Author Archives: boegames

BEWC Meeting Recap 7/16/11

Posted on by

Attendees: Jason Bowen, Kelly Burnaby, Zachary Burnaby, KC Deitrick, Joe Kauffman, Ryan Frans, Michael Feinberg, Scott Harris, Michael Kelly, Ed McGran

Club Business: None

Games Played:

1) Ryan, Jason, Ed, KC, and Michael F played Thunderstone. It was the first time playing for everyone but Ryan, who had a commanding win, but Jason put in a decent showing for second place.

2) Kelly, Zachary, Joe, and Jason played Starcraft, where the Protoss dominated the Terrans, with Kelly winning as Tassadar and Jason coming in second as Aldaris over Zachary’s Jim Raynor and Joe’s Arcturus Mensk.

3) KC and Ryan played Combat Commander: Europe with Ryan’s Germans defeating KC’s Russians in the Bonfire of the NKVD scenario.

4) Scott, Ed, Michael K, and Michael F played Dungeon Lords. It was the first time playing for everyone and it was initially pretty slow going as we taught the game to ourselves (leading to a number of overlooked and misplayed rules), but it ended up being a lot of fun. Michael F won and Ed also managed to score enough points to earn his dungeon lord license, while Scott and Michael K were done in by back taxes – it probably would have helped if we had read enough of the rules to have known that taxes were coming due….

5) KC, Michael K, and Michael F played Innovation. Some lucky dogma effects and factory dominance gave Michael F an early win.

BEWC Meeting Recap 7/2/11

Posted on by

Attendees: John Boyle, Joe Kauffman, Rhonda Frans, Ryan Frans, Michael Feinberg, Scott Harris, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, David Olson, Jay Olson

Club Business: None

Games Played:

1) Dave L, Karen, and Joe played Attika with Dave winning.

2,3) John, Dave L, Scott, and Karen played a round of 7 Wonders that Dave won, and then Michael joined them for a second round where Scott came back from his tied for last position in the first game to win.

4) Ryan, Dave O, Jay, and Joe played a close game of Nightfall that Joe won.

5,6) John, Dave L, Scott, and Michael played two rounds of Innovation. For the first game, John was the only one that had played before (though not in some time) and we misplayed several rules before John took an early fairly unbalanced victory. The second game went much better and was neck and neck through much of the game, before a lucky card transfer allowed Michael to claim his 4th (winning) achievement right before Dave could.

7,8) Ryan, Dave O, Jay, and Joe played two games of Thunderstone. It was the first time playing for everyone, with Joe winning the first game, and Dave O winning the second much tighter lower scoring game.

9) John, Dave L, Karen, Rhonda, and Michael played Vinci, and despite some early runaway leaders the game ended quite close for everyone. Dave managed to achieve exactly the 100 points to trigger the last round, and Michael was one troop short of being able to gain 100 points himself, and had to settle for second place with 99 points.

10) The group successfully guesses several cases from Crack the Case with Joe as the moderator.

11) Joe, Dave O, Dave L, Jay, Ryan, and Michael played Battlestar Galactica. It was a fairly uneventful first half of the game, but after the sleeper agent phase, Ryan as Baltar determined that Dave O as Boomer was a cylon and sent him to the brig. Michael as Adama was the other cylon and played it covertly for a few turns until using the admiral’s ability to choose the jump effects to pick a particularly devastating card and then revealed himself before he could be sent to the brig himself. The situation was dire for the humans with all of their resource dials near critical, and it then looked like the game was over when two centurion boarding parties were poised to take over the Galactica on the next cylon turn, but their scout managed to delay the boarding party and then some key rolls from Jay wiped out the centurions and moved the humans into position to jump to Kobol and win the game. But just when the cylons in turn had given up hope, a lucky shot from one of their basestars damaged the jump control room and trapped the humans. It was not to be however, as the control room was repaired and the fleet jumped to safety before the cylons could capitalize on the delay.

BEWC Meeting Recap 6/19/11

Posted on by

Attendees: Jason Bowen, Jeff Bowen, John Boyle, Michael Feinberg, David Olson, Jay Olson, Chad Willard

Club Business:

We voted to purchase Innovation and Ticket To Ride: Europe

Games Played:

1) John and Michael played two rounds of Lost Cities, with John winning 32 to 23.

2) John, Jay, Jason, Dave, and Michael played 7 Wonders where Dave edged out John for the win with 58 victory points.

3) John, Jason, and Michael played Mansions of Madness scenario 1B “The Fall of the House of Lynch” with John as the keeper and Jason and Michael each controlling two investigators. It’s a fairly complex game and I was worried about the puzzles being distracting, but we made short work of those (to the keeper’s frustration). The investigator’s early success in the search for clues turned into a long weaponless slog through the mansion harried by a maniac and with Ashcan Pete always on the verge of insanity. After the diabolical plot was revealed, we thought we had no chance to stop it, but a well timed reveal of the final clue stunned the Shoggoth and it was trapped in the collapsing mansion giving the investigators a somewhat pyrrhic victory (they too were trapped in the mansion, but surviving apparently wasn’t part of the victory condition). Mansions played much faster than Arkham Horror or Descent (which it shares many elements with, along with Betrayal at House on the Hill) allowing us to finish just as John needed to leave, but we benefited from John having done a lot of the scenario deck building ahead of time, otherwise setup looks very time consuming.

4) Dave, Jay, and Chad played Middle Earth Quest where Dave was victorious as Sauron.

5) Jason and Michael played three rounds of Lost Cities. It was Jason’s first time playing and in the third round he’d picked up the game enough to double Michael’s score for that round, but Michael had the overall victory.

6) Jason and Michael played Dominion: Intrigue where Jason’s deck got bogged down with too many action cards and not enough money, allowing Michael to overtake his early lead for the win.

7) Chad, Jay, Jason, Dave, and Michael played Bang! with the new Wild West Show Expansion. Jason and Michael managed an outlaw victory, despite being the first two players eliminated. Teren Hill’s (Dave) special ability kept the Renegade barely alive an extra half dozen or so turns with the Deputy (Chad) and the Sheriff (Jay) ganging up on him and it looked like a sure law win until the dynamite went off.

BEWC Meeting Recap 6/6/11

Posted on by

Attendees: John Boyle, David Landon, Karen Landon, Dave Olson

Club Business: Mansions of Madness, Lost Cities, and Bang! Wild West Show have arrived and are in the club cabinet.

Games Played:

1) John, Karen Dave L. and Dave O. played Hamburgum. Karen and Dave L were dominating early in the game, but in the end all players were grouped nicely on the score track, with Dave O. edging out the win.

2) Dave L and John took on Karen and Dave O. in a game of Blokus. It was a close game, but John and Dave L. nabbed the win.

3) John, Karen and Dave L. played a game of Kingdoms, with Karen getting the win.

BEWC Meeting Recap 5/21/11

Posted on by

Attendees: Jason Bowen, Jeff Bowen, John Boyle, Michael Feinberg, Scott Harris, David Wilcox

Club Business:

We voted to purchase Mansions of Madness, Lost Cities, and Bang! Wild West Show.

Games Played:

1) John, Michael, and Scott played 7 Wonders. Michael and Scott tied with 57 points, but Scott had the tiebreaker of more money.

2) John, Michael, Scott, and David played Alien Frontiers which David brought and no one had played before. After some reading of the rules, we quickly got into it and had a lot of fun with the interesting die based ship assignment mechanism. Scott managed to play his sixth colony first, ending the game and putting him over the top in victory points for the win.

3,4) Jason, John, Michael, Scott, and David played two games of Bang! John won the first as the Renegade, and the second was a law win with John as the Sheriff and Michael as the Deputy.

5) Jason, Jeff, John, Michael, Scott, and David played 7 Wonders. John won this game, again with 57 points, with a ridiculous 45 of them coming from science.

BEWC Meeting Recap 4/16/11

Posted on by

Attendees: Chad Willard, Lane Taylor, KC Deitrick, John Boyle, Alex Jordan, Kelly and Zachary Burnaby, Jeff, Jason, and Josh Bowen and their friend Raymond.

Club Business: None

Games Played:

1) Chad, Lane, KC, and John kicked off the day with a (mostly learning) game of the card game, Innovation. It was the first game for Chad, Lane, and John. Chad took a solid mid-game lead utilizing the strategic combo of Education and Perspective. However, once John took the lead in factories late-game he was able to amass a score of over 40, allowing a double achieve action to win with 5 victory points (only 4 were needed).

Lane had a solid Tech lead throughout the game, but wasn’t able to convert the advantage into victory points. KC (as the resident innovation expert) said this was a common frustration.

Overall, the game progressed slowly, but that’s to be considered when 3/4 of the players were new. I hope to play more of it in the future.

2) KC, Lane, and Chad fired up High Frontier.

Notes from KC:

Lane, Chad, and I played a session of High Frontier. Lane was NASA, Chad was Shimzu, and I was UN. We played full game with no head start.

After several rounds of auctioning and collecting rocket parts, all 3 of us launched rockets around the same time. I headed for Deimos, Chad to Ceres, and Lane to the Moon.

Lane claimed the moon, and eventually established an ET factory there and started producing some “S” product black cards, but had problems getting them into use (see below). Chad claimed Ceres, and a nearby asteroid, he eventually established an ET factory and colony on the asteroid. KC after unsuccessfully prospecting at Deimos, refueled and spent the rest of the game hopping around the asteroid belt prospecting about 4 M class objects, but all of them failed. We quit after about 3hrs play, with Chad at 12VP, Lane at 10VP, KC 0VP.

3,4) Next, John and Alex pulled out 7 Wonders since they both really enjoyed it at the last meeting and wanted to play again.

Kelly and Zachary arrived just prior to the 7 wonders game and after a hasty explanation of the rules, jumped in for some 4 player action.

Zachary maxed out (I think) the Gear Science cards (5 of them) leading him to a clear victory of 54 points. John, Kelly, and Alex, scored 39, 35, 34 respectively.

In the re-match, Alex won with 50 points, followed by John with 46, with Kelly and Zachary tied at 40.

5) The Quad then played Pirate’s Cove. Kelly took an early lead and didn’t look back, winning with 33 points. Zachary, Alex, and John scored 29, 26, and 24 respectively.

6) Meanwhile, Jeff and Jason arrived and played an incomplete game of Battlelore.

7) Josh and Raymond showed up afterwards and fired up a game of Arkham Horror and played several turns. After the Pirate’s Cove game above ended, they reset the game and started a new one with Josh, Jason, Raymond, and Zachary (with John staying a bit later than usual in an advisory role). The investigators were up against Yig and appeared to be holding their own (at least until 3:30 when John had to leave).

8) Chad, Alex, and Kelly pulled out Pandemic , which ended in tragic defeat. Only the yellow disease needed cured and Chad had the cure. It was, however, Alex’s turn. Fortunately, Alex played the Forecast card and rearranged the Infection deck to place Lima and Jakarta on the bottom. Those locations already had 3 cubes each and the team only had one outbreak left. Alex’s turn ended safely, but Kelly was faced with an impossible situation. He needed to clear a cube from both Lima and Jakarta, but just couldn’t make it work.

The trio played another game, but the results of that game are unknown.

Thanks to John and KC for the notes.

BEWC Meeting Recap 4/2/11

Posted on by

Attendees: Josh Batolein, Serai Batolein, Jeff Bowen and family, John Boyle, Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Lionel Galperin, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Dave Olson, Jay Olson

Club Business: None

Games Played:

1) John, Lionel, Michael, Dave L, and Karen played Ra. Lionel and Michael tied for victory points, but Michael had the tie-breaking highest value sun tiles.

2) Dave O and Jay played Carcassone: The Castle, where Dave crushed Jay, but apparently some creative application of the rules was involved.

3) Ryan, John, Jay, and Michael played High Frontiers. The game wasn’t finished due to time, but at the end Ryan was ahead on victory points and John was decently positioned to have a chance of overtaking him. Michael was way behind due to a number of catastrophic encounters with the radiation belts, which destroyed his entire rocket and crew on their way back from Deimos and crippled several attempts to get back there.

4) Dave L and Dave O played an epic game of Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage, with Dave L’s Carthaginians victorious.

5) Karen and Lionel played Blokus.

6, 7) Jeff and family played Fortress America and Pandemic: On the Brink

8, 9) Jay, Josh B, and Michael played two rounds of Thurn and Taxis, where Michael won both games while Jay instead focused on creating the longest possible route, achieving 18 carriages [there are only 22 spaces on the board].

10) Jay, Josh B, and Michael played Citadels which Michael won.

11, 12) Dave O, Jay, Karen, and Serai played two round of Dominion, first Alchemy and then Seaside, with Dave winning both.

13) Dave L, Josh B, and Michael played a close game of Rheinländer that Dave won.

14) Dave L, Josh B, and Michael played Kingdoms, where it looked like Josh was winning, but a brutal third epoch knocked him back to third and Dave took the lead.

BEWC Meeting Recap 3/19/11

Posted on by

Attendees: John Boyle, Dave Olson, Ryan Frans, Scott Harris, Michael Feinberg, Alex Jordon, Brian Scott, Lane Taylor, KC Deitrick, Jeff Bowen, Jason Bowen

Club Business:

At the next meeting we’ll vote on some games to purchase. Feel free to send suggestions for the list.

Games Played:

1) John, Ryan, Scott, KC, and Michael played 7 Wonders. It was the first time playing for everyone but KC, but the game ended up being closely fought, with John edging out the win.

2) John, Ryan, Michael, KC, and Lane played a learning game of Origins – How We Became Human. A freak 1 in 50 disaster on the first turn ended the ice age, which severely limited the mobility of most of the players by preventing crossing of frozen waterways. Between that and not really understanding all the options available, the game was initially quite slow, but eventually we started to get the hang of it and make some developmental progress. When we stopped due to time, Ryan had accumulated the most victory points.

3) Dave, Alex, and Brian played Starcraft (with Brood War expansion) which Dave won as Aldaris.

4,5,6) Jeff and Jason played three rounds of Battle Line with Jeff taking 2 wins, and Jason 1. They also checked out Command and Colors: Ancients but had to leave before playing.

7,8) Dave, Alex, KC, and Michael played two more rounds of 7 Wonders. KC won the first game, with Michael a distant fourth, but Michael came back to win the second game.

BEWC Meeting Recap 3/5/11

Posted on by

Attendees: John Boyle, Michael Feinberg

Club Business:

John and I rearranged the game cabinets, so one of the cabinets contains all of the old magazines, papers, and 70s era wargames we never play, and the other cabinet has all of the games we do play all in one place.

Games Played:

1,2) John and Michael played two rounds of one Battlelore scenario. Clearly Don Pedro the Cruel’s goblinoids are no match for Henry of Trastamara’s dwarves, since despite Michael and John switching sides for the second play through, Henry’s forces dominated both times.

3) We then played Starship Catan, where Michael overcame John’s early lead and then a lucky encounter with a pirate gave him enough fame points to take back the Hero of the People title and its associated victory point for the win.