Tag Archives: Twilight Struggle

BEWC Meeting Recap 9/6/14

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Attendees: Jim Halloran, Brandon James, Dan Carey, Alex Wright, Dave Landon, Chris Cregan, Jay Olson, Dave Olson, and Micheal Feinberg.

1)Kingdoms started off the day as Jim Brandon Dan and Alex waited for others to arrive.  Alex just edged out Jim for the victory, 181 to 178.  Brandon ended with 138 and Dan ended with 93.

2) Arkham horror was the main entree, with Brandon, Chris, both Dave’s, Mike trying to fend off Asteroth from consuming the world… atleast for a little while.  The only expansion that was added was The Curse of the Dark Pharaoh.  Good was fortunate at the start and managed to shut down three gates with little going wrong.  Though shortly after this, the few open gates on the board had a series of monster explosions and the heroes were forced to try and quell the numbers before responding to gates.  Some were wounded, more driven insane but they bounced back, and a lucky gate closer removed a nearly invincible beast before it could wreck much havok.  After this it was fairly smooth sailing.  and in the end Good managed to win by closing and sealing enough gates.

3)  Those who did not play in the Arkham horror game decided to play something more realistic, but still with the threat of extinction of all life on earth.  Jim and Dan squared off in Twilight Struggle and in both games Jim managed to out politicize Dan.

4)  Dave, Chris, Micheal, Brandon and Jay all played a game of Dragon Slayer.  Dave managed to win with 47 with a last round gamble that really paid off.  Chris, earlier in the round played it safer with only 45, Micheal, starting the final round had only 30 while Branodn and Jay ended with 24 both getting eaten in the last round.

5)Firefly was played with the expanded map.  The mission had the captains trying to economize their missions, with only three available from each contact and the game ended with three contact piles exhausted.  Chris managed to get off to an early lead, stacking up on engineering and successfully boarding Micheals ship, stealing several of the covetted Jobs.  In the end Chris won at 19700, followed by Brandon at 3600 and Micheal at 2500.

6)Domain was the final game, Chris ended with 40, Dave at 39, Brandoon at 17 and Micheal at 11.

BEWC Meeting Recap 5/3/14

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Attendees: Alex Jordan, Michael Feinberg,Chris Cregan, Scott Harris, Jim Halloran, Alex Wright, Dave Landon, and Karen Landon.

1) Alex W. and Jim fought it out in Twilight Struggle.  Alex’s America won out in the end over Jim’s red menace.

2) Alex J, Chris, Michael and Scott played Firefly.  It was a money grab mission, Chris won with 12700 with a salvage op heavy strategy, Alex J was closest with 8400 managing to finish up most of his missions to avoid the penelty.  Michael and Scott managed to stay positive with 3100 and 3000 respectively.

3) Alex W., Dave Karen and Jim played a round of Smash Up.  Alex W won in the end with his Ghost Bears edging Dave out by a point (16/15).

BEWC Meeting Recap 1/18/14

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Attendees: Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Victor Liu,Ryan Frans, Alex Jordan, Chris Cregan, Maria and Matt Willey

1) Victor Michael and Jim started with a game of Haggis.  It was mearly played through in order to learn the game.

2) Flux came with Michael Victor, Ryan, Jim and Alex.  It was a slow game but eventually Michael had a good turn, able to play both keepers and plot card for a victory.

3) The first of two games of Firefly had Victor, Michael, Alex and Chris racing around the galaxy for money.  Victor spent the game ferrying passengers back and forth and neglected crime and crew a like and so ended up easily getting to the required cash value before anyone else ending with 12,400.  Michael had the fewest active missions and a large stack of cash reserves to end with 410 after subtracting his missions value.  Both Chris and Alex finished well into the red due to some high value, uncompleted missions.

4) Ryan and Jim had the longest and closest game of Twilight Struggle in club history.  Ryan managed to triumph with just a few points after the final turn though it required snatching enough points away from Jim in the last hand.

5) It was only fitting that the next game, Guillotine, was the shortest in club history.  With both the first and second days line ups getting cut short after only a couple executions each, Michael was just edged out by Ryan in the final day.  Ryan won with 12, Michael 10, Jim and Chris had 6 and Alex had 5.

6)Planet Steam was one of the two last games played.  Chris and Ryan had played before, with Chris edging out Ryan 464 to 433.  Matt ended with 254 and Maria 207.  (Scores were calculated with all lowest common value ignored)

7) At the other table Michael Alex and Jim played their last game of Firefly.  The mission this time was Harkons folly with Alex managing to finish first.

Club Business: The club voted in alignment with nominating committee from the meeting before.  The new President is Jim Halloran, the new Vice President is Michael Feinberg, the new Treasurer is Dave Olsen and the new/old secretary is Chris Cregan.

BEWC Meeting Recap 12/21/13

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Attendees: Dan Carey, Michael Feinberg, Rhonda Frans, Ryan Frans, Jim Halloran, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Victor Liu, Dave Olson, Beth Voss, Eric, and Alex Wright

Club Business: Dave Olson, Dan Carey, and Jim Halloran were appointed to the nominating committee for 2014 officers.

Games Played:
1) Dan, Michael, Karen, Dave L, Victor and Alex played Lords of Waterdeep with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion. At the end of the game, Michael was slightly ahead in points, but Alex’s lord gave him 5 additional points for every 10 point quest he had completed, putting him over the top of Michael 120 points to 114.

2) Jim and Dave O settled down to Twilight Struggle where Jim’s USSR was forced to launch his nukes first, making Dave’s Americans the “winner” of the global thermonuclear war.

3) Jim, Dave O, Beth, and Eric moved on to City of Remnants with Eric just beating Beth by two points.

4) Dan, Michael, Dave L, Victor and Alex filled a couple of minutes with Trans Europa which Victor managed to end victoriously in the first round.

5) Dan, Michael, Rhonda, Ryan, Karen, Dave L, Victor and Alex played Robo Rally. Dave ran away with the game, getting to the 3rd glad while only Michael and Ryan had managed to reach even the first flag.

6) Dan, Michael, Rhonda, and Karen moved on to Puerto Rico, which Michael one, with Karen edging out Rhonda for second place by the tie breaker of having more money remaining.

7) Ryan, Dave L, Victor, and Alex played EVE: Conquests, where after a few too many mistakes and too much time, they decided to call and learning game and write off as a draw.

8,9) Dave O, Beth, and Eric played two rounds of Escape: The Curse of the Temple. From what we could hear over the soundtrack, they won one and lost one.

10) Michael, Rhonda, Karen, Dave O, and Beth played Ra, with Michael winning with 48 points and Dave in second with 36.

11) Michael, Karen, Dave L, and Alex finished up with Guild Hall. It was a close game that Dave might have one if Alex hadn’t stolen the cards he needed, and then Alex one on the next turn, just before Michael would have if the turn order had reached him.

BEWC Meeting Recap 12/7/2013

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Attendees:Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Michael Feinberg. Alex Wright, Jim Halloran, Chris Cregan,  Alex Jordan, Ryan and Ronda Frans.

1)First off a game of Ticket to Ride: Europe – It was a frantic struggle for trains in the West at the start.  Mid game slowed down considerably and most everyone connected their routes with ease.  Karen, Alex and Michael took this opportunity to reach in for more destinations while Chris pushed on for some of the longer more lucrative train routes and ended up going out of trains.  Easily with longest route Chris ended with 130, Karen was incredibly close behind with 128, managing to reach all of her extra destinations.  Alex and Michael were less fortunate with their new destinations: Alex J 105 Michael 79.

2) Twilight Struggle Jim won over Alex W in the late era.

3) Terra Mystica: It was a close game, with mistakes made by everyone.  Michael managed to end in first with 115.  He took the dwarves and put their tunneling skills for great effect managing to connect all his cities and rival Alex for largest empire.  Chris played the alchemists and got bonuses for building dwellings and merchent houses and spent most of the game doing that and ended with 111.  Alex W also ended with 111 though would like it known that due to an oversight he should have won.  He played the swarmlings and built and built and built. Ryan picked up the cultists and despite being 1st in two different cult tracks only ended up 82.

4) Lords of Waterdeep was played with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion. Karen won with 112 followed by Alex W with 10, Ronda with 102.  Jim’s score was “not so good”.

5) Dominant Species Michael as the arachnids dominated 95% of the entire game.  On his arctic shelf fortress he nearly lapped the reptiles before the last round.  Chris as the Reptiles had an incredibly slow start, and his species was endangered by the 3rd turn.  Ryan as the Birds was everywhere, picking up similar eating habits as the reptiles they fought for control of the greener lands for most of the game.  Then the last turn happened.  The Reptiles in mass migration swarmed the arachnids in the tundra hoping to drive them off.  While most of the reptiles died out they took several of the spiders with them.  The Birds did similar to the green lands.  Scoring over 100 points in the last round Ryan managed to not only catch, but pass Michael with a 232 over 222 win. Chris was surprised to find himself only 40 points behind at 183.  Both Chris and Michael were not fully aware of how end game scoring worked and so this game may have gone much differently.

BEWC Meeting Recap 11/16/2013

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Attendees: Alex Jordan, Alex Wright, Bruce Clark, Dan Carey, Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Victor Liu and Chris Cregan

1)Jim and Alex W. played a game of Twilight Struggle.  Jim as the Soviets came out the victor.

2) Chris, Victor, Alex J, Michael and Bruce played a round of Lords of Waterdeep with the new expansion Scoundrels of Skullport.  Chris came out in first with 178 points followed by Michael with 149, Alex at 145 Bruce at 143 and Victor with 132.

3) Chris, Victor, Alex J, Michael and Bruce then played a round of Citadels, substituting out the witch for the assassin.  Alex W. managed to end the game with 27 points followed closely by Victor with 25, Chris with 24 Alex J. at 17 and Michael with 16.

4) Jim and Dan played a round of A Distant Plain.  Jim played coalition and Dan played the Taliban, both players lost to the Afghani government.

5) Finally Chris Jim and Alex J played a game of Eclipse with the expansion.  Playing with ancient homeworlds all players found themselves fairly isolated for the majority of the game.  Adopting completely peaceful means no player against player combat occurred the entire game.  Michael won with a science heavy strategy, completely filling up his board with tech, and ended with 64 points.  Chris got 2nd with 56 due to a combination of high combat points from defeating ancients and a racial bonus for occupied orbitals.  Alex started completely surrounded by ancients and had his early fleet demolished in his first assault ending only at 12.

BEWC Meeting Recap 9/7/13

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Attendees:Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Alex Jordan, Dan Carey, Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran, Chris Cregan,  Brandan James, Mike Kelly, and Tyler Piersol

1) Two games of Resistance were played while people waited for the full group to show.  The Resistance won the first game with Karen, Alex, Dan, Mike F against Jim and Dave.  The 2nd game had Dave swapped teams with Karen, but in the end the spys still lost.

2) Next up was a game to decide who would be King of Tokyo.  Karen and Alex died not being able to withstand from repeated attacks by Dave and Michael in Tokyo.  Dave died shortly after followed by both Michaels.  Ultimately, Brandon won.

3) Jim and Dan played a side game of Twilight Struggle.  Dan as Russia got off to a slow lead but Jim as the Americans managed to pull ahead as the years progressed.

4) Chris, Michael F, Dave and Alex played a game of Love Letter while things were being set up for Battlestar.  Alex ended up being the most successful letter deliverer person.

5) Having recently acquired the Daybreak expansion to Battlestar Galactica, this game was eager joined.  Unfortunately, the game turned out to be a little dull, with an easy human win.  It was Alex and Tyler’s first game of any Battlestar variant, and both spent the majority of the game stuck.  Alex was the mutineer and spent his entire game playing mutiny cards, though managed to successfully avoid getting sent to the brig because of it.  Tyler wasn’t so lucky, and spent the entire game there as Tom Zerich, in addition to having BOTH cylon cards.  Dave played as the Cylon Leader and was fortunate enough to have allegiances to the humans and shared their victory.  Michael F and K, Chris and Alex were the humans.

6) Meanwhile, Karen Jim and Dan played a series of games during the Battlestar game.  First up was Guillotine.  In a series of three games Karen won 2 and Jim won 1.

7) Karen continued her winning streak at Ticket to Ride.  She won with 130 points to Dan’s 89 and Jim’s 80.

8) Finally, Bang was played but was very short.  Michael F, Dave and Karen were the Outlaws and quickly surrounded and then finished off Tyler as the Sheriff.  Deputy Chris and Renegade Brandon were unable to do anything being to far away.

BEWC Meeting Recap 8/17/2013

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Attendees: Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Jim Halloran

Games Played:

1) Jim and Michael started off with a game of Tsuro, with Jim winning.

2) Jim triumphed over Michael in a game of Guillotine 46-38.

3) In Kingsburg final scores were Chris 59, Michael 38, Jim 36.

4) In Guildhall Michael beat both Jim and Chris

5) In Twilight Struggle Chris as the commies managed to goad Jim as the Americas to plunge the world into nuclear winter after a (successful) coop attempt in Cuba while on Defcon4. Technically making Chris the winner.

BEWC Meeting Recap 2/16/13

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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.

BEWC Meeting Recap 1/19/13

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Attendees: Shane Andrews, John Boyle, Ben Blankley, Greg Chandra, Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Jim Halloran, Richard Heller, Paul Hsu, Michael Kelly, Melissa Laface, and Lane Taylor

Club Business: 2013 officers were elected and we voted to purchase Lords of Waterdeep and The New Science.

Games Played:
1) Shane, John, Michael F, and Paul started with a game of Puerto Rico. Michael was the only one who had played before, giving him a significant advantage, but everyone else seemed to pick up the mechanics and some strategy fairly quickly. Michael turned an early coffee monopoly combined with both the large and small markets into a money making machine, allowing him to build three of the 4 point large buildings. Michael won with 44 points, largely from buildings, but Shane wasn’t far behind with 38 points from an impressive shipping operation.

2) Jim, Michael K, and Lane considered playing Flat Top, but after being looking at the time commitment and complexity decided to switch to Shogun. They only played one year, which was characterized by the peasants being much stronger than expected and an extremely close result – Michael 22, Lane 21, and Jim 20.

3) Melissa taught Shane and Paul Ora et Labora where she won with a comfortable lead.

4) John, Michael F, Ryan, and Richard played a close fought game of Eclipse. The game had very little early combat, with Richard as the Planta and John as the Descendants of Draco both significantly expanding and leaving Ryan’s Mechanema and particularly Michael’s Hydran Progress mostly isolated. Ryan was able to take over the galactic center and start an arms race with Richard (as well as breaking his treaty with John and conquering one of his systems), but Michael was left to concentrate on technology and hope that point-scoring monoliths would become available. They finally did on the last turn, but Michael built them one action too early, committing all of his production, which had been serving as a check against Ryan’s aggression since it could have rapidly been turned into a fleet of technologically advanced ships. Once that threat was gone, Ryan turned his fleet against Michael instead of Richard and conquered all but one of his systems, knocking Michael down to only 19 points at the end of the game. The game ended with a bang, when Richard sent in a pair of cruisers each armed with 3 plasma missiles against a large fleet of Ryan’s and lucky rolling caused him to hit on 10 of his 12 dice – one more than the nine needed to wipe him out. Unfortunately Richard didn’t have neutron bombs, so couldn’t conquer the system and transfer its points from Ryan to him. That left Ryan winning the game with 42 points to Richard’s 38.

5) Jim and Michael K spent the afternoon with Twilight Struggle, where Michael’s communists prevailed in the 10th round.

6) Ben and Greg taught themselves the Rivals for Catan card game. Once they figured out what they were doing, they enjoyed themselves with Ben winning.

7) Ben, Greg, Michael F, Richard, and Melissa finished up with 7 Wonders with both the Leaders and Cities expansions. Richard amassed an impressive 55 points in science, but his 65 total points weren’t enough to catch up with Melissa, who took good advantage of the expansions to earn 26 points from white and black cards. Combined with a generally diversified strategy otherwise, she net 68 points for the win. Michael edged out Richard for second place, also with 65 points, mostly from guilds and blue cards and with more leftover money for the tiebreaker.