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Being away in Japan for a month sure changed things. We have a new room. Millennium let us use the old Dollar store because all the tables were there. We really could spread out and there were only board gamers in the room and the light was good. I also did not keep an official list; Steve had a sign in sheet and I suggest we do that in the future, just to be able to report the attendance. Steve has the list so I don't know how many were around. I counted 20 at one point. As for the complaint that we are turning into a bunch of Euroweenies, I don't think so. I saw at least 3 "real" wargames going on. Frederick, Kasserine Pass, and I think Wings. Someone was playing Spanish Main and that's warships shooting at each other I think. Good turnout this month: Myself, Mitchel, John, Brian, Yuri, Stu, mike, Jack, Hugh, Cory, Rob, Bob Reed, Ben, John Brader, Bill the Elder, Tom Dunning, Mark, Keith, and two new members - Bryan Roessel and Aaron Horowitz for a total of 20. We got the opportunity to use the empty space where the Dollar General previously was - lots of open space and tables - very little background noise. I suspect that we will be able to use this area in the future as well. Games played: Settlers of Catan, Wings of War: Famous Aces, Ticket to Ride Europe (twice), Freidrich, Age of Mythology, Alhambra, Kasserine Pass, Carcassone, Carcassone: The Castle, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Outpost, London's Burning, Spank the Monkey, Undercover, Puerto Rico, Pirates of the Spanish Main, Risk: Star Wars, Battlefleet Gothic, Pit, Atlantic Storm, and St. Petersburg. Next month's meet is June 18th. Hope to see everyone there. Betrayal at House on the Hill (Mark Gartland) Beyond this line there be spoilers. Five courageous explorers braved grisly death at the May 21 exploration of the house on the hill. They were (in alphabetical order) Brian, John "be a pirate" Brader, John P., Mark, and Mitch. Today, we discovered that the house on the hill is none other than the former abode and research laboratory of Baron Victor von Frankenstein. [Cue thunder and lightning.] Yes, fiends and neighbors, Frankenstein's monster lives again! And this time, he looks not like Christopher Lee, Fred Gwynne, or even Peter Boyle! He looks like... Mitch! Yes, Mitch! And boy is he tough! The reanimated corpse of Mitch can pound an explorer into a greasy puddle with but one monster mash! With but a single blow did Mitch dispatched two of his four adversaries. His third adversary, Mark, survived his first pummeling with a lucky die roll (and with zero hit points to spare) only to be squashed by a second pummeling. The angel feather saved John "be a pirate" from his first pummeling, leaving John to continue the battle alone, unaided, and wounded. Meanwhile the dead heroes were taking all of this lying down. The live ones were not! They fought back. They took turns lighting torches and throwing them at the Mitch monster. They needed to hit him five times to burn him to a crisp. They hit him four times. One more hit was needed to win. John "the last pirate standing" had a torch and a clear shot of the monster. Should he miss, the monster would have a clear shot at him. He attacked Mitch in a final, terrible dance of death. The odds were even, for John's earlier wounds had reduced his speed to equal that of the monster. They both rolled three dice. John won the dice roll--and the game--by one pip. Kasserine Pass designed by John Hill from Conflict Games circa 1977. 4 pages of rules and Mike and I played all but the last two turns. This battle could be labeled Bulge in the Desert. The US find themselves on the receiving end surprise attack in Feb. 1943. Mike played the allies while I maneuvered the axis. The surprise of the first 2 days provided ample US casualties as they were surrounded in the south and held firm in the north. Mike used the hills and crests of the Western Dorsal to slow my attack and bring up artillery to support the beleaguered defenders. Our experience paralleled the real battle as the blitzkrieg slowed to a close-in brawl around Tebessa, the main German objective and HQ for US forces. Mike massed 7or 8 batteries of artillery to put down defensive fire and my 3-1 assaults quickly became 1-1. I took Tebessa on the last turn we played, but had no certainty of holding to games end. A German victory was declared and we both agreed it was nicer playing the game than reading the rules. Ticket to Ride: Europe (Bill Peeck) Rob Winslow brought the new Ticket to Ride Europe so we played a 5 player game of that. I kind of liked it. There are a couple of new twists, Stations, Tunnels, ferries, and you get 4 cards to start 3 short trips and 1 long trip. You have to keep at 2 cards. The remainder of the rules are much the same. Stations let you claim a route occupied by another player. Let's say you needed Madrid to Edinburgh, but the closest you can get is London. Putting a station in London lets you use another guy's route to get your destination tickets. However the stations are worth 4 VP each (you get 3) at the end if you don't spend them. Ferry's, these require at least one engine to build. That is, if the ferry is 3 spaces long you need 2 like cards and 1 engine or 2 engines and 1 card. Tunnels. These are "variable" in building cost. Let's say the tunnel is 2 spaces long. You can build it with 2 like cards. However 3 cards are drawn from the deck and if any of those cards match what you are playing (or is an engine) you have to spend the extra like cards to finish the tunnel. John Brader, Bill Peeck, Rob Winslow, Stuart Smart and Mark played. Rob beat Bill by 1 point. Rob made 4 tickets including his big one and used 2 stations getting there I think. I stuck with my 3 short tickets and made them all, got the longest route, and did not use a station. Of note - John Brader gets the title of Tunnel king. I think he tried 5-6 of them and failed on all but 2. Tom Dunning observed after the game that you have to take your longest route to have a chance. I'll play this one again and try Tom's advice. I actually built from Edinburg to Madrid, to Moscow, and even built the only 8-point route on the board (worth 21 points). We got in a quick game of Alhambra. Tom Dunning, Rob Winslow, John Brader, Bill Peeck and Mark Gartland played. Again a learning game for John, and since Tom and Rob are such sharks at this. But things went quite well. It was "Be nice to Bill" day. The scoring card timing went a little against Rob. He was going to take the lead in Towers, and the first round ended, and for Tom the game ended before he could reshuffle his Alhambra so he had one tile stuck in reserve. Ending score was close - Bill followed by Rob in the 110 plus range, Tom in the 90 plus range, and the others in the 70 range. This was the 3rd installment of the game played at the club. So far Mike Cardwell has a French win, so the Prussians learned not to ignore the French, the Prussians won under Rob Winslow, and this time the Russians under Bill Peeck won. Cory Wells was the Austrians, Bill Peeck the Russians, Rob Winslow the Prussians, and Stuart Smart the French. Basically Rob was extremely unlucky. He started off killing the Russians and then turned on the French. The Austrians and Swedes almost got to their victory levels so Rob pounced on them. The game ends when the major players are forced out of the game via the Cards. There are, I think, 6 turns of play then you start drawing event cards. One card removes the Russians, one the Swedes, one the French, and several hurt the Prussians and Austrians. However the deck was stacked against Rob so to speak. It turned out that the Swedes go home card was the next to last card in the deck, and the Russians was that last. So he never got the Russians or Swedes out. The Swedes and Russians regrouped and while Frederick was away fighting Austria and France. The Swedes punched through the Prussian corps. in front of them and threatened to take their victory objectives. The Russians destroyed the Prussian Corp in East Prussian and then started to move on Berlin with the help of the Swedes. Meanwhile the other allies were holding up their end, causing Frederick to be pulled between too many threats and running him out of resources. The war ended with the Russians capturing their victory objectives and destroying Frederick's army and 3 other Prussian corps. Austria was just short of victory and so were the imperials. Interesting system. I think it rates another play, and I would like to switch sides. The game lasted 6 hours. And all the Euro-weenies kept asking if we were still playing the same game. Finally we (Cory, Bill, Stuart, and Rob) had just enough time to play a game of Atlantic Storm. The game started with the usual "Get Rob" talk, but Stuart sunk the Bismarck and took a 7 point convoy, getting him almost a 3rd of his points in the first hand. I think I got the second convoy; so the talk turned to "Bill and Stu are ahead, let's get'em". Cory was struggling having played the game once. Both Rob and Cory started to pickup some convoys, and Stu was holding his own. At the end Stu had 38 points and 7 Convoys, Rob 33 and I think 6, Bill 32 and 4, and Cory 19 and 3 Convoys. Wings of War: Famous Aces (Stephen A. Cuyler) Mitch, John, Brian, and I decided to give this new game a try. The rules are fairly simple. Players select a series of maneuvers appropriate to their plane, then reveal them simultaneously. The plane card functions as the "mini" on the table, and the basic game ignores altitude. During set-up, Mitch selected the Baron's red Dr. Ia and John elected to fly an Albatross D. Va. Brian took the ubiquitous French SPAD XIII (my personal favorite), while I ended up flying a Sopwith Camel for the Royal Navy. Each of us set up in a corner of the table. After the first turn, John and Mitch had advanced forward separately, while Brian and I had managed to come together near the center (note - to simulate the lack of communication in WW1, players don't communicate their plans to each other) of the table. There followed several turns of moves and firing, with Brian getting hit by John for minimal result (Brian only drew 0 damage cards). More firing ensued between the flyers, with Brian and I both getting hit, me for a few, Brian for a bunch (The SPAD XIII was a tough plane though and could take damage well). John took a few 0 damage hits, and Mitch took 0 damage from me, and a few from Brian. Over the next few turns, Brain and I continued to pour fire into the Huns, damaging Mitch further, but giving John a number of 0 damage cards. Several more turns of maneuver followed; including Mitch and I both turning to the right, as both the Dr. Ia and Camel had high power rotary engines that provided additional right-hand torque. Of course, this meant a slower left-hand turn as well. After a number of additional turns to get close to Mitch, I managed to get him into my sights and let loose. He took a number of hits and moved for the edge to escape, but I managed to anticipate his turn and got myself at point blank range on his six and unloaded. The damage was enough to cripple his plane and the Baron fell to Earth - shot down by a Sopwith Camel! John meanwhile, had moved back towards the German line, followed by Brian, and was making a circle to come back to chase me off the Baron's tail. When he saw the Dr. Ia fall apart under the hail of bullets from my twin Vickers MGs he began to attempt a turn away, but a reversal from me put him in front of me. He chose to turn in the other direction and began the long run to get away, with Brian and I in hot pursuit. Unfortunately, neither of us was in a position to catch him, and the Albatross managed to escape with damage. Final team scores: Allies 3, Germans -1. Final individual scores: Steve 2 (one kill), Brian 1 (one forced retreat), John 0 (no kills), Mitch -1 (shot down). The game was quick, about 30 minutes overall, and easy to learn - none of us had played before and I had only skimmed the rules once prior to playing. A good game for a beginner, certainly, and excellent for filler as well. I picked up the first expansion set in NYC last week, with additional aircraft and rules on observers and gunners. Definitely worth a replay, and I'll be bringing it along in the future. Now if I only had some minis in the right scale.... Puerto Rico (Stephen A. Cuyler) I was keen to play another game of Puerto Rico. since this is the game I am playing at WBC, I wanted to get the some additional experience before I got there. Mitch and Mark agreed to join me in my quest. Mark had never played before, so Mitch and I coached him during the early turns - then we discovered that he was at 21 VP and Mitch and I totaled something like 15 between us (Mitch had 8 or 9, I had about 6). Mark was off to a great start at winning but commented that he felt like he was along for the ride, so we let him run with it. Production was a problem for me during the game - I had only 1 Indigo and 1 Sugar, and nothing else. So I seldom got large VP from shipping - and VP is how you win. To compensate I made sure to buy buildings that gave me bonuses, picking the Factory (+doubloons with production), Wharf (my own ship), and Harbor (+1 VP for each commodity I ship). This let me keep up, but I still thought I was down on points behind Mark and Mitch. So I saved my money and picked up a large building at the last turn, giving me enough to jump ahead. Final scores: Mark 44, Mitch 45, Steve 56. Apparently, even I had no idea how well I was doing. That makes my record a solid 25 wins and no losses since learning the game. Let's hope my luck holds at WBC! |