Author Archives: boegames

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.

BEWC Meeting Recap 3/3/12

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Chris Cregan, Karen Deitrick, KC Deitrick, Tom Dunford Michael Feinberg, Rhonda Frans, Ryan Frans, Linda Galperin, Lionel Galperin, Brandon James, Michael Kelly, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Chris Leitenberger, Ian Rojas, Dave Olson, Alex Wright, and Elaine Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Planned games kept getting shuffled as people trickled in in the morning, but eventually Karen D, KC, Michael F, and Karen L started a game of Amun-Re. KC hoarded his money through much of the New Kingdom, and in the last round engaged in massive pyramid construction, giving him the win with Karen D coming in second.

2) Dan, Chris C, Tom, Brandon, Dave L, and Dave O played Power Grid with the China map, with Brandon winning and Dave L coming in second in a close game.

3) Linda, Lionel, and Ian played Wasabi where Ian won.

4) Chris C, Chris L, Dave O, and Alex faced off against Michael F in scenario 4C of Mansions of Madness, “Classroom Curses.” Things started off poorly for the investigators, which much of the school plunged into darkness and their sanity slowly being chipping away, but they persevered, steadily exploring and working their way through the clues. Ultimately it game down to a slugfest, to see if the players could kill the witch Helena Detaigne, before one of the Mi-go’s killed them. Michael’s luck as keeper had turned and none of the mythos and trauma cards he drew were helping him inflict damage, and so while he got close to killing several of the investigators, he couldn’t quite do it before Helena fell and the investigators were victorious.

5) Karen D, KC, Ian, and Elaine played a learning game of London that Ian won.

6) Dan, Rhonda, Ryan, Brandon, Michael K, and Dave L played Imperial. Michael was the best investor, with Rhonda coming in second.

7) Continuing the Cthulhu theme, Karen D, KC, Karen L, and Elaine played The Stars are Right, which Karen L won.

8,9) Chris C, Michael F, Ryan, Brandon, Michael K, Dave L, Dave O, and Alex played two rounds of The Resistance. In the first round, Michael K and Chris were the spies, the problem was Dave L was also a spy, but didn’t realize it having misread his card. This led to a lot of confusion and an easy resistance win. In the second round, Michael F, Dave L, and Alex all realized they were spies, but some miscommunication and bumbled cards led to an equal degree of confusion. Team after team got voted done under near farcical conditions, until at the last possible chance a resistance team was approved and succeeded for another resistance win.

10) Karen L and Elaine squeezed in a quick game of Bananagrams where Karen came from way behind to win.

11) Chris C, Michael F, and Karen L played Stone Age. Karen was ahead in victory points through most of the game, but Chris skillfully acquired civilization cards that pushed him to a commanding victory in the final accounting.

12) Ryan, Brandon, Mike K and Dave L finished up with a game of Pandemic with the On the Brink expansion. Ryan took the role of bio-terrorist and successfully sabotaged all of the team’s research stations bringing them to a point where they could only survive one more outbreak, leading to a crushing defeat for them on a turn that brought six.

BEWC Meeting Recap 2/18/12

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Attendees: John Boyle, Dan Carey, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Richard Heller, Joe Kauffman, Michael Kelly, Melissa Laface, Ian Rojas, Lane Taylor, and Alex Wright,

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) While waiting for morning stragglers, Michael F and Lane started with a quick game of Battle Line. Michael came to the edge of victory, having the card in his hand that would prove lane couldn’t beat a meld that would have given him his third adjacent flag for a breakthrough, but he didn’t have any remaining flags to play it on, and even if he could, Lane completed a meld on the next turn to give him five flags for an envelopment and the win.

2) John, Chris, Michael F, Joe, Ian, and Lane played A Game of Thrones: The Board Game. The game started with Michael’s House Stark and John’s House Greyjoy allying themselves in the north and a much looser alliance of Chris’s House Martell, Ian’s House Tyrell, Joe’s House Lannister, and Lane’s House Baratheon against them. The southern alliance got off to a shaky start when Martel took one of Baratheon’s strongholds (supposedly so Chris could show the rest of us who hadn’t played before how combat worked) but most of the conflict was between Greyjoy and Lannister as fleets battled for the west coast of Westeros. By mid game most players had acquired three of the seven necessary fortresses with Michael and Chris each having four and being well placed to expand, when Chris suddenly exploded into Ian’s territory taking all three remaining Tyrell fortresses in one turn and winning the game.

3) Dan and Michael K played the club’s new copy of Outpost. It was a learning game for both as they had never played it before. In the first era the game was fairly close as both players had the same number of victory points. Both built more water and ore factories, though Michael bought during the auction key items of technology that would help him down the road. In the second era Michael began to pull away, with his titanium factories and larger hand size. Dan was later able to buy robots, a laboratory and a new chemical factory to stay in the game, but could not close the gap. In the third era Michael’s resource advantages were simply too much for Dan to overcome. Michael was able to buy the very expensive moonbase which enabled him to reach 75 points to end the game. He won the game with the most points. Overall it was a fun game despite a few bumps along the way as both players learned the rules and how to apply them.

4) Chris, Michael F, Ian, Lane, and Alex played a half game of Shogun, deciding to stop after the first scoring round and not continue on to the second year as we wouldn’t have had enough time to finish it. Winter was a brutal -7 food, causing everyone to suffer varying degrees of shortages and revolts. Alex lost one province to revolt, but Michael was extremely unlucky, not only losing both of his revolting provinces (by the barest possible of margins) but also having them be strategically critical ones whose loss cost him 9 points that would have given him a comfortable victory. In the end, Chris was victorious with 22 points, followed by Ian and Lane, and then Michael and Alex beat back to 17.

5) Richard and Melissa’s timing was off from everyone else’s games, so played a two player game of Uwe Rosenberg’s new game Ora et Labora, unfortunately running out of time to finish it before the rec center closed.

6) Chris, Michael F, Ian, and Lane finished up with a game of Bohnanza, given the luck of the cards, Michael ended up concentrating on planting numerous low value beans, which in turn led to receive lots of free cards as the other players tried to get them out of their hands, and a comfortable victory with 29 points.