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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.

BEWC Meeting Recap 2/4/12

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Attendees: John Boyle, Dan Carey, Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Brandon James, Joe Kauffman, Michael Kelly, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Dave Olson, Jay Olson, Alex Wright, and Elaine Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played
1) John, Dan, Michael F, Joe, Michael K, and Dave L played Battlestar Galactica with the Exodus expansion – using the new characters and cards, the cylon fleet board, and the final five loyalty cards. Even though it turned out there was no cylon in play at the beginning of the game, the system really beat up on the humans, but spread the damage out so that none of the dials were in the red at the halfway point, causing Michael K’s Boomer’s to side with the cylons when he received the sympathizer card. After the cylon fleet wreaked havoc on the civilian fleet and Dave’s Baltar revealed himself as a cylon things were looking quite grim for the humans. Suspicions were also also high, as there should have been one more cylon player, but almost miraculously the humans were able to hold on for the final jump to Kobol. The human victory was dependent on a really luck break though – with the exodus expansion the loyalty deck includes one extra card to account for possible executions and against the odds, it was the last cylon card that was not dealt out.

2) Brandon and Karen played three rounds of Wings of War: Dawn of War, with Brandon winning two and Karen one.

3) Dave O, Joe, Alex, and Elaine played Small World where Alex won with a commanding 107 points due to his pillaging gypsies.

4) Michael F, Michael K, and Elaine played Agricola, allowing Elaine to break her Agricola loosing streak when she beat Michael F by 1 point.

5) Joe, Dave L, Karen, and Alex played Ra with Dave winning.

6) Dan, Brandon, Dave O, and Jay broke in the club’s new copy of Ascending Empires, with Dan being the inaugural victor.

7) Lack of table space exiled Dave O and Alex to the kitchen for a head-to-head match up in Hannibal, where reportedly Dave’s Carthaginians marched all over Alex’s Romans.

8) Michael F, Ryan, Brandon, Joe, Michael K played a second round of Battlestar Galactica with the Exodus expansion, this time also adding in the personal goal loyalty cards. This games started almost the exact opposite from the first, with the humans having the easiest time any of us had seen, with resource dials actually going up instead of down. Things started to change after Ryan fulfilled his personal goal and had to draw a new loyalty card, which was a cylon. After some subtle working against the humans, he revealed himself, sending Michael F’s Starbuck to the brig, where he ended up stuck for the rest of the game. While it was unlikely any of the resource dials were going to be depleted, Galactica was accumulating damage and things were looking unexpectedly tight for the humans. Mike K then unexpectedly used Helo’s moral compass ability to force a bad choice on a crisis card, making it clear he was a cylon just before he revealed himself. With two cylons each using the basestar bridge to do two points of damage to galactica, plus potentially moving the jump track back, it didn’t seem like there was much change left for the humans who only had two players not in the brig. Some lucky rolls however allowed Brandon’s Adama to nuke most of the cylon fleet into oblivion and a well timed draw of a repair card allowed FTL control to be repaired, letting Joe’s boomer jump the fleet to Kobol just before the next cylon turn which would have destroyed Galactica.

9) Karen and Dave finished the day off with a game of Metro.

2012 Officers and New Games

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2012 Officers elected:
President: Dave Olson
Vice President: Dave Landon
Treasurer: John Boyle
Secretary: Michael Feinberg

New Games have arrived: Ascending Empires,  Battlestar Galactica: Exodus Expansion, Kingsburg, the Kingsburg: To Forge A Realm Expansion, and the new Stronghold Games reprint of Outpost.

BEWC Meeting Recap 1/21/12

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Attendees: Jason Bowen, Jeff Bowen, Josh Bowen, John Boyle, Dan Carey, Chris Cregan, KC Deitrick, Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Joe Kauffman

Club Business:
2012 Officers elected:
President: Dave Olson
Vice President: Dave Landon
Treasurer: John Boyle
Secretary: Michael Feinberg

New games: We voted to purchase the Battlestar Galactica: Exodus Expansion, Kingsburg, the Kingsburg: To Forge A Realm Expansion, and the new Stronghold Games reprint of Outpost which should burn through a chunk of the new dues money.

Games Played:
1) Dan and KC settled down for a day of playing Avalon Hill’s Turning Point: Stalingrad, Dan as the German, KC as the Soviets.  Dan’s Germans launched their assault behind a massive artillery bombardment.  KC caught some of Dan’s tanks in a weak position and destroyed them.  Dan’s attack on the southern portion of the city bogged down into a slugging match, especially around the Kuibyshev Sawmill, where KC committed reinforcements to hold the area, which is worth a victory point.  Dan shifted to the center of the board, and behind his Stukas captured the key hill of Mamayev Kurgan.  KC counter attacked and was only able to contest it, not retake it.  Late in the game Dan’s panzers slipped through KC’s lines in the north and captured the Red Barricades Factory and landing on the Volga River, worth two victory points.  KC launched counter attacks, but the German advantage in mobility was the telling factor as Dan was able to reinforce the forces at the factory and widen the gap in KC’s lines.  KC’s last turn attacks were unable to change the situation, so Dan won by gaining 7 victory points.

2) John, Chris, Michael, Ryan, and Joe played a round of The Resistance, where Joe and Ryan as the spies had no difficulty undermining the resistance.

3, 4, 5) Jason and Jeff joined them for three more rounds of The Resistance. The spies (Chris, Michael, and Joe) again fairly easily won the first round, taking advantage of good placement in the turn order, but in the second round Jason, John, and Joe were finally unable to succeed as spies and the resistance overthrew the government. The final round returned to what is apparently the norm for the base game and Jeff, John, and Joe (again!) were successful as the spies.

6) Jason, Jeff, John, Chris, Michael, Ryan, and Joe played 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion. Joe won with 77 points, mostly from money, leaders, and yellow cards, but Chris was close behind with 73.

7) Jason, John, Chris, Michael, and Joe moved on to Kingsburg with the To Forge a Realm expansion. Joe tried a new strategy by rushing to build the embassy as early as possible so as to maximize the number of seasons he got the extra VP. It paid off and he was well ahead most of the game and won comfortably with 49 points, but others were catching up and Michael just edged out Chris for second place, 43 to 42.

8) Jason, Josh, Chris, and Michael played Tikal, which none of us had played before. Chris quickly mastered the art of placing tiles to create sections of jungle only he could cost effectively explore and ran away with the game, 151 points to Jason’s second place 100 points.

9) Joe and Jeff finished with a quick game of Chopper Strike that Joe won.

BEWC Meeting Recap 1/7/12

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Karen Deitrick, KC Deitrick, Tom Dunford, Michael Feinberg, Linda Galperin, Lionel Galperin, Joe Kauffman, Michael Kelly, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Alex Wright, Elaine Wright, Shawn Yoon

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Dan, Tom, Michael F, Joe, Michael K, Dave, and Karen L started with a full 7 player game of 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion. Joe took advantage of his Babylon wonder to acquire 3 full sets of science cards and then Aristotle’s bonus to get 3 extra points per set for a whopping 57 science related points and 70 total points, just edging out Dan’s 69 points (fairly evenly split between blue cards, military, and wonder points.)

2) Dan, Tom, Michael F, Michael K, Dave played Mare Nostrum. The game was fairly balanced but minor border skirmishes between everyone except Dave’s Roman empire kept everyone distracted with the military side of the game. Michael F’s Carthaginians had just managed to acquire the first of three wonders/leaders needed to win the game when Dave’s massed armies swept in, stealing a rich province before it could be reinforced. Those additional resources gave Dave the Director of Commerce title and allowed him to steer the trading phase so he could acquire all 12 unique resources and built the pyramids winning the game.

3) Lionel, Joe, Alex, Elaine, and Shawn played Kingsburg with the To Forge a Realm expansion. Alex just edged out Joe for the victory, winning by 3VP.

4) Karen D, KC, Linda, and Karen L played Galaxy Trucker where Karen L ran away with the win.

5,6) Linda, Lionel, Dave, Karen L, Elaine, and Shawn played two rounds of Ca$h ‘n Gun$, with Linda and Lionel winning one each.

7) Michael F, Joe, Michael K, and Alex played Innovation using the Echoes of the Past expansion for the first time. The game settled down into a fairly balanced game with Michael F, Joe, and Michael K all acquiring 3 of the 5 necessary achievements and Alex having just caught up with 2 when Joe dogma’d Fission and a red card was revealed destroying the world and removing all of the accumulated score, tableau, and hand cards from the game. With most of the low age cards eliminated, we rebuilt from the ground up, drawing and melding trying to work back up to the largely untouched age 9 and 10 decks. Joe managed a few combinations to accumulate a decent score and likely would have one if the game ended from exhausting the age 10 deck, when Alex comboed stem cells and bioengineering to leave him with the most leaf icons and satisfy bioengineering’s special win condition.

8) While the game of Innovation rebuilt from the stone age, Dave and Shawn finished up with a game of Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. Shawn controlling the forces of Mordor managed to wipe out almost all of Dave’s fellowship, but Sam sacrificed himself to the cave troll, allowing Frodo to sneak past and make it to Mordor and win the game for Dave.

New Games!

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At the last meeting we voted to purchase copies of Mystery Express and Samurai Swords (recently republished as Ikusa) that Dave Olson picked up cheap. We also voted to order Ascending Empires and Lionel donated a copy of Duel of Giants to the club.

BEWC Meeting Recap 12/17/11

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Attendees: KC Deitrick, Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Lionel Galperin, Scott Harris, Joe Kauffman, Michael Kelly, Dave Olson, Jay Olson, Alex Wright, Elaine Wright

Club Business: We voted to purchase copies of Mystery Express and Samurai Swords (recently republished as Ikusa) that Dave Olson picked up cheap. We also voted to order Ascending Empires and Lionel donated a copy of Duel of Giants to the club.

Games Played:

1) Michael F, Dave, and Jay started with a game of Martian Flux, but stopped once Starcraft was set up.

2) Michael F, Scott, Ryan, Joe, Dave, and Jay played an epic 5.5 hour game of Starcraft with the Brood War expansion. It was a very well laid out map with a lot of interaction between all of the players. The game culminated in a sprawling last turn with many changes of fortune and almost everyone having a shot at victory. With it fairly clear that this would be the last turn, everyone raced to satisfy a victory condition. Scott as the Overmind had just managed to satisfy his special victory condition, building a 4th base, right before his 3rd was destroyed, bringing him back to the three he needed. Dave as Jim Raynor also just managed to satisfy his special victory condition, as his one lone marine managed to survive against a vastly superior Zerg force and hold on to his sixth resource producing territory. Dave had an extremely depleted combat deck, so drew randomly from the top of the pile and managed to come up with the one card in the entire deck that had sufficient defense for his marine to survive. Leading up to the end, Jay as Arcturus Mensk had been reasonably set up to satisfy his special victory condition, but then Michael as Aldaris sent a huge invasion fleet to one of his planets, while the other became the most contested territory in the galaxy as every player but Michael issued orders on it try and claim its two conquest points. Joe as Queen of Blades and Ryan as Tassadar managed to split those conquest point territories, and so were going to be tied with 16 points, satisfying the regular victory condition and having to go to a tiebreaker. However, stage III had been triggered, so everyone had an opportunity to play a leadership card and upset the game dynamics. Michael chose to not play the card that would have blocked checking regular and special victory conditions this round, since it was nearly impossible for him to catch up on conquest points with only one more round and the game would likely be forced to end anyway by the End Draws Near Cards, considering how many event cards were drawn last round. Ryan had a card that he thought would cost Joe one conquest point and give him the win, but a last minute attack on his forces caused the card to also lose him a conquest point, keeping them tied at 15. Scott’s leadership card secured his special victory condition, since it allowed him to build another base. The final leadership card however was Dave’s and he played To The Bitter End, causing all other players to loose two conquest points, pushing Ryan and Joe below the threshold for regular victory, which then allowed special victory conditions to be checked for. That final card gave him the win, as Dave and Scott were the only players satisfying special victory conditions and in the tie breaker of most conquest points, Dave easily beat out Scott’s zero.

3) KC and Michael K played Race for the Galaxy, where Michael just edged out KC, 37 to 36.

4) KC, Lionel, and Michael K played Merchants & Marauders, but didn’t finish the game before Lionel had to leave.

5, 6, 7, 8) Alex and Elaine had their timing off from everyone else’s games, so got in two player games of Lost Cities, Innovation, Ticket to Ride: Europe, and Kingsburg. Alex won the two rounds of Lost Cities, but Elaine was victory in Innovation and Ticket to Ride, not sure who won Kingsburg.

9) Michael F, Joe, and Michael K played a remarkably quick game of Settlers of Catan. Joe got stalled at 9 VP and it seemed like the tide might have been turned when Michael F stole longest road, but Joe was able to take the title back and then bought the first development card of the game, which turned out to be a 1 VP card, giving him the win.

10) Ryan, Dave, and Jay played Thunderstone, which Ryan won.

11) Michael F and Michael K played Innovation. Michael K managed to scoop up almost all of the low point achievements and had built an impressive tableau, but mid-game Michael F got into a rhythm with the Pottery dogma, allowing him to score 5 more points and achieve every turn. With all of the regular achievements taken, it turned into a race for the special achievements. Michael K was able to claim Wonder using Invention, though he also simultaneously satisfied it’s five colors splayed right requirement, and was only a turn or two away from claiming Monument or Empire, either of which would have given him the win, but Michael F finally drew a blue level 6 card, which when melded allowed him to dogma Astronomy and claim the Universe achievement for his sixth achievement and the win.

12, 13) Ryan, Dave, and Jay played two hands of the three-player variant of Bang! which has just the deputy, renegade, and outlaw and no hidden roles. Ryan won both games as the deputy.

BEWC Meeting Recap 12/3/11

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Tom Dunford, Michael Feinberg, Joe Kauffman, Michael Kelly, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Alex Wright, Elaine Wright, Shawn Yoon

Club Business: None

Games Played

1) Michael F, Dave, and Karen started with a game of Attika, which Dave, as usual, won.

2) Dan and Tom spent most of the day playing The Destruction of Army Group Center, which held true to historical form and Dan’s Soviets were victorious over Tom’s Germans.

3) Michael F, Michael K, Dave, and Shawn played an extremely close game of Pillars of the Earth, which ended with Michael F at 41 VP, Michael K at 42 VP, and Shawn and Dave tied with 43 VP. Shawn had the tiebreaker of more money remaining, giving him the win. A more thorough reading of the rules after the game revealed that Michael F shouldn’t have lost a VP for being only 1 gold short on his taxes (the king strangely rounds in your favor), making the game even closer.

4) Michael F, Joe, Alex, and Elaine played Agricola, with Alex winning, Michael right behind him, and Joe and Elaine tying for third.

5) Michael K, Dave, Karen, and Shawn played Thurn and Taxis, which was another close game, with Dave beating out Michael by 1 point.

6) Michael K and Shawn played Ascension, with Shawn once again winning by a single point.

7) Dan, Michael F, Dave, and Alex played Mare Nostrum. Dave’s Roman legions made an early foray into Michael’s Egypt before turning on Dan’s Carthage. Alex’s Greek triremes were able to interdict the Romans at sea, but no one was able to stop their rise to power and Dave’s victory.

8) Joe, Michael K, Karen, Elaine, and Shawn played Betrayal at House on the Hill. Michael K was revealed as the traitor in the Let Them In haunt and despite dying in the process, he and the madman were able to let in all of the specters and overwhelm the explorers for a traitor victory.

BEWC Meeting Recap 11/19/11

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Attendees: John Boyle, Dan Carey, Chris Cregan, Aaron Farmer, Rachel Farmer, Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Michael Kelly, Dave Olson, and a brief appearance by Alex Wright.

Club Business: None

Games Played:

1) Ryan and Dave played Space Empires 4X. Dave tried a more defensive posture with mines, which worked OK a couple of times, but Ryan was able to research Mine Sweeper technology and Dave’s mines ended up being fairly ineffective in the end. Ryan was victorious.

2) Michael F and Chris played 2 rounds of Lost Cities, with Michael winning.

3) John, Dan, Chris and Michael F started up a game of Alien Frontiers, with Michael K taking over for Michael F part of the way through. Chris came away with the win on that one.

4) John, Dan, Chris and Michael K played a game of Citadels, with Chris taking the win on that one, too.

5) John, Dan, Chris, Aaron, Rachel, Ryan, Michael K and Dave played Shadows Over Camelot. Things were looking OK for the loyal knights with the white swords on the table outnumbering the black. Then Aaron revealed himself as the traitor, playing a card that made the rest of us discard a bunch of cards. We were still hanging on, but the catapults were starting to accumulate, and every evil Excalibur and Grail card added another one to the field (since those quests were over). We were up to 11 catapults in play, with a fading glimmer of hope for the good guys, when Rachel elected to place a catapult for her Progression of Evil phase, revealing that she was also a traitor, winning the game for the traitors.

6) Aaron, Rachel, Ryan, Michael K and Dave played Citadels. Rachel ran away with it.