BEWC Meeting Recap 4/16/11

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

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 2/19/11

Attendees: Dave Olson, Jay Olson, John Boyle, Ryan Frans, Kelly Burnaby, Zachary Burnaby, Scott Harris, Michael Feinberg

Club Business: None

Games Played:

1) Dave, Jay, Ryan, John, and Michael played Space Hulk: Death Angel. It was close, but with only two of their 12 marines left and facing total annihilation the next turn, they managed to complete the mission.

2) They then played an experimental game of High Frontier, though they did not finish it due to time constraints. While initially quite complicated, they all enjoyed it and look forward to playing a full game now that they have the game mechanics down.

3) Kelly and Zachary played Lego Minotaur, which Kelly barely won.

4) Kelly, Zachary, and Scott played Dominion Intrigue, with Scott winning.

5,6) Kelly and Zachary played Zombie Dice to an inconclusive result and then Robo Rally to a victory for Kelly.

7) Dave, Jay, Ryan, Kelly, Zachary, and Michael played Citadels, where Michael just edged out Ryan for the win.

8,9,10) Dave, Jay, Ryan, Kelly, Zachary, and Michael played three games of Incan Gold, though Dave and Jay sat out the last to start cleaning up. Zachary won all three games.

In after-hours play at Scott’s house, Scott, Michael, Josh Lichti, and Chris Gronau played a sprawling game of Rune Wars which Josh suddenly won by capturing one of Chris’s cities, capturing his fifth dragon rune and simultaneously fulfilling his objective to receive his sixth and final rune. They followed up with a tumultuous game of Munchkin, which Scott finally won when no one had anything left to knock the other players down with.