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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.

BEWC Meeting Recap 6/16/12

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Jim Halloran, Michael Kelly, and Chris Leitenberger

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Chris C, Michael F, Ryan, Jim, Michael K, and Chris L spent the morning playing the new Mayfair reprint of 1830: Railways & Robber Barons. It was the first time playing for most of us, but we quickly got into the game and it’s volatile stock market. Ryan proved himself a wily trader, on more than one occasion going in on a deal to float a new railroad and then immediately dumping the stock to set up a different venture. That only got him to second place with $1554 though, leaving him unable to reach Chris C’s $1614 from control of the two most profitable railroads in the game. We did game things a little to force the game to end due to running out of time, so the situation might have changed in the turn or two more that it likely would have run out.

2) Dan, Chris C, Michael F, Jim, Michael K, and Chris L then moved on to Power Grid with the Brazil map and using the New Power Plant Cards expansion deck with all of the promo cards. The shuffle of the power plant deck caused a lot of highly efficient power plants to come out early, which when combined with Brazil’s generous resource restock rate, caused resources to be extremely cheap the entire game. Position became extremely important, with Michael F being able to capitalize on the opening of phase 2 to jump to 9 cities from 4 for only $88, and Mike K also being able to build 5 cities on the final turn, bringing him to 14 (though he could only power 12). Dan however started the game all alone on the NE coast and free access to many cheap connections positioned gave him an advantage no one else could touch leading to him winning with 16 cities (15 powered). The rest of all managed to build and power 13 cities, with Chris C winning the tie-breaker for second place with $25 left over.

BEWC Meeting Recap 6/2/12

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Attendees: Greg Chandra, Jenna, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Frank Fulton, Robbie Fulton, Jim Halloran, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Saeed Sadatian, Dave Olson, Jay Olson, Alex Wright, and Elaine Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Michael, Karen, Frank, and Robbie started by breaking out the club’s new copy of Eminent Domain, with Dave helping with rules explanation. Despite it taking a little while to figure out what was going on, it ended up being a very close game. Frank just edged out the victory with 24 points to Michael’s 23 and Karen’s 22.

2) Jim and Dave L played Twilight Struggle, where Jim’s luck with the dice on the space race helped him to win as the communists.

3) Chris, Michael, Karen, Frank, Robbie, and Saeed played Citadels. Karen was victorious with 32 points, with Michael and Chris just behind tied at 30.

4) Needing another 6 player game, Jim, Dave L, Dave O, Jay, Alex, and Elaine broke out Antike. Alex was the first to get to 7 ancient personages, snatching the victory from Dave L who was just one turn away.

5) Chris, Michael, Frank, and Robbie delved into Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon, but were defeated by the dungeon.

6) Dave L, Karen, Alex, and Elaine played another round of Eminent Domain, which Alex won with 22 points.

7,8) Dave O and Jay played two rounds of Mr. Jack, each getting caught in their turn as Jack.

9) Dave O and Jay followed up with Wings of War: Dawn of War, where Jay had an Allied victory.

10) Greg, Frank, Robbie, Dave L, Dave O, and Jay played Battlestar Galactica with the Exodus expansion. As usual, Dave L was a cylon and he and Greg defeated the humans.

11) Chris, Michael, and Alex played Carcassonne. Michael and Alex dueled for control over a giant field, but Alex successfully snuck in an extra farmer when Michael wasn’t looking, leading to him having a commanding 93 point win.

12) Jenna, Karen, and Elaine played Bananagrams, with Elaine beating Karen to the final peel by seconds.

13) Jenna, Chris, Michael, and Karen played a third round of Eminent Domain, with Karen finally winning, defeating Chris 21 to 20.

14,15,16) Greg, Jenna, Chris, Michael, Dave L, and Karen finished up with three rounds of Ca$h ‘n Gun$. Jenna comfortably won the first round with $90,000 and Greg snuck out victory in the second with $85,000. In the third round, we added in the informer, which caused a great deal of confusion due to the illogical patterns of the police being called. On the final draw, when it looked like the informer had no chance, the police were called and Karen, having been killed in the first two games, won as the informer – she also would have one in a classic game, having amassed an impressive $95,000.

 

BEWC Meeting Recap 5/19/12

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Attendees: Greg Chandra, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Frank Fulton, Robbie Fulton, Jim Halloran, Scott Harris, Michael Kelly, Alex Wright, and Elaine Wright

Club Business: We voted to purchase Eminent Domain.

Games Played:
1) Michael F, Jim, and Scott started off with Carcassonne with the Princess and the Dragon expansion. Scott and Michael dueled over a giant field covering most of the board, at one point with them both having three farmers in it (before the dragon started eating them) and both having cities that couldn’t be closed tying up their followers. The luck of tile draw (and dragon eating) went to Michael, and he got the field, catapulting him to a 120 point win, with Jim in a comfortable second place with 95. The expansion added some interesting options for strategy, but also added a lot more play time than expected.

2) While they were waiting for Carcassonne to finish up, Chris and Michael K played two rounds of Lost Cities, winning one each.

3) Greg, Chris, Michael F, Jim, Scott, and Michael K played A Game of Thrones: The Board Game. Michael F’s House Lannister got off to a strong start seizing and reinforcing several new strongholds, but then he fell to the bottom of the King’s Court track and was not able to muster any new troops, leaving Lannisport undefended against a surprise naval invation from Michael K’s Greyjoys. Meanwhile Chris’s House Stark was consolidating power over the entire north and Greg’s House Martell was taking advantage of a strong alliance with Jim’s House Tyrell to turn north into Scott’s Baratheon territory. The back and forth conflict over the rich territories of the reach captured everyone’s attention and the Stark’s were able to explode south on turn 7, just failing to capture the 7th fortress they needed for victory. Even with all of the other players uniting in support on the next turn, they were unable to stop the Stark’s from taking another fortress before they counterattacked, giving Chris the win. Greg was in second place, maintaining control over four fortresses.

4) Frank and Robbie played the Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon board game, winning their first adventure and getting half way through their second before the rec center closed.

5) Alex and Elaine played Innovation, where Alex felt bad about his win from a chain of Computers to Software to Globalization which gave an instant victory.

6) Alex and Elaine followed up with Galaxy Trucker, which Elaine came back to dominate, earning more than 50 points just from cargo in the third round for a 126 to 101 win.

7) Greg, Chris, Michael F, and Michael K finished up with a game of Pandemic. The rec center closed before they finished, but it seemed highly unlikely they could have won. Four of the five epidemics had come up, they were one away from the outbreak limit, and only black had been cured (but not sunset).

BEWC Meeting Recap 5/5/12

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Attendees: Greg Chandra, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, and Michael Kelly

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Michael F, Jim, and Michael K started with 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion. Michael F’s first leader was Tomyris, which deflects the -1 points from military losses to his opponents, which allowed him to ignore the military and concentrate on science. Combined with a few high value blue cards this led him to a comfortable victory with 66 points.

2) Chris, Michael F, Jim, and Michael K played Jim’s classic copy of Cosmic Encounter. Michael F got out to an early lead in colonies, using his torture ability to broker some good deals, but Chris soon caught up and an allied victory for their fifth colonies gave them a shared victory.

3) Greg, Chris, Michael F, Jim, and Michael K played Puerto Rico. Chris had the most experience with the game and seemed to be leading, but Michael F was racking up a lot of points near the end shipping sugar and corn, while Michael K had both small and large markets so was making great profits at the trading house and plowing them back into guilds. The VP from his buildings allowed Michael K to edge out Michael F, 42 to 40.

4) After lunch, Greg, Chris, Michael F, and Michael K played Innovation. Chris quickly acquired a strong tableau, a special achievement, and a lot of score, but it was his first time playing and a misunderstanding of the rules causes him to miss picking up some regular achievements that were then taken by Michael K and Michael F. This kept Chris from having an early win and settled the game down to a fairly even match. Both Greg and Michael F racked up high scores and looked to be able to snag some of the last achievements, but Michael K dogma’d fission and everyone was nuked back to the stone age with only three cards below age 8 left in the game. Michael F drew and melded the age 1 card ‘Oars’ which gave him a scoring opportunity and when the game ended three rounds later with all of the age 10 cards drawn, the score from oars gave him the victory.

5) Greg, Chris, Michael F, and Michael K finished up with a quick game of Munchkin. Some lucky monster encounters and treasurer draws had Michael F quickly gain levels and while he was beat back down a little, some helpful allies and generosity with the treasurer quickly got him to level nine. To gain the 10th (winning) level in Munchkin, you need to win a combat, with one exception – the divine intervention card causes all clerics to gain a level and that level can be the winning one. Michael was a cleric and on his next turn, kicking down the door revealed the divine intervention card. In addition to winning, the text on the card gave him permission to mock the other players mercilessly.

BEWC Meeting Recap 4/28/12

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Greg Chandra, Chris Cregan, Linda Galperin, Lionel Galperin, Jim Halloran, Michael Kelly, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, and Alex Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Dan and Dave played Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel! Kursk 1943, the “Get the Satchel” scenario. Dave won when his panzer grenadiers overpowered Dan’s Soviet infantry, got the satchel with the battle plans and took them off the map.

2) Dan, Dave, Lionel, Linda, and Karen played Vegas Showdown. Linda built the best Vegas hotel and won.

3) Michael, Greg, Jim, and Chris played Power Grid: Factory Manager, a new game of Michael’s by the makers of Power Grid. Chris won.

4) Dan and Dave played another Conflict of Heroes Kursk scenario, “Wounded Tiger.” Dan’s Soviet T-34’s charged Dave’s immobilized Tiger and knocked it out then proceeded to destroy the rest of Dave’s tanks.

5) Jim, Chris, Karen, Greg, Michael, and Alex played Bohnanza where Greg won.

6) Karen, Michael, Greg, Chris and Alex finished up a game of Ra, with Chris just edging out Alex for the victory.

BEWC Meeting Recap 4/21/12

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Attendees: John Boyle, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Frank Fulton, Robbie Fulton, Lionel Galperin, Jim Halloran, Michael Kelly, Dave Olson, and Jay Olson

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Chris, Michael F, Frank, Robbie, and Jim played Lungarno, which Chris taught to the rest. Both Michael and Jim concentrated on a strategy of Tower Houses and Plazas that gave end game points and which payed off for both of them, with Michael just edging out Jim for the win, 30 to 28.

2) When more people showed up, the proposed game of 7 Wonders was abandoned, and Chris, Michael F, Frank, Robbie, and Jim sat down to A Game of Thrones: The Board Game. Alliances were loose and shifting, with a great deal of squabbling in the north between Robbie’s House Stark and Jim’s House Greyjoy, while Michael’s Baratheon forces expanded in the center of the board. In a 5-player game, House Martell’s territory is neutral and their fortress’s are relatively weakly guarded; giving an advantage to House Baratheon and House Tyrell (Frank) who have easy pickings on their borders. After fortuitous supply and muster Westeros cards, Michael was well positioned to strike out for the Martell fortresses and was poised to win in Round 5, but Frank’s forces in south and Chris’s Lannister forces rushing across the Reach were able to beat him back. With Michael having lost the rich supply of blackwater, another supply Westeros card would have decimated his forces leaving Chris well staged to steal the win, but one did not come up. Careful spending of influence combined with the Baratheon’s control of the Iron Throne’s tie breaking ability allowed Michael to position himself near the top of all of the influence tracks and stage an unbeatable force to seize his seventh (winning) fortress at the beginning of Round 7.

3) John, Lionel, and Michael K broke off to play Innovation, where Michael used the dogma effects of mapmaking and montheism to rack up score and take all but 1 of the early achievements for a quick win.

4,5) Dave and Jay played two rounds of Lost Cities, winning one each.

6) Dave and Jay started a game of Unidentified Walking Objects, but Dave surrendered his poorer position so they could go join another game.

7) Lionel, Michael K, Dave, and Jay played Outpost, where Jay was victorious.

8) Chris, Michael F, Robbie, and Jim finished up with a game of Munchkin. Michael and Chris jumped out ahead when Michael used his Kneepads of Allure to force him to help with a level 12 monster. Once it was cursed up to 17 and then doubled with mate, Chris renegotiated the deal so that he could charm one of the monsters and they both raked in the treasure. Another round brought both of them to level 9, but Chris drew an easy combat on his next turn and no one had any curses left, giving him the win.

9) Michael K, Dave, and Jay ran out of time to finish their game of Power Grid Japan, getting just about to the end with it still being anyone’s game. When they stopped, Dave was able to power the most cities, while Michael had the turn order position to expand the most, but only if he got lucky in the power plant market.

BEWC Meeting Recap 4/7/12

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Chris Cregan, Frank Fulton, Roberta Fulton, Jim Halloran, Scott Harris, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Dave Olson, Alex Wright, Elaine Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Dan, Chris, Scott and Dave L, played Carcassonne: The City, with Dan coming away with the win.

2) Frank, Roberta, Karen and Dave O. played Dominion, Dave won this one.

3) Scott and Dave L. played Conflict of Heroes, with Dave coming out on top.

4) Dan, Chris, Alex and Elaine played Ora et Labora, a close game where Alex edged out the win with 200 points to Chris’ 194.

5) Frank, Roberta, Jim and Dave O. played Andromeda. Dave was the most successful trader.

6) Roberta, Jim and Dave O. played Settlers of Catan with the Cities and Knights expansion. Roberta was looking strong throughout, but Dave O. managed to edge out the win.

7) Frank, Dave L. and Karen played Medici, with Dave coming out the victor.

8) Frank (Mr. Jack) and Dave L. (The Investigators) played Mr. Jack, which saw Dave’s investigators nabbing Mr. Jack as he attempted to escape.

9) Dan, Chris, Frank, Karen, Dave L., Alex and Elaine played 7 Wonders, with Alex taking the win.

10) Chris, Dave L., Karen, Dave O. and Alex played Medici, with Chris coming out the winner.

BEWC Meeting Recap 3/17/12

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

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1,2) Chris and Michael F started with two rounds of BattleLore. In the first, First Chevaucheé, Michael as Charles of Blois was unable to develop any momentum and Chris as John of Montfort completely walked over him, 5 to 0. In their second game, they added in wizards, playing the Wizard and Lore scenario – Aquitaine 1369. It was a little less unbalanced, but Chris’s sir Robert Knolles was still victorious over Michael’s Sire Bertrand du Guesclin 6 to 3.

3) Jim, Joe, and Michael K played Tanto Cuore, where Joe was victorious and crowned King of Maids

4) Michael F and Dave sat down for their first play of Star Trek: Fleet Captains. Michael controlled the Federation fleet and turning around his earlier bad luck with BattleLore, drew some readily achievable missions, which combined with some lucky die rolls, brought them game to a fairly early end with 10 VP to Dave’s Klingon’s 4 VP.

5) Chris, Jim, Joe, Michael K, and Alex played Betrayal at House on the Hill. Surprisingly quickly, Chris was revealed as the Haunt, but the banshee he summoned was only able to kill two of the other four players before he was defeated, so the investigators won.

6) Chris, Jim, Michael K, and Alex played 7 Wonders, where Chris won with a commanding 61 points, specializing in science, and Mike K came in second having earned the maximum possible 18 points from his military.

7) Chris, Michael F, Jim, Dave and Alex played a surprisingly slow game of Battlestar Galactica with the Exodus expansion. Chris was a cylon from the start and tipped his hand a little earlier due to a misunderstanding of the rules (it was his first time playing) so he got sent to the brig, but did a valiant job of protesting his innocence and until after the first half. Unfortunately with the revised loyalty deck of Exodus, one card doesn’t get dealt out, and against the odds, this time it was the other cylon card, so Chris was on his own. The rec center closed before we finished the game, but it was still up in the air which way the game would go – the humans had just made their 8th distance of jump, so just needed to get through the jump track one more time, but several of the resource dials were down to two or three, galactica was damaged, and a large cylon fleet had just jumped in.