone to arrive but all told we had fourteen players. Attending were Bob, Carol and Rachel Jones, Eric Haas, Scott Percival, Dave, Noreen and Andrew Fair, Bill, Stephanie, Jason and Alex Ruvinsky and Paul Bartholomew. As you can see, we played a ton of games.

I hope we can get together and do Shadowland and gaming some Saturday in late August or early September. I’ll send around an e-mail when we get back from Indiana.

Below is the tally of games (winner listed in bold):
Tote Board

• Blokus Dave, Rachel, Carol, Bob
• Parking Lot Game Eric 34, Dave 31, Bob 30, Carol 30, Scott 30, Rachel 25
  • Bob: This is a prototype I’ve been thinking about for some time. It’s a game of tactical vehicle movement in which players maneuver onto a two-dimensional scoring grid. Okay, it’s a parking lot game. The playtest went very well. Thanks to everyone for indulging me. It won’t be the last time.
• Verflixxt! Dave 17, Eric 13, Rachel J 9, Bob 9, Scott 7, Carol 0
• China Scott 41, Dave 40, Bob 36, Eric 30, Carol 22
  • Bob: China is the rerelease and retheming of Web of Power. Very good game.
• Brawl Jason, Paul
• Euphrat & Tigris Eric 7, Scott 5, Bob 4, Dave 4
  • Bob: Haven’t played this in a long time. (9/27/03) Wanted to introduce it to Scott and he loved it. Everyone played a rather nasty, very tight game.
  • Eric: Near the end of the game, I was doing well in every color except green, where I only had two points. I had just drawn two green tiles, when Scott started a conflict between his green leader and mine. The two tiles I had drawn were exactly what I needed to win the battle, which gave me five green points, and ended the game by giving me another treasure.
• Settlers of Catan Jason 10, Paul 7, Carol 6, Rachel J 5
• Einfach Genial Stephanie R (solo game)
• Chinatown Alex 107, Carol 102, Stephanie R 97, Dave 94, Paul 89
• Modern Art Bill 539, Scott 451, Jason 441, Eric 388, Bob 368
• Raj Bob 21, Scott 14, Jason 3, Eric 2, Bill 0
• Raj Eric 18, Bill 9, Bob 9, Scott 4, Jason 0
• Rheinländer Jason 37, Paul 35, Bob 33, Eric 33, Stephanie R 27
• David & Goliath Alex 174, Scott 144, Carol 142, Bill 135, Noreen 115, Dave 119
• For Sale Bill 55, Dave 41, Scott 39, Noreen 43, Carol 43, Alex 41
• Diamant Noreen 25, Rachel J 18, Bob 16, Andrew 5, Carol 2, Eric 2, Dave 2
• Groo Bob 8, Dave 5, Carol 5, Andrew 5, Eric 4, Noreen 0

June 25, 2005

We thought we were going to have a small crowd but ended up with quite a large group. Playing were Bob, Carol, and Rachel Jones, Eric Haas, Alex, Jason, Rachel, Bill and Stephanie Ruvinsky, Dave and Noreen Fair, Dan Korn and Rachel Silber, and Scott Percival. Whew!
Tote Board

• Blokus Bob 20, Alex 28, Rachel J 21
  
• Blokus Alex 3, Eric 5, Bob 22, Rachel J 40
• Circus Flohcati Rachel J 97, Eric 76, Bob 72
• Raj Alex 40, Bob 34, Dave 33, Eric 7, Rachel J 7
• Saboteur Dave, Bob, Rachel J, Alex, Noreen, Carol, Jason, Eric Played incorrectly. Saboteurs won but I have no record of who was what.
• Saboteur Dave, Bob, Rachel J, Alex, Noreen, Carol, Jason, Eric, Dan, Scott Miners won. No record of who was what.
• Shadows over Camelot Scott, David, Alex, Bob, Eric, Rachel J Rachel J was the traitor. The loyalists won. GREAT game!
• Ubongo Dan, Noreen, Jason, Carol
• Settlers of Catan Jason, Carol, Dan, Noreen
• Ubongo Alex, Noreen, Rachel J, Bob
• Tower of Babel Alex, Bob, Scott, Dave, Dan
• Goa Bill, Jason, Carol, Eric
• Ticket to Ride Stephanie R, Rachel R, Rachel J, Rachel S, Noreen
• Rheinländer Bob, Dave, Dan, Alex, Scott
• Jambo Dan 62, Bob 52