Attendees: Dan Carey, Brandan James, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Dave Olson, Alex Wright, Elaine Wright

Games Played

1) Dave L, Karen, Alex and Elaine played Rampage.  Elaine chomped up the most meeples, including multiple full sets, for a resounding 31 point win.  Alex caused the most damage, with a tall stack of building floors in his stash for a final score of 24 points, and Dave spent most of the game chasing blondes, also picking up 24 points.  Karen ended up with a nice pile of monster teeth and meeples for 17 points.

2) Scotland Yard detectives Brandan, Dave L, Karen, Dave O and Alex chased Elaine (Ms. X) through the streets of London.  The detectives were set up in a good position in the middle of the board, but Ms. X led them on a wily chase, using ferries pretty extensively.  She was almost able to sneak out of a trap in the southwest corner of the board, but it was not to be.  The long arm of the law was able to catch up with her, teaching the kids in the room a valuable lesson that crime does not pay.

3) Dan, Brandan and Alex spent most of the day in an epic game of Mage Knight Board Game.  They spent most of the game trying to find the cities, which did not show up until the last ~5 tiles were revealed.  That gave them time to build up their skills by picking on poor defenseless orcs and dragons.  Although the game was semi cooperative and they were able to accomplish their mutual goal of sacking the cities, Alex came out on top as the most revered mage with 225 prestige (?), followed by Brandan with 175 and Dan with 95.

4) Dave L, Karen, Dave O and Elaine played Airlines Europe.  Dave O made an early investment in White Winds out of Russia, playing 2 of the 7 available cards in the first round and confident that he could take advantage until at least the first scoring round, but then Dave L dropped 2 White Winds cards into his portfolio sharing in the benefits for most of the game.  Dave L also invested heavily in Flying is Simply Fun out of London, and was able to capitalize on that investment throughout the game.  Karen diversified significantly, giving her a strong advantage scoring on airlines for which she was the sole owner.  Elaine had a targeted approach, investing heavily in three airlines plus the Abacus airline.  In the end, Dave O was able to grab one more stock in White winds, no longer having to share majority ownership with Dave L in the last scoring round.  Final Score: Dave O – 109, Dave L – 104, Karen – 102, Elaine – 80.

5) Dave L, Dave O and Elaine played the cooperative The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  The rich theme of Middle Earth adventure was oozing from the game, immersing the players in the rich landscape and lore.  Wait, this is a Knizia game.  We pretty much drew cards and rolled dice until we were done.  Also, since this was really just a movie tie-in it only covered the portion of the story that was covered in the first Hobbit movie.  Still, it was pretty cool.  The party of dwarves/hobbit had to make it from the Shire to the rescue by the eagles at the end of the movie.  We did pretty well, not really feeling too much danger.  We played the game at the easiest level and were able to accomplish our task with a final score of 14 points.  Once we are able to master the beginner level with a 20 point win we can move on to the next level.

6) Dave L, Karen, Dave O and Elaine played Unspeakable Words.  Not really sure what the final score was, but it did not really matter.  Dave O was the only one who did not go insane, so he won by default.

7) Dave L, Karen, Dave O and Elaine played Robo Rally.  Dave L got out to an early lead.  He was pretty far from the pack, so he was able to avoid most of the carnage.  Elaine had some bad card draws the first couple of turns, so she was lagging behind.  Dave O and Karen were following each other around most of the game, which would have been fine except that Karen had souped-up lasers that caused extra damage or allowed her to lock registers.  There was much powering down happening in this game.  In fact, every robot spent at least one turn powering down.  Some (Dave O) spent several turns powered down.  A locked U-Turn register is a fate I would not wish upon my worst enemy.  In the end, Dave L won by touching the last flag, Elaine came in second having tagged the second flag, Dave O and Karen were only able to manage getting to the first flag.

8) Dave L, Karen, Dave O and Elaine played Bananagrams.  Karen was victorious

9) Brandan, Dave L, Karen, Alex and Elaine played Bananagram in which Alex won.