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BEWC Meeting Recap 11/17/12

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Chris Cregan, Jim Halloran, Dave Olson and Alex Wright.

Club Business: None

Games Played:
1) Jim, Dave and Alex played Elfenland. Alex came away with the win, with 15 points, followed closely by Dave and Jim with 14 points each – a tie for second, which became a theme of the day.

2) Jim, Dave and Alex played the classic Sid Sackson game Can’t Stop, on an artisan board painstakingly hand-crafted by Alex. Jim was victorious.

3) Chris, Jim, Dave and Alex played the classic Sid Sackson game Acquire. Alex, Chris and Dave were pretty evenly matched with $44,800, $47,200 and $47,800 respectively, but Jim was the big winner with a whopping $57,000 at the end of the game.

4) Dan, Chris, Jim, Dave and Alex played Outpost. Dan got out to an early lead with a significant Titanium-based economy, but Alex and Chris were able to challenge him with strong economies of their own. In the end, Chris and Dan were tied with 80 points, with Dan edging out Chris on the tie-breaker, but it was only good enough for second place as Alex was able to pull off the big win with 90 points. Jim ended the game with a respectable 57 points, and Dave brought up the rear with 43 (yes, less than half the winning score). A fun time was had by all.

5) Dan, Chris, Dave and Alex played Lungarno. Chris came away with the win with 33 points, followed by Dave and Alex who each had 28 (another tie for second!), and Dan ended up with 19.

6) Dan, Chris, Dave and Alex played another round of Can’t Stop. This time Dan emerged victorious.

7) Dan, Chris, Dave and Alex finished the day with a round of Bang! Chris and Dave had a tough slog as the outlaws, with Chris going down early, and Dave spending most of the game at 2 HP. Alex was able to pick up a renegade win, finishing Dave off with the Volcanic, and taking out the Sheriff (Dan) in the next turn.

BEWC Meeting Recap 11/03/12

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Attendees: Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Steve Filice, Jim Halloran, Michael Kelly, Megan Sanders, Dave Olson, and Alex Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Michael F, Jim, and Dave started with a quick game of Tsuro, where Dave played a tile killing both Michael and himself, leaving Jim as the winner.

2) Michael F, Jim, Megan, and Dave played Take It Easy! When doing the math at the end, it looked like Michael had just edged out Dave 113 to 112, but Megan’s total came way over the top at 122.

3) Jim and Dave branched off to play Twilight Struggle, where in a long slog Dave was victorious as the USSR.

4) Michael F, Michael K, Megan, and Alex played Settlers of Catan with the Cities and Knights expansion. Mid-game Michael F and Michael K were fighting each other for the lead, but then they stagnated. Megan almost had the win when she got to 12 points and was only one resource short of building a settlement for her 13th point, but on Alex’s next turn he stole longest road from Michael K and added his own settlement for the win.

5,6) Chris and Steve played two rounds of Lost Cities, winning one each.

7) Chris, Michael F, Steve, Michael K, Megan, and Alex played a close game of Citadels. In the end Steve was the winner with 27 points over Alex at 24, closely followed by Chris and Megan at 23.

8) Chris, Dave, and Alex moved on to Mystery Express, where Alex was best at deduction, getting all aspects of the mystery correct.

9) Michael F, Michael K, and Megan played Lords of Waterdeep. Megan got off to an early lead with her quests, but Michael F managed to overtake her toward the end to win 131 to 133. Michael K ended up with the only lord in the deck who got bonus victory points for buildings rather than quests and found that it was a significant disadvantage.

10) Chris, Michael F, Michael K, Megan, Dave, and Alex finished up with Bang! Alex and Dave, both outlaws, fell first and then Michael F, the deputy was killed before he could he finish off the last outlaw, Megan. Once Chris, the renegade, killed her off it became a sheriff-renegade duel. Both Chris and Michael K had dynamite in front of them, but before either could go off Chris shot the sheriff for a renegade win.

BEWC Meeting Recap 10/20/12

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Attendees: Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Michael Kelly, Chris Leitenberger, Chad Willard, Alex Wright, and Elaine Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Chris C, Michael F, Jim, and Alex spent the bulk of the day playing Mage Knight. They played the blitz conquest scenario, which is supposed to be one of the shorter ones, but it was still 6 hours of play time. Everyone but Alex had only played once before, and the difference in experience was apparent mid-game when Alex started pulling well ahead and amassing the strength to single handedly take on cities and dragons. Chris was doing a pretty good job of keeping pace with Alex’s level growth and Michael had two strong turns with the right cards in his hand to take on adjacent enemies and catapult himself up two levels and from last place to second place. However Chris then ended up with a hand full of strong combat cards and no better options than to see what happened if he attacked Michael. The result was that neither of them got to use their turns to kill monsters and amass more fame, but Michael also accumulated seven wounds that cost him another turn to get rid of and were worth -17 fame at the end of game scoring. After the last night ended, only two of the four cities in the scenario were conquered, so technically all of the knights failed in their quest, but that doesn’t really impact the game’s outcome. Alex, as expected, ran away with the game at 125 fame, with Chris in second at 64.

2,3) Michael K and Chris L started a game of Tentacle Bento, but abandoned it with Michael well ahead when Chad joined them. The three of them played a second came that Chris won handsomely.

4) Michael K, Chris L, and Chad played Lords of Waterdeep, where Chad’s piety and commerce beat out Michael’s warfare and magic by three points for the win.

5) Michael K and Chad played a partial game of Innovation and were fairly close in both score and achievements when Chad had to leave.

6) Chris C, Michael F, and Michael K finished off the day with a quick game of Carcassonne. Almost the entire board ended up being one giant field with the two Michaels sharing the points for it. The 18 points from the field weren’t enough to help Michael F, but for Michael K it propelled him to a 78 point win over Chris’s 73.

BEWC Meeting Recap 10/6/12

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Attendees: Monique Ball, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Frank Fulton, Robbie Fulton, Jim Halloran, Scott Harris, Michael Kelly, Chris Leitenberger, Josh Lichti, Luke Miller, Heather Murphy, Dave Olson, Alex Wright, and Elaine Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Chris C, Michael F, Dave, and Alex all got there early to try out the club’s new copy of Mage Knight. Having all at least skimmed the rules we got into the game fairly quickly and had a lot of fun with it. There were still a number of surprises though at the end game scoring and one extra crystal that Chris picked up because he had nothing better to do with a card ended up turning into three extra victory points which gave him the win with 38 points to Michael’s second place 35.

2) Jim, Scott, Chris L, and Michael K played 7 Wonders with the Leaders and Cities expansions. Chris’s blue card strategy just edged out Mike’s science strategy 74 to 73.

3) Scott had to leave, so Josh, briefly back from Japan, stepped in for him and joined Jim, Chris L, and Mike K for a game of Kingsburg with the To Forge A Realm expansion. Josh ran away with the game with 53 point wins, but all the players for some reason felt that it was important that I point out that Mike came in last place, despite getting extra victory points for being the fairy.

4) After finishing Mage Knight, Chris C, Michael F, Dave, and Alex were joined by Frank and Robbie for their own game of 7 Wonders with both expansions. Chris continued his trend of beating Michael by 3 points, winning with 75 points to Michal’s second place 72.

5) Jim, Chris L, Josh and Michael K took over the Mage Knight board, but unfortunately they ran out of time to finish before the rec center closed. They got through one day and one night of the first scenario, and at the end Josh was leading with 26 points with Jim in second with 20.

6) Chris C, Michael F, Luke and Alex moved on to Castles of Burgundy. Through most of the game it looked like Chris was comfortably leading, but at the end when all of the extra points from yellow tiles were tallied up, Michael finally made up for his two losses to Chris earlier in the day by edging him out 225 points to 224.

7) Monique, Frank, Robbie, Heather, and Dave played the Germany map of Power Grid, where Robbie dominated the game.
Monique ball

8,9) With a little time left before the rec center closed, Chris C, Michael F, Luke, Alex and Elaine played two rounds of Tsuro. It came down to the last piece, but Michael just barely edged out Elaine in the first game. In the second, Alex held on the longest, followed by Luke.

10) Monique, Heather, and Dave started a game of Pandemic and were working on their second cure when we had to leave.

BEWC Meeting Recap 9/15/12

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Michael Kelly, Alex Wright, and Elaine Wright.

Club Business: We voted to purchase Mage Knight.

Games Played:
1,2) Michael F and Jim started with two rounds of Tsuro, winning one each.

3) Dan and Alex spent the day playing Pursuit of Glory, about World War I in the middle east. Dan was the Allied (British/Russian) player and Alex was the Central Powers (Ottoman Turk) player. Dan launched some attacks on the Caucasus and Mesopotamia to start the game and made a little progress. Alex countered and later advanced a bit in the Caucasus. Dan’s invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula bogged down just like in real life. By 1916 Dan’s British and Indians were making some progress in Mesopotamia but the Russians were not getting anywhere in the Caucasus. Alex opened up another front in the Balkans, attacking Serbia with Germans and Bulgarians. He also advanced forces to the Suez Canal but Dan concentrated forces there to hold him back, and he later withdrew across the Sinai. Alex also had some Iranian tribes causing trouble for Dan in Persia. Due to time, the game was called at the end of 1916, as the Russian Revolution was just starting to take the Russians out of the game. Adding up the points, Dan won a victory of endurance, kind of a minor victory.

4) Chris, Michael F, Jim, and Michael K played Monsters Menace America, mostly on a lark, but ended up enjoying the game. In the first phase of the game, Michael F’s Tomanagi (basically Godzilla) had free range to terrorize the west coast, while everyone else concentrated on the eastern and central US. Chris’s Megaclaw took the brunt of the miltary’s counterattack, but despite that he went into the monster challenge round with the second most health after Michael F. Michael K’s Toxicor started off the challenge, but lost to Jim’s giant eyeball Zorb. Zorb then decided to take on Tomanagi and lost. In the final battle between Tomanagi and Megaclaw, statistically Tomanagi was stronger, but luck was on Megaclaw’s side and Chris was the last man standing.

5) Chris, Michael F, Jim, and Michael K moved on to Airlines Europe, where Chris just managed to edge out Michael F for the win 92 points to 90.

6,7,8) While waiting on lunch, Chris, Michael F, Jim, and Elaine played three more rounds of Tsuro. Jim won the first while the second came down to everyone still alive (but adjoining the same tile!) with only two tiles left. Jim was left with no choice in tile placement except a path that drove everyone off the board but Michael. In the third game, Chris and Jim isolated themselves in one corner and ended up running into each other, leaving Elaine victorious.

9) Chris, Michael F, Michael K, and Elaine played The Castles of Burgundy. Michael K used his farms to rack up an impressive 204 points, but Michael F built up a commercial empire, using yellow tiles to build 6 of the 7 warehouses and then earning 4VP for each of them, along with 3VP more for each color of goods sold using the warehouses, bringing him to 216VP and the win.

BEWC Meeting Recap 9/1/12

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Attendees: Mellissa Bassett, Dan Carey, Michael Feinberg, Linda Galperin, Lionel Galperin, Jim Halloran, Scott Harris, Brandan James, Joe Kauffman, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Chris Leitenberger, Dave Olson, and Jeremy Swope

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Once everyone straggled in, Dan, Michael, Jim, and Dave L played The Castles of Burgundy, which was new to everyone. Jim and Dan both managed to rack up impressive points from animals, but Dave’s collection of yellow victory point giving tiles pushed him to a comfortable win with 237 points to Michael’s second place 218.

2) Scott, Brandan, Chris, Dave O, and Jeremy played 7 Wonders with both the Leaders and the new Cities expansions. The 8th card in each age led to a high scoring game, with Jermey winning with 89 points.

3,4) Linda, Lionel, Scott, Brandan, Chris, Dave O, and Jeremy played two games of Tsuro. In the first game, somehow Brandan found himself knocked out on the very first turn and the game wound down to Lionel and Chris sharing victory when the last play took them both off the board. In the second Lionel was able to claim a solo victory.

5) Michael, Lionel, Scott, Dave L, and Dave O played Airlines Europe, which was also new to all of them. Dave L triumphed with 84 points, with Dave O coming in second with 75.

6) Dan, Jim, Brandan, Joe, Mellissa, and Chris played an epic game of Battlestar Galactica using both the Pegasus and Exodus expansions and the New Caprica scenario from Pegasus. It was rough going for the humans with food rapidly becoming critical. With suspicion high against Chris, he managed to steal the admiral title and choose a disastrous jump before being executed. The other cylon, Mellissa, managed to stay hidden, and between the two they easily defeated the humans on New Caprica.

7) While waiting for the game of Galactica to end, Michael, Dave L, Karen, and Zoe played Blokus. Michael was the first out, while Zoe (with a little help) held on for second place and Dave put the rest of us to shame by getting out all of his pieces.

8) Still waiting on Galactica, Michael, Dave, and Karen played Attika. Access to the temples was blocked early, so everyone turned to trying to build their full cities. Everyone had a shot, but Karen got there well ahead of the others.

9) Michael, Brandan, Dave L, Karen, and Chris finished off with Alien Frontiers with the Factions expansion. For most of the early and mid-game there was a fairly balanced build up resources and colonies, but towards the end Michael had two really lucky sets of die rolls, the first turn letting him satisfy his second agenda (for another VP) and stealing huge quantities of resources and in the second turn using those resources to land three colonies (out of the six total in the game) in that one turn. After that there was nothing to be done to keep him from landing his last colony the next turn and winning the game with 11VP.

BEWC Meeting Recap 8/18/12

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Attendees: Chris Cregan, Tim Denney, Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, and Chris Leitenberger

Club Business: None.

Games Played
1) Chris C, Michael, Jim, and Chris L started out with a game of Eminent Domain. When we totaled up the scored Chris C and Jim thought they were going to have to figure out the tie breaker rules with their score of 20 points, but Chris L ended up edging them out with 22.

2) Chris C, Tim, Michael, Jim, and Chris L played Eclipse, all as Terrans. Michael had good early luck with exploration tiles and technology selection and was able to quickly build a strong economy, making him the identified leader and the target for the other players. The board was very isolated, other than through the center, each player only had contact with one of the others, except for Chris L who had no contact at all, but both Chris L and Jim had to build up their fleets to destroy the ancient ships in their sectors. Chris L then turned that fleet to the GCDS and claimed the center tile, opening up the board. Given Michael’s apparent position as the leader, Chris L made diplomatic agreements with all of the other players and Michael was forced to switch from building orbitals within his own territory to expand his economy and instead build up defenses on his border with Chris. A stalemate and arms race settled in for the rest of the game, broken only when Jim researched Wormhole Generator on the second to last turn and attacked Michael in two of his previously inaccessible systems. After some quick redeployment, building, and upgrading the two forces were fairly evenly matched, but Jim managed victory in both battles. On the final round, Michael managed to hold off Jim’s second thrust and reclaim one of his initial territories, but the damage of the pick-on the leader strategy had been done. Michael ended up dead last, with only 17 points. Chris L was in the lead with 36, but Chris C, who had spent the whole game exploring his own sector and managed to never have to build or upgrade a single offensive ship and instead had a huge economy devoted to building point scoring monoliths, also reached 36 points. The tie breaker is most remaining production, which Chris C won 31, to 26.

3,4) Chris C and Michael played two games of Tsuro. Chris quickly won the first one, but the second one went down to the last tiles, with Chris being able to hold out one tile longer.

5) Chris C and Michael finished up with the Battlelore scenario A Complex Web. Chris, as Edward of Woodstock, quickly took control of the center of the board drawing two Advance cards early and being able to wipe out Owain the Red Hand (Michael’s) giant spider. Michael struggled to hold it own and the game was somewhat even with Chris having destroyed three units to Michael’s two, but then Chris got a Forward card allowing him to activate six units and paired it with a lore spell giving them all extra die and hits and was able to destroy the final three units he needed in a single turn.

BEWC Meeting Recap 8/4/12

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Chris Cregan, Tom Dunford, Michael Feinberg, Brandon James, Scott Harris, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Alex Wright, and Elaine Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played
1) Dan, Chris, Brandon, Scott, Dave, and Karen started with a game of 7 Wonders, that Brandon one with 58 points, followed by Chris then Karen.

2) Dan, Tom, Scott, and Dave then spent a good chunk of the day playing Britannia, the game of various invasions of Britain from 1043 through 1066. On the first turn Tom’s Romans swept onto the island, spreading all the way up to central Britain. Dave’s Welsh held out in the mountains of Wales, and some other groups such as Scott’s Belgae and Dan’s Brigantes lost ground and in some cases raided the Romans. After a few turns, the Roman Empire abandoned the island, and Dave Roman’s left, replaced by Tom’s Romano-Britons led by the legendary Arthur. Other groups such as Dan’s Saxons, Scott’s Angles, Dave’s Jutes moved to fill the vacuum. The Romano-Britons were gone within a few turns. Dave’s Welsh and Scott’s Picts continued to hold their mountainous areas of Wales and Scotland respectively. Dan’s Irish raided a few times, and Tom’s Scots invaded Scotland, but that offensive bogged down and came to a halt. New groups showed up such as Dan’s Norsemen, which wiped out Dave’s Caledonians in the very far north. Dave’s Danes made a major invasion, winning areas from Scott’s Angles which had controlled much of central England. Dan’s Saxons continued to hold south England. Towards the end of the game, Dan’s Saxons consolidated their hold on southern England, Dave’s Welsh continued their control of Wales, Scott’s Picts still held most of Scotland. Tom’s Dubliners and Norwegians invaded late in the game and came to control part of central England. At the very end, the Normans under William the Conqueror landed and captured several territories from Dan’s Saxons led by Harold. Harold though was able to flee, and later counter-attacked and regained some of those territories. Tom’s Norwegians still held part of central England. Dave won with a score of 240, largely due to the performance of the Welsh. Scott came in second with 232, mostly due to his Picts and Angles. Dan came in third with 213 and Tom scored 154.

3) Chris, Michael, Brandon, and Karen played Alien Frontiers with the new Factions expansion. After we got over all of the stealing promoted by Chris’s Smuggler’s Alliance faction ability, the game evolved into a race between Chris and Brandon to get their last colony. Chris got there first, winning the game with 9 points, while Brandon and Karen were tied for second with 7.

4) Chris, Michael, Brandon, and Alex then jumped into Eclipse. It was the first game for everyone but Chris, so we all played Terrans. Brandon got off to a rough start, with nearly all of his connected systems penned in by ancient ships, while Chris seemed to have the opposite luck, finding open economy slots everywhere he explored. With the help of an econ bonus discovery tile, Chris was able to bring two dreadnoughts into play early, which he used to cause some havoc in Alex’s territory before over expansion started to constrain his actions per turn. Alex mainly concentrated on defending himself from Chris and once they finally became available turned to monolith construction to earn victory points. Michael also mostly stayed within his own territory and concentrated on technology, but on the last two turns used that tech to outfit a powerful fleet and expand into Brandon’s space. After Michael just barely held off a strong counterattack on the last turn from Brandon we discovered that Michael had miscalculated his cruiser’s energy consumption and that they couldn’t actually power their advanced targeting computers, so we decided to refight the battle without them, but the dice went against Brandon and Michael still managed to hold the system. The extra VP from that system were enough for Michael to just eke out a victory with 39 VP to Alex’s 38. In addition to the energy mistake, we also made a few other rule mistakes (retreating ships don’t retreat till the next combat round, the traitor can’t enter in to new diplomatic agreements, and once you’ve pulled all of the cubes off a track, you can’t take cubes from another track to fill that color planet) but they likely didn’t impact the outcome and we all had a good time with the game.

5) Dan and Dave played Conflict of Heroes, Storms of Steel! Kursk 1943 scenario six, Sneak Attack. Dave’s Soviets attempted to launch a sneak attack by launching an attack with forces positioned in a deep ravine and behind a hill. Dave’s Soviets in the ravine pushed forward, taking some losses. Dan’s Germans were hurt badly on the second turn by the loss of their heavy machine gun. Dave’s Soviets were able to use their numerical advantage to roll up Dan’s left, capturing both control markers and reducing the Germans to one squad. At the end of the third turn, Dan conceded.

6,7,8) Chris, Michael, Brandon, Alex, and Elaine finished up with three rounds of Dixit Odyssey, with Dave jumping in for the third. Elaine ran away for the first game, but the second two were a struggle between Chris and Alex for victory. Chris managed to win both, but for the last game Karen snuck ahead of Alex for second on the last story.

BEWC Meeting Recap 7/21/12

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Attendees: Greg Chandra, Michael Feinberg, Frank Fulton, Robbie Fulton, Jim Halloran, Dave Olson, and Alex Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Michael and Jim started with one round of Lost Cities that Jim one decisively.

2) Michael, Jim, and Dave tried out The Adventurers: Temple of Chac, which was a fun light diversion. Dave suffered at the hands of the temple, first falling into the lava and then after just barely avoiding going over the waterfall, his replacement explorer was mowed down by the boulder. Michael was well ahead and got took the safe road over the bridge and out of the temple first, but Jim did well collecting treasure in the river on his way out and ended up with a bigger haul and the win.

3) Michael, Frank, Robbie, Jim, and Dave played Shadows over Camelot, with Greg joining in about halfway through when he arrived. Shortly after that, Michael completed the Lancelot quest, but instead of the expected win (and 2 life point recovery), it was a tie, causing Michael to lose his last life point and be out of the game. Things didn’t go much better for the knights for the rest of the game, with catapaults building up and quests steadily being lost. Ultimately the forces of good lost and it was revealed that Greg was the traitor.

4) With Michael out of Shadows, he and Alex played Innovation. Alex got off to an early lead in score and achievements, but Michael was building a large tableau and was able to pick up most of the late age achievements, leaving them tied at 5 each. Both players were only missing one or two clock symbols to satisfy the empire achievement, but Alex got there first (on a draw and meld from Michael’s dogma effect) and he won the game.

5) Greg, Michael, Dave, and Alex played Ascending Empires where all of their flicking skills left a lot to be desired. Greg went early into orange tech, deploying his battleship and expanding deep into Alex’s quadrant. Michael went into grey tech, but spent most of the mid game fighting for grey planets into Alex and Dave’s quadrants and it was close to the end of the game before he managed to hold one long enough to build a research station and max out the tech tree. While Alex was set upon from two sides, Dave mostly stayed in his own quadrant and attempted a strategy of mining his planets for victory points. Ultimately Michael and Greg both tied with 28 VP (to Dave’s 21 for third), but Michael won the tiebreaker of developed 7 levels of tech while Greg had only developed 6.

6) Greg, Michael, Dave, and Alex finished off with Stone Age. At the end of the game Michael was leading in points on the board, helped by a 42 point 7 gold building buy, but Alex had been piling up the cards and handily won, 179 points to 136.