Tag Archives: Innovation

BEWC Meeting Recap 7/16/11

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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

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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 4/16/11

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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.