Category Archives: Meeting Recaps

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.

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.

BEWC Meeting Recap 11/5/11

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Tom Dunford, Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Joe Kauffman, Michael Kelly, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Jesse Lute, Jason Molstad, Lane Taylor, Alex Wright, Elaine Wright

Club Business: None

Games Played:

1) Dan, Michael, Dave, and Jason started off with a game of Pandemic, but were fairly quickly overtaken by outbreaks and lost when we ran out of black disease cubes

2) Tom, Dave, and Ryan then spent most of the rest of the day playing Space Empires 4X. Ryan spent his efforts beating Tom back most of the way to oblivion, allowing Dave to sweep in for the victory.

3) Dan, Michael F, Jason, and Lane played Merchants & Marauders. It was the first time playing for everyone, but Michael had gone through the rules and we picked it up pretty quickly. Dan got off to an early lead striking it rich as a merchant, while Michael has some early success as a pirate picking off NPC merchant ships. Michael thought he had achieved victory when in two turns he picked up 4 (of the 10 necessary) glory points through completing a mission, selling 3 good in demand, proving a rumor true, and sinking a French naval frigate, and he needed only to get back to his home port and stash his gold to win. Just after he made it to port, but before his next turn when he could stash his booty, Dan cashed in his own earnings and won the game.

4,5) Joe and Michael K teemed up to play Attika, which Joe won, then played Axis & Allies: D-Day, where Joe upturned history, successfully defending as the Germans.

6,7) Karen, Alex, and Elaine played a round of 7 Wonders and then were joined by Jesse for a second round with the leaders expansion. Alex won both games, with impressive scores of 67 and 72.

8) Michael F, Karen, Jesse, and Alex played Ra, where Alex just edged out Karen, 47 to 46.

9) Michael F, Joe, Jason, and Alex Galaxy Trucker. Joe always seemed to take the longest to assemble his ships, which is usually a significant handicap, but this time perfection paid off and let him haul home big cargo loads in the second and third rounds and win the game.

10, 11) Michael K, Jesse, and Elaine played two games of Dominion Seaside with Elaine winning both.

12) Joe, Karen, and Jason played Metro with Karen wining.

13) Dave, Karen, and Elaine played Guillotine, where Dave was victorious.

14, 15) Joe, Michael K, Jesse, and Jason played two games of Ca$h ‘n Gun$ (the second with the advanced rules) where Jason won the first and Joe the second.

16) Michael F and Alex finished up with a game of Twilight Struggle. It was Michael’s first game and he was completely unable to overcome the experience disadvantage, with Alex’s US achieving complete domination over the Soviets by the 5th turn.

BEWC Meeting Recap 10/15/11

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Attendees: John Boyle, Dan Carey, Tom Dunford, Michael Feinberg, Joe Kauffman, Michael Kelly, Paul Unwin, Alex Wright, Elaine Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played:

1) John, Tom, Michael F, and Joe played a bit of X-Men: Under Siege! despite not having a complete copy of the rules. There were some interesting mechanics, but the characters were rather unbalanced, with the weak characters prone to dying and their players being eliminated from the game. John was running away with the victory points when we called it quits.

2) John, Dan, Tom, Michael F, Joe, and Michael K played the club’s new copy of Power Grid. It was the first time playing for everyone except Michael F, but we quickly got into it. John, Joe, Tom, and Michael K all got to 14 connections on the same turn, but only Joe and Michael could power all 14, and Michael had the tiebreaker of more money remaining.

3) Tom, Michael F, Joe, Michael K, Paul, Alex, and Elaine next played Red Dragon Inn. After some fairly quick early eliminations, the game settled down to slow attrition, with eventually Tom’s Kaylin the Renegade drinking Joe’s Bremaster Phrenk under the table for the win.

4) While the Red Dragon Inn game was going on, Michael F and Paul played a round of Lost Cities, which Michael won.

5) Michael K and Paul played Pandemic with 6 epidemics and still managed to emerge victorious.

6) Tom, Michael F, Alex, and Elaine played Innovation. Michael was the only one with any experience with the game, which gave him a definite advantage to the game’s sometimes unclear strategies, and he also started with Agriculture and its early game point generation engine wasn’t something the other players were prepared to stop, giving him the win.

BEWC Meeting Recap 10/1/11

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Attendees: Tom Dunford, Scott Harris, Joe Kauffman, Michael Kelly, Michael Feinberg

Club Business: The copy of Power Grid we voted to buy last meeting is on order and should arrive for the next meeting.

Games Played:

1) Scott, Michael, and Michael started with a game of Risk: 2210 AD. Scott took an early lead, taking control over the moon and most of the ocean territories, but Michael and Michael then ganged up on him. Michael F wasn’t able to hold on to Europe, which basically knocked him out of the game, but Michael K plowed through Scott’s forces on the moon and in South America and then used his stack of diplomacy cards to foil any attempts to take them back, giving him a commanding victory.

2) Tom, Scott, Michael, and Michael then played an epic (4 hours!) game of Cities and Knights of Catan. Tom took over for Scott who had to leave just after the set-up phase, and Scott’s settlement placement gave Tom a key early game monopoly for ore, preventing many knights from coming into play and allowing the first barbarian ship to arrive to raze Joe and Michael F’s cities. Michael F thought he was basically out of the game after the dice failed to give him any resources for the first three turns and then was penned in to just three settlements, but a pair of 2:1 trading harbors and early achievement of the aqueduct allowed him to turn all three of those settlements into cities and claim both the trade and science metropolises. Combined with the merchant and a victory point from a progress card, he was only one point from victory, which would have come when the barbarian ship next arrived and his six knights would have given him the Defender of Catan title, but Mike K had been steadily expanding and was able to snatch away both the trade metropolis and the longest road title (from Tom), pushing him to 14 victory points and his second win of the day.

BEWC Meeting Recap 9/17/11

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Attendees: Jason Bowen, John Boyle, KC Deitrick, Joe Kauffman, Michael Feinberg, Scott Harris, Josh Lichti, Jesse Lute, Lane Taylor, Dave Olson

Club Business: We voted to purchase Power Grid. There was also strong interest in Alien Frontiers and we’ll likely decide to purchase it when the third printing becomes available next month. [For those interested in Alien Frontiers, Clever Mojo is currently running a kickstarter campaign to fund an expansion. At certain backer levels you get a copy of the base game – http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/clevermojogames/alien-frontiers-factions]

Games Played:

1) John, KC, Michael, Scott, Josh, and Lane played 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion. Lane and Josh got into a military race, which tied up their resources leaving them tied for last pace, while Scott just managed to edge out John for the victory, 67 to 66.

2) Jason, John, KC, Joe, Michael, Scott, Josh, and Lane had an epic game of Red Dragon Inn. After some early players were knocked out, mostly by running out of money (the wench kept thinking the pot was her tip…), it settled into a game of pick on the leader, whittling the pack down to Josh’s Deidre the Priestess, Scott’s Dimli the Dwarf, and John’s Wizgille the Tinkerer. Deidre was drunk under the table first, then Wizgille and Dimli were both teetering on the edge when Wizgille’s random gear deck forced John to draw more cards then he had left, giving Scott the win.

3) Once KC was out of Red Dragon, he joined Dave for a game of Battle Line, which Dave won.

4) Jason, KC, Lane, Michael, and Dave played Kingsburg, which was close the whole game with Lane leaping past KC at the very end to win 44 to 42.

5) Joe, Jesse, and Scott played Pandemic, but succumbed to a triple outbreak in the Middle East.

6) Joe and Jesse played one round of Lost Cities, which Joe won, but there were some misunderstandings on the rules, as it was the first time playing for both.

7) Jason, KC, Joe, Michael, Jesse, and Dave played Battlestar Galactica, where Dave and Michael enjoyed a cylon victory. Interestingly, Dave and Michael were also the two cylons at the last club battlestar game…. The game started off very slow, but turned disastrous for the humans after the sleeper agent phase when Joe’s Tyrol was thrown in the brig as a sympathizer (where he was stuck for the rest of the game) and then Jason had to leave early, leaving the humans one player down. Suspicions were flying like mad, particularly after Michael’s Admiral Adama (who became a cylon during the sleeper agent phase) choose a particularly disastrous next jump, leaving the fleet with only one fuel. With only two free players, the humans couldn’t manage to send him to the brig before he revealed himself on his next turn, immediately followed by Dave’s Starbuck, which sent Joe’s Baltar and Jesse’s Tigh to the brig and sickbay respectively, leaving the humans completely overwhelmed by a cylon super crises, consuming the last of their fuel.

BEWC Meeting Recap 9/3/11

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Attendees: John Boyle, Joe Kauffman, Michael Kelly, Michael Feinberg

Club Business: None

Games Played:

1,2) John, Joe, and Michael F started with 2 games of 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion. John ran away with the first game with 66 points, but Michael came back in the second game to edge John out 55 to 53, despite both concentrating heavily on military.

3) Michael K joined us for a game of Red Dragon Inn. John got a bit picked on and his Zot the Wizard fell out first, leaving a tight game until Joe’s Eve the Illusionist took out Michael K’s Dimli the Dwarf before succumbing to his own drink at the end of the round, leaving Michael F’s Fiona the Volatile the last adventurer standing.

4) Settlers of Catan came out next for the first time in a long time. Joe dominated the longest road contest, cutting the whole world in half, but couldn’t turn it into more victory points. John then snuck in to edge out Michael K for the victory, 10 points to 9.

5) We next played Race for the Galaxy, which was the first time playing for just about everyone, but we soon got into it and Joe built up a rare earth production machine that led him to a comfortable victory.

6) After John left we finished up with a game of Carcassonne. It looked like Joe was going to win this one when he drew the one piece left in the pile that let him simultaneously close three cloisters, while Michael and Michael fought over a sprawling city that kept getting bigger and seemed to have no chance of closing, but with the second to last piece in the game, Michael K found one that closed that city, giving both Michaels 46 points, and propelling Michael F to victory with a score of 120.