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BEWC Meeting Recap 7/19/14

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Attendees: Bruce Clark, Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Victor Liu, Dave Olson, Jay Olson, Matt Walker

1) Bruce, Michael, Victor, and Jim started off with Lords of Waterdeep with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion. After being behind for most of the beginning, Michael thought he had a chance to win after completing a 25 point quest and then following up with a 40 point quest soon after, but Jim used his plot quests to good effect to clear out all of the corruption he had accumulated and won with a commanding 156 points to Michael’s 130, with Bruce and Victor just behind at 119 and 116.

2,3) Michael, Jim, Victor, and Matt moved on to play two games of Dominion. The first game was the predefined ‘Biggest Money’ set from Prosperity. On the last turn, Michael had a little extra money and an extra buy, so bought an estate in addition to the colony, and that one extra point proved decisive in his 44 to 43 point win over Jim. The second game was with a random set of cards, but Michael was again victorious, this time with 59 points over Jim’s 41 point second place.

4) Michael, Jim, Jay, and Matt sat down to the First Contact mission of Battlestations with Dave serving as the referee. With the alien planet sending out a steady stream of missiles, the team decided the best plan was to run as far away as possible and send a science probe to investigate instead. Jim (the pilot) had to leave early, but not much piloting was needed to keep running away. Jay’s really lucky shooting kept the missiles from hitting the ship while Matt narrowed down the alien’s hidden message and the team was able to send back another probe with a message of peace and warp away before being destroyed by the missiles for an ‘overwhelming success’.

BEWC Meeting Recap 7/5/14

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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.

BEWC Meeting Recap 6/21/14

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Dave Olson

1,2) Michael, Jim and Dave started off with two rounds of Dave’s new game Space Maze. In the first, Jim was the first to get one of his explorer’s to the relic and despite Michael and Dave each stealing it once, Jim was able to get it back and make it back to his ship with it. In the second, some good luck with cards and dice let Michael make a quick dash to the relic before anyone was close and make an easy escape back to his ship.

3,4,5) They then moved on to Dominion, using a mix of the base game, Intrigue, Seaside, and,Prosperity. In the first game, Michael managed to rack up 11 VP tokens through the use of the Bishop, but it wasn’t enough for him to catch Dave who won 42 to 38. The second game was also close, with Michael wining with 41 points to Dave’s 35 and Jim’s 32. The third game was a bit odder, with Platinum and Colony’s from Prosperity coming out, but very few cards that gave additional money and nothing giving multiple actions. Early in the game Michael was able to Throne Room Sea Hag several times, clogging up Jim and Dave’s decks with curses, after which the game settled into a long slog. Few provinces or colonies were bought and everyone’s decks had close to 50 cards by the time three of the supply piles were empty. Michael had managed to throne room Monument several times for VP tokens and align his cards to buy two colonies, giving him a 49 point win over Dave’s 28.

6) They finished off with Thurn and Taxis, where Jim just plowed through the carriage cards giving him a quick win with 15 points. Michael had accumulated a large number of bonus tiles, but they only added up to 13 points.

BEWC Meeting Recap 6/7/14

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Attendees: Brandon James, Michael Feinberg, Scott Harris, Victor Lui, Alex Wright, Chris Cregan, Karen and Dave Landon

1) Scott, Victor, Alex and Chris all pretended to be giant monsters destroying a city in Rampage.  They began the game by ignoring the buildings, people and objectives and instead focused on knocking each other’s teeth out.  Only after the majority of players had two teeth left (the minimum) did they focus on taking down the buildings.  Until it was discovered that you could steal people from other monsters by attacking them at which point they continued their monster brawl, ignoring the last standing building until it was destroyed by accident.Scott ended with the most people and a score of 33.  Alex ate the most floors and ended with 26.  Chris had the most teeth and ended with 17.  Victor destroyed the most building but only ended with six points.

2) Michael had completed his all-in-one box for his Dominion set.  They, Michael, Victor, Scott and Karen then played a heavily seaside influenced deck with both sea hag and the pirate ship.  It came down to the tie breaker (turn order) with Victor just edging out Scott both at 27.  Michael had 22 and Karen had 11.

3) Alex, Chris, Brandon and Dave all played Coup d’etat.  Alex won with 15300 after a succesful Coup against Dave in the first few turns of his rule.  Brandon was 2nd with 11700 managing to hold his entire reign Coupless.  Dave managed to regain some points due to his lost director ship by couping Chris and got back to 10000 evenly.  Chris ended with 2900.

4) Chris, Karen, Alex, Brandon, Dave and Michael then played 7 Wonders with Leaders.  Dave won at 70, Michael 65, Alex 63, Chris 49 and Brandon and Karen at 44.

5) Chris Karen, Dave, Michael and Brandon played a game of Robo Rally.  Everyone jumped on a giant conveyor belt to carry them to the first goal. As expected everyone was pelted by lasers for several turns as they were all following each other.  Dave managed to get off first successfully at the goal, while only Chris found himself falling into a pit due to getting bumped.  Dave got close to the final goal but found several of his tracks locked and this made progress slow.  Chris managed to not only catch up but pass ahead to victory due in large part to a clean deck and a fairly open board.

6)  Finally Chris, Dave, Michael, Brandon and Karen played Snowdonia.  Michael won with 135 points, followed by Dave at 101, Chris at 99, Karen at 75 and Brandon at 74.

BEWC Meeting Recap 5/17/14

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Attendees:  Michael Feinberg, Chris Cregan, and Jim Halloran.

1)  The day was short with only two games of Pirate’s Cove played.  Michael won the first game just edging out Chris at the end after an unfortunate mutiny on the second to last turn.  The 2nd game had Michael ruling the seas in with a well set up ship but Chris won due to Michael losing two turns due to a Royal Navy card.

 

BEWC Meeting Recap 5/3/14

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Attendees: Alex Jordan, Michael Feinberg,Chris Cregan, Scott Harris, Jim Halloran, Alex Wright, Dave Landon, and Karen Landon.

1) Alex W. and Jim fought it out in Twilight Struggle.  Alex’s America won out in the end over Jim’s red menace.

2) Alex J, Chris, Michael and Scott played Firefly.  It was a money grab mission, Chris won with 12700 with a salvage op heavy strategy, Alex J was closest with 8400 managing to finish up most of his missions to avoid the penelty.  Michael and Scott managed to stay positive with 3100 and 3000 respectively.

3) Alex W., Dave Karen and Jim played a round of Smash Up.  Alex W won in the end with his Ghost Bears edging Dave out by a point (16/15).

BEWC Meeting Recap 4/19/14

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Attendees: David Olson, Jim Halloran, Scott Harris, Chris Gonau, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Bruce Clark, and Alex Wright

Club Business:  Due to an issue with cabinet space, a list of games was presented was distributed which contained games the club is considering selling off.  There were no objections to any of the proposed games.  The games will be offered for purchase by club members before other methods are considered.

1)  It was a day for Heroscape!  Scott, Jim, Dave and Chris G.  Fought throughout the day for control of a built up hill.  It was mostly the same hill, but everytime the armies were different.  Spiderman defeated dragons, Capt. America out raced elves, though it was a rare event when the King of the hill actually won a game.

2) Guildhall was also played, with the new (actual) rules.  Though Alex did win and was first, the order of turns was less important this time around.  Bruce, Michael and Chris C were all at least a turn away from winning.

3) Terra Mystic was next for Bruce, Michael, Chris C and Alex.  Michael just edged out Alex in the end 110 to 107.  Both had empires that spanned the board, dwarfing both Bruce and Chris for land area.  Bruce had 102 with a strong cult presence.  Chris did well, though ended up with only 92.

4) With the deconstruction of the Heroscape arena, a game of Bang Dice was played.  Alex the Sheriff won with his two deputies Chris C and Bruce with considerable help from Michael the Renegade (who lost).  Dave Chris G and Jim were all shot dead for the being outlaws.

5) A four player Kemet game was played between Chris C, Michael, Jim and Alex.  Alex played a very aggressive game and managed to win by having the last two turns (due to an extra turn power) and a quick moving beetle shuttle which nabbed him two previously undefended temples.

6)  Finally, the odd game Louis XIV which had Chris Michael and Alex bidding for the favor of the French court in the 18th century.  Chris managed to get a few early quest rewards which conferred bonus abilities allowing him to continually outpace Alex and Michael.  The final score was 58, 46, 4

BEWC Meeting Recap 4/5/14

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Attendees: Ryan Frans, Dan Carey, Alex Jordan Michael Feinberg,Chris Cregan, Brandan James, Dave Olson Scott Harris, Elaine Wright, Alex Wright, Dave Landon, and Karen Landon.

Club Business: None.

1) Dan, Dave L Scott, and Brandan began with a light game of Kingdoms.  Dave won with a resounding 195 followed by Scott at 152, Dan at 125 and Brandan at 103managed to get off to a solid lead after the first turn.  Despite narrowing that gap every turn, Dave still managed to cling to 1st place by two points.  Final Scores: Dave 198, Chris 196, Dan 132 and Kevin 118.

2) Michael, Alex W and Karen played a quick game of Haggis.  Alex won with 85, Michael had 42.5 (+/- .5)  and Karen had 24.

3) Brandan then took on the role of games master in Mansions of Madness.  Dan, Scott, Karen and Dave L all investigated the house of Lynch and despite a few members going insane, managed to solve the mystery and prevent evil from victory.

4) In Rhinlander Dave L was about to complete his hat trick but was Duke blocked in the end and fell one short.  Brandan and Karen tied with 34, Dave with 33, Elaine with 22 and Dan with 16.

5) Ra allowed Dave L to get his third victory.  Final Scores were Dave 42, Brandan 38, Karen 37, Ryan 30 and Elaine at 25.

6)Metro.  Dave L and Karen tied with 49, Ryan had 39 Brandan at 34 and Elaine at 30.

7) While, the rest of the members ruled ancient Egypt, conquered the Rhineland, saved the world from Cthulianic evils and even built up modern days system of rail lines, Chris, Alex J, Alex W, Michael and Dave O, from rise to fall, ruled their Civilizations (with Fame and fortune expansion).  It was an incredibly close game in the end.  Michael had devoted himself into a culture creating machine, Alex W used the Greeks free tech ability to great effect and outshone most of the world with his scientific prowess, Dave O had built the grandest city of them all, three harbor, along with mines, and markets and rotating wonders, Chris had built a military juggernaut, with barracks in several cities and a large hand of unit cards, Alex W played it quiet sitting alone on an island.  Chris made the first grasp for victory, using steam power and a large amount of resources he teleported his 5/6 of his army to the gates of Dave’s city.  In response, Dave carpet bombed all of Chris’ Barracks and built up his own.  Dave defended as best he could, and held off three attacks but was getting weaker.  Alex W saved him with a well placed spy, locking Chris’ final armies in place.  The start of the next turn almost saw Alex J sneak in with the victory.  He had spent his entire game gathering coins, forsaking culture, tech and military.  He was a few coins shy however.  Dave offered him a tech sharing which would have brought him closer, potentially to victory, but Alex came in again to stop the trade.  Michael managed to be one space away from a cultural victory on his turn, and cursed a previous turns error which denied him that last space.  Alex himself was one tech shy of victory, with enough money to buy it in the end.  However, Chris managed to exhaust Dave’s military on his turn and took his capitol.

8) The night concluded with Bang.  Chris, Michael and Brandan were quickly defeated as the outlaws only managing to take Dave L the Deputy with them. Dave O was a well defended sheriff and watched as the obviously deputy Ryan fought it out with Karen the obvious Renegade.  In the end Karen defeated Ryan in a drawn out struggle, only to reveal that Ryan was the renegade all the time.  We fought the Law and the Law won.

BEWC Meeting Recap 3/15/14

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Attendees: David Olson, Jim Halloran, Victor Liu, Chad Willard, and Chris Cregan

1) Dave and Victor started off with a quick game of Pandemic.  Despite a last minute surge in outbreaks they managed to find a cure for all disease and won the game.

2) Next up Chris Dave Victor and Jim played a game of Exodus.Victor and Jim shared the north but after a couple of risky early game gambles against the centuri Victor’s  fleet was gone and Jim ruled unopposed.  Dave and Chris took a more cautious approach.  Both managed to take out the majority of the centuri in both the south and eventually the center, while carefully avoiding each other.  Jim put his early game advantage into tech, both political and military.  Instead of Ship upgrades, however, he quickly got the planet buster misses and turned his home planet into a massive missile silo.  He only missed the first turn with but a single missile, after that, either a portion of Chris or Dave’s fleet would cease to be.  The end game saw the remnants of Dave’s fleet (the majority of it having just been atomized) Victor’s new though well equipped fleet and Jim’s armada meet in the center, while Chris spread his fleet over the galaxy unopposed, taking several planets from Jim.  The fight was brutal, Dave’s fleet while numerous was poorly shielded and was nearly destroyed in the opening rounds.  However, Victors poor luck followed with him into this battle too and in the end Dave won the center.   Chris got first place with 60 due to combination of Centuri and galaxy control.  Dave ended with 45 with a massive amount of battle points from both NPC and the last round dog pile.  Victor ended with 11 just edging out Jim at 9, mostly due to a couple last minute planet captures.

3) A five player game of Pandemic was set up next.  Throughout the game they beat back all diseases and steadily got cures until the last one.  Unable to get one person enough cards the deck ran out and the players lost.

4) Chad brought out Quarriors which Chris Dave and Jim joined in on.   Chad handily showed everyone the proper way to play the game and wound with 16 points.  Dave quickly picked it up though and managed to turn around 7 points fairly early.  Jim played an aggressive strategy that over the course of the game got him 5 points.  And Chris was happy enough to end with a positive 1 point.