Attendees: Dan Carey, Chris Cregan, Tom Dunford, Michael Feinberg, Brandon James, Scott Harris, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Alex Wright, and Elaine Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played
1) Dan, Chris, Brandon, Scott, Dave, and Karen started with a game of 7 Wonders, that Brandon one with 58 points, followed by Chris then Karen.

2) Dan, Tom, Scott, and Dave then spent a good chunk of the day playing Britannia, the game of various invasions of Britain from 1043 through 1066. On the first turn Tom’s Romans swept onto the island, spreading all the way up to central Britain. Dave’s Welsh held out in the mountains of Wales, and some other groups such as Scott’s Belgae and Dan’s Brigantes lost ground and in some cases raided the Romans. After a few turns, the Roman Empire abandoned the island, and Dave Roman’s left, replaced by Tom’s Romano-Britons led by the legendary Arthur. Other groups such as Dan’s Saxons, Scott’s Angles, Dave’s Jutes moved to fill the vacuum. The Romano-Britons were gone within a few turns. Dave’s Welsh and Scott’s Picts continued to hold their mountainous areas of Wales and Scotland respectively. Dan’s Irish raided a few times, and Tom’s Scots invaded Scotland, but that offensive bogged down and came to a halt. New groups showed up such as Dan’s Norsemen, which wiped out Dave’s Caledonians in the very far north. Dave’s Danes made a major invasion, winning areas from Scott’s Angles which had controlled much of central England. Dan’s Saxons continued to hold south England. Towards the end of the game, Dan’s Saxons consolidated their hold on southern England, Dave’s Welsh continued their control of Wales, Scott’s Picts still held most of Scotland. Tom’s Dubliners and Norwegians invaded late in the game and came to control part of central England. At the very end, the Normans under William the Conqueror landed and captured several territories from Dan’s Saxons led by Harold. Harold though was able to flee, and later counter-attacked and regained some of those territories. Tom’s Norwegians still held part of central England. Dave won with a score of 240, largely due to the performance of the Welsh. Scott came in second with 232, mostly due to his Picts and Angles. Dan came in third with 213 and Tom scored 154.

3) Chris, Michael, Brandon, and Karen played Alien Frontiers with the new Factions expansion. After we got over all of the stealing promoted by Chris’s Smuggler’s Alliance faction ability, the game evolved into a race between Chris and Brandon to get their last colony. Chris got there first, winning the game with 9 points, while Brandon and Karen were tied for second with 7.

4) Chris, Michael, Brandon, and Alex then jumped into Eclipse. It was the first game for everyone but Chris, so we all played Terrans. Brandon got off to a rough start, with nearly all of his connected systems penned in by ancient ships, while Chris seemed to have the opposite luck, finding open economy slots everywhere he explored. With the help of an econ bonus discovery tile, Chris was able to bring two dreadnoughts into play early, which he used to cause some havoc in Alex’s territory before over expansion started to constrain his actions per turn. Alex mainly concentrated on defending himself from Chris and once they finally became available turned to monolith construction to earn victory points. Michael also mostly stayed within his own territory and concentrated on technology, but on the last two turns used that tech to outfit a powerful fleet and expand into Brandon’s space. After Michael just barely held off a strong counterattack on the last turn from Brandon we discovered that Michael had miscalculated his cruiser’s energy consumption and that they couldn’t actually power their advanced targeting computers, so we decided to refight the battle without them, but the dice went against Brandon and Michael still managed to hold the system. The extra VP from that system were enough for Michael to just eke out a victory with 39 VP to Alex’s 38. In addition to the energy mistake, we also made a few other rule mistakes (retreating ships don’t retreat till the next combat round, the traitor can’t enter in to new diplomatic agreements, and once you’ve pulled all of the cubes off a track, you can’t take cubes from another track to fill that color planet) but they likely didn’t impact the outcome and we all had a good time with the game.

5) Dan and Dave played Conflict of Heroes, Storms of Steel! Kursk 1943 scenario six, Sneak Attack. Dave’s Soviets attempted to launch a sneak attack by launching an attack with forces positioned in a deep ravine and behind a hill. Dave’s Soviets in the ravine pushed forward, taking some losses. Dan’s Germans were hurt badly on the second turn by the loss of their heavy machine gun. Dave’s Soviets were able to use their numerical advantage to roll up Dan’s left, capturing both control markers and reducing the Germans to one squad. At the end of the third turn, Dan conceded.

6,7,8) Chris, Michael, Brandon, Alex, and Elaine finished up with three rounds of Dixit Odyssey, with Dave jumping in for the third. Elaine ran away for the first game, but the second two were a struggle between Chris and Alex for victory. Chris managed to win both, but for the last game Karen snuck ahead of Alex for second on the last story.