A month of Gaming to Report

A month has gone since I reported to you on game happenings in my little world, but here is a sort of update.


First of all, I joined in the MMSGS Power Grid Tournament 2009 and performed adequately in a three-player game on the American map versus Adam and Dana. I powered 16 cities at game end, and Dana and Adam each powered 19, with Adam taking the game victory by having one more dollar than Dana for the tie-breaker! Tricia, Sean, Walt, Dan, Rusty and Ken also played at other tables.

On October 3rd, we had to cancel the "Empires of the Middle Ages" game that Alex and Andrea were to lead for us due to a bite from a Brown Recluse Spider. Glen and I played a short and farcical game of "Twilight Struggle" wherein I, as the American player, failed to set up any influence points in West Germany. Glen concentrated on Europe and by the third turn of the game he scored Control of Europe for an automatic victory as the Soviets.






















On October 11th, Charlie and I scotched our plan to try out "Soldier Emperor" and joined Walt, Blake and Dana for a game of "Steam" instead. It is one of those games that I love, but which my play at is abysmal. That said, it will be of no wonder to you that I was doing so bad that, when Angela offered to take over my position, I jumped at her offer and left the building in disgrace....or if not in disgrace, at least in relief.

On October 15th, I missed out on a game of "Endeavor".


On October 17th, no one showed up for "Risk: Godstorm" except Dana and I, so we had a quick game of "Dominion", which I won.






















I joined the MMSGS 2009 Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage tournament. I sold Tim H my copy of the game and then gave him a lesson in the basics of the game on the evening of October 20th. I will be giving another lesson in early November. Charlie and I played my first tournament game of Hannibal on the next Sunday afternoon, and I conceded after being whittled down as the Carthaginians, although I did win some battles to make his invasion of Africa a disaster. The arrival of Scipio Africanus and his elimination of Hannibal and his army at Tarentum was a disaster of my own that I didn't feel I could recover from. Note to self: when placing the siege train, maybe Italy would be better than Spain, since it might have allowed Hannibal to take Rome!

I missed out on a game night where Agricola was the featured game due to bonking my head on a garbage bin knob as I put away an air hose over at the local gas station. Fearing a concussion, I stayed home just in case.





















Last Friday my Dwarven fleet proved too slow to get away from Casey's Orcs, but last night, I won a game of Uncharted Seas against him playing the Dragonlord fleet, yet it was not a fair match because he was using the new statistics for the Orcs, which makes them too weak, in my opinion.

Good Vacation!

Yesterday at Valhalla's Gate we had a good full game of "Shogun" with 5 players, all done in less than four hours flat. I did everything in moderation and came out with a victory, which surprised me. I am not a good teacher, and I failed to explain the bonus victory points that a player gains from having more of a certain type of building in a region than any other player. Nevertheless, I hope to have the same group playing next time, so we will all know exactly what we are doing and can compete savagely for the title, "Shogun" of all Japan.


Next Thursday evening is the beginning of the 2009 MMSGS Power Grid tournament and I guess I will join in...somebody's got to lose!


Next Saturday Alex will be leading "Empires of the Middle Ages" at the library at 9 am, and I will run a game of Puerto Rico if the planned game doesn't take place.



I solo-play-tested "Risk:Godstorm" in the basement room, and I hope to have a good game of that on October 17th at Val's Gate at 11 am. We also hope to play Seth's "Star Wars" version and Angela's "Lord of the Rings" version later in the year.

Also in basement solo-play-testing, I tried two games of "Masters of Venice" and I have most of the game play bugs figured out. It should be great fun.

Vacation time coming right up!

Unfortunately, no one is available to be a gaming opponent during my vacation that will occur this Thursday and Friday and next Monday and Tuesday. Well, except good old Tim, who will take me on in Twilight Struggle on Monday, hopefully. And then there's the Shogun game this Saturday.


Last weekend, we had a good game of "Risk: 2210 a.d." Seth and I were shown up good by Dana, who won with 64 or 62 points versus Seth's 15 and my measly 8 points. It's a good game and I want to try it again soon.


Next month, though, I have my heart set on playing "Risk: Godstorm", which I have set up in the basement for myself to try a solo-playtest (again) and kick off my vacation time! Godstorm is the original game that I bought and decided to start the MMSGS back in 2004 but it's a game that I "haven't quite" got anyone to play with me.



Last night, I was supposed to show Glen "Uncharted Seas", but he was sick and so I joined in a game of "Illuminati" with Rusty, Walt, Faith, Dana, and Angela. I was, once again, the hash-eating murdering Society of Assassins, and I tried to win, really I did, and I stopped Angela from winning by getting the last "weird" group she needed, but I couldn't pry the "loan Sharks" from Rusty's Cthulu-like grasp, and Walt won unexpectedly by controlling his 5th peaceful group for his "Shangri-la".

Next Saturday, I hope we can get the full 5 players for "Shogun".

September 6th Dispatch from the Deep

Reporting from 45 fathoms under the great murky blue surface of the Uncharted Sea: The sharks are bad here. I am going to prime my Dragonlords fleet today and begin painting my Dwarven Battleship (wooden decks). I am itching to get Casey to have a little battle. I must email him now and see if he can do it.
I played 1830 yesterday and I was driven into bankruptcy. I think that game is more trouble than it's worth in satisfaction; I think I will sell it.
I must call Seth and see if he can make the projected tournament game of Twilight Struggle tomorrow.

To Sail the Impossible Seas...er, Uncharted Seas!

There is a great new Fantasy Naval miniature combat system called "Uncharted Seas" with easy-to-paint, neat fleets and I am in up to my bulwarks! I don't know what a bulwark is in that context, but the phrase is a good one and I stand by it. I took advantage of a sale Valhalla's Gate was having on Dragonlord fleets, and also I acquired a starter fleet for the Iron Dwarves, on the assumption that I will be teaching the system to my friends (Tim H? Phil S?) and so I got two fleets that don't rely on wind power to move. It should be good, and I will be painting some, I suppose.


The possibility of painting miniatures leads to the announcement that I am "getting into" Field of Glory Ancient miniatures. I am going to start with a Carthaginian army, with the idea that the Second Punic War has many battles one can wage with a Roman army of the appropriate time period and the Carthaginians. I always was captivated by the campaigns of Hannibal Barca! Commands and Colors Ancients is great too, though...I hope to be playing Glen in that tomorrow.


To report on recent gaming since the last post here, on August 20th I got to teach Tricia and Kathy D "Ticket to Ride Europe" and, along with Stefan, we enjoyed the game, with Kathy D winning her first game! On August 22nd Charlie and I had a short game of "A House Divided" where we used the advance Supply rules and I miscalculated and lost a large stack to starvation, and consequently was so demoralized that I resigned, much to Charlie's dismay. Later in the day Charlie, Dana and I sat down to a couple of games of "A Ticket To Ride Europe" and Dana won both.


On August 28th, I didn't get to play Seth in my last tournament game of "Twilight Struggle" because of a scheduling error, but later in the day I had four games of "Dominion" with Dana and Kathy F, where Dana won one, Kathy one two and I actually won one with 39 points! Kathy and Dana were making great use of the "remodel" and "Trading Post" cards, which I don't really understand...duhhhhh!

August 16th Dispatch from the south forty

Trees, ticks and chiggers; poison ivy, poison sumac and poison oak. Snakes and rabid possums. Lots of roadkill and loud pick up trucks. Missouri in the summer. An unseasonably cool summer, nice. What happened to global warming, I don't know...ask the polar bears or wait for the sea level to rise.

Not much gaming to report, but what there was was tons of fun.

Andrew K. has left our group and gone on to other things in his home state, but it was great to game with him and I hope that he drops by one of our meetings if he ever visits the area again!

On August 6th, we had the Goa tournament game going, of course, but for the rest of the attendees, we had two games of "Ticket To Ride" (American map), led by Charles and it was great! Note on accompanying photo: it's not from our actual games, it's from BGG.com.


On Sunday, August 9th, we had our last game with Andrew K, "Merchants of Venus" and I think he won again. It's a great game and Dana and Andrew really got the rules down well. Unfortunately, Glen couldn't make it, and Sean and Faith were not feeling well, but we had a good game of it. I came in second, with a little over $1500.00 when Andrew wrapped up his victory. I stayed out of the navigation bubbles!



Yesterday, we had a 5-player first game of "Parthenon" and I think all enjoyed it...Dana, Adam, myself, Ray, and Tricia. It's going to be great next time! I came in second to Dana. I was playing the island of Lemnos.



After Parthenon finished, Blake joined us and Adam and Tricia had to leave, and Ray showed us the wildly-popular game, "Dominion". Dana, Blake, myself, and Ray played the first game and Blake beat me by three points. Then I left and Geoff joined in another game, which had to end soon. It's a great game and we may break it out this Thursday night.

Toodle-do

August 2nd 2009 Dispatch from the field

The last post started with the words: "Tim tromped me at "Twilight Struggle" with an automatic victory." and this post could begin with those words repeated twice, but with the names "Glen" and "Charles" inserted where the name "Tim" was. In other words, I got hammered. No worry. Glen did well and defeated me in the 6th turn. The game with Charlie was closer than I expected, with me holding the lead for about half the game. Then Charlie's more solid game play began to tell and then it was all she wrote, although I scored 11 points from winning the Space Race (My USA was just short of landing on the moon while he had barely gotten an animal in space). I lasted to game turn 9 and I was hoping for us to play it out and have an end-of-game scoring, wherein I would have had control of Europe and the victory, but of course Charlie was well aware of that possibility, and he scored in two regions before that, to seal the automatic win.

I am playing against Seth on August 28th.

Note: these pictures have nothing to do with my actual games: they are downloads from Boardgamegeek.com. If I had a good camera I could take pictures of my own games. Please call and lobby with my wife to let me buy such a camera at 1-800-Whocares.


On a recent Tuesday night at Valhalla's Gate, Andrew and I tried out "Wizard Kings" and it was tons of fun. I played the Dwarves (with a mainly forested home map!) and he played the Undead army. I deployed full-strength units; he deployed weaker units but more of them and then increased their power as the game went along. It helped him greatly that there was a Henge on his map and thus he could "reinforce" his Wizard units at half cost (His victory was thus only because I "got a bad map", right? No...). We had a contest in a swamp, where I surrounded his force, but I found out that it isn't so easy to finish off a force as I had imagined, and it was an utter failure. His Vampires hit me hard and often, and I couldn't kill them at all (I failed to bring the wooden stakes.) Then I sent a strong raid into his hinterland but it came up short at a Castle. He took two cities of mine, then a third. Finally, he was maneuvering to take one more city and get his 15th gold-production point and the victory, but he just flew two Wizards (flyers) into a couple of my completely empty cities and that was game.


On Thursday, July 30th, I let Andrew lead a game of "Merchant of Venus" and show the game to Walt and Charlie, while I had a game of "Puerto Rico" with Kathy, Geoff, and Trishia. It was Kathy's first game and she came in second to Geoff. I came in last, and Trishia came in third, with her building the only large building of the game.


Yesterday at the library we had a big game of "Advanced Civilization" and I played the Africans and it was my best game ever, although I placed fifth. It was amazing how well Dana did although he was getting at least 2 calamities a turn. A new fellow, Shadow, did well in his first game, as did Charlie and Andrew. Andrew won his first game of it. I think everyone had a great time.


Next Thursday is the second evening of the "Goa" tournament, which I am not playing in, but I am running "Colosseum" to catch any "spillover" crowd that aren't in the tournament.