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BEWC Meeting Recap 7/20/13

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Alex Jordan, David Knoyle, and Dave Olson

Games Played:
1) While waiting for more people to show up, Michael and Dave started off with Innovation. Early on, Michael was able to set up a scoring/achieving engine through the use of gunpowder and took the first five age achievements and seemed like he would run away with the game. Dave got combustion though and quickly stole all of the score back and took the age six through eight achievements and had plenty of score to pick up his fourth (the age 9). Michael however had been accumulating deep stacks of cards and once he was able to find some dogma effects to splay them, had more than three of each type of symbol, allowing him to claim the empire achievement, which was the sixth needed for him to win.

2) Dan, David, and Dave spent the bulk of the day playing GMT’s Andean Abyss. Dan was the government player, in charge of the police and army.  Dave K. played two sides, the AUC (right wing paramilitary) and the drug cartels.  Dave O. was the FARC, the Marxist guerillas.  The game started off with all building up their forces.  For most of the first third of the game, Dan’s population was in the 40’s, short of his victory condition of 60.  Dave K.’s cartels, which want to make money and stay out of the way, were not doing well and ran low on resources.  His AUC forces slowly built strength and amassed quite a bit of resources.  Dave O’s FARC got all of their units out on the board and built up their strength.
In the second third of the game, with Pastrana as president, Dave O’s FARC was able to establish some zones were he was safe from Dan’s government forces.  However, Dan’s army and police kept after Dave’s guerillas outside of those areas, holding the initiative by forcing them to stay on the run.  Dan did not build up much popular support but Dave O., did not do much to take any away.  Dave K’s AUC was able to get most of their bases out, but did not out number the FARC, the AUC victory condition.  The cartels started to amass more resources.
In the last part of the game, Uribe was elected president, so the FARC no longer had safe zones.  However, the FARC holed up in a few departments and was able to stave off any possible government assault.  Dan then went after the AUC, which were growing strong.  That knocked them down a bit.  He was also able to drive the cartels out of Cali, improving his popular support.  Otherwise the cartels amasses an immense amount of resources and were flirting meeting their victory conditions (>10 bases, >40 resources).  Dave O., and Dan took steps to eliminate some of the cartel bases to prevent a victory.
The end of the game came six cards from the bottom of the stack.  No one won the game out right.  Dan was able to increase his popular support some though.  With the tie breaker rules, Dave K., won, as his AUC and cartels were closest to their victory conditions, just ahead of Dan.  Dave O.’s FARC came in third.  Overall the game took five hours.

3) Michael, Jim, and Alex played Lords of Waterdeep. It was a close game, but getting the lieutenant (and it’s extra worker) as one of Michael’s starting quests gave him the advantage he needed to win with 112 points to Jim’s 106 and Alex’s 104.

4) Michael, Jim, and Alex moved on to 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion. On totaling up the score, it looked like Alex had won with his 66 points from a fairly diverse strategy, but upon checking the math, Michael just edged him out with 68 points, mostly from three full sets of science (48 points).

5) Moving on to something more cooperative, Michael, Jim, and Alex played Pandemic at the normal five epidemic difficulty level. The epidemics seemed stacked to the top of the deck, but they managed to quickly sunset red, giving them some breathing room. Blue was also then sunset and it looked like they might run away with the game when outbreaks in the Middle East and Africa pushed the game to the brink. Cards were in hand to cure yellow and black but pretty much any yellow card coming up would have caused two more outbreaks and a lost game. Luckily, the cards were kind and the diseases were cured, just before another epidemic card would have been drawn.

6,7) Michael, Jim, and Alex then played two games of Settlers of Catan. The first game was fairly balanced with everyone around 6 or 7 points, when Michael was able to steal Alex’s longest road which combined with a point from a development card got Michael to 10 points and the win. The second game had an odd map set up, where Michael, despite being first player and getting last pick of locations, was able to get an almost perfect settlement selection with all resource types in high probability mid numbers. The dice were definitely in his favor, bringing in large quantities of lumber and bricks, allowing a huge road network to divide up the board in his favor and he ran away with the game in a quick victory.

8) Michael, Jim, Alex and Dave finished up with Love Letter, where Jim was most effective in getting his notes to the princess.

BEWC Meeting Recap 7/6/13

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Jim Halloran, Brandan James, Amanda, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, and Dave Olson

Games Played:

1) Brandan and Dave L spent most of the day playing The Guns of Gettysburg, where Dave repeated history with a union victory.

2, 3) Michael, Ryan, Karen, and Dave O started with two games of Tsuro, which both ended with Dave winning and Michael in second.

4,5) Michael, Ryan, Karen, and Dave O moved on to Ryan’s new copy of Quarantine Z. In the first game, Dave was the zombie player and completely annihilated the human players. In the second, Michael was the zombie and the humans were able to hunker and down and burn through most of the zombie deck, looking like they would have an easy victory. Michael was able to find some reasonable zombies though and while attempting to escape from a combat, Ryan and Karen managed to blow themselves up with C4. That left just Dave and MIchael was able to kill him with some of his last cards, just squeaking out another zombie victory.

6) Michael, Ryan, Jim, Karen, and Dave O then played Alien Frontiers with the Factions expansion, where Ryan handily won.

7,8) Michael, Ryan, Jim, Karen, and Dave O switched to Cosmic Encounter. The first game was dominated by Karen’s use of the power of the loser, leading to her victory, while Ryan and Dave tied the second game.

9) Michael, Ryan, Brandan, Jim, Karen, Dave L and Dave O came together for a big game of Robo Rally. Ryan was ahead early and while a few other people got the third flag and almost caught him, Ryan held on for victory at the fourth flag.

10,11) Everyone then moved over to Bang!. In the first game, Dave O was the sheriff and one of his deputies, Ryan, was the first to fall, followed quickly by the three outlaws, leaving just Dave O, Michael, and Brandan. Michael managed to convince Dave that Brandan, was the renegade, but it didn’t matter as Brandan killed Michael, the actual renegade, for a law victory. In the second game, Ryan was the sheriff, and the outlaws thought things were looking good when Karen, sitting next to him, acquired a volcanic and a whole pile of bangs, but it turns out she was a deputy and actually killed Dave L, the renegade. With Ryan flanked by his other deputy, Dave O, the three outlaws soon fell for another law win.

12) Michael, Ryan, Brandan, Amanda, Karen, and Dave L finished off a long day of gaming with Scotland Yard. Ryan was Mr. X and on his first reveal successfully doubled back on the ferry and almost broke free, the investigators were able to keep decent track of him though and managed to corner him on turn 20.

BEWC Meeting Recap 6/15/13

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Greg Chandra, Ryan Frans, Chris Cregan and Dave Olson

1) Android was the first game.  Ryan was the only experienced player and ended up winning due to a good start.  The conspiracy was quickly filled in, to the detriment of most players starting story mission.  Through out the game there was a battle between the spacers and those earth bound for clues, each side trying to keep clues on their side of the atmosphere.

2+3)Guillotine was next.  A simple card game in which a queue of French aristocrats line up to have their heads chopped off.  Most of the game was manipulating the line to get the more valuable nobles up when it was your turn with the axe.  Michael won both games handilly by picking on the guards whose point value varies based on the total number of guards.

4) Finally a game of Robo Rally was played.  Michael managed to complete his hat trick with this game by getting all the objectives.  Greg was determined to be in 2nd place as the last robo-man standing due to his opponents all self-destructing.

 

BEWC Meeting Recap 6/1/2013

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Attendees: Chris Cregan, Michael Kelly, Michael Fineberg, Alex Wright, Brandon James, John Boyle, Bruce Clark, Joe Kauffman, Dave Landon

1) Chris, Michael F, Alex, Brandon, Dave and Bruce played a “short” game of Twilight Imperium.  It was most everyone’s first or second game, and turned into a big learning experience for all.  In the end it was a close race, with most everyone competing for the win the final turn mostly due to a stronger presence on Mecatol Rex for the majority of the game.  The 2nd to last turn Chris took the center planet using an army built up over the entire game.  Even then it took Dave invading Michael’s territory, taking his capitol planet to prevent a potential counterattack.  The next turn though saw Dave move in on Chris’ territorys in a bid to take two enemies home systems, which was an outright win condition.  Unfortunatly he only took half of the home planets, which was not enough for Dave.  It was enough to prevent Chris from achieving points from his Mecatol conquest.  Brandon, having played the entire game at peace with his neighbor Michael finally declared war attempting to get his secret objective complete.  Unfortunatly, a nebulus blocked his army from invading too far in and Michael was able to win with 9 VP.

2) In non-twilight related news: some people lost game, others won, maybe some ties…  I think a game of Power Grid happened.

BEWC Meeting Recap 5/18/2013

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Attendees: Chris Cregan, Michael Kelly, Jim Halloran, Bruce Clark

1)  Jim and Bruce started off with a game of Lost Cities with Bruce ending up winning out in the end.

2)  In the first Flash Point: Fire Rescue game Chris and Bruce ran in through the front door trying to stabilize and escort victims while Mike and Jim went through the back to dispose of flammable materials.  Unfortunately, several explosions in the kitchen quickly brought the structure down before even one survivor could be rescued.

3) Determined to do better the team returned to the building in another round of Flash Point: Fire Rescue.  Chris and Bruce entered the house, Bruce fought fires directly while Chris eliminated hazardous materials.  Mike and Jim oversaw things from the truck, directing movements and spraying areas with the hose.  The fire was kept at bay long enough for seven survivors to make it out.

4) Tired of all the Cooperative niceness a game of Dungeon Lords was opened up.  Jim built a powerful hero annihilating machine, only losing one tunnel to the good guys the entire game.  Michael on the other hand ran a very vigorous PR campaign and stayed within the first tier of evilness the entire game, ending at his starting level.  Bruce, with his host of vampires and ghosts attracted the attention of the paladin.  He managed to beat the Paladin but exhausted most of his resources and lost his entire dungeon in the last year.  Chris hoarded money and constructed the largest of all the dungeons.  In then end: Chris 33, Jim 20, Mike 17 and Bruce at 11.

BEWC Meeting Recap 5/04/2013

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Chris Cregan, Michael Kelly, Dan Carey, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Brandan James, Josh Lichti, Alex Wright, Elaine Wright, Ryan Frans, Rhonda Frans and John Boyle

Games Played

1)Ticket To Ride Switzerland.  John won with 111, followed by Michael F at 101 and Brandon with 100.

2)Medici.  Dan 161, Dave 141 and Jim 79.

3)Merchant of Venus.  Brandan 3010, Jim 2240 Chris 1770

4) King of Air and Steam.  Michael K 143, Dave L 135, Josh L 158, Dan C 135, Michael F 150 and John B 145

5) Hansa. Ryan 57 Alex 56

6) Airlines:Europe.  Karen L. 106, Ryan 92, Dave L 76 Michael K 68 Rhonda 58

7) Castles of Burgundy.  Michael F 238, Alex -225, Elaine 199, Dan 183

8) Scotland Yard.  Dave as Mr X was captured by the detectives Ryan, Michael K, Karen, and Alex.

9)Dominion: Seaside.  Jim 30, Chris 28, Michael F 26 and Dan 5 (Dan’s first game of Dominion).

10)Dominion: Hinterlands.  Michael F 38, Chris 26, Jim 19.

11)Wings of War: Dawn of War.  Dave and Michael commanding an axis team (with French support) faced off against Chris, Karen and Brandan as the Allies.  After quickly losing Michael’s plane and one of Dave’s two, Dave was able to take on all three allies plane with his one remain and won.

12)Medici.  Chris 125, Michael F 104, Karen 100, Dave 98, Brandan 94

13)Medici.  Chris 102, Michael F 105, Karen 107, Dave 107, Brandan 81

BEWC Meeting Recap 4/20/2013

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Chris Cregan, and Dave Olson

Games Played

1) Alea Iacta Est was brought out to determine who was the better Roman senator.  Michael focused heavilly on Patricians and Senate and ended up with a total 36 points.  Dave focused more on provinces while mostly ignoring the Senate and ended with 25.  Jim had a diversified stratedgy and ended with 26.  Chris focused on Patricians and Provinces and ended with 36 points.  In all tie breakers Chris and Michael were even and thus grudgingly shared victory.

2) Dave began to set up the 3rd game and so did not participate in a game of Stone Age.  It was Jim’s first game and ended up with 128.  Chris managed to have the most tools, people and farms but still only ended in 2nd with 165.  Michael ended the game thus wasting the fewest resources and getting 169 points mostly through huts and artifacts.

3)Continuing the trend of JRR Tolkein inspired games the group divided up into two teams of good (Michael and Chris) versus evil (Jim and Dave) in War of the Ring.  Evil started off strong, crushing Rohan in the first few turns while good spent their time getting the northern men into the war.  The Fellowship quickly lost Gandalf, but due to Saurmans intervention Gandalf the White was quicly brought into play.  This seemed to turn the tide, rallying in Minas Tirath he defended the city from the first incursion of Saurons forces, negating a large Ringwraith presence.  Over the next several turns Good fortified the walled town and Evil was not able to advance.  The fellowship made it down to the city with almost no corruption, though they had lost everyone but Frodo and Sam.  The journey from Gondor to Mordor would prove more difficult and quickly gained corruption.  Evil finally won a few steps from Mt. Doom.

BEWC Meeting Recap 4/6/2013

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Chris Cregan, and Dave Olson

Games Played:

1) Dave showcased Lord of the Rings expansion Friends and Foes as the first game for Jim, Michael and Chris in order to determine if the club should buy it.  All four played as the well remembered hobbits from the movie, leaving Fatty back in the shire.  Jim played as Pipen and staying true to the series had troubles with corruption through most of the game.  Dave played as Merry and had great success with defeating monsters, a new feature introduced in the expansion.  Michael played as Frodo and used his charecters ability to overcome difficult checks.  Chris played Sam, and took control of the ring for most of the game due to his ability to reduce the corruption it caused.  The party fought through to Isengard but it was clear that they would not make it to Mt. Doom before Sauroun’s corruption killed the hobbits, so instead they choose not to skip Helm’s Deep and instead make it their final stand and hopefully finish off all the agents of Mordor.  They were doing well, with only a few more foes to vanquish when an event forced Pippen to gain corruption and be fully taken by evil and thus dead to the group.  Frodo offered to use an item to save him, but Sam and Merry talked him out of it, they need to protect the ring bearer at all cost, and in this case it was Pippen.  The three remaining Hobbits then promptly won the game the next turn calling up the last foes and dispatching them.

2) Jim then advocated a game of Samurai Swords to get some desired revenge on Jim, Chris and Michael.  Chris was dealt the majority of the south island cards and proceeded to use that as his base for the game.  Jim out in the center of the island, just a little north.  Michael rallied his forces on the southern side of the main island between Jim and Chris.  Dave split his forces along the eastern coast fortifying the  island just North of Chris.  The map was very much south heavy, with the northern lands lightly occupied.  The game started off predictably, Jim expanded a bit north, Chris and Dave solidified their islands and Michael solidified the coast.  An alliance was formed between Dave and Michael, which prevented Dave from fully taking the island that lasted until the end of the game.  Later Jim and Dave fought for control of the North, eventually Jim would push Dave out towards the coast.  Michael and Chris danced around each other on the main southern peninsula, but their major battles would happen on the outskirts islands.  Eventually everyone had lost one of their leaders, with Chris’ being the last to fall to Dave.  The battle had taken a large toll on Dave’s forces and soon a rush was on to take out his leaders and take control of his territory.  Michael was next and took out the daimyo responsible for the latest offense.  Michael then tried to make the final assault on Dave’s island fortress but was rebuffed shortly after making landfall, both armies weakened but still alive.  Jim arrived next from the north, following in Michael’s path, and crushed both armies.  Chris was too late to make an attack on Dave so instead rallied to take out Michael s last daimyo, bring both of his remaining daimyo’s into the fight and succedding.  After tallying up total territories, Chris won due to Michael’s land size greatly exceeding Dave’s.

3. Finally a game of Carcasonne was played.  Final scores Chris 173 Michael 104 Dave 158 and Jim 123.  Dave and Chris “cooperated” to create an immense city with a cathedral.

Club Business

It was determined the club would purchase the expansion of Friends and Foes for Lord of the Rings.

BEWC Meeting Recap 3/16/2013

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Chris Cregan, Alex Wright and Dave Olson

Games Played:

1) While waiting for others to show up, Michael and Chris taught Jim how to play Dominion using only the Sea Side expansion.  Jim started off slow, making a deck based off pearl divers and outposts.  Michael and Chris focused more on navigators and fishing villages both starting off strong.  Later on Chris diversified his deck which ultimately only lead to diluting his deck thus ending the game with only 25.  Michael stayed consistent throughout and managed to put away 33 points.  Jim turned a corner halfway through, with some incredibly good turns and occasionally double good turns with a well used outpost.  In the end Jim managed to not only catch up to Michael score wise but pass him with a final score of 36.

2) Next up Thurn and Taxis was set up.  Alex dominated that game* with 26 points, followed by Chris with 17, Michael at 16 and Jim with 9.

3)To end the day a game of Middle Earth Quest was started, but was not able to be finished.  Jim the Ranger was blighted by floods at the start of the game, which adled his movement and kept him mostly in the north the entire game, trying to keep Dave, Lord of the Rings, from establishing influence in the shire.  Chris the Dwarf, quickly completed his first quest and then with no rest headed for Moria.  Tired but eager to complete his 2nd quest Chris was disappointed to find a Balrog, and was then promptly eaten.  Michael the horse lord spent his time running around the south dashing several of Dave’s nefarious plots, at one point having to sell his horse to salvage Minas Tirith politically.  In the end, the heroes had beaten back several plots, but were growing incredibly tired.  Dave had made sure that it would be through his counters that the game would be over, it was just a question of weither he could achieve out right victory or if it would all come down to one last fight.

BEWC Meeting Recap 3/2/13

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Chris Cregan, Dave Olsen, John Alaimo, Dave Slaby, Ryan Frans, Dan Carey, Joe Kauffman

Games Played:

1) The day started off with the classic game, Hey! That’s my Fish!.  Dave Olsen out penguined everyone else ending with 28 total fish, Michael ended with 24 fish and Ryan had only 21.  Jim claimed to have caught 105 fish, however 83 of those were too small and had to release them ending with only 22.

2) Michael and Dave Olsen played a quick game of Guildhall while Ryan was helping set up Starcraft.  Michael managed to win by luckily drawing a farmer for his last point, otherwise Dave would have won the following turn.

3) Kings of Air and Steam was next, Dave Olsen learning from his last game won with 174, followed by Michael at 167, Ryan at 166 and Dan with an honorable mention at 4th place.

4) Dave Olsen continued his winning streak in Ticket to Ride, proving that he is an equally good Airship captain, Train Engineer and penguin.  Final scores were Dave 140, Michael with 131 Joe with 116 and Dan with 74.

5) Meanwhile in a galaxy far away a game of Starcraft was wrapping up.  In the hotly contested wishbone system two Protoss clans, a swarm of zerg and a human confederation battled for dominance.  Dave “Slaby” Mengsk, commander of the human dominion, began his campaign off of a nearly isolated planet at the far edge of the system.  For him it was total victory at the end or nothing.  On the other side of the system, the protoss under John Tassadar were looking to expand.  JT knew if he could control more areas then the other races would have to agree that he was a pretty cool guy.  Next door to John a new zerg overmind was waking up, Cerebrate Cregan.  It knew if the zerg built and held atleast three different bases, the system would be overrun by zerg.  Jim Aldarus was afraid of any one of the other factions from gaining too much power and so set himself between the humans and the rest of the planets.  He hoped to play for time, knowing that if nobody else won after an arbitrary amount of time he would win.

At first things were peaceful, the zerg and Tassadar’s protoss both went off to colonize other areas.  Cregan took a planet rich in vespian gas to breed an army of scourges to control the skies while John restarted a space station to build up his space port production.  On the other end of the system a cold war was brewing between the other protoss and the now trapped humans.  A few aborted invasion attempts by both sides allowed an uneasy peace to settle.

This peace did not last, the humans had marshaled up a small airforce to support its ground troops in an assault on the protoss main planet.  The attack soundly gave the terran a foothold on the planet.  Over the next several cycles the zealot force tried to drive the humans back to their home planet but were unsuccessful.  The Terrans though would grow to power and their small airforce quickly grew to take control of the skies, making the zealots nearly useless.

Tassadar’s home system was likewise invaded.  The zerg plotted a sneak attack and a horde of zerglings overwhelmed the single national guard defending a quarter of the planet.  John’s troops quickly responded, using their newly developed technology to create a Carrier, the single most powerful unit in play, as well as suring up their defenses with added ground troops and a reaver.   This seemed to be enough to halt the advance, though elements of the zerg remained on the planet.

This advanced quickly, the terran eventually drove the protoss from their home planet.  The zerg, fearing the growing carrier fleet on its boarder developed multalisks and hydralisks.  Tassadar’s protoss amassed its fleet on their home world, either to drive out the zerg once and for all or launch their own attack.  They weren’t prepared when the zerg changed tactics and attacked their space station.  Several of the newly grown hydralisks invaded the station and slaughter the few stationed guards while the equally new carrier could only watch from outside.  Everyone knew the end was drawing near.

Despite everything that had happened, one planet remained uncolonized, the center of the system which connected everything.  In fact, except for a single scout, no unit had set foot on the planet.  Though in the final turn, both protoss and zerg made plays for this planet.  In then end this planet would determine the fate of the four factions.  The zerg consolidated their forces, bringing as much as possible to their home system.  Sensing weakness, Tassadar sent his forces to retake his space station, and retaking it.  It was at this point things were looking well for John, he but needed to build a base on the center planet to assure largest dominion.  The overmind though did not allow this but bided his time delaying the protoss form building and ensuring there would be no turn after. Finally, the entirety of the zerg rained down on the planet, the solitary scout was lost as a scourge kamikazed into it.  Quickly a hatchery was constructed on the surface.  In the end it turned out Jim’s play for the planet was a ruse.

After the dust settled the Zerg had completed their objective, to have three bases on three different planets however, Jim’s protoss were also in the running, despite being nearly destroyed by Dave Mengsk.  Had it been allowed to play out, enough time had passed such that the game was over thus making Jim the default winner.  However, the special victory conditions took precedence over future events.  All factions were allowed a leadership change before that though, it had little effect in the end.  The zerg lead by chris gained another base on the undefended human home world and won the game.

6) Ryan, Mike Dan and Dave Olsen played a game of Age of Industry. Ryan won with a final total of 36, Mike in 2nd with 30 and Dan just edged out Dave for third, 29 over 28.  This game contained no hybrid scoring.

7)Chris Dave Slaby, John and Jim played a game of Power Grid. Using the Great Britain map.  Since it was most peoples first time though, Ireland was crossed off making it a fairly vanilla game.  Jim won by forcing the game to end just after stage III started up, finishing with only 15 out of his seventeen houses powered.  Chris was second powering all 14 of his houses, John was able to power 12 and Dave 10.

8)Another game of Guildhall was played with Ryan managing beat out both Michael and Dave Olsen.  It was another close game, with Michael a turn away from winning.