Iowa City Game Day at Chris and Edie's House, Saturday, 13 May

Time sure flies. It really doesn't seem that long since the last game day. Perhaps I'm just that busy. On the other hand, maybe it's just that I've grown to anticipate them so much. Either way, I woke up on Saturday, ready to game.

It was drizzly and chilly Saturday AM, which is nice, as I wasn't going to feel bad about spending the rest of the day indoors. I guess I probably would have anyway, as I was out late the night before, soaking up second-hand smoke in the Foxhead with my visiting friend Erik, in town from London, Ontario. As a consequence, I had just a bit of a headache as the day began.

Shooting for the noon start time, I ran out to buy some snacks to take along, got a sandwich at Milio's and a quad iced soy mocha at the Java House. With a full tank and caffeine jump, I cruised over to F street, St. Petersburg, Princes of Florence, Res Publica, and Nexus Ops in tow.

When I got there, there was a fury of Dracula game going, and a few people waiting around for something to start. I had brought Princes of Florence at Chris's request, and we decided to set that up. About three quarters of the way through the explanation, two new players, Jason and Laura, showed up. Chris bowed out of the game to start something else, and Jason and Laura joined our game. We went through the rules again, which, I think, was good, as it made sure we were all on the same page, and then got started.

Starting turn order was: Gare Erin, me, Jason, Laura. Nobody but me had played before, and I had only played two games with three players. Bidding in the five player game was much higher than in the three player game. Our first round of bidding, however, was pretty low, with the firest jester going, apparently, low for 700, and the first builder going for 600, and everything else going for 200, I think. Maybe one of the landscapes went for a little more. Laura created a work on the first turn, going last, to get the quick pp. Bidding on the jester jumped up to 1500 in this round, and the builder went for 800. Jesters continued to be high bids, going for 1400 and 1100 and 1500 over the next three turns before falling to 300 and 500. The builder dropped to 200-400-400. Nobody went for a builder strategy, prefering to take a balanced approach. Laura and Erin both picked up two prestige cards as the game went along. I miscalculated my money a couple turns in a row, and, as a result, cost myself a few points. I should have let the 2nd turn builder go, and gotten a prestige card instead. I ended up missing out on prestige entirely, due to money miscalc (I couldn't bid high enough), and in the last round I couldn't get anything at all. I did build a gigantic work, though, for 35, and caught back up with the 17 pp it gave me. As the 7th round rolled by, we were all pretty tight on pp. Revealing prestige cards, it turned out that Erin didn't make one of hers, and Laura was able to sneak up and snag the victory by a point. So, the final standings were: Laura, Erin, Jason, me, and Gare. I liked the game much better with five, and this was a fun, good group to play with. I really need to keep better track of my plans, with upcoming rounds in mind, to spend my florins optimally. I look forward to playing again.

Another game broke up, and we split into three games. I ended up with Reef Encounter, a game I keep seeing people talking about on BGG. Jason brought the Zman edition, and taught the game to myself and Erin, with Laura also sitting in. There seems to be some debate over the game's art. I like the look of this game, it's nice and colorful (the screens could probably be moreso, and could maybe have some reminder/rules summaries on the back. Jason said the designer had worked hard to incorporate details marine biology into the game, but with a lack of such specific knowledge, the theme seems purely aesthetic, and the game is basically an abstract. The rules were quite different from pretty much anything else I've ever played. I felt pretty bewildered throughout the explanation, and really didn't know what was going on as the game started. I had a basic understanding of the course of a turn, and got some stuff on the table. I think I started one batch of coral too quickly. I think we were already in the midgame when I stopped to exclaim "I really have no idea how I could possibly make anything happen in this game." I just gave up a couple turns and did nothing besides taking tiles, as I felt I was slowing down the game though analysis paralysis. I watched the two experienced players, and came up with some ideas for plays. I ended up, though, rushing into eating my black coral, which was the one decent sized group I'd built up. I could have made it a few bigger the next turn, and should have, because it looked like it would be worth the most, with two tiles locked up. The tile I had started in my fish box was black, though, and I figured I'd have the advantage there, without scaring away the people who were working to make it dominant. After that, I slowed down, made a silly play, and suddenly it looked like Jason would win the game. I had a pretty fun penultimate turn at that point, eating a decent set of coral, flipping and locking some of the dominance tiles. I still didn't really understand the game, but I made things happen, and that made me feel a little better. I experienced a lot of brain burn in this game, coupled with significant downtime due to analysis between many of the turns. With four players, the game is pretty chaotic, and it would require a high degree of concentration and dedication to be able to play strategically consistently. I felt I might enjoy the game quite a bit more with fewer players, as there would be less changing between each turn. I wasn't real happy with this particular session. I won't be rushing out to buy Reef Encounter. That said, I found the game interesting, and the mechanics intriguing, and I'm going to try to play it a few more times, both on spielbyweb and in real life, and I expect it will become quite interesting.

Groups were re-dividing again, and I found that I didn't have a preference for any of the games being put forward. I decided to just let people put me wherever they needed a player. I didn't really come into this game day with specific games in mind - I figured I would play Princes, and was maybe hoping for Caylus. The only things I really have wanted to get in on were Union Pacific (which unfortunately went off while we were playing Princes), and Santiago (which Kurt has brought, but he wasn't there this time). I ended up playing Ticket to Ride this time, with Judy, Erin and Chris.

The two tickets I kept were a 17 and 20 that both went along the Southern part of the map, though the big black, green, and red routes. These were really nice starting tickets, big points that worked together with plenty of 6 car routes. To me, getting tickets like this is a significant advantage in this game. Another advantage became clear as it appeared that everyone else was building mostly in the North, so I was able to waltz across the map with little, well, basically no, interference. The gameplay was quick, as we knew that Tower of Babel in the other room was not a long game, and we wanted to be done at around the same time. There was little, or basically no, defensive play, although a couple times people were unintentionally blocked. Chris took some extra tickets, and so, I think, did Judy. I decided to take one after I finished my routes, which was probably a bad idea, but I get nervous when other people have five tickets and I have two. I picked up one I could finish pretty quickly, and ended up blocking the ticket Chris had just taken with my next move. I managed to trigger the game end with two cars, and then play them on the end of my string of cars to make myself only 3 cars out of perfect on longest route, taking it by a fair amount. With a considerable lead already, longest route, and fifty points of tickets, I ended up way out in front at 168. Judy was 2nd with 122, Erin in third with 104, and Chris was the caboose with 74 (I think he would have been close to 100 with his other ticket completed). This was a nice group of people, and a pretty fun game, but I think I've played enough of basic Ticket to Ride for a while. Oddly, it's a game I own, and consequently don't try to get into at the game days, but is the only game I've played two game days in a row. I wish they'd print an expansion with a fifth 20+ point ticket, so that you could distribute big tickets to everyone before the game, as in TtR: Europe.

Several people wanted to play St. Pete, so I sat them down and taught the game. It was weird teaching the game without sitting at the table, and I felt I needed to hurry as there were three players in the other room waiting for me to play Stephenson's Rocket. I hope I wasn't too confusing in this hurried state. Sometimes I forget that, for some people, this game doesn't seem as simple as I think it is. After explaining, setting up, and getting things going, I ran into the other room for my second train trip of the day. I knew Stephenson's Rocket was a Reiner Knizia game, which is a good sign, to me. I also had a general impression, though, from BGG geeklists and stuff, that this was not that popular of a game, so I came in expecting a medium-level experience. Chris taught the game, and, perhaps due to my rushed state, or the general sort of brain fuzz I seemed to have going all day, I really didn't visualize the rules well. It took me until what I would consider the end of the early game to have a feeling that I could develop some strategic moves. At that point, I promptly over-thought a couple of them and missed out on some important money by not putting down stations I should have. I focused on getting down stations on one train (green) and taking it across the board to hit some of the cities I had majorities in. It took me even longer to figure out that the game isn't all about hitting those cities, as that's not how you score the really big money. That was made apparent when Steve started making tall cash off of the purple train with his two stations, and even more so when Steve ran the blue train into the green line, making Sue a heaping pile of bank notes and a tidy sum for himself as well. I couldn't seem to find a way to successfully alter my tactics at this point, though, and pretty much just kept doing the same thing. I wasted my majority in green stock to veto Steve's move and put the train in my station. In the end, I would have had 14 grand more by not doing so, as Steve never managed to run the red line into green, and I would have still had station majority with two. As it was, the train tiles ran out and the game ended with several active lines on the board- green, which was huge, red, which was pretty big, orange, which wasn't terribly large, and grey, which was small. Chris had a lot of majorities, and looked like he might contend. Sue had made huge money once, and consistent money around that. I though I might have a chance to beat Steve. Well, it appears I really have no handle on the game, as Steve ended up winning. Steve had 66k, Sue was 2nd at 65k, Chris was third with 62k, and it was my turn to caboose with 55k. This game was moderately close, and it became clear to me that each little move, costing a few thousand, was tremendously important. I certainly mispicked a couple times early in the game, just based on this. I liked SR, and would play again. However, I don't think I'll seek it out. The goods majorities really seem to play too little a part in the game. There's also decent downtime and the analysis problems that come with too much known information.

That ended up being it for the night. I only played 4 games on Saturday, which is fewer than usual. The games I played were longer - especially Reef Encouner! Also, I just wasn't in a mood to hustle any games today. It was fun, and I got to play some new games, which is always a goal of mine. No new classics, for me, but lots of food for thought. These game days keep getting bigger and bigger - maybe we'll have to move into the library! I look forward to next month, when maybe some of us will have to play outside... (I'll bring a soccer ball). It's great to be meeting so many new gamers, and having such good times, but for me it has an ironically sad side, too. I wonder why it has to be the case that now, since I've finally found a big group of great people to game with on a regular basis, I have to move across the country. It's no big deal, though, I'll just enjoy it while it lasts and look forward to meeting the gamers of the Triangle area.

GG, GL

Sunday 05/07, at CHG

Sunday was a lazy day. I got up late, having been out the night before with Jerod, Luke, and Roger. I went downtown to Daydreams and picked up my comics. Then, I ran over to the store to say hi to Luke before he left. I grabbed a bite to eat at Peking Buffet, and then went back to the store to read comics and hang out.

I sat around for a while watching the four person AGOT draft, which Lucas won. The Heroclix tournament got over, and I asked Tim and Jerod if they would be up for learning Princes of Florence, which I bought a few weeks ago, but hadn't had a chance to play. They were interested, so we set it up, went through the instructions, and got started.

PoF has an auction element, limited actions, tile placement, and some interesting resource exchange choices. It also plays deceptively quickly, compared to it's complexity. About two thirds of the way through the game, when we all had a bunch of money and I exchanged florins for pp's for the first time while constructing a work, we decided we needed to play again. We finished up, with me in the lead, but Tim ended up winning handily on the strength of his two Prestige cards, leaving me in 2nd and Jerod in 3rd. Things we noticed in this game were that builders seemed very good to get early, and the Prestige cards were quite powerful. I had a suspicion that we were letting things go too cheaply in auction.

We stayed in the same seating order and started another game right away. I ended up winning builders on all of the first three turns. The first one was certainly valuable. The second two I bid on to not let others get them cheaply, and then they ended up giving them two me. I ended up only getting two buildings for free, though. Having only two actions really limits the usefulness of the builder. I took professions early, trying to maximize the points I would get from playing works on the upcoming turns. I did take a turn to play a work, for sub-optimal points, when I was going last and someone hadn't played a work that turn. I think, with three builders on turn three, that I should have just bought buildings. However, I thought that the pp's for the works would just end up being more. I need to look at this, though, as I think It's pretty close. This meant that most of my last few turns were taking either bonus/building/prestige and laying a work. This paid off, cancelling Tim's "most works" prestige card, as he ended up not being able to get enough pp out of the profession he drew in turn 7 to be able to build it. I ended up winning, with Tim in 2nd and Jerod in 3rd.

Our impression was that the game was good, and quick, and would probably be more exciting with the pressure added by playing with 4 or 5 people, when buildings would be limited, and it could take a lot longer to get a builder. We also felt that the game, for our two plays at least, would have benefitted from another turn, as our palazzos were not really too crowded at the end of the game. I had a feeling in this game that you could easily get by without a builder, making me want to investigate the possibility of a successful building strategy even more. It should be fairly simple to work out the timing of a works strategy also. It certainly seems better to pick up prestige early, so the timing of that particular strategy should rely on early game prestige picks and mid-late game flexibility. The first couple turns are going to be taken up buying freedoms, and the second action should be determined by your strategy. Although, I guess, if you are just building you don't need freedoms. Prestige probably does.

Well, there's a few thoughts on the game, anyway. We all agreed that it was a good game, and are looking forward to playing again with more players. Hopefully, Jerod will get it into stock, and then host a game night for it at the store. I think we will also get another play at Chris's next Game Day, as he expressed interest in getting it on the table. For now, a few days off of gaming will be nice.

GG, GL

AGOT CCT CHG 5/6/06

Today was the Regional tournament for AGOT at CHG. I had to get up early to be at the soccer fields, as we had a game that morning vs. Regina, one of the better teams in the state (we are NOT one of the better teams in the state...). The boys got hammered 9-0, and I felt bad that I had to leave the varsity coach quickly after the game to hustle over to the store and get ready for the tournament.

I got to CHG about an hour before the tournament was supposed to start. I disassembled one of my old decks, and tried to make a couple changes. I wanted to make a new deck, but didn't have time. In the end, I settled on the basic Stark deck that I played to third place at ChiCon, with a couple changes. I hastilly scribbled down my decklist, and got ready to play. Our old friend Lucas Reed came down from FFG in Minnesota, and ended up sitting out to judge the tourney. One of the local M:tG players, Eric, had been conscripted to do deck check-in and run the computer. Jerod had a lot of great prizes lined up, and had set up the tournament to run smoothly.

Round 1 - Sarah F. with Targ

I've played Sarah several times, and her deck doesn't match up well with the one I was running. She has mostly event-based removal to rely on, and I run a large number (8) of characters that are immune to events. I got a good start and won the game fairly quickly.

Round 2 - Josh from Waterloo, playing Baratheon

The last time I played Josh, he sat down before the game and talked for a few minutes about how he hadn't played in a long time, didn't know the cards, and was all set to lose, and then commenced beating me in 2 and a half turns with power rush. He started the same thing this time, I reminded him about last time, and asked him to chill. We shuffled up, he won the roll to go first when we both revealed Gathering Storm, and he got an amazing draw. By the end of turn one, he had Renly with Lightbringer and Chosen by R'hllor, as well as fallow fields, Acolyte of Asshai, another location, and six power. He also had two Shadow Play in his hand, which I knew because he revealed them with turn one Massing at Twilight. I think I had a couple characters left, including Catelyn. He played 2 I am King here that turn, btw. Turn two he dropped a Bara Tourney Ground and Born to be King on Renly. I didn't have anything to stop attachments or locations, and his plays guaranteed him 9 power in challenges, and he was going first, so it was all over. He started to moan about how he was probabaly going to lose out the rest of the day, and I got steamed. I get tired really quickly of people complaining and acting like they're the underdog when they beat me in a turn and a half.

Round 3 - Kari with Martell Wildling Horde

Kari seemed to be playin a Martell/Wildling Scorching Deserts deck, but she only dropped one Wildling, who wasn't a mono-con, and one Martell mono-con character. She got the Deserts, and had a pretty good start on me, neutralizing my Gathering Storm claim by switching intio the WPS plot that reduces claim. I got a few characters on line, though, and used more high claim to take control of the game, neutralizing a Deserts with Frozen Solid. After the point where I got advantage, it was a slow, resisted, march to the finish.

Round 4 - Adam with Lannister Defenders of the North

I played Adam first round at ChiCon, and lost to him. I knew he was a good player, but I didn't know anything about his deck. He had a ton of kneeling effects, including some I'd never really seen before. I got a pretty nice start, ramping up to two Edmure's Hosts on turn 2. However, Adam Massing'ed a couple times, and had lots of cards. He knelt my stuff with characters, and events, and kept them from un-kneeling. I made a mistake, holding back a Trident Defender, worrying about Wildfire Assault. He got up to four doomed in his yard, and was drawing tons of cards and kneeling tons of dudes. My team pretty much looked like they were asleep the whole game. I never really got anything going, and he took the game around, I think, the sixth plot. I had a chance to win that turn - I had two Arya's Revenge left in my deck, but I didn't have any influence in play (I only drew 1 location, a reducer, prior to the end of the game, and that on like the 5th turn). So, I Benjen's Cached for Red Keep, hoping to draw into the Revenge that would kill his Jaime and give him 5 doomed. However, I just drew two, random, useless characters, while he drew into two stealth/renown dudes, icing the game for him.

Round 5 - Andy Mills - Lannister/Greyjoy Treaty

I've played Andy a bunch of times, but never with this deck. I saw him play it a little the week before, at the tournament I ran but wans't able to play in, but I wasn't really sure what it did. The one thing I knew was that it had a bunch of trait manipulation elements and Tavern Braggart. The thing I didn't know about turned out to be Greyjoy cancellation events. He had a Bard right away, along with a Braggart. He got one of my first characters with a Fallen Brother. He neutralized my high claim early. He cancelled the Arya's Revenge I tried to play on his Bard, and then he, in succession, dropped he Lanniser army that can get a trait each phase, and took control of one of my big dudes with the wildling gal that takes stuff, whose name I can't remember for some reason. At this point, things were looking prety grim. I was way down on characters, and didn't have a lot that could get me back in the game, so I just conceded.

Well, everyone I lost to ended up in top 8, and I finished 10th, out of 20. I ended up getting a pack and a shirt for my troubles, along with the Regionals promo cards. I was pretty frustrated, after two bad days. In fact, these were my worst performances since the day I learned how to play, when I went 1-1-1 in constructed (borrowing a deck from Jerod), and 1-2 in draft. I think with different pairings I could have made top 8 pretty easily, but, all the same, I got roughly the finish I deserved. I didn't put any time into building my deck or playtesting the environment, and that's how it goes. It ended up being Jerod and Nate Harmon in the finals. Jerod had already beaten Nate, in the Swiss rounds, but this time he got a horrible draw, mulliganed it, and pulled an even worse hand. He flopped one card, Harrenhall, which is, of course, a terrible setup phase. Nate couldn't have asked for better, and he pretty much walked away with the trophy, sword, box of cards, and 1,000 Gold Dragons from FFG.

Eight of us who didn't make top 8 sat down to draft. I ended up Greyjoy/Targ again. I ended up going Greyjoy with Euron, then getting passed a Viserion to go into Targ. Targ was overdrafted, again, and I managed to pick up no removal other than the little location that gives -1. I did get the Night's Watch guy that discards creatures and wildlings. My deck had pretty good characters, and ended up with a couple good locations, Damphair's Chambers and the one that switches two dudes' strength during challenges.

Round 1 - Amanda - Baratheon with, maybe, Lannister

We both got slow starts. Amanda got a big dude down, but I was able to get around him. She had a reducer on the flop, but was unable to get any more resources. Stuck with just plot gold, she kept replaying a Lord's Assassin to soak claim, and couldn't build up a team. Meanwhile, my side of the board was just getting more and more croxded with dudes itching to challenge. We played for several minutes, trying to talk casually, but I felt a little rough. It was a pretty big beating, and not very fun for her, I'm afraid. This game doesn't have an incredible number of mechanisms to get you back into a game when you are down.

Round 2 - Kevan from Waterlo - I don't really remember what he was playing

I don't remember much about the early game here, except that he got Tommen really quickly. He only had one Minor Fiefdom, though, so he was accumulating power slowly. He was playing out his dudes carefully, but at a good pace, and I could never threaten Tommen with claim or deadly. I was hoping for Euron's Servant to take care of his Minor Fiefdoms, but it ended up being the bottom card of the deck. He got out to a lead, and I had to stop military challenging him. I knew that we both had Wildfire Assault, and I couldn't afford to give him anything during challenges. I got Student of Subtlety and Band of Free Folk down, and started sucking away his power. I took the lead. Wildfire hit, and he went to 19, but I got to challenges and won. A very tight, fun game.

Round 3 - Jeremiah D.

For some reason, I don't remember a lot of this game, even though it's the last one I played. I know I had a hard time getting stuff out - I drew too many of my expensive characters, and ended up having to discard quite a few good cards to intrigue challenges. Jeremiah had a lot of deadly, notably Jaime and some big Lanni armies. He had student of subtlety, which was killing me, taking away my power icons, leaving me with only military since I couldn't draw intrigue. I got my own Student, to try to get back into the game, but he killed it by playing First Ranger on his. This made it vulnerable to my Fallen Brother, but I never drew it. I had good cards in play - Viserion, Tormund, two War Councils, but I just couldn't make much of a game with only military icons. Lacking the ability to get rid of Student or influence, I had to just sit back and watch him grind into the win over the next couple turns.

I ended up second. There weren't really any exciting rares here. I would have been happy to have the Winterfell Barracks, but Jeremiah took that first.

We cleaned things up at the store, and Jerod, Luke, and myself headed down to the pub to meet up with Roger and have a nice two or three hours of conversation, none of which seems really all that important, in hindsight...

And that's how it ended. I'm hoping to put some more time into making a new deck, and actually play it a little, followed by hitching a ride with Luke down to Missouri for the South Central Regional in June, in an attempt to redeem myself. We'll see what happens. It's too bad I can't make it to Chicago in a couple weeks, as that would certainly be good times.

GG, GL

A Game of Thrones CCG Booster Draft, Friday, May 5th, Critical Hit Games

It was the beginning of another long gaming weekend. CHG was hosting the North Central Regional Tournament for AGOT CCG on Saturday, and this draft was supposed to be the warmup event. It didn't start off very well for me. I had a long, stressfull day subbing for HS PE. The kids were really squirrelly, and it took a lot out of me. Soccer practice was also sub-optimal, as the athletes just didn't seem to have a good attitude about things. I showed up to the draft a little flustered, and was disappointed to see so few people from abroad in attendance.

There were two guys in from out of town, Dan and Kevin, who came from Missouri. This was actually a little depressing, as we were expecting several players from the Madison and Chicago play groups, as well as, possibly, some people from Minnesota.

We had ten players for the draft, but we only played 3 rounds due to time. I don't remember a lot about it. I was seated next to Kevin from Missouri. I ended up going Targ with my first pick, taking Blood Magic. Unfortunately, the house unded up being a little overdrafted at the table, and didn't pay off for me. I picked up a fourth or fifth pick Arya's Revenge, which sort of amazed me. That was all the Stark I saw in pack one. In pack two, I picked up a Jojen, and then Stark dried up. As Targ was thinning out, I ended up going into Greyjoy, as I was getting passed a lot of characters. I don't think I went in on anything strong - just repeated characters. I did get a Damphair's Chambers, which I like a lot. I splashed some Martell - Deadly Seduction and Student of Subtlety. I got a late Festering Wound to add to the removal.

First game - Tom Hafner

I honestly don't remember which houses Tom was playing. He got a pretty good start with some big characters, but I hung on, and stabilized the board. I got Jojen out early, and decked him in a few turns. This game was pretty complicated, as we both had pretty high quality characters out, and, since we were both running wildfire, the game was getting repeatedly reset. I got the advantage, and took the lead in power. Unfortunately, as time was called, I could only get to, I think, 18 power. He had no deck, and no hand, and only 14 power, but time was up and there was nothing for it but to take the draw.

Second round - Amanda

Amanda is a relatively new player, who has picked up the game quickly and done pretty well. I can't remember what houses she was playing either. She had only a two card drop - big army/reducer. I knelt her army, and won 3 challenges and dominance. She was in trouble from the get go. I had early Jojen, too, and decked her. She ran out of options quickly and the game was mine.

Third round - Jeremiah Duggan

Jeremiah is another relatively new player who's picked up the game quickly and done well. He has the advantage of having been a long-time, moderately competitive Magic player. He was Stark/something. Not sure about his second house. Baratheon, I think. He got a pretty good character start, but I had the advantage and jumped out to a 9-2 power lead. He stabilized the board and started to catch up a little. We were back and forth a bit. The game got very complicated, with multiple deadly characters/Damphair's Chambers/etc. He drew Edmure's Van, and it took me a couple minutes to get rid of it with Deadly Seduction. We knew time was running out, and we were both trying to force points through. I drew Band of Free Folk, but couldn't play it, because I had to get rid of some Night's Watch. The next turn, time got called. I got to 18 power, but couldn't punch the last couple points through. He was, I think, at 14 at the end. We each had about 8 cards left. My next couple cards were Jojen and some random creature, and I had Festering Wound coming up. I felt pretty silly, drawing two games I felt I should have won. I resolved to make sure to play faster/keep better track of the time.

I ended up in 5th place, but got some decent rares out of it. Overall, it was a decent time. I went home hoping to work on my deck for the next day a little, as I hadn't thought about AGOT constructed for weeks. Unfortunately, Kristin had been out celebrating with friends, and they were at our house, intoxicated, watching a movie, and needed rides home when the movie was over. So, I didn't get anything done, and didn't get a lot of sleep, which would end up becoming pretty obvious the next day...

GG, GL

Wednesday night at Critical Hit

We didn't have a soccer game tonight, so I had a little extra time. Jerod had advertised that Chris would be teaching Hacienda tonight, and I jumped on the chance to play a boardgame that I liked a lot for the second time.

The game ended up being Andy Mills, Chris Shaffer, Subway Guy (don't remember his name), Gare, and myself. Me, Gare, and Chris had played before. Chris taught. We played the basic dogbone map again.

I had a decent opening draw, and was able to work my way to two of the plantations that are by water. I pursued a strategy of trying to connect to multiple markets, but others were going very hard on developing individual areas. Moving along in the game, I couldn't seem to get a big land area or a chain of animals going, so I kept working on just finding new markets.

I was doing all right, hanging out in 2nd after the first scoring round. I kept picking up new markets, others kept developing, in some cases branching out a little bit. Andy triggered the endgame, and we had a thrilling final scoring round with ups and downs. I ended up being connected to seven markets, the next biggest being four, and that gave me quite a few points. Myself and Chris were very close in this game, and he might have been able to triumph with one more turn. Probably the most important move I made was one that cut him off from reaching a new market, and gave me better access to another, all in one stroke. So, with all the markets and the timely place of a few water pieces,I took the win, over Chris, by just a handfull of points, with the others languishing somewere behind. I really liked it, and look forward to playing again.

Well, I'm fading badly now, and should go.

GG, GL

Tuesday night - Dinner with my parents

It was my father's birthday last week, and Kristin and I couldn't make it back to Illinois to celebrate with the family. We took the opportunity to invite my parents (Jon and Cindy) out here for dinner, and they were gracious enough to make the drive.

After a bountiful meal, we decided to take a walk around town. Our visitors were curious about the tornado damage, so we took them down to the park, then up Iowa Avenue, and back on Governor. I hadn't been in that area too much myself, and there is still quite a bit of damage to be repaired. We all were impressed by the devastation, coupled with the relative lack of damage to some adjacent properties.

When we got back, we broke out the cake Kristin had baked earlier, and sat down for a game. My parents aren't gamers, but every once in a while I can convince them to try something out. They must have been in a pretty good mood last night, because they were ready to go. I gave them a choice between Ticket to Ride and Through the Desert, and Mom picked TtR, because she, apparently, likes trains.

We passed out tickets, and everyone kept only two, except me. I had Duluth/El Paso, and Chicago/Santa Fe, which go together very nicely, and Seattle/New York, which is just a very hard ticket to give up. I decided to keep them all, and go for it (a philosophy which hasn't served me very well in the recent past, but makes for an interesting play). This was 41 points worth of tickets, which is quite a large amount, just starting.

The newbies seemed to grasp the rules pretty well, and Dad led for much of the first several turns. The scoring remained fairly close all through the mid-game. My father seemed very prone to taking locomotives, and used them often, completing routes fairly quickly. As we entered the midgame, my strategy of going from the SW, up along the W coast, and then straight across to link up in Duluth via the yellow and rust 6-routes was crumbling with each passing turn. I had all 6 yellows, but was stuck on 3 rust, and just couldn't seem to get any more, as people had gotten on to me taking it and were scooping it up. So, I took an alternate route, worth far fewer points, but much easier to do, comprised of small, grey routes that run down through Kansas and Oklahoma.

I ended up completing my tickets, triggering the endgame (while everyone else still had several cars left), and getting the longest route. The scoring was pretty close, although I was in the lead, before revealing tickets. However, my tickets ended up being worth 20+ points more than everyone elses, and I cruised to victory by over 20 pts..

Everyone had fun, and my father even seemed sort of interested in playing again. Perhaps his recent Sudoku fixation has given him more of an appetite for games and puzzles. This fun, relatively fast, session has helped to keep Ticket to Ride high up on my list of games to play with non-gamers. It also brought out one of the weaknesses for first time players - being able to gauge how many points you need in tickets by looking at what others are doing.

GG, GL

Hanging with Chris Lackey last Saturday night

My good, old friend Chris was in town this past weekend for a funeral. We don't get many chances to see each other, as he lives in California, so whenever he's in town, we always make a special effort to get together.

I loaded up a carload of games as I wasn't sure how many people would be around, or what Chris would be interested in. The drive to Moline sucked, dark with pouring rain. I got there without problems, though, albeit a little frazzled. Chris and I headed over to Theo's Java Club in Rock Island to get some coffee.

Caffeine intake commenced, and we broke out the pair of two-player games I'd brought in my bag, Fjords and Lost Cities. Chris chose Lost Cities, and we set about laying down some numbers.

This was my first time playing LC since last week's introduction to Battle Line. I think playing BL actually made me a little better at LC, as I think I was more cautious about starting expeditions and was a little more into the confrontational aspect of this game, providing/denying the opponent with cards. These were Chris's first plays of LC, though, so it took him a bit to learn. The first three games, I hammered him. This, I think, was due to a variety of factors. For one thing, the first game just shouldn't count. Over the next two, it was clear that Chris was learning more about when to start expeditions, when to discard, and when to jump values. By the end of the night, I would say the thing he had the most problems with was discarding, as he probably didn't do it enough, preferring instead to just lay cards down and try to make the best of it. The negative points from unfunished expeditions really hurts. Another thing that contributed to my early success was drawing a copious quantity of high value cards. It's much easier to confidently lay down investment cards if you have a ten in your hand. The only drawback was one game in which almost my whole hand was 9s/10s of different colors, forcing me to play out expeditions that ended up being worth only 0-3 points. I had a lot of cards, and specifically a lot of valuable cards, on the table, but few expeditions that had investment cards/went over 20 points by much. The fourth game, Chris managed to win. He played well this game, and was really the beneficiary of one very strong turn, in which I struggled to get anything going and he had one very, very strong expedition. this basically won the game for him, as I won one hand and the other was very close.

We had been in the booth for a while, and had some fun watching the hip youngsters of the QC come in on their way to/from prom. All beverages had been consumed, so we headed back to the Lackey residence for sandwiches and further gaming.

Chris had played some Warmachine at a con in CA, and wanted to get a little more familiar with it. I had borrowed Jerod's Khador box, so that we could play two-player, so we sat down and went box-to-box, Cygnar/Khador.

This is a tough matchup, that I haven't played before. The Khador 'jacks have very high armor value, which means Cygnar pretty much has to use bonus damage focus to get through. They also have a longer range (14 inches) weapon, which means you have to get a little closer to them, and can't run-and-gun at all. We had OK games, but me failing to hit vs. a 5 on several occasions (5-6) really put things out of whack. Also, I think Sorsha's power is broken the way we played it, as it basically took away my whole turn. In the second game, it certainly took the game from being quite winnable for me, to having very, very little chance.

After two WM games, it was time to call it quits. We relaxed and talked for a while about games, writing, politics, and the world. After a half an hour or so, I went to sleep on the couch, with the kind of satisfaction that only a good talk with an old friend can provide.

Subbing at Tate, last Thursday and Friday

I subbed at the alternative High School in Iowa City last week, and had some strange lesson plans left for me. The teacher instructed me to have the students play Monopoly in each class.

I haven't played Monopoly in years. I re-read the rules, and realized that I had played with a variety of house rules that corrupted the game a little. We played with some of the fast-play rules, with each player starting off by buying two randomly dealt properties.

I don't have a lot to say about these games. A fifty minute class period is not nearly enough to get a good estimation of the winner of a game of Monopoly. There is a little more thought in this game than what I remembered from my childhood plays, but not much. The kids picked up pretty quickly, for the most part, on just aquiring property. It seemed like we barely got to the end of the early game in the time allotted. Few houses were purchased, nobody went bankrupt. Playing time alone will keep me from ever owning this game, unless I inherit one or something. With this particular group of kids, the games were certainly worthwhile, giving them practice being patient, taking turns, following rules, etc.. Not to mention counting money.

Friday afternoon is supposed to be physical education time. However, three of the teachers were missing for various reasons, so the school opted for inside activities, like movies, art projects, and the like. I ended up playing poker with one of the other subs and a group of kids.

I've never played a lot of poker. The only game I really have an idea about playing is hold 'em. This was basically a silly pastime, as we had limitless chips that were all the same denomination, and had a very limited amount of time to play. When everyone will play on almost every hand, you might as well just roll dice and see who gets high, low, whatever. We played dealer calls, and ended up with a funny variety of games/wild cards/etc.. The kids did learn some minor lessons about proper play, and about ettiquette, which, I suppose, is good.

I wish I could get more sub assignemnts that involved playing games, with the caveat that I would hope that those lessons would include better educational links between the game and the subject. It's hard to manage a class when they believe that what they are doing is a simple, nigh-pointless time-filler.

Warmachine League at Critical Hit

I got into Warmachine years ago when Privateer were showcasing the first, unboxed, boxed sets at GenCon. We (Eric O. and I) really liked the game when we tried it out with the quick start rules. Unfortunately, for a few years, there just weren't people nearby who were interested in the game (that I knew of), and I didn't have the energy to try to start a community. A few months ago, when Critical Hit opened, the game really exploded around here, as leaders of the 40k community, like Steve G. and Bill have gotten into it and promoted it. Bill started a league, and needed some players, and I couldn't turn him down. My first game was scheduled against Chris, and we decided to play tonight.

Not having spent much time with the game, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be very successful, as Chris plays fairly regularly. Also, I had decided to play just with the Cygnar boxed set, as that was what I had painted. Chris chose a Cryx force with a couple of pistol wraiths, Denegra, four little 'jacks, and this crazy guy who looks like he's floating and throwing a skull with some ethereal streamers behind it.

I won the die for terrain placement and table edge, and tried to keep the terrain balanced and minimal, as I figured I had slightly better guns than him (I think I was wrong), and I wanted the game to be over pretty quick, one way or the other. Chris won the roll for going first, and took that option. He just ran all his forces towards me.

I decided just to move my guys around a little bit, and take a shot with the one gun that could reach, and a spell, but didn't boost them and missed.

Chris took a shot with a wraith and missed. The skull guy cast a spell weakening the armor on my ironclad. One of his little guys channeled a spell that knocked down my lancer and stryker, and damaged them both.

I took the opportunity to whack the pistol wraith, and charged the skull guy with the ironclad, knocking him out of the back of the park. I cracked a disruptor shot on one of the little jacks. I made a couple huge mistakes here. First, I should have shot at a different 'jack with Stryker, before standing the lancer in front of him. Second, I forgot to move the lancer after standing him, which could have locked up two of the remaining 'jacks in melee combat, leaving me pretty free to mop up the other two and gain a significant advantage. Finally, I should have used my feet this round to make sure I'd get to the next turn, which would have been pretty decisive.

Chris ran his other wraith forward, into a good position for me to blast it next turn. While I was gleefully planning on what I would do, he hit me with the aoe spell again, rolling good damage, and then his last relevant 'jack waddled forward and finished me off with some high damage spit. A little anticlamactic, and very fast. I almost wanted to play again, but I wasn't really in the right headspace.

I enjoyed the game, and I certainly look forward to playing it again. I just hope it's against someone as personable as Chris. I'm a little sad that I just don't think I'll be able to paint enough stuff to have 500 points finished any time soon, even though I own the figs.

After the game, I sat around a little and watched some Magic. The weekly draft was going on, with twelve players. It looked like a pretty good time. I sort of miss the game.

GG, GL

Game Day at Chris & Edie's April 23rd

I messed up the time on this one, and arrived quite late, about 1:00 pm. Consequently, I missed out on Caylus, which, of course, sucks. On the positive side, I got some cleaning done and had a nice lunch.

When I got there, a big game of Bang! was going on. Eric had also arrived late, so we decided to play a quick two player while we waited for people to get gunned down. He pulled Battle Line off the shelf, and we sat down in the kitchen to take a look at it. Neither of us had played it before, so Kurt ducked the flying lead, ran in, and gave us a quick rundown of the rules.

BATTLE LINE
It took some time for me to settle on a strategy. This game felt a lot like Lost Cities to me, looking at these different colored/numbered cards, trying to make the best decision for the future with limited information. However, the addition of a direct confrontation aspect lent it an added edge and another dimension (I realize that could be read to mean the same thing, but I mean it the other way...). I drew first blood on the left flank, and took the second pawn on the right flank. So much for three in a row. I got the left flank with 1-2-3 of different colors, as Eric had started a hand with two twos there, and all the other twos were played. On the right, he started three of a kind with fives, and I countered with nines. I settled in to trying to leave myself multiple outs on hands whenever possible, and playing a waiting game, trying to wait for him to commit more cards to an area before I made a choice. I got a third pawn, Eric took a couple, and then I took a fourth and fifth for the win. Not very exciting on paper, but it was a pretty fun, tense game. A little more interaction than Lost Cities. I think it's interesting that each of us only drew one tactics card, and Eric never played his. Perhaps the game is supposed to get to a late game in which the tactics cards become very important, and we just skipped it. I'll have to read up on this game a bit.

EVO
The gunfight in the living room finally ended (to see who won you'll have to check Chris's geeklist), and we got some new games going. We (Chris, Mark, Gare, Erin, and myself) settled on Evo, while a group went to play card games in the other room. They ended up playing Blokus, too, and I think they got several games done in the time it took us to play Evo. I'd never played before, the only new player out of five, so Chris had to take the time to explain the game to me. Pretty simple, it seemed, except for the weird track for the meteor/changing climate, which really isn't that complex, just odd looking. I was a little worried, I generally have a tough time with my first play of any game with an auction element, as it seems I need some time to get a general sense of appropriate bidding in the system, and by the time I get it (if I ever do), it's often too late. First round I ended up passing on the bidding, sensing that people thought the bidding was getting high. I think I was just sensing a general vibe of gaming anxiety that a couple of the players give off normally, though. Right away, at the end of the first turn if you start with two or the second turn if you start with one dinosaur (I just know I had three), I got reduced to one dino by Gare's climate card. This put me in the whole quite heavily, as I was behind on mutations and victory points at that point. I bid heavily to get something on turn two, the mutant gene I think. The following turn, I bid hard on an egg to try to get my population going. I started getting some triceratops on the table, but I was way behind on vp's, and was going to need several turns to catch up. I got a few points ahead of Mark, but then the game ended on the first possible turn, leaving me in fourth. I don't know how much I could have caught up given a couple more turns. Maybe I had an outside chance at third, but first or second were way ahead of me. Chris ended up winning, with Erin in second and Gare in third. All the upgrades seemed good, but I think Chris's early egg paid off the most. I liked this game, it has several random elements, but a high fun factor, and it still leaves you with a lot of good decisions to make. I probably won't seek it out, but I'd definitely play again.

ST. PETERSBURG
We re-combined and split up again, and I ended up teaching St. Petersburg in the front room. I had three new players with me; Suke, James, and Chiara, the latter two being first-time Game Day attendees. Chiara and James lent some flavor to the discussion of the game, as the two of them had actually visited St. Pete, and were familiar with some of the buildings and history. We went over the rules and some basic strategy. As happens with many games, I think each person missed a little bit. I think it's pretty common for new players to underestimate the endgame Aristocrat scoring, and I told them as much. In the early game, there was a lot of spending on buildings. The Mistress of Ceremonies and Judge both came up, and I got to buy the Mistress, people passed the judge around, and he went to my hand, not to be played for three more turns. The next turn, there was only one worker, bought by Chiara who was in first position. I thought this would give her a big advantage over the course of the game, but she consistently spent money on buildings and didn't have enough to get more workers on the next turn. I built up a worker advantage, and soon had a huge money lead. I kept manipulating the aristocrat market looking for endgame scoring. Chiara's buildings started making her a big lead. We ended up ending pretty quickly on workers, and in the last turn I bought ten victory with pubs, and an aristocrat, and ended up passing Chiara by a long way in the endgame scoring with my 9 aristocrats. I thik everyone had fun, and would probably do a lot better on the second play. In the end, after me, it was Chiara, Suke, and James.

TICKET TO RIDE
Chiara and James had to leave, and a couple of new players showed up, so Suke and I went in to join Eric, Elaine, and Karen for Ticket to Ride. I ended up keeping LA-Miami and Miami-Boston. I spent a long time gathering train cars, and got to building. We had some congestion in Texas, but I got the routes I needed. Suke made me detour on the East Coast, around Charleston. Eric had a lead, but I was right behind him, and I probably had longest route. We both had two tickets. I figured my tickets were better, but I got a little worried, for some reason, about the six tickets that Elaine was holding, so I took more tickets. Looking at the tickets, there were two I could complete. In fact, I had just enough trains to finish them both (13), and everyone else had more trains than me. Everyone, that is, except Eric, who had 12. I should have actually counted the trains and the number of cards in his hand before I made my decision, but I didn't, so oh well. I considered for a moment and thought, no guts, no glory, and kept both of the tickets. On the subsequent three turns, Eric claimed five route, five route (triggering the endgame), and two route. This left me one turn short of completing either ticket (I had spent the first turn taking a locomotive, the last card I needed to complete both tickets), so I claimed a six route on my last turn. In the final scoring, I had longest route, plus 32 and minus 26 tickets. Eric only had like plus 12 tickets, and he ended up winning by two points. There were so many scenarios under which I could have won with a different decision, it was comical. Another message on paying attention to the whole board... The other three were quite a way behind, and finished in this order: Elaine, Suke/Karen (tie).

ZENDO
It was getting a little late, and most people had left. We sat down for a couple rounds of Zendo to round out the night. I had played a couple turns of this before, but not a "serious" game. It was Eric, Chris, Elaine, Karen, and myself. The many dimensions of possible solutions for each rule in this game can lead to some comical conversation, as people become frustrated trying to guess and build their own koans. This was fun, and really an eye-opener, as I was surprised every few turns by something I hadn't considered. A couple times, I think each of us did it in some way, people built koans or asked questions that they could already have known the answer to. Chris, Eric, and Karen each won a round, and we called it a night.

The night ended up, as the last Game Day did, with Chris, Eric, and myself sitting around chatting about gaming for a while. We had a talk about Magic, and playing draft formats, so I think I might get some packs and try to teach some people to draft over there one of these days. The big problem with this, I guess, is that it takes a while to play out a tournament, but I suppose we could play a multiplater variant or something. Maybe 3v3 team draft.

I drove home quite satisfied. Although I didn't play as many new games this time as last (2 as opposed to 7), and I played fewer games, I think I enjoyed the games more today, as I didn't have time to really get tired out. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it to the next one.

GG, GL

You know, I posted the tourney report today, didn't think it took, and so I rewrote it. I'm such a moron. Well, now you can compare the two versions and see how my memory held up...

M:tG - Dissension Prerelease, Des Moines, April 22nd

I still really enjoy playing Magic, at least the limited formats, and I particularly like prereleases, with their combination of newness, casualness, and a sprinkling of the competitiveness that really is one of Magic's unique contributions to the gaming community. That said, I make it to very few of them, as life just keeps getting in the way the last few years. I had a semi-free day this Saturday, though, so I decided to motor West to the capitol and turn some cards sideways.

It all really started, I suppose, with meeting Az for dinner on Friday night while he was on his way out to judge at the event. I was late getting out of the double-overtime, penalty-shootout ending soccer game I was coaching, and I sped across Western Johnson County to meet the spiky Chicagoan at Critical Hit. Lacking appropriate imagination, and, of course, time (Az had to be at the midnight prerelease event), we just ran over to Perkins. I had a fat, fat meal, and Az ate a salad, as some sort of preparation for the impending inherent unhealthiness of a weekend of gaming. We had a nice talk about gaming, old friends, music, and the like. He filled me in on some of the new mechanics, and really convinced me I should go.

I got up a little late on Saturday and waddled out the door. I picked up a giant coffee and some new cheap sunglasses, and hit the road. After an uneventful hour and a half or so of driving, I somehow managed to mess it all up at the penultimate turn, missing my exit off of 235. I took the next exit and drove around downtown for 15 minutes until I suddenly found myself right in front of the place. One nice thing about downtown DM is that it's totally dead on weekends and there's free street parking all over the place. Of course, the flipside of this is that there aren't a lot of convenient food options around, which sux.

It was around new, but, as I said, there was no immediate chance for fuel, so I just went to check out the tourney site. I chatted with Dr. Dan and Dave W. who were running things at the time, and I think I managed to convince Kyle M. that he had mumps. I signed up for the next sealed deck flight, and sat down to chat with Scott Lewis and Brian Lord, the other two Iowa Citians (not conting ponytail Eric, I just don't know about that guy) in attendance. Scott and I reminisced, of course, about the classic Iguana's-run Mirage prerelease in the big tent at city park, which we both top 8'd, before we even knew each other. I got second in that event, btw, to a young guy from Madison who td'ed a land to torch me out.

Finally, our flight was called. I registered a pile of cards that looked to me like a bit of a sealed deck nightmare, with good rares and removal in red/white/black, but the majority of good creatures in blue/green. After all the deck registering and passing around, I, of course, ended up getting the stuff back.

I went blue/green with one white card, a plains, and two signets. My white card was Plumes of Peace, a uw1 enchantment that you can forecast for uw to tap a dude during your upkeep. It seemed usefull, but, then again, when I read it first I was in a bit of a hurry and missed the end, the part about only using it during your upkeep. It was still good. I was short on removal, but had a solid creature base. I expected that I had an outside chance at prizes, but would probably be joining a draft early.

Round 1: I played a Grinnell student, big guy with long blonde hair. Not sure of his name. He was playing the same colors as me, but with more white.

I won the roll and chose to play first. I mulled a six land hand, he mulled too. I succumbed to a moment of madness and kept a one land hand. I ended up having to discard a couple times, but he didn't put any pressure on me, so I had time to, eventually, get stuff down. He didn't play anything until turn five, I think, and even then it wasn't a dude. He made an enchantment that sat on a land and made it so that you could tap the land and two other mana to make a 2/2 flyer. Instead of getting an army built up, he decided to use this guy to chump block one of my bigger flyers each turn. The game drew on, because both of us were new to the cards and neither of us was drawing any breakthrough stuff. He got a card drawing engine down, and I considered conceding, but I had a couple flyers, so I put him to five and passed the turn. I figured I could kill him in two turns, if I played right, or maybe deck him with my Enigma Eidolon, if it came down to it. However, he came up with a hard lock, with a guy that bounced a dude to the top of my deck, plus an enchantment that would bounce his guy each turn. I alpha'd into him, hoping to draw into an answer that would let me squeak through the last couple points, I didn't, died, and then was informed by the judge that time had already been called, the round was over, there'd be no second game. It was irritating as, if I'd known, of course I wouldn't have attacked and it would have been a draw. As it was, I resolved to pay more attention.

Round 2: I played an older guy named Kurt who also had the same colors as me, but with more white.

Game one he got a slow start, discarded a couple times, and I rolled him.

Game two he got a slow start, discarded, managed to get some stuff down, drew about seven extra cards, but couldn't keep up with my flying fat, and eventually went down.

Round 3: I played a guy whose name I don't remember, but who apparently is one of Ponytail Eric's friends. Eric further endeared himself to me by starting the match off saying to his friend "don't trust him, he's an Iowa City player." This sort of thing falls, for me, into the realm of things people meant to be clever and funny but actually are kind of irritating, making it the second such comment from the same source that day.

Game one - This guy seemed to have pretty much the same cards as me, except, of course, that I was playing the awesome Drift of Phantasms. Well, actually, it's not awesome, but it does let you transmute for Moldervine cloack which, actually, is. I cloaked up a team member and finished him off.

Game two - This went sort of like game one. I got a faster start and got him down on life. This game had the best turn of the day. My team got big enough to kill him, and I alpha'd. He responded by playing a spell that let his flyer block any number of characters, and then played Gaze of the Gorgon, killing all my guys and regenerating his. He stabilized the board and played the enchantment that lets him tap a dude to tap one of mine (Glare of Subdual?). He had one more dude than me, including a couple of non-tapping flying weenies, so he had the board stabilized and was doing me a couple damage a turn. I drew and played a 3/3 that can be untapped for a blue mana. Turns went round again, he attacked me and I declined to block, figuring some trick. On his turn, he tapped my whole team, subsequently turning his whole squad sideways. I tapped a blue, thinking he must have some response. When he realized my guy could untap he groaned and extended the hand.

Round four: I got paired with Scott this round, and figured I was out, as he is a very good player and had a bit more exciting of a deck than me. He was black/red/white with a healthy dose of removal.

Game one: I think he made a little mistake early, and I rolled over him with a combination of flyers and creature superiority vs. his poor mana draw.

Game two: He smashed me with a flying pumpable dragon dude and a bunch of removal.

Game three: He had a cool fat legend guy, and an irritating protection from monocolored guy, and then the fat flying guy. I was able to sneak damage through with Plumes of Peace, and got him down to where he had to chump block, and eventually I just got to run him over. Kind of anticlimactically bad in the draw department for him, I believe.

At this point, they decided to shorten the tournament to five rounds because so many people had dropped. That meant I got a prize if I tied or won.

Round 5: I played a guy named Jason. I don't know where he was from. He was black/red/white also.

Game one: He won the toss and started with some little gold dudes. I got bigger dudes and beat him down.

Game two: Like game one, but with a little more action on his part, bringing people back from the graveyard and such.

So, I finished 4-1, good for 18 packs of the new set. Hopefully, I'll convert them into 6 draft sets and have some more fun.

Overall, I had a fun time. It was nice to see Dave and Dan. I'm a little disappointed Barratt didn't make it down before I left. I hope I see him again before we move. I liked the forecast mechanic a lot, as it gives spells an interesting multifunctionality. I also liked graft a lot. I had three of them, including the flying and regenerating guys, and they were great. I didn't play any hellbent cards, and it only came up in one game, but I think it will have an impact on constructed. I'd have a hard time picking an mvp. Coiling Oracle was very good every time. Elvish Skysweeper did a surprising amount of work. Simic Ragworm won me a game. Trygon predator killed a couple important artifacts. Really, I probably did the most damage over the course of the day with Assault Zeppelid, which is also very nicely named.

By the time we got done, there were no more drafts being done. I chatted with Brian W. while I waited for my prize, and then got an early start home. Really, I was pretty happy to be on my way, so that I knew I'd be fairly sharp for Chris and Edie's game day on Sunday.

So, you've got that to look forward to, dear reader!

GG, GL

MtG - Dissension Prerelease, Des Moines, April 22nd

I haven't been able to make it to a prerelease for some time, due to scheduling conflicts. I had a free day on Saturday so, even though I have a lot of other, more important things I could be doing, I decided to make the drive out to the capitol to play some cards. I've always liked prereleases, with the high casualness quotient and the new cards to see. I'm a little disappointed not to have been able to play more in this block, as it looks like a fun set. I wish I could say that this was the start of me spending more time playing MtG, but I don't see the time opening up any time soon...

I missed my exit - I think the sign might have been down due to construction, or, maybe, I just spaced it. After the two hour solo drive, I wasn't at my most focussed. After meandering around the general area for fifteen minutes, I finally found the sight. I walked in around noon, leaving behind a bright, sunny spring day for a stuffy convention center room full of gamers. Aah, life! Dr. Dan and Dave Williamson were there running operations. Barratt was still in St. Louis. Kyle Mechler was judging. Other than them, I saw very few people I knew, and spent most of the time leading up to the tournament chatting with Scott Lewis and Brian Lord from Iowa City.

We sat down to register decks, and, again, I didn't know anyone sitting around me. The deck I registered was really light on removal, and had it's good cards spread across all five colors. It didn't look very good to me. Of course, after the deck passing was over, I ended up getting it back.

My good rares were in red/black/white, but the creatures were blue/green. I ended up with a mostly blue/green deck splashing white (1 plains, 2 signets) for a single card, a u/w/1 enchantment that won't let a creature untap, that can forecast to tap a creature during your upkeep. I misread it, thinking I could play it at instant speed, but it was still a good card, and it never came out. Overall, the deck was probably three cards short of being actually good (1 more good creature and a couple removal spells).

I didn't take any notes, so we'll see what I can remember...

First round - I played a guy from Grinnell, a big, twenty-something fella with long blond hair. I think, maybe, his name was John. He was playing the same colors as me, but with a little more white.

I won the roll, and chose to play. I mulled a six land hand, into a one land hand, and, in a moment of post-two hour drive madness, I kept it. We both had slow starts, I had to discard once, I think, but he wasn't able to put any pressure on me, not playing anything until turn five, when he put down an enchant land card that lets him spend two mana and tap to make a 2/2 flyer. We both started to get creatures on the table, and things were looking pretty even. I got a 3/3 flyer, and started to attack. Instead of letting it through and building up his flying army, he chump blocked it repeatedly. I was squeaking damage through, though, and whittled away at his life total. He got out a card drawing combo (an aura and an untappable creature), and started to get card advantage. With the way he was playing, I thought I would have him in two turns, and had a backup option to try to deck him with my eidolon. I actually considered conceding earlier, to get to game two, but I figured I had two outs, and didn't want to risk another bad draw. However, the next turn he drew into a hard lock, with a guy that puts a creature on the top of your deck when he comes into play, and an enchantment that returns the creature and itself at beginning of upkeep. I thought I had an out to topdeck into, so I alpha'd, killing all my guys, leaving him at 5. I didn't make the topdeck, and he finished me next turn. When I asked how much time was left, the judge said, "oh, time was called a couple minutes ago, didn't you know?" Well, if I would have been paying attention, it would have been a draw, but... This put me in mind to pay a little more attention to what I was doing.

Round 2: This guys name was Kurt. He seemed a little serious, and didn't really talk during the match. He also had the same colors as me. These weren't much, as games go. Kurt didn't draw enough mana, discarded in both games, and I ran him over. First game was no contest. Second game, he got out a 4/5 guy that lets you draw a card every time you play a creature. He probably drew 7 extra cards, but he couldn't find an answer for my flyers.

Round 3: I can't remember the name of this opponent. I'm not sure where he was from, but he was friends with ponytail Eric who plays at Critical Hit in Coralville. Eric annoyed me a little when he opened the match with the following comment to my opponent: "He's an Iowa City player, don't trust him." For me, this fell into the realm of things people say that are supposed to be funny, but are only actually humorous in some alternate, bizarro reality. It was the second such comment he had made to me that day, out of two conversational attempts. Again, he was playing the same colors as me, and had many of the same cards.

I didn't get much out of these games. The first game was just creatures versus creatures, and mine were better. Oh, I tutored for Moldervine Cloak, which was a bonus. The second game, I got a lot of early beats in, putting him down to three, then he dropped Glare of Subdual. We had an even number of creatures, and he had two weenie flyers that could attack without tapping. He had the board stabilized, but I had drawn into a 3/3 that I could untap for a blue. On my turn, he tapped down my whole team, tapping his squad in the process. That left me only having to tap a blue to end the game, summoning a groan of personal dissatisfaction from the opponent, and chastisement from Eric. What are friends for?

Round 4: At 2-1, I was hoping for another mediocre pairing, but I ended up getting placed against Scott Lewis this round. Scott had red/black/white, and his deck, I think, was a lot more exciting than mine (lots of removal, big pumpable flying dragon guy, etc..). I figured this round would send me home.

Game one, Scott made a mistake early, I got some fat on the board, he neutralized some of it, I got some more, I won. Game two, he popped down a fat flying pumpable guy, killed all my stuff and tore me in half. Game three, he dropped a protection from monocolored guy, a fat legend, and the flying pumpable dragon guy, and things didn't look so hot.. I had gotten some damage through, though, and the forecast tap gold spell came in handy here. I drew into a gold creature, moldervine cloak, and a flyer or two and finished him off.

Round 5: I was paired with a younger guy named Jason. Don't know where he was from. We didn't chat much. He didn't ask for a prize split, so I figured his deck was pretty good. He was red black. Red black really seemed it could be scary with the format, as there is a removal seal in each color, and we opened three packs... I was worried, but, it turned out, needlessly, as I rolled him in two, despite his removal and return dudes from the graveyard spells.

So, I finished 4-1, and won 18 packs. Hopefully I'll be able to do some drafting with them. There were no more drafts being done that night, so I chatted with Brian Woerth and Azrael a little, and then got an "early" start home, around 8:30. It was kind of nice to do so, as I knew I wanted to be sharp for Chris & Edie's game day on Sunday.

My overall impressions of the set were positive. It rounds out the color combination guilds for the block, and should make limited play more fun. From what I saw, u/g had great creatures, and b/r had great removal and some interesting creatures. I didn't see much of u/w. Forecast is an interesting mechanic, like limited buyback, but also making the spells multi-functional. Hellbent only came into play once all day, but might have an interesting impact on constructed. Other than that, I was excited to get one of the cards my friend Fred Hooper illustrated. It's his first set doing Magic, and it's nice to see his name on the cards.

GG, GL

Saturday in the Quad Cities

Saturday morning came with the promise of a cruise West on I80 to Kristin's wedding shower, held by my sisters. While they were playing assorted games and piling awesome gifts around her, several of the male members of the family and myself enjoyed the fruits of the steak grilling talents of my father. Post-parties, Kristin and I made arrangements to head down to Dave B's, in Moline, for an evening of fun.

I had brought along Arkham Horror, as well as a variety of other games. By the time we could get going, it was a little late for AH, and Dave and Kris were anxious to play Puerto Rico, which I had shown them how to play last visit. We went over the rules with Grahm and got the plantations going.

I was in seat two, behind Kris. He settled for quarry and I took coffee (no corn in the mix, either). On my turn I built for Indigo plant. Dave mayored, and Grahm dug for gold. Things went pretty smoothly from there. Dave had some early success with sugar, and ramped up into a factory. In the mid game, Grahm had a hard time working out what to build. I picked up coffee roaster, warf, and harbor. I also grabbed 3 corn plantations. I sold some coffee, then got a good captain phase and started a coffee boat, which I took advantage of for 3 phases, being the only one in coffee.

I built, I think, about half as much as I normally do. I did end up with the vp chips big building, which paid off well. It is the first time I've ever been really successful with a serious focus on shipping. It's also the first time I've managed to get both the harbor and warf. I definitely benifited from good luck regarding the available plantations, as well as the timing of the captain's phases. I won with 54 points, and Dave finished in second, with a respectable 44 points. A couple different decisions for him, and it would have been at least 4 or 5 points closer. Kris took the middle slot, and Grahm finished with 35, a decent play his first time out. Everyone liked the game, and I'm sure we'll get to it again. This session of PR was really a breath of fresh air for me, as everyone was friendly, relaxed, and chatting the whole time. Certainly one of the better plays of this game for me.

We sat around a little and chatted about game strategy, and whether or not to play another game. We had a little time, and Dave and Grahm were game, so we opened up Through the Desert. TtD is a lot shorter and easy to play/explain. Unfortunately, perhaps due to the late hour, and/or the mead, Dave misunderstood the largest caravan rule, thinking there was just one 10 point award for the single largest, not one for each color. Had he understood this correctly, the game probably would have gone another 2 turns and ended up a little different. As it was, we certainly had fun, and finished in 45 minutes, including setup and explanation.

The opening camel placement went smoothly, and I thought everyone made good choices. We all started off gathering the watering hole vp chips, and transitioned into building areas. I ended up working hard to get three small areas, while Dave got one big one, and Grahm got a couple at medium size. I think I probably ended up fighting slightly the wrong battles, as I lost out on a few vp chips to build small areas. Part of this, though, was at the expense of one of the plays Dave made due to his misunderstanding of the rules, which only came up later. There was a lot of quick play, with it being far too late to overanalyze. In the end, Grahm had the biggest for two caravans, as did I, and Dave had one. Dave ended the game thinking he was the only one who would get a bonus. Once the scoring started, none of us wanted to go back, though. Grahm ended up in first with 85, and I got second with 84. Dave was a little behind that, in the mid 70s.

This was another enjoyable play of this game. Dave said he preferred several of the other games I'd brought over, noting that he particularly enjoyed Ingenious a little better and felt it filled about the same niche. Grahm pointed out that TtD is a great, somewhat light game, that served perfectly as a closer for an evening game session.

With that, it was around 1 AM, so we hopped in the car and headed off to bed.

GG, GL

Monday night Tikal at Critical Hit

With the advent of nice weather, my weeknights are getting tied up with soccer. I've decided to try to squeeze a game in on Mondays, when I can, although it seems it might be hard to get players.

This Monday, I brought Tikal down to the shop, hoping to find Tim and Jerod, and maybe another player. Tim wasn't available, but Jerod agreed to try out a two player game.

I've only played Tikal once, with four players, and the optional tile auction rule. I think this game suffers a little from downtime between turns, with players having so many points to use/decisions to make. The auction rule, although adding strategic thinking, certainly enhances the feeling of downtime and lengthens the game considerably. I decided to play the basic rules, getting a feel for the game as, apparently, the designers initially intended it.

This game was certainly affected by tile draw. I drew most of the treasure tiles, and was able to get a massive treasure advantage over the course of the game which would have made it hard for Jerod to win under otherwise optimal circumstances. As it was, with both of us inexperienced (he had never played at all before), things were decidedly sub-optimal for him, and I finished quite a ways ahead.

I learned a bit from this initial play. The foremost thing that I learned is that, in 2-player games at least, the number of available workers becomes huge in the late game. Jerod and I had big control fights over big temples in the beginning of the game. I ended up spending my leader and five workers to get the 10 temple (before the first scoring phase!). I also got the 9, for just one worker. This probably would have totally wrecked me in the late game, but for the 7 and 8 that he guarded, Jerod spent his leader and only 2 less workers than me, total, also fairly early in the game. As the game stretched out, so did my lead. As the tiles came out, though, I could see how, if he had more workers remaining, scoring opportunities would really have blossomed for him. As it was, he got a bit of a lead on the number of controlled temples, but my massive treasure lead was more than enough to keep me ahead.

GG, GL

Last Sunday at Critical Hit

No AGOT today, as there were tournaments the night before to honor Lucas Reed's departure for Minnesota and his job at FFG. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend these events due to a scheduling conflict with a wedding held in Des Moines. Good luck Luke!

Well, I didn't think there would be any gaming today, but Dan decided to put together a five player Puerto Rico game. I made it over to the store just in time, and then we discussed various ways of trying to mystically make Dan show up, like starting another game. In the end, we called him, and he showed up a little bit later.

It was Dan, Drew, Jerod, Tim, and myself. We rolled off for starting position, and randomized seating. I found myself seated to the left of Jerod, the second-least experienced player in the group (to Drew). I suppose this had an effect on the game, but I frankly didn't notice it.

I was determined to play a little differently than I have in recent games of Puerto Rico (although we haven't played in a while), as I felt I had been a bit repetitive in my choices. This may also have been due to me having a bit of a frustrating day, with my soccer league game being cancelled, and not that many players showing up for (optional) practice for the hs team that I coach. Whatever the reason, I was feeling a little burnt, and I think my play reflected that.

So, this ended up feeling a lot like my initial plays of this game. I tried to develop a plan, make decisions, and play accordingly, but ended up feeling like a spectator. It seemed I was watching the game go by, as though pulled downstream, with not much I could do to alter it. I felt Tim had a very good start in the five seat, getting a decent amount of corn and then moving straight into tobacco for which he had multiple plantations fairly quickly. He also had some early shipping rounds for the corn for which he was the only one who really made points, giving him a nice early lead. Jerod waffled on indigo/sugar and went into coffee. I tried to go with sugar, and then tobacco, and even got into coffee. Drew went heavy sugar, and then indigo, if I recall correctly. Dan got a lot of corn, and also got into tobacco.

I was having trouble making anything work, getting frozen out of the trading house (I kept the wrong good after captain phase at least twice, coffee when I should have kept sugar as coffee was the lone good in the TH), and also out of shipping, as people in front of me started boats I couldn't contribute to and filled boats I could. I did manage a few shipping vp's. I tried to diversify, and went into a factory, but got it a little (probably a round) too late. I didn't make enough money for a big building until they were all gone (Jerod ended up buying two), and went with a harbor, which was at least a turn too late.

I spent the last several turns of this game just sort of taking roles and playing it out, as it was clear to me fairly early that I didn't have a chance. This is one of the things I don't really like about Puerto Rico - you can be functionally out of a game at a certain point, but you can't just concede and get it over with, as your involvement is necessary for the other players to continue. This leads to players at times having sessions in which they are fairly miserable for several turns as they watch it all finish up.

So, I was a little on autopilot as I coasted through the final turns, watching people pick up big buildings, watching Dan ship corn hoping to catch up with Tim, watching Tim and Dan reap the benefits of other people crafting, etc.. When Dan finally forced the end by taking the mayor role (I'm not sure how he calculated that it was the right time to end the game, perhaps he'll comment), I didn't even bother to calculate my vps (I had a little over 30), and I went to get food. So, I'm not sure how it all shook out. I do know that Tim won, by what Jerod called "a lot." I'm sure Dan got 2nd. Jerod only had 7 shipping vps, but I would guess he got 3rd as he had two big buildings. Drew and I were somewhere behind that, I suppose. I should have been last, I expect.

This game certainly reinforced the lesson I took from my first ever game of PR, that the diversification strategy doesn't really work (at least for my play style). This strategy might have worked a bit better if the trading had gone a bit differently, but, in general, it limits your shipping vps and requires you to spend more money on extra processing buildings. This session also contributed to me accepting that quarries are not that necessary, as two players built three and didn't make the best use of them, and the player who won didn't have a single quarry. It seems to me that the quarry you can pick up from your first chance at the settler role as one of the first players should be adequate, and that using a construction hut to get extras in the late position can cripple your money development early, as you lose building money and plantations that would otherwise make you money down the road. I'm not saying that the CH is worthless - there are probably justifications for taking it if you are one of the late players, to try to have a quarry earlier, to make it more worthwhile, but that probably just balances on the money you spend on the CH. By the time you build it, and man it, a couple building phases will probably have gone by, somewhat reducing the value of the extra quarries you get, especially the third, if you happen to take a third.

We talked about getting another game of PR going, as Jerod really wanted to play, but I wasn't really up for it, Drew left, and then Dan left as well. Jerod and Tim occupied themselves with some AGOT league play, and I took off shortly after their game.

I feel a little burnt out on PR, and I was interested reading Chris Farrell's comments about the game on his geeklist of overrated games. PR certainly deserves to be one of the highest rated games, but it does have it's problems. It's packed full of strategic decision making, it's pretty easy to learn, and it plays fairly quickly. However, it can be hard for people to actually have fun, I think, with all that thinking. Also, the game is prone to something that Chris calls the "post game recriminations phase," which is when players obsessed with "proper play" deride others for their "incorrect" choices which "corrupt" the game. As Chris mentions, this recrimination tends to creep forward into the game as players get more plays in. If you have a player that decides to obsess over this idea, having fun playing this game can get even harder.

As much as I can say that I'm burnt out, I would actually like to play this game with a different group. It would be interesting to compare the experiences.

GG, GL

Last Thursday at Critical Hit

I had planned on playing soccer last Thursday night, but it was wet out, so, I decided to play games instead (there goes Mother Nature, twisting my arm again...). I ended up getting in touch with Tim and going over to Critical Hit. I started setting up the game, and, lo and behold, in walked Dan and Drew, with Eric following not far behind.

I've been sitting on my copy of Lunatix Loop for a couple of weeks, since it came in the mail. I've really wanted to get a session going, as I haven't played the game since it's early incarnations when I was in college in DeKalb. It seemed like it needed certain ingredients, though; a fairly decent period of time to play in, a group of willing gamers (at least 4), and the right mood. Thankfully, Thursday ended up providing all those things (incidentally, it's taken me a while to post this because I wrote a session report for boardgamegeek first, but that still hasn't been published).

We sat down to play, and I ended up with the green car. We used the rules that came with the box, although the designer, Matt Leacock, had provided me with updated rules. I just wanted to get a play in with the old stuff, so I could see how things changed. We used no optional rules. In the first turn, ramming was a popular choice, and people in front of me ping-ponged off each other a little bit, with Dan intuitively hitting the brakes to get behind everyone. I accelerated out of the back into the lead. This made me a nice target for subsequent ramming...

Turn two, the ramming continued, with me bearing the proverbial brunt. The pack was fairly tight as we squealed into the final turn of the first lap, but I had to pit as I'd taken a lot of damage and couldn't risk another lap. By the time I came out, I was well behind and Tim was pulling into the lead.

People continued to ram each other, and began to explore the joy of dropping various items (glue, oil, tacks) onto the track. This made maneuvering a little sticky. Everyone pitted on lap two except me, and so I caught up with Tim a little, putting me second going into lap three.

Dan got out of the pit, but Eric got stuck there when he turned the turbo on, only to find the tank contained only fumes (click!). Drew was stuck behind him, but used the second exit to come out going the wrong way, hoping to head-on ram Tim or whoever as we came around the last curve. Tim had taken a little damage, and I was going pretty fast (100 mph). I pushed it out of the first curve, through some oil, into the second curve, and pulled the lunacy hazard that makes my next turn's action random. Only one of the five pulls was bad for me, so I decided to keep it, even though I had plenty of damage to go, and two luck chips. Basically, I just thought to myself, it might be the wrong thing to do, but it's certainly more fun if I keep it! Of course, on my turn I drew the card I didn't want (u-turn) and I ended up doing an Immelman on the track, drawing several hazard cards, and ended up facing the wrong way going zero mph. This effectively took me out of the race.

So, I accelerated, hoping to come up behind Drew and add to the pessimistic head-on ramfest. Dan gave valiant chase behind Tim, perhaps hoping to benefit from our possible ramming. Tim coolly rounded the last corner, and utilized his jump jets with style, hopping over obstacles and opponents to cross the finish line. We decided to call it there rather than play out the places.

In the end, it was a really fun game. We had a serious laugh when I was forced into my u-turn. People had a good time wrecking others and navigating the track. If anything, we felt the game wasn't dangerous enough, and would like to see fewer non-negative results in the hazard deck. I look forward to the next session of this.

After Loop, we didn't have a whole lot of time, but a few of us wanted to play another game. I had Through the Desert, but the voting went against me, and we ended up hunting and gathering, Carcassonne style.

It was Dan, Tim, Drew, and myself for this game, as Eric had to leave. The game started a little rough, as nobody seemed able to draw tiles that really went together very well. A general feeling I've had with H&G in the past is that due to the tile distribution the game often seems cramped, as though things are always pressuring each other, and it seems very hard to draw tiles you "need." Dan got out to a bit of a lead, and it seemed he would be hard to catch. He pulled some big fish bonus tiles, but never got to build a hut on them. We all built shacks on river systems in the bottom right of the board, only to have them all tie in and basically nullify the points. Dan and I put down some decent sized hunters. I had several (like 9) turns to tie my ultimate control standing stone bonus tile into his big hunting ground, but it was not to be. Instead, on the last turn, he drew a tile to tie into my other hunting area. He ended up with a ton of ponts. I think I finished in third behind Tim.

That was it for the night, and we all took off, just as I should now. Boy am I tired.

GG, GL

Sunday AGOT etc.

Sunday should have been a day for me to get some important things done. Kristin and I just sat down and made a big list of things to do to get ready for the wedding and the move. The big thing I have on my agenda right now is getting my teaching license transferred to North Carolina and looking for a job. Instead of getting anything done, though, we went to Hu Hot for lunch, and then I headed over to Critical Hit, laptop in tow, with the intention of getting some work done there before AGOT.

I managed to browse the Praxis test website and check out test dates. I have to admit, I'm a little underinformed about this test and exactly what I have to do, and I have a lot of reading to do. I'm also a little worried - I've always done well on standardized tests, but I haven't taken one in years!

AGOT regionals are coming up, and Jerod and I sat down to schedule the store's events leading up to, and just past, regionals. I entered the tournaments, along with the results for some tournaments Jerod had run. Before I knew it, the afternoon was gone and it was almost time to draft.

I squeazed in a game of Lost Cities with Dan. He had just gotten done with a game of Ticket to Ride with Tom, Nick, Tim, and Gigi, which Gigi won. It looked like everyone had a really good time, which is normal for TtR, and I should have asked Gigi about her strategy. My game with Dan went to form with all my games so far, until the last round. I won the first two rounds, although they were close. Then, Dan started too many expeditions in the third round, and, even though I didn't score that many points, he had two negative expeditions and couldn't keep up. Lost Cities seems to be sort of two-player, but sort of solitaire. I think to be happy playing, one has to really just judge one's own situational decision making. You can make very good decisions in a bad, or neutral situation, and still end up getting wrecked by the draw. LC can certainly frustrate people, if they let it.

Six o'clock rolled around and we had 6 to draft. Myself, Jeremiah, Tim, Steve, John, and Tom sat down at the table with our packs. My first pack was terribly disappointing, with nothing really exciting in it. I ended up with a playable two-cost Martell character, which ended up being out-of-house for me, and I didn't even put it in the deck. I took a couple neutral characters after that, and then went into Targ when a Dothraki Sea was passed my way 5th or sixth. Overall, the first pack was not good, and I ended up with nothing exciting. The second pack was a little better, but still didn't give me much other than a festering wound, which ended up being my only removal. Pack three I dipped into Lannister for an eternal guy and a kneeler, and some late-pick events. Fourth pack gave me serious Lannister cards, including a 11th pick kneeler, and solidified my deck. This was an odd draft in that I couldn't pin down a house, mainly due to the packs. I started out with Martell, and really didn't know I was going to Lannister until the last pack. In the end, I had a decent set of creature, my curve was ok, and I had decent, if unexciting non-setup cards rounding everything out.

Round 1: Steve. Steve had Martell and Stark, I think. He had an early student, which I festered, and a lancer, which was a pain while he was drawing cards. He had a good turn with his claim two Stark plot, getting through two intrigue challenges. I stabilized the board with some timely kneeling effects, and started coming through with fat military to thin out his team, and, eventually, he couldn't keep up and I got the game.

Round 2: Tom. Tom was piloting Stark as well, although he had a lot of Greyjoy. He probably should have played a second house card, but thought he was playing enough gold production to use only one. He got a slow start, putting out one big guy a turn. However, I was able to get by with stealth and kneeling, and he could never build up a substantial force. Eventually, I overwhelmed him for the win.

Round 3: Tim. Tim had Martell Targ. Tim is an excellent gamer, mostly playing MtG and boardgames. Recently, we talked him into an AGOT draft, and he's developed his skills quickly. Like any competitive gamer, he's been driven to improve his play, and it shows. Tim had a bit of a slow start, like Tom, with a big fattie and few locations. This trend held up into the midgame, with Tim's ability to play out of hand limited every turn. I wasn't able to keep pressure on, though, as I wasn't drawing a good spread of icons, or very large men, and the game stayed pretty even. With limited resources and tough board position, each of us had a lot of hard decisions to make and the game moved slowly. We were still in a pretty stable board state, each with about 10 power, when time was called. Neither of us could win, so we called it a draw.

I ended up winning on strength of schedule, thanks to Steve's win over Jeremiah in the last round, and I took home the Red Viper, which was really the only strong rare in our pool.

It should be an exciting month or two for the game, and I'm looking forward to it.

GG, GL

Big game Saturday

After acquiring a bunch of games last week, this week was a bit of a gaming week off, as I worked through a cold. I have a bunch of big, long games that I've been wanting to play, and I've made the decision to try to set aside two weekend days a month to get some of them played in the next few weeks. I'm shooting for Shogun, Warrior Knights, and Lunatix Loop, in the upcoming time period.

I had Saturday completely open, so I called out to Dan and Tim to see what was up. We decided that we would meet at Dan's at 5 or so for History of the World. In the early afternoon, Tim and I got together at the store. Tim, Jerod, and I decided to unshrink my new copy of Through the Desert.

TtD is a fun, fast game, and it's odd how it bogs down as the store owner takes extended absences to work with customers... all the same, it played great, and we had a relaxed afternoon of chatting with each other and other customers. In the initial setup, we had a couple of like-colored camels get placed a little too close to each other. Tim and I also let Jerod have a easy access to a pretty large area in the middle. Tim went for the first edge area, with Jerod moving over to contain him. As that happened, I went for my own edge area on the other side. My purple camel got blocked off, and I started focussing on an alternative plan accross the board, using my pink camel to secure another edge area. Meanwhile, Jerod had managed to cordone off an uncontestable area in the middle, and set about circling it up. He underestimated the number of camels available, though, and ended up making his area 3-4 spaces smaller than it could have been. Tim got into a frustrating situation in which his caravans had mostly been cut off while he was building his edge area. He expanded a couple a little bit, and then managed to extend his pink caravan a long way because I miscalculated and didn't think I needed to cut him off. Everyone pretty much ran out of expansion possibility, and we limped into the endgame a little. Jerod had 2 longest caravans, and Tim and I each had 1.5. In the end, I edged it over Jerod by only a few points, making him rue not having gone for the bigger area.

After TtD, Tim and I broke out Lost Cities. This was each of our first time really playing the game. It's simple and fast, and really engages the two player tension. There's plenty of hidden information, and it's hard to know if things you discard will help your opponent. I won the first couple round by twenty some points each time, but then in the third round Tim managed a really big expedition and caught up, edging my by 4 points, I think. This was entertaining and fun, and playing three rounds really helps with evening out the game.

After cleaning up our archaeological surveys, we headed back to meet up with Dan and the others (Drew, Eric, and Ziggy) for History of the World. I haven't played since High School, and Ziggy had never played, so there was some rules explaining to do. After the others getting food, cleaining up the table, and explaining rules, we finally got started around 6:30. I ended up going 3rd in the first round, and took control of the Shang. This was not much of a turn, but I got the idea of the game down. I like the shifting board control, and the possibilities for bringing the leader down. The randomness of the empire draw doesn't really help this too much, though, as someone can just luck into something great despite the odds. That makes the game exciting, though, and this was one of the more exciting games I've played lately. *Something I've been thinking about a little is how the more analytical, less random games just don't seem to have the "fun" capacity of some of the more random, unpredictable games. Just another thing to think about when deciding what comes off the shelf* Turn two I got lucky with the Persians, and had a pretty good turn, although my combat card, Jihad, didn't pay off too well. The real luck came as I wheeled into the Macedonians, and had a big, early turn to follow up the strong Persian turn. This put me into first, passing Tim who had been first in the second turn. I ended up with the Goths in the fourth epoch, and they did just fine, with a little help from my minor Anglo-Saxon kingdom. I edged past a lot of hate, and kept first place by a narrow margin. In the fifth age, I was handed the Chola, and it looked like I was destined to go down. However, I didn't lose a fight, and I ended up retaining first place by one point, helped immensely by that little Malian kingdom. By this point, it was looking like the three dominance chips, or whatever they're called, would be a big factor for me in the endgame. In the 6th epoch, I was passed another loser, the Incas/Aztecs. With the help of siegecraft the two little armies made good on some points, and I managed to stay in 2nd, only one point off the pace. The final round saw the Netherlands getting dished my way, and the small number of builds was going to be a problem. I used reallocation to get a bunch of coins, and threw down the leader I had been saving. I didn't lose a fight this turn either, and ended up spending all my coins on forts. I ended up with a pretty good turn, just three behind Ziggy, who had had an absolutely amazing worst-to-first turn, with Ottoman Turks and the Japanese minor kingdom. His one dominance token wasn't enough, as my three caught up and passed him for the win. A fun game with an exciting finish, it is marred, of course, by it's playing time. You really have to set aside 6-7 hours for this game. We ended up finishing around 1 am, and I stumbled off home to set the clock ahead and get some sleep.

This morning Kristin obliged me with a game of Lost Cities. Oddly, it went very similarly to my game with Tim yesterday. I won the first two rounds, the first by around twenty, the second by around 40, but then had a miserable turn the last round, while Kristin built a huge expedition and surged past me for the victory. The hilight of this game was in the third round, when I started the Egyptian expedition with investment/2/3/4/5 in my hand, and then Kristin drew into investment/investment/6/7/8/9/10 for a huge expedition that made me lost points to boot...

Tonight: A Game of Thrones CCG draft that promises to be well attended, as it is one of Lucas's last drafts in town before he moves up to Minnesota to start his new job at FFG.

GG, GL