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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.

BEWC Meeting Recap 2/16/13

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Chris Cregan, Dave Olsen, Alex Wright, John Alaimo, Dave Slaby, Ryan Frans, Scott Harris

Games Played:

1) The meeting started off with a round of The New Science, the club’s new game.  It started off with Chris and Michael mildly competing in Biology and Mathematics, Chris advancing up Biology mostly while Michael dominated Mathematics with his slide rule.  Scott got off to a slow start, researching and experimenting on several topics but unable to actually publish much.  Alex picked up the strategy quickly and moved steadilly up the tech tree only publishing when it was convenient.  In the end Alex won with 37 points, followed by Chris with 33, Scott with 24 and Michael with 19.

2) Dave Olsen and Jim started up a game of Feudal.  Jim was getting destroyed by Dave but managed to work out a Truce in the end, mostly due to other people showing up.  A cunning strategy that tied him the game.

3) The Daves, Jim and John started up a game of Space Cadet.  There were no survivors.

4) Alex and Scott played a game of BattleLore.  Since neither had played before they went with the first scenario, Alex ending up with four points to Scotts two before they had to leave.

5) Meanwhile, Ryan Jim and John started up a game of Megafauna.  John was the first to die off, followed by Jim.  Ryan had played the game before, but even that couldn’t save him in the end.

6) Also meanwhile, the Daves, Chris and Michael played a game of Kings of Air and Steam.  Chris lead the end game with a total of 187 points mostly from depot builds and some lucky end game supply dumps.  Michael ended up with 150 points from a diverse strategy of upgrades, depots and supply runs.  Dave S. followed closely with 139 with Dave Olsen finishing off at only 121.

7) Jim and Dave Olsen played a game of Twilight Struggle with Jim as the commies winning in the end.

8) Ryan, Michael, Dave S. John and Chris played a learning game of Age of Industry.  The rules were quickly read which lead to some highly questionably possibly even illegal moves on the opening few turns.  Most everyone based their starting operations around Boston except David who began the Philadelphia coal works, the only land based source of coal on the map.  Later in the game it was discovered that a misunderstanding had occurred with how rail lines were to be scored; each line was only worth about 1/5 of what was originally believed.  This lead to two sets of scores one based on the rules and one based on the hybrid understanding (rules/hybrid scores).  Chris won both with 30/69.  Michael was second in the hybrid rules with a very solid train line but relatively poor industry, ending with 20/52.  Dave was the king on industry in the end and was 2nd in the actual scoring with 25/43.  Ryan ended with 21/39 and third in true scoring.  John was last and ended with 12/31.

BEWC Meeting Recap 2/2/13

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Frank Fulton, Robbie Fulton and Chris Cregan

Games Played:
1) Michael, Jim and Chris started with a game of Guild Hall, a new game Michael brought. Michael was the only one who had played before, but in the end turn order was more important. Chris won the game with 23 points with Michael in 2nd with 19 with Jim closing out at 16. Despite the scores it was incredibly close, with both Michael and Jim one turn away from getting over 20 points and thus winning the game.

2) Jim, Michael, Robbie Frank and Chris played the club’s new copy of Lords of Waterdeep. Jim with the City Guard jumped out to an early lead, buying up the first three buildings. These buildings gained him consistent victory points nearly every turn and a larger bonus from his Lords special bonus for buildings at the end. This allowed him to just edge out Chris’ Silverstars, who focused on high yield Piety and Magic heavy quests, 117 to 116. Robbie and her Knights of the Shield aimed at a diverse strategy of buildings and quests ending with 102. Michael’s Harpers finished a few plot quests early but unfortunately, wasn’t really able to capitalize on both of their special rewards and ended with 95 just edging out Frank who was hobbled by intrigue cards early in the game.

3) The meeting finished off with a round of the club’s Samurai Swords, which was formerly known as Shogun and is currently known as Ikusa.  Jim was the only one familiar with the game, which played similar to Risk if it were in feudal Japan except you can only have three large armies, each lead by a shogun.  Cards of the provinces were dealt out randomly and starting units placed.  Michael had control of the southern group of islands, with Jim just off the coast of those islands towards the eastern side of the map.  Chris and Frank were both far to the north, and Robbie directly in the middle of the map.  The early turns mostly consisted of players solidifying their starting locations.  Jim and Michael traded a few islands back and forth but no major battles happened until turn 3.  Frank took first turn and attacked Chris’ main force and ended up being defeated losing his Shogun.  Jim shifted focus and took out two of Robbie’s less defended Shoguns.  The next turn, Robbie lost her last general when Chris attacked with all three of his shoguns.  Robbie was removed from the game and Chris took control of both armies.  Despite the new territories he was in second place, with Michael having been content to gobble up the southern half of the island uncontested.  There wasn’t enough time to finish the game.  In the end Michael had the largest territory.  However, during the last turn, Michael had lost two of his Shoguns to Jim, his armies having been stretched thin.  Frank was also down to his last Shogun who had taken refuge in this well defended fortress.

BEWC Meeting Recap 1/19/13

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Attendees: Shane Andrews, John Boyle, Ben Blankley, Greg Chandra, Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Jim Halloran, Richard Heller, Paul Hsu, Michael Kelly, Melissa Laface, and Lane Taylor

Club Business: 2013 officers were elected and we voted to purchase Lords of Waterdeep and The New Science.

Games Played:
1) Shane, John, Michael F, and Paul started with a game of Puerto Rico. Michael was the only one who had played before, giving him a significant advantage, but everyone else seemed to pick up the mechanics and some strategy fairly quickly. Michael turned an early coffee monopoly combined with both the large and small markets into a money making machine, allowing him to build three of the 4 point large buildings. Michael won with 44 points, largely from buildings, but Shane wasn’t far behind with 38 points from an impressive shipping operation.

2) Jim, Michael K, and Lane considered playing Flat Top, but after being looking at the time commitment and complexity decided to switch to Shogun. They only played one year, which was characterized by the peasants being much stronger than expected and an extremely close result – Michael 22, Lane 21, and Jim 20.

3) Melissa taught Shane and Paul Ora et Labora where she won with a comfortable lead.

4) John, Michael F, Ryan, and Richard played a close fought game of Eclipse. The game had very little early combat, with Richard as the Planta and John as the Descendants of Draco both significantly expanding and leaving Ryan’s Mechanema and particularly Michael’s Hydran Progress mostly isolated. Ryan was able to take over the galactic center and start an arms race with Richard (as well as breaking his treaty with John and conquering one of his systems), but Michael was left to concentrate on technology and hope that point-scoring monoliths would become available. They finally did on the last turn, but Michael built them one action too early, committing all of his production, which had been serving as a check against Ryan’s aggression since it could have rapidly been turned into a fleet of technologically advanced ships. Once that threat was gone, Ryan turned his fleet against Michael instead of Richard and conquered all but one of his systems, knocking Michael down to only 19 points at the end of the game. The game ended with a bang, when Richard sent in a pair of cruisers each armed with 3 plasma missiles against a large fleet of Ryan’s and lucky rolling caused him to hit on 10 of his 12 dice – one more than the nine needed to wipe him out. Unfortunately Richard didn’t have neutron bombs, so couldn’t conquer the system and transfer its points from Ryan to him. That left Ryan winning the game with 42 points to Richard’s 38.

5) Jim and Michael K spent the afternoon with Twilight Struggle, where Michael’s communists prevailed in the 10th round.

6) Ben and Greg taught themselves the Rivals for Catan card game. Once they figured out what they were doing, they enjoyed themselves with Ben winning.

7) Ben, Greg, Michael F, Richard, and Melissa finished up with 7 Wonders with both the Leaders and Cities expansions. Richard amassed an impressive 55 points in science, but his 65 total points weren’t enough to catch up with Melissa, who took good advantage of the expansions to earn 26 points from white and black cards. Combined with a generally diversified strategy otherwise, she net 68 points for the win. Michael edged out Richard for second place, also with 65 points, mostly from guilds and blue cards and with more leftover money for the tiebreaker.

BEWC Meeting Recap 1/5/13

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Michael Kelly

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Michael and Michael started with Innovation. Things initially looked good for Michael K, who got the world and empire achievements early, but Michael F used pottery to obtain some early score for his first achievement and then mathematics to bootstrap up to the age 5 chemistry card. Once he had chemistry he was able to score a 6 and claim the next achievement each round. Michael K was able to slow him down for one turn, but it was a quick march to achievements 2 through 6 and the win.

2) They then moved on to a close fought game of Ticket To Ride: Europe. Despite the potentially wide open spaces on a two player map, they both ended up with similar tickets and fought for board position. The game ended with both being able to place all of their trains and tied for longest route, with Michael K being slightly ahead on points. Michael F had completed one more ticket though, and won 131 to 128.

3,4) While waiting to see if anyone else would arrive, they played two hands of Lost Cities. Michael F won the first and Michael K the second, but Michael K just edged out the total score, 96 to 93.

5,6) They finished up with two games of Flash Point: Fire Rescue. The first game went smoothly for them, easily clearing all 10 victims from the building, but for the second they played the variant with random specialist assignments and no crew changes. They ended up with the driver and the imaging technician, which was not a great combination. The driver was able to use the deck gun to keep most of the fire from spreading, but the imaging tech was not great at getting victims from the building. With five people rescued and one lost to the fire, a series of chain reaction explosions brought the building down on to them.

BEWC Meeting Recap 12/15/12

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Attendees: Greg Chandra, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Frank Fulton, Robbie Fulton, Jim Halloran, and Joe Kauffman

Club Business: Nominations for 2013 officers are open.

Games Played:

1,2) Michael and Jim started with two quick games of Lost Cities with Jim winning both decisively.

3) Chris, Michael, and Jim played Kingsburg with all of the To Forge A Realm expansions, with Chris just edging out Jim 46 points to 44 points.

4) Greg, Chris, Michael, Jim, and Joe played Lungarno, where Michael won with 31 points, but the battle for second place was closely fought – Jim had 26 points and the tie breaker of most extra tiles over Chris (also with 26 points) and Greg just behind with 25.

5) Greg, Chris, Michael, Frank, Robbie, Jim, and Joe played a full 7 player game of 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion. Chris’s money heavy strategy combined with the gamer guild gave him a 69 point victory over Joe’s 68 points from a diversified strategy.

6) Chris and Jim broke of to play Twilight Struggle where history was rewritten. Chris won as the soviets by VP in turn 3 helped by claiming dominance in Asia and three scoring cards coming up that turn.

7) Greg, Michael, Frank, and Robbie finished up with Ascending Empires. Greg went on the offensive early and squabbled with Frank allowing them both to collect victory points from shooting each other’s ships out of the sky. Michael meanwhile was left mostly alone to colonize and then build cities on planets in each of the other quadrants. An endgame attempt from Robbie to steal one of Michael’s planets turned into an opportunity for him to earn more victory points from the back and forth combat, and the game ended with Michael having a comfortable 31 point win with Greg in second at 23 points.

BEWC Meeting Recap 12/01/12

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Attendees: Chris Cregan, Jim Halloran, Dave Slaby, Lane Taylor, and Alex Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Chris, Jim, Dave, Lane, and Alex played a quick game of Bohnanza while they waited to see if anyone else was going to show up. Dave proved to be the better bean farmer and won commandingly with 3 points over 2nd place.

2) They then brought out Twilight Imperium. The galaxy was not evenly distributed, with Dave and Chris’s side of the galaxy having the glut of planets. Jim and Lane bordered each other and quickly formed an uneasy alliance, dividing up what few planets they had. After several turns Lane had amassed a large fleet positioned near the center of the galaxy, well away from his original starting location. Jim took the opportunity break the alliance and captured Lane’s starting planets in one turn.

Alex advanced quickly colonizing planets up to and around Chris’s border, building up a fleet while at it. With the abundant starting planets though, Chris’s fleet was significantly larger with the excess money and when battle ensued his fleet was completely destroyed. Not without significant damage to Chris’s own fleet however, which Dave was more than happy to obliterate the following turn.

Dave had been slow playing it up till then, mostly making trade packs and slow advancement. Rather than press the advantage, his fleet returned to his space. Alex and Chris formed a truce with both armadas completely destroyed. Both nations rebuilt and moved towards Dave who, having not been attacked at all, was in a very solid position. Dave built up a large force but wasn’t able to join it with his main force before getting it destroyed by Chris’s new fleet. Alex however, changed direction and advanced into Chris’s unguarded nation, taking several planets effortlessly. Unfortunately for Dave, his fleet was out of position and Jim took the opportunity to strike at his home sector, finally making the long trek from the far side of the galaxy.

They were forced to leave after that, while Alex was the closest to victory, it was determined that it would take more than a turn for him to get there.