WBC 2014 Recap - Part 1

Unfortunately, real life has gotten a little bit in the way the last month or two, so I've not picked my blogging back up at the pace I would like.  However, things are getting back to normal, so I hope to do this a little more regularly.  I did manage to squeeze in time to make the annual pilgrimage to Lancaster, PA for the World Boardgaming Championships from Thurs-Sunday, though.  I took some notes - but have since lost those, and I didn't do a good job with picture-taking this year (I will be glad to see Summer 2014 come to a close...it's been challenging, and I've been off my game).  So, I'm going to do my best to give a brief recap, with some thoughts on WBC in general. 

My friend Paul Owen and I headed up early Thursday morning.  We got there around 10ish, and headed in to the Lancaster Host.  I thought about playing Stone Age, however I decided to play Thurn & Taxis, which I don't get to pay often...in fact my last play was last year at WBC.  I was seated with 3 veterans, and had to ask for a quick rehash of the rules, which they provided.  The game went fairly quickly...it ended about a turn or two before I was ready and I finished in last place...however it was very close with a 5 or 6 point spread from first to last.  I was pleased with how I fared against 3 players who obviously were much more familiar with the game than I was.  Next up for me was a round of 7 Wonders.  GM Nick Ferris has a great randomizing method to seat people with unique cards he hands out to everyone, calls a row and column and everyone had their table and seat assignment.  My three opponents consisted of 1 fellow who was pretty experienced and 2 other folks who were fairly new to the game.  We played 2 games in an hour, and I finished 3rd in both, for an overall 3rd place.  In both games, I was hampered with lack of certain resources. 
 


Paul didn't advance either and I tagged along with him to the Lampeter room where he was going to engage in some Wooden Ships & Iron Men.  I took the opportunity to relearn this game, and played against one of the experienced hands in a frigate duel.  As expected my experienced foe got the upper hand, I didn't adjust to the wind very well...but his hot  dice luck didn't help any.  Next up I took part in a heat of Navegador...another game I don't get to play often enough.  I concentrated on building churches, but my lack of investing in any kind of ships in the 2nd half of the game caught up to me in the end.  Still, I finished in 2nd, about 8 or so points behind the winner.  At 9:00 that night I participated in my first heat of Conquest of Paradise, which had been expanded to 4 heats this year.  As at Prezcon, we were playing with the advanced rules and random events.  My game went very quickly...we were done in under an hour.  As Samoa I started last, and my 3 opponents each found 2 or more islands on their first turn.  I only found found one, but I consistently found islands over the next several rounds, and was able to expand my Polynesian empire for a quick and bloodless win (there was no combat in the entire game). 

After that, Paul and I wen to the open gaming area where we found Peter Gousis and his friend Jerry and played a game of Tobago, a clever little game about finding treasure, where the location of the treasures is narrowed down in a sort of logical card progression by the players.  Peter had come to our Unpub Mini and I was glad to catch up with him.  After that we all joined several other players, including T.C. Petty III for some Coup, followed by Panic on Wall Street.  With Coup, we played with the Reformation expansion, where players are assigned to the Catholic or Protestant faction, and can't act against someone in their faction...although you can change someone else's faction.  It adds another twist to an already fun hidden role/deduction game.  We had played Panic on Wall Street last year, and I was kind of "meh" on the game, though as I recall I was very tired at the time.  This time we also started late, but I got into the game more...and manged to eek out a win as a manager by riding the high-risk shares. 

Friday morning came too early (all the mornings seem to come too early at these conventions...)  I briefly toyed with the idea of playing in the Circus Maximus heat, but decided to wait for the vendors to open at 10:00.  I made a beeline to the Stronghold Games booth in order to pick up the Die Fighter expansion for Space Cadets:Dice Duel.  (About a week later I had a package arrive at home...the copy of Die Fighter that I had forgotten I had pre-ordered...DOH).  I picked up a few other things as well - a copy of Caylus Magna Carta (the card game version of Caylus), Freedom:The Underground Railroad, of which I had heard many good things, and game called Quilt Show to use as a gift for a friend that is really into quilting.  I didn't actually sit down for a game until 1:00, when I decided to try my hand at a heat of Ticket to Ride.  I enjoy TTR but I haven't played in a tournament in years because it's so popular, and it tends to conflict with other things.  One player ran away with it at our table - I finished 4th...I might have finished higher but I knew I wasn't winning so went for the Hail Mary on the last turn and drew more tickets...none of them I had complete.  But I did get a set of translucent trains just for playing. 



There was another heat of Conquest of Paradise at 3:00, but instead I decided to help Paul with a demo of East India Company he was giving to a publisher.  Now, I hadn't played EIC in a quite some time, and was eager to see the changes Paul had made.  He had streamlined it by removing the dividend track, taking out the Caribbean, removing the tariffs, and eliminating the option of using wood to build new ships.  The demo went well, I thought, although afterwards, on the drive home in particular, we brainstormed some about the game.  I thought Paul had actually removed too much, and we talked specifically about a way to add the tariffs back in, and possible some changes to how the pirates work.  Now, I will also admit that I had an ulterior motive.  This same publisher had contacted me after our Mini Unpub, specifically about Santa's Workshop.  I had sent him rulebook, but he had contacted me right after we got to WBC to tell me that it wasn't what they were looking for.  Which is fine, I'm happy he looked at it...and did take the opportunity to get his advice for 5 minutes or so after the EIC demo was done.  I specifically wanted to get his feedback on the theme...which had really gotten a negative reaction from a publisher at Unpub back in January.  This particular publisher thought the theme may be a bit of a tough sell, but he didn't think it was necessarily a deal breaker.  So, I was happy to get some feedback.

About this time, Brian made his WBC appearance, and we just decided to hit open gaming.  Paul sat down to re-teach us St. Petersberg, and we were joined by a 4th player...who also wanted to teach the game.  Once we got started, it came back quick enough.  Our 4th player won, but I made a strong showing with a building heavy strategy.  Brian and I hit the vendors for a while, and I picked up a copy of Villainous Vikings.  We had seen a demo of this game last year at WBC when designer Jeremy Stoltzfus had brought his prototype to demo.  Victory Point games had picked it up, and I decided to get a copy, including a promo captain.  Brian and I sat down in open gaming to give a 2-player game a try.  Fortunately, Jeremy was a few tables over teaching some other folk, so we were able to get quick answers to some rules questions.  We had a fun game, but were thinking it would bet better with more than 2 players.  After our game, Paul joined us along with Bill and Laurie from Nomad games.  Brian had purchased a copy of Spurs from them earlier, and we broke it out. Set in the Old West, with just about every trope you can imagine packed into the game, this was probably the purchase of the con.  The best part was watching Paul and Brian "gunfight" by drawing bullets out of their bags.  Brian pulled out the victory, I was a few points behind in 2nd place.  The last game of the night was another round of Villainous Vikings, with Paul joining in for a 3-player game.  Paul ended up running away with the game, but I did think it was better with more players.

Well, I had intended to do one short recap of WBC, but I think it's probably better to break it up into two sections....so next up, Saturday & Sunday, plus general thoughts on WBC.

2014 Prezcon - Part 3

Time to wrap up this year's Prezcon coverage.  Saturday at Prezcon is always interesting tournament-wise...there's a few heats left, but mostly you're getting down to semi-finals and finals...so your day may be packed...or you may have lots of time for open gaming.  My day started by bringing my extra games down to register for the auction - or rather, the auction store.  I wasn't sure whether to register for the regular auction or the "store", but I didn't think I had anything that would start a big bidding war, so I just went with the store.  One of the games I put in was Kids of Catan, which is a beautiful game, but the mechanics are little more than roll and move, and my kids outgrew it a few years ago.  I was gratified to later in the ballroom to see that a young mother has purchased it, and was playing it with her young children. 

Picture courtesy of boardgamegeek.com

Game-wise, first up for me was a 9:00 heat of Chicago Express - I was eager to see if I could put to use any of the lessons I had learned the previous day.  For a little while, it looked like it would just be a two player game between myself and another fellow - but Mike Senzig Jr. walked up at the last minute and joined us.  Mike is an excellent player, particularly at these types of economic games.  In the end, Mike beat me by about $10 or so...although I did the same thing to the 3rd player that had
been done to me the day before - diverting the red train just before it reached Chicago.  We finished in about 45 minutes or so, and we started a 2nd game "just for fun", and to try out some different theories, but we didn't get to finish as we had to run to other things.  If I'd only been in a 2-player game, I likely would have won and reached the finals cheaply...but I'm not too upset, as I'm sure I would have been far outclassed there.

Next up was the semi-finals for Carcassone.  My luck didn't quite hold up this year, and finished 3rd out of 4 players, failing to make the finals.  Which wasn't too bad, as that saved me from the dilemma of playing while running Lords of Waterdeep. 

2 games during the 2nd heat

At 1:00 I had my 2nd heat of Lords of Waterdeep.  I didn't play in this round, but just kind of hung out and waited for questions (there weren't very many), and did some browsing at the vendors.  I had 6 games of 4 players in the 2nd heat, and all the games went fairly quick.  After the heat, I did a quick tally
to get 16 finalists - I had 11 individual winners, and took the closest 5 2nd place finishers for the semis.  This in theory would set me up with 4 4-player semis, from which the winners would advance to the finals. 

I had some time before the semis, so I wandered to open gaming, and Paul joined me for a game of 7 Wonders with a group.  Again, names are escaping me, but there was one young guy there with his father and his future father-in-law, and Mark Crescenzi joined us as well.  I hadn't played 7 Wonders in a while, and I'd forgotten how much I like it.  The expansions are nice, but a simple game of the basic game is still a lot of fun.  We also had time to get in a game of The Resistance, although we aborted halfway through when the traitors became obvious.

At the Waterdeep semis, I ended up short on players, as some folks elected to play in Ra.  That turned into a little bit of an issue on Saturday night, as I was conflicting with both Ra and later Stone Age, which appeal to the same type of players.  For the semis, I ended up with 11 players, so we played 2 4-player games and 1 3-player game.  I was in the 3-player game against John Gaebler (who I had narrowly beat in Heat 1) and Jonathan Bartholomew.  I drew the building lords, Larissa, and I did a decent job building buildings without raising suspicion, and scoring 2 25 point quests in the final turns, but John Gaebler got the lieutenant early on, and then just got his euro-engine running, finishing with 198 points.  In the other games, Mahmooda Sultana and Tim Gleeson won, with John Emery being the highest 2-place finisher.  Again, however, we were conflicting with the final for Stone Age, which Mahmooda was in.  She begged me to move the final later, but I was looking to avoid what happened last year, when the Waterdeep final went until midnight.  So I told her she had to choose - she went with Stone Age, which put Mike Crescenzi in the final.

After a quick bio-break, we got the final started.  I drifted in and out, just making sure there were no questions.  John Gaebler was in the lead heading into the final round, but in a stunning play, Mike Crescenzi managed to used intrigue cards and build a building which allowed him to collect 4
wizards over the course of the turn to complete the 25 point wizard quest, and emerge with the victory.  It was a very dramatic ending to the game.  Overall the Waterdeep tournament went well again this year - although we were down to 41 players from 60-something last year.  At this point though, I'm 99% sure I'm going to turn over the GMing duties to someone else.  I enjoy helping out the con, but GMing Waterdeep caused me to miss some other opportunities I would have liked to take advantage of. 

The final - from L to R, Tim Gleeson, John Gaebler, John Emery, Mike Crescenzi

 

Next up was Saturday night gaming.  I found the rest of the gang downstairs playing Cash N Guns, and joined in for the 2nd round.  I'd seen this one played, but had yet to play it myself.  It's a quick fun social game, and I think distills the essence of Bang! down into something more steamlined.  After that, we played The Resistance, and then pulled out our old favorite Citadels.  I love Citadels, but 2:00 AM after 5 days of Prezcon may not have had me at my best....

Meeple City being terrorized

Sunday morning there were still heats of 7 Wonders and Settlers of Catan happening, but I headed to open gaming, hoping to get Santa's Workshop in front of Chris Kirkman and Darrell Louder.  I found Ben Rosset and Josh Tempkin down there, and looking at the game library, we chose to play Rampage.  I'd played a few times with my kids, but I'd been wanting to play with adults.  We had a blast, but Ben and I could not overcome Josh's sticky tongue (I'll leave it at that).  Brian joined us after that, and gave one of Josh's prototypes a try.  Entitled Lesser Evil at Unpub, he had rethemed it with a police motif, where you had to clean up the streets of your district in order to become the new commissioner.  The new name is completely escaping me...it might be Commissioner.  When I figure it out, I'll update the blog.  I very much liked the game, with a sort of dice-as-worker placement mechanic, as you tried to get rid of the "felonies" in front of you - and the use of cards to help you manipulate your dice.  However some actions may require you to increase the number of misdemeanors in your district, which, while not as bad as felonies, are still not good.  The objective is to be the player with the least amount of points in front of you by the end of the game.  I'd heard good things at Unpub about Lesser Evil, but I did hear complaints about lack of theme...Josh now has a theme...but I'm not 100% sure it's carried out that well yet...but he just has basic game pieces, I think some artwork on the various cards could help alleviate that quite a bit.  Mechanically, I very much liked it.

With threats of another snowstorm hitting the mid-Atlantic, that was about it for Prezcon 2014.  Overall, I had yet another great experience, though I think I learned a few lessons this year.  I was trying to stretch myself a bit thin.  I wanted to play in a bunch of tournaments of course, but I also enjoy the open gaming with our group.  The GMing cost me some opportunities to do some other things, and I was also trying to get Santa's Workshop in front of folks.  Unfortunately that only happened once, and I wasn't able to get it in front of Chris, Darrell and TC, but I did great feedback from the one play.  I don't know the attendance numbers, but it felt a bit down this year - I don't think they met their goal of 700.  I was very disappointed in the vendors this year - they seem to be getting fewer and fewer.  The most shocking thing may be that I only went home with 1 new game - Flash Point, which I picked up in the auction store.  In fact I actually made money on games this year, with my lot going for a little over $97 in the auction store.  There was also a bit of a stomach bug going around Prezcon this year - Mike Sr. fell prey to it on Wednesday, and Paul had a rough Sunday morning.  I understand a few people went the ER.  In the course of writing these blog entries, I will remind myself to once again try to remember to write peoples names down and take more pictures.  Next up is likely Historicon in the summer, and then WBC in August, but I look forward to next year's Prezcon.

WBC 2013 Part 1

Well, this year the World Boardgaming Championships seemed to sneak up on me.  Held every year in early August, in Lancaster PA, the WBC is essentially a bigger version of Prezcon.  While Prezcon has 600ish attendees, the WBC gets 1500+ - one of their board members recently told me that they are the 3rd largest pure boardgame con, after Origins and BGGCon (clearly, he wasn't counting GenCon with it's 30K attendees as "pure boardgame").  In any case, like Prezcon, the WBC is a tournament style convention first and foremost, although they have a very large open gaming area.  At the beginning of each year, the Boardgame Players Association (BPA) members vote on which games will make the "Century List", i.e. the 100 (give or take) games that will make the cut at WBC.  They actually run a little over 100 as publishers can sponsor games, and my impression is that there is a core group of favorites that it's almost impossible to get dropped.  Now, this is a long convention - it officially runs from Monday - Sunday, however they have "pre-con" events starting the previous weekend as well - so you could spend 9-10 days at this convention if you so desired.

Last year, the WBC was plagued by some infrastructure issues that hit the aging location - The Lancaster Host.  Primarily this was in the form of lack of air conditioning in much of the conference center, including the large "Lampeter Room".  As you might imagine in a building full of gamers - who's hygiene habits can sometimes be questionable - this led to some uncomfortable situations by weeks end.  One of the side effects was that more people escaped to the open gaming area, which was still cool - and that led to a lot of crowding and table scarcity.  I'm happy to report that the A/C was in fine form this year, though. 

Unfortunately, I have a little too much in the way of home responsibilities to go for the whole week, so I typically head up on Thursday and stay through the weekend.  This year my buddies Brian Green and Paul Owen joined me at the con.  I'm not going to give a thorough game-by-game rundown like I did for Prezcon, but I want to hit a few highlights.  And, unfortunately, I was a little lazy on taking pictures - so any that you see here are likely one's I've stolen from the internet somewhere.

Pic from BGG user David Morriss

Thurn & Taxis - It had been about 3 years since I last played this euro about building postal routes across Bavaria (you have to love euros and their themes) - since they removed it from the Prezcon list much to my friend Grant's dismay.  The other players at the table were gracious enough to help me shake off the rules rust.  I'm happy to say I finished in a tie for 2nd - and I conceded the actual 2nd place finisher to another player who was looking to move on in the tournament.



7 Wonders - This was the largest game I played in, with probably 120+ participants.  The GM separated everyone into 4 player games.  Each table was to play two games, you got points for your finish in each game (8,5,3,0 I believe and 8.2, 5.1, 2.5 and 0 for the 2nd - the decimals to help prevent ties).  In my first game I was the Pyramids of Gaza and finished in 2nd place.  In the 2nd game I had the Hanging Gardens, and I misplayed the very last card, causing me to finish in 3rd instead of 2nd.  If I had finished 2nd both times, I would have had the highest total, and moved on.  Bummer.

Amateurs to Arms - This game about the War of 1812 was published last year, from Conquest of Paradise designer Kevin McPartland and co-designer Jerry Shiles.  I had pre-ordered it, but had yet to get it to the table.  So, I went to the demo, and then played in the "Mulligan" round.  This is a card driven game, in the same vein as Twilight Struggle - i.e. each card has text that you use to invoke certain events, or a number value, which you can use as "operation points" to do many different things such as levy troops, build forts, etc.  Each side starts at opposite ends of a "peace track", and where those two counters meet on the track determines the winner.

This is an interesting game, but I'm not sure these type of card driven games are my cup of tea - I'm so-so on the aforementioned Twilight Struggle for example.  The game is beautiful - the map consists of essentially everything east of the Mississippi.  But 90% of the action takes place around the great lakes.  So, there's a lot of empty real estate.  It also runs long - I conceded to my opponent after 4 hours - although he didn't have a huge advantage, and it's conceivable I could have come back.  I definitely want to get some more plays of this under my belt - but considering it's length, and it's only  2 players, I'm not sure when that will happen.  Let me take the opportunity once again to praise the components of this game - in particular the map and cards.  The map is practically a work of art, and the cards contain lots of historical tidbits.  Also, the "designers notes" are a funny read - Jerry's sense of humor certainly comes through.

This is the upper right quadrant of the board...but where most of the action takes place.

Thursday night open gaming consisted of playing World Without End, St. Petersburg and Hex Hex XL.  St. Pete is an interesting one - Brian and I had both played this several year ago, as were just getting into the "hobby boardgaming" arena, and both of us came away with negative impressions that kept us from the game for years.  Paul brought it back out, and re-taught us, and we played again.  Brian didn't change his opinion much, but I came away with a better impression.  Some of that might be because I had a good game, and won - but I think years of playing these games now has given me some insight into many of the mechanics, and I think I just "got it" this time around.  I'm not saying it's my favorite - but I won't avoid it either.  Hex Hex XL was one we had high aspirations for - but it fell flat for us.  Brian in particular seemed disappointed, but I think a large part of it was due to having only 3 players.  My intuition says this one would be better with 5+ players. 

More to come in Part 2.....

Shadows Over Camelot & The Walking Dead

We got together for our usual Tuesday night adventures, and like last week, we had 6 of us - myself, Brian G, Mike R, Tom, Traci, and Carson made a return appearance after a few weeks away.  Unlike last week, we actually brought some games that accommodated more than 5 players.  After some debate we settled on that granddaddy of co-op games, Shadows Over Camelot.  We also opted to play with the expansion, Merlin's Company.  Published in 2005, while it may not have been the first cooperative game, SoC definitely invigorated the sub-genre of co-ops, and was possibly the first to add in the "traitor" element.  Merlin's Company adds in some cards to be drawn as you attempt to travel between quests, which may be a hindrance or beneficial.

Despair!

We randomly passed out loyalty cards, and also knight cards.  Alas, we were to fight against the dark forces without help from King Arthur himself!  We had a few knights bravely leave to search for the grail, Mike R. went to find Excalibur and I, as Sir Gareth, went to fight the marauding Picts.  Traci cast some suspicion on herself by remaining behind in Camelot for several turns and simply collecting cards.  Carson eventually joined me and helped me defeat the Picts, and after a somewhat long search, Brian claimed Excalibur.  That put a total of 3 white swords on the round table.  With many "despair" cards coming form the deck, the Grail looked to be lost at one point.  However, I had the "heroism" card, which added a white sword to any successful quest...that meant claiming the grail would be worth 4 white swords!  It took some time, but we were able to eventually find the grail!

The Grail has been found, and Merlin is warding off siege engines

Unfortunately, no one challenged Lancelot for his armor, and the Saxons overran our shores, which gave us several black swords.  At one point, we had 7 white swords and 4 black swords on the table.  Getting a 12th sword of any color would end the game.  But we were wary of the traitor, who if he remained unrevealed could flip 2 swords from white to black.  We also had a black card in action that would add an extra black sword to any failed quest.  Traci played a card that allowed the knights of Camelot to win the next tie...including the sword count at the end.  Mike R. was able to get rid of the "extra black sword card", and we were able to win a victory against the Saxons for an 8th and final white sword.  No one was accused during the game of being a traitor...well, no one was formally accused - there were certainly suspicious glances and mutterings about certain actions or non-actions.  But no one was confident enough to accuse a fellow knight of being a traitor...and for good reason - as it turned out, there was no traitor!  Battlestar Galactica tends to get the nod as the superior Coop-with-a-traitor game, but SoC is no slouch, and if you're in the mood for a coop game, this is a great game.




Next up, we pulled out The Walking Dead.  Mike R. is always quick to point out that this is the game based on the comics, not the TV shows (of which there is another game).  Basically, in this game, you are trying to be the first to successfully scout  3 locations on the map, based on location cards that are visible to everyone, and one secret location known only to you.  As you travel around, you leave hordes of zombies in your wake, and draw encounter cards, which can be zombie fights, or other tasks that require you to roll your dice pool.

It gets successively harder to scout each of your 3 locations.  In our game, Tom won in the end, although technically he "cheated", as he scouted the prison twice, and legally you can't scout the same location twice.  But that's OK, I think we were all ready for it to be over.  Now, I'm not a zombie fan(I really wish the whole zombie fad would star to die), so that's one strike against the game for me.  But that's not really what I have against the game.  It's fun in it's own way, but - and this is only my 2nd play - it can tend to drag a little.  By the time people have scouted their 2nd location, I feel like most people are ready to be done.  It didn't help that we had 6 players, which slows things down (although we allowed both Traci and Brian to "regenerate" after they were killed).  The other thing that is a little annoying is that it's impossible to plan for some of the encounter cards.  Sure, you can stock up on ammo and such to prepare for zombie encounters...but you may get a card that simply reads "you are successful at this encounter if you have the lowest amount of food - otherwise you fail".  Well...how can you possibly plan for that?  But, as was stated several times at the table, this game is all about atmosphere and story telling, and not really about strategy and tactics.

The zombies are starting to mass...Atlanta is a (un)death trap!

I did my part to stimulate the economy and help my FLGS by picking up a couple of items.  I did my usual walk around the Game Parlor, not expecting to really find anything, when lo and behold, there on the shelf sat the new 7 Wonders:Wonder Pack.  I had no idea such a thing existed.  So, for $15 I snatched it up.  Apparently the new Wonders are the Great Wall of China, Stonehenge, Abu Simbel, and they have reimplemented the promotional Manekken Pis "Wonder".  I haven't looked at it in great detail, but the free beer has apparently been removed from Manneken Pis.  So, being committed to spending $15, I wanted to find something for at least $5 more to get myself a free ticket for the evening (Game Parlor charges you $2 to play there, which I think takes a little of the "F" out of "FLGS").  I couldn't find anything that I was interested in for that cheap, so for $35 I settled on Roll Through the Ages.  I've not played them, but I've heard good things about RTtA, and it's "big brother", Through the Ages.  So, this one was bought on reputation alone...and yet again I need to find shelf space for more games.  Sigh...I fear I'm going to have to ruthless about culling my collection soon.

An unexpected day of gaming

As usual, I was anticipating our regular Tuesday evening game night at the Game Parlor, when I got an unexpected email from my buddy Tom last weekend.  One of our Prezcon cohorts, Mike Senzig Jr. was coming up the D.C. area on Tuesday and staying through Thursday on a business trip.  Tom was thinking about tagging along if any of us would be willing to free up a day for some gaming.  Let's see...skip work for some gaming...SOLD!  I did have to work on Tuesday due to some offsite meetings I had setup, but I arranged for Tom to borrow my extra car, and meet us at Game Parlor that night.

Is five gladiators too many?

I got to Game Parlor a bit early and found Tom their perusing the rules of his newly bought copy of Spartacus.  Grant arrived within a few minutes of me, and I offered to run them both through a game.  We went with the "quick" game, starting at 7 influence each.  I was the first host for the arena, and invited Tom and Grant to send their gladiators in to battle.  I told them both that speed was critical, in order to win initiative, as well as move around the arena.  Grant may have followed that advice too much, as he sacrificed defense dice too liberally in the first attack.  Tom also had the gladiator (Onemous...something like that) that eliminates the other gladiator's special ability.  Tom won the first battle.  Our game only went about 5 rounds or so...and I'm learning that this game can end faster than you expect.  Be wary once someone gets to 9 influence or so.  Tom had slowly been building his stable of gladiators, slaves and guards, and used his Dominus (Solonius) special ability to turn in a horde of his retainers for 3 influence points.  I tried to use a reaction card to stop that, but we were unsure if using your house' special ability counted as a "scheme".  Grant was able to play a scheme to knock Tom back to 11, but he horded his money to ensure he won the right to be the next host, thus earning his 12th influence point.  I have a feeling we will see this game back on the table soon, particularly if Paul O. has anything to say about it.

Not our game...but don't they all look pretty much like this?

While we played Spartacus, some of our "regulars" filtered in, including Mike R., Carson and Brian 2 (gah, can't remember his last name right now....).  We were also expecting Mike S. to join us once he got out of his business meeting...but while we waited for him, we decided to play a game of 7 Wonders, using both the Leaders and Cities expansions.  We also decided to thrown in the Mannekin Pis and Catan expansion wonders, but no one drew them.  As it turns out, I forgot to shuffle in the Cities expansion wonders as well.  In any case, I had played with Leaders and Cities before, but not both in the same game.  Wow...there's a lot going on if you use both expansions.  It's almost like a different game from the original.  I think the expansions make the game better, as they open up even more paths to victory.  For my part, I went with the tried and true method of collecting blue cards.  Usually I pair that with military, but this time I stayed out of that...in fact, in Age II I used a "peace" card to avoid military conflict altogether.  I ended up collecting over 30 points from blue cards.  My leaders, wonder points, and few guilds pushed me up to 69, where I barely beat Mike R. with 68, including 48(!) from science cards. 

It's Mustache March!

Mike S. showed up a little later, after an unfortunate GPS gaffe had taken him halfway to the location of the former Game Parlor in Woodbridge.  Grant took his leave, so we still had 6 players.  6 players is a bit of quandary.  Most games these days go up to 5 players, but once you get to 6, the options drop off dramatically.  While we debated about whether to split up, Mike R. opted to sit out, and we were able to get to the table one of my recent favorites, Hansa Teutonica.  I had learned this game last year a Prezcon, and bought it almost immediately.  This is definitely a "Euro Game", complete with wooden cubes...but it just may be the Euro with the most player interaction.  You are competing with other players to complete routes in medieval Germany (home of the Hanseatic League).  As you complete routes, you can establish offices ("kontors") in various cities, or at certain cities, improve your various actions that are laid out on your player board.  There is generally a rush at the beginning to complete the route that allows you to increase the number of actions you can take each turn.  VPs are earned by various means, including whenever a route is completed on which you have an office.  Someone will typically grab an office in that town which helps you increase your number of actions, since everyone is going for it...it can be painful to watch that person gain VP after VP.  In our game, I made the decision to try and max out all my abilities (you get points for maxing them out), and to gain points on the "Coellen Table".  However, I only established one office until the very last turn, and that hurt me in the end...as I didn't get many points from people completing routes on my city, and I got little to no VPs from having offices, or on my longest chain.  I continue to be enamored by this game, though.  Mike S., who was learning the game, came in 2nd to Carson (I think), who was playing his 2nd game ever.  So much for experience....

Please don't ask me to explain what's happening here.

Lastly, Brian introduced us to Ginkgopolis.  I'm not exactly sure what to say about this game...You're building a "tree city" by laying down tiles...you can either build up or out, and depending on the cards you have, you get certain resources for doing that.  You can also play a card without a tile, just to get resources.  You score points during the game if someone builds over your tile, and by a few other means, but you do most of your scoring at the end.  In particular, you want to have control of "neighborhoods" of linked colors of buildings.  In the end, I pulled out the victory based on a 9-point card I managed to play, and taking control of a "blue" neighborhood on the last round of the game.  This is an interesting game, but I don't feel terribly compelled to get it to the table again soon.

So...that was it for regular Tuesday night gaming.  On Wednesday, I took a "staycation" day in order to get in some gaming with Tom.  First game we broke out was Arkham Horror.  I'd heard good things about this game, but had never had the chance to play.  Tom and I played a "4" player game, with each of use controlling 2 characters.  For those unaware, this game is set in the "Cthulu" universe, and your job as "investigators" is to go around town and try to prevent the "Ancient One" from awakening.  If the Ancient One awakens, you have to fight it to win, and Tom tells me that that is not a likely proposition.  The Ancient One is just a generic name for the final "boss monster", which you pick randomly from a deck of monster sheets...and the different Ancient One's can have different effects on the game.  Meanwhile, during the game portals to other dimensions will open...and the main way to win the game is to close a certain amount of portals.  These portals bring with them "minor" monsters which you may have to fight and defeat.  You can also pick up various items, spells, NPCs and such at the various locations around the town.  The characters appear to be stereotypes from different genre's...in our game, I was playing the film-noir type Private Eye, and a Professor - Tom had an Indiana Jones clone, and Traveling Salesman. 

Yeah...there's a lot of bits & pieces in this game...

We got a good start, closing 2 portals early on, and were getting lucky in that new portal cards listed sealed areas or areas where there were already portals...so no new ones were opening.  Unfortunately that didn't last, and at one point we were one new portal away from losing the game...but got fortunate, and were able to close the 6th portal to win.  Of course, we then discovered that we had been "cheating", and the Ancient One that we had draw had supposed to have been making it harder to close portals.  Oh well...perhaps he was feeling "off" that day...it happens to the best of us.  All in all, I liked this game very much, and would definitely play again.  The one drawback is the length of the game...which should be no surprise, I had heard that it can stretch on.  Our game lasted about 4 hours...and we were playing at a fairly quick pace.  It felt about an hour or 45 minutes too long.  With more players (and if we'd been playing properly), it would have stretched longer.  So, set aside several hours for this one...  According to BGG, there's no less than 8 expansions for this game!  And with the sheer number of different Ancient Ones, and player characters, there's a lot of replay value here.  There are a lot of bits and pieces to this game...mainly cards.  There's probably 12 different card decks...but once you get the game going, it doesn't feel overly fiddly. 

Melf Pelts appear to be in demand

After a lunch break, we decided to break out the one game that might have more components than Arkham Horror -  Fantasy Flight's recent re-print of Merchant of Venus.  As mentioned, this game has a boatload of bits - mainly because this is 2 games packed in one - FF's revised rules (called the "standard game") and a reprint of the "classic game".  I had only played the classic edition at various conventions, so that's what I taught Tom.  I like this game quite a bit, and the graphic design of the board is great - but I'm not so sure it's at it's best with just 2 players.  I ran away with the game, but I was getting pretty lucky...it seemed as if every civilization I discovered was buying what I had just picked up.  With 2 players, you are essentially getting 2 turns in a row every time because of the 1st player card passing.  This somewhat negates the whole "having to wait for unlimited trades" aspect of landing on a planet.  Also, with only 2 there's not as many people buying up resources, so there is not a ton of player interaction.  Tom made the observation that there was no way to really affect the other players money...it was obvious that I was getting way ahead...but he had no way to knock down my net worth.  So...I'm not sure I would recommend this with only 2 players, maybe not even with 3.  It likely plays best with 4 (and if you provide your own bits,you can play with up to 6, I think - the old version you could).  I will have to try Fantasy Flight's new "standard game" to see how that stacks up - there appears to be more dials (literally and figuratively) to play with....

The galaxy of Merchants of Venus

Watch out for the trolls!!

My family came home soon after our MoV game, and while my wife was getting dinner ready, we sat down with the kids for a game of Castle Panic.  This is a light co-op game, good for playing with your kids that may get a little to distraught when they lose a game.  You are basically trying to survive a wave of monsters that are attacking your castle.  If you survive the game with at least 1 tower intact, you win.  We have yet to actually lose this game...so maybe it's not quite hard enough.  But we had a good time...my 8 year old son really likes it, and "gets" the game...planning ahead and helping with strategy.  My 5 year old daughter needed a little more coaching. 

After dinner, and getting the kids to bed, Mike S. came over and joined Tom, Becky and I for a game of Lords of Waterdeep.  I drew the lord that wanted piety and commerce quests.  On the first turn, I went to Cliffwatch Inn and drew the 25 point commerce quest.  I thought I was in good shape, and would complete it by the end of the 2nd round...and then Becky put a mandatory quest on me, which screwed me up for a few rounds.  Later in the game, there was a building which gave you extra points if you drew a quest and completed it immediately.  I got frustrated by collecting the adventurers and gold needed for certain quests, only to see someone else grab it or sweep the Inn.  In the end, I completed two more high value quests - an 18 pointer, and a 20 pointer, but I only had 2 other lesser quests...and I came in dead last.  I never built any buildings, and I probably should have gone after more lower value piety and commerce quests.  I also never completed any "plot quests", which give recurring advantages.  So, all in all, I had some bad luck, but I made bad decisions as well...I should have abandoned that 25 point quest when it became obvious I wasn't completing it quickly.  Oh well.

My farm, with my yellow farmers

One other note...earlier in the week I taught Becky Walnut Grove, for which you may recall I earned the champion plaque at Prezcon.  In her first game ever, she promptly beat me by 4 or 5 points.  Sigh.  I do like that game quite a bit though...it's quick, and I think it scales very well to 2 players.  The only downside to lesser players is that there's less competition for spaces in the town, so that's not quite as tense.  But otherwise, it plays pretty similarly to a 4 player game.