Games played
Between Two Cities
Played by Jim, Mike, Matt, Ben and Jeremy
Mike won
Clank! the Mummy’s Curse
Played by Jim, Matt, Mike and a Chris
Mike won
Rising Sun
Played by Jeremy, Ben and other Chris
Chris won
Shadow Hunters
Played by
Jim, Mike, Matt, Ben, Jeremy, Dave and both Chris’s
The Shadow (Mike, Ben, and Chris C) won
BattleLore
Played by Mike and a Chris
Mike won
Acquire
Played by Jim, Dave, Jay and other Chris
Jim won one and Jay won two
Attendees
Matt Ackerman, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Dave Olson, Jay Olson, Jeramee Scherer
Games Played
Matt, Chris, Dave, Jay and Jeramee played Kingsburg. Final Scores: Chris won with 40 points, followed by Jeramee with 33, Matt with 32, and Dave and Jay tied at 24.
Dave (Free Peoples), Jeramee (Sauron) and Jay (Saruman) played War of the Ring. The shadow armies were spreading quickly across Middle Earth, taking over 7 points worth of cities and strongholds, and with two other strongholds under siege, but the fellowship was able to destroy the one ring at Mount Doom to win the game.
Chris and Michael played scenarios 7, 8, and 9 of BattleLore. In the first game, Michael’s Sir Hugh Calverly used a sneak attack to take the bridge and achieve victory over the forces of Chris’s Sire Arnoul. Chris had his revenge in the second game, where despite Michael’s heavy infantry running rampant through the left flank, Chris’s forces made short work of the rest of the field. In the third match, Chris got off to an early start and defeated Michael’s giant spider, but his goblinoid forces were no match for Michael’s dwarves, and more significantly the luck of the dice which had turned completely against him.
Club Business
None
Attendees
Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Jim Halloran, Dave Olson
Games Played
Michael and Dave played Eminent Domain. Michael went for a strong produce/trade strategy and Dave went heavily military. Michael won 37 to 35.
Michael and Dave played Eminent Domain. This time they switched roles, Dave went for a strong produce/trade strategy and Michael went heavily military. Michael won 45 to 36.
Ryan and Jim played Churchill. Ryan won as Churchill with 51 points, Jim came in second as Stalin with 50, and the bot player FDR/Truman brought up the rear with 43 points.
Michael and Dave played BattleLore. They played the first scenario, Agincourt. Michael changed the course of history and won as the French, four flags to one, in a very quick romp.
Michael and Dave played BattleLore. Again they played the first scenario, Agincourt, but they switched sides. This time Michael was able to restore the historical balance, winning four flags to two.
Michael, Jim and Dave played Defenders of the Realm. This was a rough game from turn one, and the heroes were only able to defeat one general before the game ended.
Michael, Jim and Dave played Defenders of the Realm. This time the heroes did much better, and were able to take out three of the generals, but the countryside was overrun with minions and the land was too corrupted. It was close to a win, but once again the heroes fell short.
Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Chris Cregan, Dave Olsen, Alex Wright, John Alaimo, Dave Slaby, Ryan Frans, Scott Harris
Games Played:
1) The meeting started off with a round of The New Science, the club’s new game. It started off with Chris and Michael mildly competing in Biology and Mathematics, Chris advancing up Biology mostly while Michael dominated Mathematics with his slide rule. Scott got off to a slow start, researching and experimenting on several topics but unable to actually publish much. Alex picked up the strategy quickly and moved steadilly up the tech tree only publishing when it was convenient. In the end Alex won with 37 points, followed by Chris with 33, Scott with 24 and Michael with 19.
2) Dave Olsen and Jim started up a game of Feudal. Jim was getting destroyed by Dave but managed to work out a Truce in the end, mostly due to other people showing up. A cunning strategy that tied him the game.
3) The Daves, Jim and John started up a game of Space Cadet. There were no survivors.
4) Alex and Scott played a game of BattleLore. Since neither had played before they went with the first scenario, Alex ending up with four points to Scotts two before they had to leave.
5) Meanwhile, Ryan Jim and John started up a game of Megafauna. John was the first to die off, followed by Jim. Ryan had played the game before, but even that couldn’t save him in the end.
6) Also meanwhile, the Daves, Chris and Michael played a game of Kings of Air and Steam. Chris lead the end game with a total of 187 points mostly from depot builds and some lucky end game supply dumps. Michael ended up with 150 points from a diverse strategy of upgrades, depots and supply runs. Dave S. followed closely with 139 with Dave Olsen finishing off at only 121.
7) Jim and Dave Olsen played a game of Twilight Struggle with Jim as the commies winning in the end.
8) Ryan, Michael, Dave S. John and Chris played a learning game of Age of Industry. The rules were quickly read which lead to some highly questionably possibly even illegal moves on the opening few turns. Most everyone based their starting operations around Boston except David who began the Philadelphia coal works, the only land based source of coal on the map. Later in the game it was discovered that a misunderstanding had occurred with how rail lines were to be scored; each line was only worth about 1/5 of what was originally believed. This lead to two sets of scores one based on the rules and one based on the hybrid understanding (rules/hybrid scores). Chris won both with 30/69. Michael was second in the hybrid rules with a very solid train line but relatively poor industry, ending with 20/52. Dave was the king on industry in the end and was 2nd in the actual scoring with 25/43. Ryan ended with 21/39 and third in true scoring. John was last and ended with 12/31.
Attendees: Chris Cregan, Tim Denney, Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, and Chris Leitenberger
Club Business: None.
Games Played
1) Chris C, Michael, Jim, and Chris L started out with a game of Eminent Domain. When we totaled up the scored Chris C and Jim thought they were going to have to figure out the tie breaker rules with their score of 20 points, but Chris L ended up edging them out with 22.
2) Chris C, Tim, Michael, Jim, and Chris L played Eclipse, all as Terrans. Michael had good early luck with exploration tiles and technology selection and was able to quickly build a strong economy, making him the identified leader and the target for the other players. The board was very isolated, other than through the center, each player only had contact with one of the others, except for Chris L who had no contact at all, but both Chris L and Jim had to build up their fleets to destroy the ancient ships in their sectors. Chris L then turned that fleet to the GCDS and claimed the center tile, opening up the board. Given Michael’s apparent position as the leader, Chris L made diplomatic agreements with all of the other players and Michael was forced to switch from building orbitals within his own territory to expand his economy and instead build up defenses on his border with Chris. A stalemate and arms race settled in for the rest of the game, broken only when Jim researched Wormhole Generator on the second to last turn and attacked Michael in two of his previously inaccessible systems. After some quick redeployment, building, and upgrading the two forces were fairly evenly matched, but Jim managed victory in both battles. On the final round, Michael managed to hold off Jim’s second thrust and reclaim one of his initial territories, but the damage of the pick-on the leader strategy had been done. Michael ended up dead last, with only 17 points. Chris L was in the lead with 36, but Chris C, who had spent the whole game exploring his own sector and managed to never have to build or upgrade a single offensive ship and instead had a huge economy devoted to building point scoring monoliths, also reached 36 points. The tie breaker is most remaining production, which Chris C won 31, to 26.
3,4) Chris C and Michael played two games of Tsuro. Chris quickly won the first one, but the second one went down to the last tiles, with Chris being able to hold out one tile longer.
5) Chris C and Michael finished up with the Battlelore scenario A Complex Web. Chris, as Edward of Woodstock, quickly took control of the center of the board drawing two Advance cards early and being able to wipe out Owain the Red Hand (Michael’s) giant spider. Michael struggled to hold it own and the game was somewhat even with Chris having destroyed three units to Michael’s two, but then Chris got a Forward card allowing him to activate six units and paired it with a lore spell giving them all extra die and hits and was able to destroy the final three units he needed in a single turn.
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.
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.
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.