BEWC Meeting Recap 12/7/2013

Attendees:Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Michael Feinberg. Alex Wright, Jim Halloran, Chris Cregan,  Alex Jordan, Ryan and Ronda Frans.

1)First off a game of Ticket to Ride: Europe – It was a frantic struggle for trains in the West at the start.  Mid game slowed down considerably and most everyone connected their routes with ease.  Karen, Alex and Michael took this opportunity to reach in for more destinations while Chris pushed on for some of the longer more lucrative train routes and ended up going out of trains.  Easily with longest route Chris ended with 130, Karen was incredibly close behind with 128, managing to reach all of her extra destinations.  Alex and Michael were less fortunate with their new destinations: Alex J 105 Michael 79.

2) Twilight Struggle Jim won over Alex W in the late era.

3) Terra Mystica: It was a close game, with mistakes made by everyone.  Michael managed to end in first with 115.  He took the dwarves and put their tunneling skills for great effect managing to connect all his cities and rival Alex for largest empire.  Chris played the alchemists and got bonuses for building dwellings and merchent houses and spent most of the game doing that and ended with 111.  Alex W also ended with 111 though would like it known that due to an oversight he should have won.  He played the swarmlings and built and built and built. Ryan picked up the cultists and despite being 1st in two different cult tracks only ended up 82.

4) Lords of Waterdeep was played with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion. Karen won with 112 followed by Alex W with 10, Ronda with 102.  Jim’s score was “not so good”.

5) Dominant Species Michael as the arachnids dominated 95% of the entire game.  On his arctic shelf fortress he nearly lapped the reptiles before the last round.  Chris as the Reptiles had an incredibly slow start, and his species was endangered by the 3rd turn.  Ryan as the Birds was everywhere, picking up similar eating habits as the reptiles they fought for control of the greener lands for most of the game.  Then the last turn happened.  The Reptiles in mass migration swarmed the arachnids in the tundra hoping to drive them off.  While most of the reptiles died out they took several of the spiders with them.  The Birds did similar to the green lands.  Scoring over 100 points in the last round Ryan managed to not only catch, but pass Michael with a 232 over 222 win. Chris was surprised to find himself only 40 points behind at 183.  Both Chris and Michael were not fully aware of how end game scoring worked and so this game may have gone much differently.