John's: John called up to see if I was up to playing some games, what a silly question. Thirty minutes later we were setting up the Alexander the Great scenario. Ok I'm lazy so here's a good description of it (Click me). I went over rules tweaks for the scenario. Johnny got the first settlement, I got the second, James the third and John got the fourth. So early in the game everyone had a settlement. John and Johnny were the first to get to the three event tokens for the bonus points. They eventually got five event tokens while James had three and I had only one so I never bothered to bid for any events. I decided to concentrate on growing my road and development my resource production. I quickly upgraded to my four city max. The game was pretty even as everyone was within a point of each other. I made a surge to win the game by getting longest road, building a settlement and playing a victory point development card.
Me (14), John (10), James (10), Johnny (8)

John's:
Staring order Me, James, John, Penii, Johnny
Penii arrived just as we were finishing the SOC game. She was up for a game and the boys were pushing for Puerto Rico. John convinced her that it was a good game and I spent about 15 minutes going over the rules. As the first few turn developed it was apparent that someone had been doing some read on Puerto Rico. John tried to do my super trader strategy from our previous play. Penii, aided by my advice, proceeded to be the Corn Shipper with the hospice. James went heavy on the indigo and tobacco for the cash crop. Johnny bought the construction hut and loaded up on quarries and coffee. He was also deviously evil as he would pick just the right building/plantation to hurt my factory strategy. I never got above three different crops. Johnny had the harbor and had picked up several other plantations to make good use of it. Penii eventually bought the wharf (a turn too late) to ship her large corn crop. John had no money issues this time but he made a mistake. He bought two three-VP buildings instead of the last big building. I really think it hurt him since it allowed another shipping and building phase. I had all production building except one so my desired building was the Guildhall, Johnny snagged that one. Penii bought the Fortress, John got the City hall and I had to do with the Residence.
Johnny (48), Penii (47), Me (47), John (40), James (40)

John's: Bed time for Johnny and James, school time ya know. John was still up for one more game. I love exploration games and I was really excited to give this one a try. The initial tile placements were directly to the crypt sites but once those initial paths were complete it became a screw your neighbor game. John had a section to himself so Penii was making sure he didn't have too many easy options. Ammut didn't come out till most of us had at least three treasures. John got smack first, then it came after me. John found his last treasure and was able to out run Ammut to the exit. Penii didn't enjoy it and I found it lacking. Not sure if number of players issue or it just sucks. The Artifact card have lots of details but don't really provide anything to the game. The front of the box has "A British Museum Boardgame" so I'm thinking this is more of an education game.
John, Me, Penii

Lunch Time: I love living two miles from work. Went to my home for some homemade Chicken Mole and a game of Settlers. This was Joey second game so we didn't automatically give him the cat bird seat but he got it anyway. Damn, I need new dice! The ones we are using really like John. Once again it was another brutal game as John just got the perfect rolls. Hell, he even toyed with us, as he had enough points (2 dev card VPs) to win several turns earlier. He wanted Joey to think that he could win the game. Yeah right. John played his last knight after Joey surged to get to within a point of winning.
John (12), Joey (9) , Me (6)

Borders: The early bird special. Nate began the game by winning the first doubler. Both Tin and I tried to keep the big tiles away from him but eventually was able to push the bid high enough. Turns out he paid too much and automatically lost.
Tin (29), Me (18), Nate (-)

Borders: Still lite on players so we started another game of High Society. Nate really puts too much weight on doublers and I've started using that to my advantage. I won the first tile, a cheap three but then the next three tile were two doublers and the IRS card. Wow, I had a shot a winning with a three card. Another little card came up and I won that in the hopes that the last red tile would get flipped. It didn't happen. I had to back off and resign to the fact that I was gonna lose again. Nate got the lead and back off from bidding. The rest of us battled for tiles. The game came down to the 15th tile and it forced Nate to get into the bidding. The final bid was a hum dinger. The winner of the tile would win the game, unless he paid too much for it. Nate won the bid and had 40+ plus but had the least money left. I won my first HS game!!!
Me (16), Mike (12), Tin (11), Nate (-)

Borders: We had enough people for two games. Mike was pushing New England and the other group was still deciding on what to play, so I join Mike's group. Mike went over the rules for Nate.
Staring Order Mike, Nate, Me, Anne
Anne got an early pilgrim lead. Mike concentrated on getting lots of land tiles and scoring high value plots. I got some plots developed and bought a ship but I never used it's special ability. The game broke open for me when I was able to get two pilgrims for 1 coin a piece. After that I was able to outbid for more pilgrims. I eventually was able to get five pilgrims and in the final turn I took over lead in ships.
Me (37), Mike (35), Anne (33), Nate (29)

Borders: Next up was another Moon/Weissblum game. This is an area control/auction/city building game. Mike went over the rules for Dave and Nate. The first round was uneventful. The typical start as people jumped into regions with fountains and several attempts at being the lone builder in a region. Mike won the first Amphitheater and Dave got the second place benefit of the Amphitheater at the end of the first round. In the second round is where all the nasty action took place. I did the final build on the Amphitheater spot and coming in second, guaranteeing me that I would an extra card a turn. It was looking like Mike had enough cards to win the 2nd Amphitheater, so I took a chance and locked out another 2nd spot where Mike was first. My hunch paid off and after the 2nd round I score two extra cards. At this point Dave had to leave but lucky for us Rolf arrived and took over. In the third round Nate realized it was silly to fight over areas where there was so much available. He just started littering the board with his one-level buildings. I took control of another area with 4 fountains and started saving to win the Temple. Rolf won the 3rd round temple and placed it in a spot where I was in 2nd, good! In the fourth round it was pretty obvious what the good strategy was. We used up all but two of the building blocks. I stop building early so I could score the last temple but once again I was outbid. Nate won the last one. Mike with an overwhelming number of extra cards (+10) in the game didn't score as well as compare to Nate who got no extra cards. Dave had one extra card while I picked up four extra cards. Interesting.
Nate (44), Me (40), Mike (33), Dave/Rolf (30)

Borders: We had seven players left and I wanted to play Tom Tube. This is a tile laying game where players are trying to complete paths to cubes and tokens. Once paths are complete between spheres the player's astronaut can move. The astronaut is used to pick up cubes and tokens. The first player to return their astronaut with both their tokens ends the game and gets a bonus equal to the number of turns it would take the other player to get home. Mike was scooping up cubes but I was able to hose him with a tile placement. It forced him to use up cubes to get out. I got my two tokens and got back home. Mike was only one turn away from his home site so I got a bonus point.
Me (17), Mike (16)

Lunch Time: We weren't planning on it but we decided to play another game of SOC and eat some leftover chicken mole. I pulled out some of my old Star Fleet Battle dice, black dice with the Klingon symbols. Aggressive dice. Production was really slow in the early game. Joey had the best initial set up and he was riding the brick port. He quickly got the longest road. My lucky streak hit and I had nonstop growth. John tried to slow me down with knights but it didn't really do much other than give him the largest army. I stole Joey's longest road to win. The dice change worked!!!
Me (10), John (6), Joey (3)

Lunch Time: We gave this filler a try. Joey didn't seem to catch the purpose of the bidding. I made some crazy bids so he could see some examples. I played a five with three jokers followed by some threes. Joey caught on and the game proceeded. I had the most jokers as the end and lost five points. Don't think Joey is into bidding games.
Joey (7), John (5), Me (3)

N8: Nate hosted a game night at his pad for our first crack at "A Game of Thrones." Jared, who owns the game, was going to be about thirty minutes late so we decided to play Tightrope. The first round belonged to Tin as he score zero while Nate really got hammered with a sixteen. In the second round, Tin continued his perfect streak and Nate got a lot better by scoring a 1. Joe and I were already in the twenties. In the last two round Tin scored all of is points while Nate score a perfect round allowing him to wipe out his sixteen.
Nate (4), Tin (24), Joe (31), Me (36)

N8: Houses: Me (Stark), Nate (Greyjoy), Tin (Baratheon), Joe (Lannister), Jared (Tyrell)
Jared arrived and we were ready to start the game of the night. We randomly selected our house and then Jared went over the rules. During the rules explanation I could tell that this was not Joe or Tin's type of game. There were plenty of newbie mistakes in the first round. Jared and Joe started fighting over the Searoad Marches. As the result of the fight for Searoad Marches Joe was open for an attack by Nate. Nate was nice and decided to go for a land grabbing Seagard and Riverrun. Tin moved a boat to The Narrow Sea but took Crackclaw Point and Kingswood. I figured he would have gone for supply. I went for a land grab going for Widow's Watch and Moat Calin and the Stoney Shores. I was hoping for a mustering call on the next turn. It didn't happen; instead we got a Supply check, Clash of Kings and a wildling attack (strength 6). I wanted to be at least in the middle of the turn order so I offered two power tokens for the Iron Throne. I was shocked when I took it. Happy with the result I save my last token for the wildling defense. I still manage to get good position on the other tracks. It's good to be the king. I got down to the Twin Area and continued to solidify my position in the north. Nate went south to Harrenhal. Tin was playing very aggressive and started attacking Jared in The Reaches. Joe in his weakened state decided to be very defensive. The third round had a muster called followed by two "End of the summer" cards. Nate was setting up for attack with support on Moat Calin so did a preemptive assault on his support area. He countered and I was forced to retreat. The result was a no change in position. Tin continued his aggressive attacks against Jared. Jared was getting smacked around and was down to two areas. Jared and Joe combined were still weaker than one of the other houses. It was about two hours into the game when talk of stopping the game began. It was agreed that game would have been different if Joe and Jared hadn't fought over the Searoad Marches. Tin also mentioned that he wasn't enjoying the game even though he was kickin' butt. We didn't complete the game but I definite like the flavor of the game and looking forward to playing it again.

N8: Nate whipped out this classic. Jared was the only player who hadn't played before so Nate went over the rules. About five rounds into the game, Jared decided to make a guess. We weren't surprised that he was wrong. So he spent the rest of the game eating chips and answering question about his cards. I got to the point where I was confident that I had figured out the missing gem card. I was wrong. It appeared I got mixed up when Jared got knocked out. I reverted to using J for Joe and therefore got my grid all mixed up. Luckily, Joe solved the missing gem a couple of turns later.
Joe

N8: Jared had to work on Saturday but Nate convinced him to play a game of High Society. I tried to push Nate to go high on an early 2X card but surprised me when he let me take it. Later in the game I chose to take the IRS card so I was back to normal. Jared got screwed when he had to take the robber card. Since he had no cards he waited for a small card to be turned over, which didn't happen. Joe got the last 2X card but paid too much over all. Nate and I tied but he had the higher valued card.
Nate (9), Me (9), Tin (6), Jared (0), Joe (-)

N8: Nate got Jared to play one more game. It looks like Jared has learned the value of the small card. This time he made sure he had the first low card available. This one was a weird one. It was a game of lots of low cards. The game end early enough that the holder of the big cards had the least money.
Joe (10), Jared (8), Me (5), Tin (0), Nate (-)

N8: Jared had to leave but the rest of us were still up for one more game. We decided to play Alhambra since everybody knew how to play. Tin and I got an early lead. The second round was an extend one which allowed me to lockup the white tiles and secure ties in green and red. I wasn't able to get the right tile to merge my two separate walls so I didn't have too many bonus points. There were only a few turns between the 2nd and final scoring rounds so nothing much changed which was advantageous for me.
Me (103), Joe (96), Nate (92), Tin (91)

John's: I bought my copy of High Bohn thinking it was the English version. So I print some translations on sticky paper and placed it over the German text. My copy was ready for play. I went over the new rules and a quick description for the buildings for everyone. I thought I had seen heavy denotation games. Donations in this game flew about like leaves during a windy day in fall. One day I must play the no donation variant. This expansion adds 22 more beans the game, three reshuffles instead of two and beans used to buy building get put back into the discard deck. The game stretched out for a long hour and a half. I had the level-3 bank that gave me a coin for every six coin in my pile, which was the winning difference.
Me (34), John (33), Johnny (30), Joanna(30), James (27)

John's: We placed an order for pizza so we needed a quick game while we waited for its arrival. The game lasted a quick three rounds.
John (7), Me (6), Joanna (5), Penii (1), Johnny (0), James (-2)

John's: Transamerica was so quick the pizza man hadn't arrived yet. I figured I teach them a quick game of Hick Hack. Penii wanted a rematch so we played another round of Hick Hack. Still no pizza!
Game 1: Me (44), James (42), John (39), Penii (24), Johnny (21)
Game 2: Johnny (53), Me (35), John (29), Penii (28), James (16)

John's: That pizza guy is such a slacker, three games and no pizza. Whipped another quickie. The pizza arrived midway thru the game. John had played three trios and Penii had one. The game ended when the deck ran out. John's trios paid off big.
John (52), Penii (44), Johnny (37), James (35), Me (35)

John's: We were ready to try another one of the historical scenarios. We decided to give Troy a try. Each player support a side determined secretly. During a player's turn they may donate to the war effort, signified by a supply pile. When the supply pile reaches a certain number of cards a battle occurs. A small number are removed from the pile and the rest are tallied. Ore and Wool count for Troy and Wood and Wheat count of Mycene. The side with the most resources wins the battle and moves up the score track for additional VPs that side. The other changes are no development cards, new ship rules and a regenerated map. Ships don't act as seafarers ships but rather give each player different abilities such as 3:1 trading, VPs, card swapping from the supply pile and 2:1 trading. I started the game by plopping my initial settlements that had a six and an eight. Only John had the foresight to place on the coast. I got a couple of roads early but that was it. The common rolls where fives and nines, I hate German wooden dice. To make things worse Penii blocked me off one my cities. At this point I knew I was screwed so I just started donating to send the game. Luckily John was on my side and he was producing like crazy. Troy finally got to the last spot on the track and the game ended. This was the least enjoyable of the historical scenarios that I've played. I don't think I would even consider playing the six-player version.
John (16), Penii (12), Me (11), Johnny (10)

John's: Staring Order: Me, John, James, Penii
John and family are so hooked on this game, especially James. I got the factory strategy going and was able to build to large buildings (City hall, Guildhall) but had minimal points in shipping points. Penii tried the corn strategy but couldn't get it working. James also had trouble getting money production but had enough at the end for a big building. John developed a trader strategy (markets) to buy two large buildings (Residence, Custom house) but it was his shipping that gave him the winning edge.
John (53), Me (38), James (34), Penii (29)

John's: The initial set up locked out the center of the board from development making it for a slow game. I got off to a good start and in my drive for more brick I blocked of James from any possible development. He was not happy about that and it became a mission to hose me at every possible moment. With no need to develop settlements or roads James developed Blue and Yellow metros, I had the other metro.
Me (13 GM), John (10), Penii (9), James (8)

John's: Penii was up for another game and all of us said yeah. We decided to use the 5/6-player set up for more space when Joanna arrived. Penii convinced her to join the fun. We started the game around 11 pm and didn't finish until something pass 2 AM. It could have been a normal length game as Joanna was 1 point away from winning. Joanna got hammered as John stole the longest road and Penii got to the last level in the Blue Metro. The game from that point on dragged on for another hour and half. Penii got a Progress Card VP during John's turn. I wanted to give up at that point but the rules states that a person can only win during their turn. The next round was harsh since people were trying to figure out a way to stop Penii or win during their turn. Nobody could and Penii on her final turn built another settlement.
Penii (14), John (11), James (11), Me (10), Joanna (9)

John's: Helen finally joined us for a Monday night game of Catan. This was a close game till the final rounds. There was a streak of numbers in which James and Lloyd didn't not benifit from. This allowed John, Helen and I to have a shot at winning. John who had the Green Metro messed up on his trades which apparently cost him the longest road and the game. Lloyd on his turn took the Yellow Metro from my control. Helen, only needing a point so she played the Trader for the win.
Helen (13), John (11), Me 10, James (8), Lloyd (8)

Gadget Tree:
Me, Nate, Tin, Joe
Nate brought along an old Milton Bradley game about real estate development. The board is a 4 x 4 grid where each square is a block of land to be developed. The initial set up is determine by flipping up grid cards which determine the location of the train tracks and defines four squares as indrustrial. The locations of the church, shopping mall, and school are determined the same way with unoccuppied adjacent squares zoned as house/apartment. After the zoning, a road is built. Initial segment is determined randomly and the remaining players can add a segment. After set up each player will randomly get one square and ONE Hundred Thousand dollars. The game begins with a blind bid for two properties. If there is a clash then the higher bid wins with the loser getting nothing. First player is determined randomly. The turn is pretty straight forward; Sell, Build, Bid.
Sell proptery whether fullly developed or not.
Buy roads, subdivide squares or buildings. Only one type of development per turn can be done so you want to have several properties in sync to make the most money.
Bid on an uncomplete, unowned square. Starting bid must be cost of square based on developments on square.
Game ends when the last square is bought. Everyone did the same thing during the initial turns. Sell a property caues 100k wasn't enough to fully develop a property. One the third turn I realized that there is a huge first player turn advantage. The reason is the first player is the first to sell a full developed lot and gets to make a bid and winning for cost. I didn't win as first player cause I made a newbie mistake, which Tin was kind enough to point out but if it wasn't for that I would have out scored Tin. Joe decided to make a bid for the last square just to end the game.
Tin (529), Nate (436), Me (417), Joe (213)

Gadget Tree: Tin, Joe and Jared played PoF last week and were looking forward to playing it again. Nate wanted to give this game a shot. While explaining the game for Nate it became apparent that they had played the game wrong the week before. They didn't play with the draw five keep one system when drawing professions, prestige and bonus cards. Yikes! Playing with newbies is really freaky. In the first round, I paid 1100 for a builder. It would later irk me when no other builder went for more than 400. Other bizzare winning bids, 200 for a Jester, 400 for a recuiting card (Jared didn't event want it, he he) and 1000 for a forest. Joe got a huge lead in the fifth round when he produced two works for a total of fourty two points. Joe had nothing left in the tank for the final round allowing me to catch up. My prestige card gave me three point but Joe had one for five points.
Joe (60), Me (57), Tin (46), Nate (45), Jared (34)

Gadget Tree: We played two games of the groups favorite short game. The first game was a bizzare one in which Jared won with a five card and everyone else had zero or less points. In the second game the 2X card came up early which Joe, Jared and I getting them. Tin got the "Robbed" card and lost his only card. Joe had the 10-card which meant he would win the tie breaker against me. Lucky for me he had to take the Casino card and the next card ended the game. Turns out he had the least amount of money left soI won again!!
Game 1: Jared (5), Joe (0), Nate (-4), Me (-)
Game 2: Me (20), Nate (9), Jared (0), Tin (0), Joe (-)

Gadget Tree: Joe has been bring Citadels for the past couple of weeks. We finally got enough players interested in giving it a try. I got to a strong start cranking out several expensive buildings. Jared was getting the raw deal as he kept getting robbed or killed. We had a bunch of quick learners as players started to steal my cards, destroy my buildings and occasionally rob me. Joe end the game but Nate was also able to get the district bonus and color bonus. For having such a great start, I sure didn't score too many points.
Nate (28), Joe (24), Tin (23), Me (22), Jared (20)

Lunch Time: Went to Sparky's for lunch and while we waited I taught John how to play MR1. At the end of the first round I was holding lots of cards when John went out. I had a good second round but John won the third. In the fourth round I got three of the victim and the Ripper Escapes card. I played two victims and waited for John to play the other two. When he played his second victim I was able to play the final victim and then the Ripper Escape card for big points.
Me (11+33+28+39=111), John (38+21+34+3=96)

N8:
Staring order: Nate,Tin,Joe, Me
Went over to Nate's for another Friday night gaming session. First up was a rematch game of Square Mile. My first property to develop was a housing tract, which wouldn't force me to sell a property. I was hoping this would allow me to have one extra property over the other players and therefore a winning advantage. I sold my first building and started my bidding round. Everyone was flushed with money so they started counter my bids. I decided to let them win if they went over 20 over cost. Everyone got a new property during my round and it helped speed up the end of the game, which Nate did at the end of his turn. This game is fun except for the first player advantage. I'm thinking of suggesting a bidding round for first player honors, randomizing turn order each turn or changing turn order to Bid, Sell, Build.
Nate (405), Me (351), Tin (271), Joe (251)

N8: Starting Order: Me, Nate, Tin, Joe
I taught Puerto Rico to Nate and Tin. I try to let new players figure out there own game but Joe kept suggesting moves that would benefit him. So, I had to tell them that they had to be aware of what the player to their left wanted them to play. Nate and Tin did well with the shipping but were cash poor through out the game resulting in weak building. Joe and I on the other hand went more for the moneymaking strategies that resulted in more buildings. Joe bought three large buildings (City Hall, Fortress and Residence) while I picked up the Customhouse.
Joe (52), Nate (40), Me (40), Tin (34)

N8: There's a mantra that started cropping up while playing this game, which is "You can't win if you take the IRS card". My victory in the second game has disproved it. I took the IRS card after the bids got to the high 30's. I used the excess money to out bid others for the big cards but other than fact I have no idea how I did it. Just lucky I guess.
Game 1: Joe (10), Tin (9), Nate (-10), Me (-)
Game 2: Me (13), Joe (12), Tin (2), Nate (-)

N8: Last week we played Tightrope so I figured they would enjoy Land Unter. I went over the rules and we played a sample hand. The game went over well. Tin had the worst luck unable to score many points with any of the hands. Joe was able to score the best with my original hand getting four more points than anybody else.
Joe (5+1+1+6=13), Me (2+6+1+1=10), Nate (1+0+5+0=6), Tin (0+1+0+0=1)

N8: We played two games of Sleuth. I'm really starting to enjoy this game. I think it is because I'm still figuring out how to notate and when to make the logic jump to solve the missing gem. In the second game, I was so close to figuring it out!
Game 1:Tin
Game 2:Nate

John's: Another impromptu game day. We tried to get Joey to join us but we couldn't get a hold of him. John and the boys liked Carcassonne, so I figure I teach them this version. Most of us got to a good start early except for Johnny. He got stuck with a blocked out forest and had allocated a meeple on Stonehenge. He got on a roll and was able to complete his blocked out forest and another big one. His Stonehenge meadow also got the forest fire tile and at the end it earned him 26 points. John allocated most of his meeples early but couldn't complete the objects they were on. I placed some hunters on the final rounds that earned me enough points to beat Johnny.
Me (110), Johnny (105), James (77), John (61)

John's: I decided to break in my copy of Nautilus. It took a while to explain some of the rules since it was only my second play. I tried to cover all the rules that we misplayed during my first game. With four players, the lagoon area fill up quickly which raised the cost of placing tiles. In order to save money, some players were willing to build over discovery tiles, which is something that didn't occur during my first play. Everyone saw the value of getting a submarine out in the depths to start exploring. There was plenty of competition for discovery tiles but I was the only one to send a sub into the deep end. By the time the other players got their subs to the deep end, I had gobbled up some really good tiles. The game end when the high-end Atlantis chips were found. We had a tie between James and I so I went over the rules for a tiebreaker but I found two more rules that we messed up. First, when the high-end Atlantis chips are found there one additional turn to the game and leftover Nemos are added to the player's score. So James and I were now tie for second and John was the winner. One day I'll play this game right.
John (108), James (91), Me (91), Johnny (55)

John's: Next up a favorite of the group. Luv them German wooden dice ;). This time the rolls were heavily in my favor. In the first turn, I had enough for a colony ship. In the second turn, I had enough for a trade ship. I placed my first colony on a trade good planet and I had the first trade ship to get the 1:1 trade goods. I sent another trade ship out to get the Whiner card (Galactic Relief Fund) but I noticed James was heading for Travelers trading post. I had to change my destination because I didn't want to be hosed with the "Small Donation" card. With that gone, James got the "Fame and Honor" card but it is better to lose a card per turn instead of an upgrade. Johnny got a card that allowed him to steal a card from two players with more points than him. With Johnny and James stealing my cards, I stalled at twelve points. John started to make his move up the scoring chart. I got a little lucky and was able to create another trade ship and promptly started a race with John for the last unclaimed trading post. The only hope for John was that I would have an encounter that would hose my first ship. Instead I got a fame point, which gave me that additional point I was looking for. I got to the final trading post for another two points. Ahhh, victory!!!!
Me (15),John (10), Johnny (7), Penii (7), James (6)

John's: Next up, a new game for the gang, a nice mellow game of Alhambra. James and Johnny did the newbie mistake of overpaying early in the game, which is why John and I had such a lead over them. I managed to get leads in two of the tiles sets and tie in two others to stay in the lead during the second round. It was one of those games in which the third scoring round comes a few turns after the second scoring round, so I was able to keep my leads. John's long wall segment versus my fractured wall segments is what kept the game close between us.
Me (112), John (110), James (84), Johnny (74)

John's: Starting Order: Me, James, Johnny, John The final game of the night and the chant was Puerto Rico. I don't know what happened in this game. I think James and Johnny were experimenting. James went heavy on Quarries and Indigo. Johnny didn't produce anything for the longest time preferring to buy buildings instead. This allows John to become corn shipper. I went factory and got it going strong. I was able to buy the Guild Hall and the Fortress and finished off the game by filling the building area. Johnny having filled his plantation area by the use of the Hospice bought the Residence. John bought the customhouse for bonus 8 points. Geez, I didn't realize how much shipping he had done. It looks like John has the hang of the game.
John (62), Me (61), James (37), Johnny (35)

Borders: Started the night with our regular mini. In the first game, the 10-card was the first drawn and I paid through the nose for. The 8-card came up next follow by the 2-card both won buy Nate. Next came a streak of 2X cards and next thing you know everybody had one. I had the time breaker so I hung on, I think Nate was waiting cause he figure I would have the least money at the end. The red tile popped just as Tin score was greater than twenty but he was pretty much broke. Bruce arrived to join us for the second game. Another 10-card bid, which I remember as Tin started with a bid of 1, Bruce went to 4, Nate cranked it to 25 and I went straight to 40. Nate was frugal in this game getting most of his cards in the 2-1 or 3-1 range.
Game 1 Me (20), Nate (20), Tin (-1)
Game 2 Nate (13), Me (11), Bruce (7), Tin (-)

Borders: Joe, Nate and Tin were up for giving Land Unter another play. We gave Bruce a quick run down of the rules. Tin's initial hand was the worst and Nate was the only one to score positive points with it. Nate was definitely thinking about his plays where as I usually go by gut feel. I got smoked in the final two hands. Hmmm, I have to start thinking, damn! Results are very positive, time to dig out "6 Nimmt!".
Nate (3+3+2+2+4=14),Joe (6+1-1+5+2=13), Bruce (0+0+4+2+7=13), Tin (-1+6+2+4-1=10), Me (3+0+5-1-1=6)

Borders: Staring order: Joe, Nate, Me, Tin, Bruce
We broke in Joe's long held copy of PoF. I gave Bruce update of the correct rules while the rest of the gang punched out the tiles. I usually try to get the builder during the first turn but this time I decided to go for a prestige card. I picked up a fairly easy prestige card that gives you eight points for all freedoms. Having all freedoms would later payoff as I bought a bonus card that gave me two points for each freedom for a work in the mid twenties. Nate being second had an extra profession card so I was surprised when he went for a recruiter card in the second round, which he followed by getting lots of builders. He then realized that he had too many profession cards and not enough of the other stuff to produce works above the cut off limit. He finished the game by getting lots of buildings for free. Joe definitely has the knack for cranking out works; once again he finished the game with two works (WV of 38) for all points.
Joe (60), Me (54), Bruce (52), Tin (42), Nate (37)

Borders: Nate and Tin have recently discovered this game and have been pushing Joe to give it another try. Joe doesn't enjoy Medici but today we convinced him to give it another try. Had a quick refresher of the rules and Joe started the first day. In the first round, I got a 3 card 14-pointer for cheap. A later turn, I the flipped up the gold card, which I won. I won the weight bonus in the first round and had a ten-point lead. In the 2nd round, the bidding got a little more competitive as people now had commodities positions to protect or steal. After the second round, I was still in first place but by one a few points. In the final round, everyone was so busy trying to lock in a lead in their commodity positions that I was able to get the heaviest boat for cheap and I got one commodity lead to boot!
Me (127), Nate (101), Tin (101), Joe (95)

Lunchtime: Gave Joey a choice on what new game to learn, Mystery Rummy 1, Battle Cry or Roborally. He waffled between Battle Cry and Roborally but finally settled on Roborally. It was a simple two-tile (Cross, Island) three-flag with no options race and as a handicap, I gave myself two-points of damage. Even with my handicap I had Joey eating my dust. With only a few square left in the race I ran into card trouble as I got mostly rotates cards for the next set of hands. I slowly inched forward while Joey approached at a good clip. Traded a couple points of damage but it wasn't enough to slow down Joey and was able to touch the final flag first.
Joe, Me

John's: Six weeks ago I saw this at CompUSA for 30 bucks. Since my friend, Chris, had enjoy his first play, I figured it was a worthwhile purchase. Most of the reviews hated the combat system so I decided to play using the 2D6 system described on the geek. James requested to play the Norse, John got the Greeks and I was the Egyptians. The first turn was peaceful as everyone gathered, recuited and built. John and I were planning our turns through the use of the permanent card but James just went for random card. So by the second turn James was on the offensive by attacking the John's production which he won handly. James followed it with another attack against my city resulting in two of my buildings getting razed. Next turn we tried to counter the attacks and both John and I found it difficult to match up against the Norse units. It really started to feel like the Norse were meant for fighting. John and I were ready to call it quits after five turns and 2.5 hours. James was having too much fun to quit. James had the opportunity to build the wonder and end the game but choose to recruit more troops. He played an attack card against John that allowed all units to fight, a battle that last about an hour. After the battle I had the largest army. If I could only build a wonder, I would end the game. Sadly. anytime I got enough resources I would get attacked and the game would get extended a much more!!! It went to the bitter end since no one built the wonder. No points for were awarded the most buildings and John got the largest army points. John won but he'll won't play this one again. As he said "We could have played four or five good games!"

Looks and smells like Puerto Rico with combat but it's combat system really hurts this game. If someone could come up with a A Game of Thrones type of combat I might play it again. Until then I'll play Puerto Rico. This game will be saved as an eventual gift for the nephews when there old enough.
John (14), James (6), Me (1)

John's: After a tasty Carne Asada dinner we played a game of Cities and Knights, per Penii's request. Penii placed her initial city on a triple wood hex. It was going to be my choice of placement if she hadn't done it. I would have found it useful cause she didn't really need it. The rolls in this game were completely on Penii's favor and it resulted in one of the quickest C&K games that I've ever played. In addition to her points via cities and settlement, she had the green metro, a couple of defenders VPs and a progress card VP. John had longest road to offer Penii some completion. Johnny and I were very low tech through out the game.
Penii (13), John (9), Johnny (6), Me (5)

John's: Scenario Cheops
We played the last unplayed historical scenario in my collection. Pyramid building is the twist in this scenario. Each player starts with four gold coins and three settlements which have to be on the river Nile. The harsh part is that most of the wood and all of the ore is to the east beyond a big stretch of desert. Players are allowed to use other player's ports if they are connect by road/ship to the port and pays the player a gold coin. Once the first settlement is built on a pyramid site, the pyramid construction race begins. A player is allowed to place a block for the pyramid at the cost of an ore and brick, in addition to having a connection to a pyramid site. When a seven is rolled the pharoah adds a block to the pyramid. The games ends when the pharoah place his last block (16), the pyramid is completed or someone has 12 points. The player that supplies the most blocks will get the Pharoah's Blessing (+3VPs). Players supplying the least blocks will get the Pharoah's curse (-2 VPs).
I went for placing on numbers rather than resources. I just wanted to get lots of stuff. I lucked out on my last placement because the closest spot to the wood tiles was still available. John had the 3-1 port, Johnny had the wheat port and Penii was on the gold tile. It was a slow going game with very limited resources. Once again, the rolls were very favorable for Penii. We were not as kind this time, making sure the robber was always on her tiles. Johnny built on a pyramid site early but nobody was ready to add blocks. The first level was mainly comprised of Pharoah's blocks. Life got good when I got to the woods and set up a settlement on the 2-1 wood port. I got on a roll and promptly got a visit from the robber. Penii started building blocks and so was the race for the Pharoah's blessing. It was a pretty close game when Johnny built three blocks at once. Penii lost the Blessing and tied John for the Curse. Johnny lost the Curse and gain the Blessing for a five point swing and the win.
Johnny+ (12), Me (7), John* (6), Penii* (4) (+Blessed, *Cursed)

Online: Oh boy, a full boat!! I almost didn't wanna play since large games like this will last almost three hours. I even suggested playing two three-player games but no one was interested in that. I got to place my initial city on a double wood spot and was going for whiner (level 3 on Science)! It worked, got to level 3 by the third turn but my settlement growth was pretty rapid so it came into effect only a few times. I was producing so many resources over the course of a turn that a seven would really hurt. I got an unlucky streak that stalled me out for a bit allowing the other players to catch up. On the final turn I got hosed by several players as everyone played weddings, master merchants, etc on me while ignoring John. On John's turn, he got longest road and the Trader. He also had 2 defender points and the yellow metro. Hour and a half, not bad for a six player game.
John (13), Me (9), Helen (8),Chris (7), James (7), Lloyd (6)

Lunchtime: When I told John that I had taught Joey Roborally, he was pumped! So for lunch we went to my place to play a two-tile (Cross, Island) three-flag race with final flag shield variant. John got off to a good start but by being the leader he got pinged a couple time by long distance laser shots. After touching the second flag he decided that he had enough of a lead to shutdown for repairs. I lucked out as I got three three-move forward cards for a quick catch-up. Joey got a solo path to the final flag while John and I battled on the other route. I messed up John's programming with a push and he rode the conveyer belt to the edge. While John and I were fighting, Joey was shooting down the shield. I was two-tiles away when he touched the flag. Another win for the rookie!!
Joe, Me, John

Gadget Tree: Finally got to play this classic. Joe went over the rules for Bruce and I. This is a race game where movement is done using triangular numbers so the farther you want to move the more you're going to pay. For example, moving four spaces will cost 10 carrots but moving five spaces will cost 15 carrots! Each player also starts with three lettuces, which must be eaten before crossing the finish line. The track has several types of icons.

• Rabbits - Draw a card from draw deck (Random effects)
• Carrots - Get or give up 10 carrots.
• Turtles - Can only be landed on by retreating. Get 10 carrots for each space retreated.
• Lettuce patch - Eat a lettuce, lose a turn doing it.
• Number - If at the beginning of the player's turn the player's position is equal to the number then score 10x number of carrots.

Gadget Tree: Mike brought along a bunch of new games; Maya, Bridges of Shangrila, Santiago and Cronenberg. Oh boy!!! This game has a simple set of rules. A player is allowed one of the following actions per turn.

• Add a master to any connected village in which the player has a master.
• Add up to two students to any of his masters in connected villages.
• Move the students of one village to another. Students will replace empty master slots of the destination village. If a master is present in the destination village it can only be replace by a student if the originating village was stronger (more units). The move also destroys the connection between the villages (bridges).

Gadget Tree: A blind bidding, area control game with a Maya pyramid building theme. The game is three rounds where each round is comprised of two phases, auction and block placement. During the auction phase players will blind bid for five different zones. Each player starts the round with the same set of cards (low cards 3,4,4,5 high cards 6,7,8,-3). The low and high cards are distinguishable when placed face down. The winner of each zone wins the most blocks and also a special function chip. The special function chips are immunity from a -3 card, a free pass, a free block, a free double placement and pick first player for the next round. Second place in each zone will get some blocks and two of the zones have blocks for third place. After the bidding is over then players will collect their blocks and function chips. Players can only keep blocks equal to the sum of their remaining bidding cards and excess blocks are discarded. During the block placement, a player has one action per turn. The actions are placing a block, placing two blocks-discard one, pass-discard one, or play a function chip. When place blocks a few simple rules have to be observed. First the lowest row must be completed before placement on a higher row occurs. When completing a row on a pyramid, the player with a majority gets a free block placed on the next row. Scoring takes place after all player are out of blocks. First and second place score gold, ties are friendly. After scoring, erosion takes place. Beginning with the lowest row on each pyramid, players that scored gold will lose one of their blocks. If a player loses his last block on a row then the blocks on the above rows will also disappear. Repeat for all others rows and pyramids.

I felt the auction phase was the most interesting part of the game. Each player having the same set of cards, knowing when players are playing their high cards while trying to figure how many blocks you're gonna get, yep lots of fun. The block placement phase was pretty blah. It wasn't until the third block placement that it got interesting. Mike was trying to get his bonus blocks on the third level but in doing so he allowed me to take control of the high rows.
Me (61), Mike (57), Jared (46)

Gadget Tree: I whipped out and taught 6 Nimmt to the group. Joe scored an amazing 53 points in the first round. He was able to hold out another two round before reaching the game terminator. Nate really liked the game and wants a copy of it. Score another for the game pimp!
Nate (19), Me (51), Tin (53), Rolf (66), Joe (73)

John's: While we waited for Johnny to clean his room, John taught me one of his old favorite. Pretty funky game, easy rules. He kicked my butt.
John , Me

John's: I bought this based on word it was a fun family game. Each player starts with a pirate ship and nine Doubloons. Before starting the game, each player can use their nine doubloons to upgrade their ship. Each ship had four sections. Sail determines battle order, men and guns determine the number of dice used in battle and hull determine the amount of treasure a ship can carry. A legendary pirate determined randomly, starts on the tavern island. At the start of each turn, treasure cards are placed on the tavern, sail, hull, cannons, and men islands. Players then simultaneously select their ship's destination, which can also include Treasure Island. After reveling their destinations players will move their ships to those islands. Combat occurs if multiple players' ships are at the island or if the legendary pirate is present. In combat, the fastest ship fires first. Crippled ships have to retreat to the pirate's cove. Player's score victory point for each ship that flees. The remaining player scores the amounts on the treasure card and can use the island's function. Finally the pirate moves to the next island. Repeat eleven more times. Can you say Hick Hack, a little more complicated but felt the same. John got a parrot, from the tavern deck, which allowed him unlimited treasure capacity. He loaded up his ship and visited Treasure Island with 15 treasures. I got smacked early in the game so I wasn't in any condition to fight him. Johnny finally tracked him down but a turn too late. He managed to kill the parrot though. That treasure load gave him the victory.
John (47), Me (34), Johnny (32), Penii (15)

John's: Stuck with the maritime theme with this auction, race game. Penny got off to a fast start but we misplayed a rule. I forgot that you could enter an occupied square for a cost of three spaces. It really messed up the game for Penii. So it's an asterisk game!!!
Me (137), John (121), Penii (114), Johnny (103)

John's: Another game I got for 25% off. I went over the rules but the first game went wrong when Penii spent all her money for a doubler. John was a good hubbie and burnt all his cash too. Second game was a bit better. John got the "Robbed" card but force others to pay some big bucks which gave him the edge.
Game 1: Me (16), Johnny (14), John (-), Penii (-)
Game 2: John (32), Penii (10), Me (4), Johnny (-)

John's: Played a quick game while dinner was cooking. John won the first hand but lost the last two hands big!
Penii(7), Johnny (7), Me (5), John (4)

John's: After dinner, I got Joanna and Teresa to join us for a game. I selected 6 Nimmt for some chaotic fun. In the first game, Penii broke the one hand scoring record of 53 point. It was previously 43 points. People really enjoyed the game that we gave it another play.
Game 1: John (18), Joanna (24), Me (38), Teresa (41), Johnny (52), Penii (90)
Game 2: Joanna (34), Me (39), Johnny (42), Penii (65), Teresa (75), John (85)

John's: This was a weird game in which I was dominating the game or so it seemed. I was seriously surprised, so was everyone else, that I got cards from everyone when I played a "Wedding" card. I cranked out yellow and green metros and won by building the longest road. Johnny concentrated on having a large army and scored three defender points in addition to a progress VP and the trader.
Me (14), Johnny (10), John (9), Penii (8)

John's: Starting order: Penny, John, Me, Johnny
Final game of the night. I got the factory started rather early and was able to build three big building, Guildhall, Custom House and City Hall. Johnny went super trader and he bought lots of buildings but only one big building, the Residence. Penny and John were big into shipping but didn't building enough buildings. After I built my second big building no one bother to take the mayor, so I finished the game with only the City Hall activated.
Me (43), Johnny (42), John (33), Penii (32)

Mike's: Mike pulled out a pile of new games. First up was Schrille Stille, which I had seen some B20 folk play a few times. The geek has a good summary of the game. Mike went over the rules for us. I had no idea what to do in the first round, so I placed my tokens into the CD thang pretty much a la random. I got lucky and gained plenty of points but I also noticed that I didn't have that many bands among the list. I took the option of switching companies. I figured that more bands would be better. The switch hurt cause you have to give up five points but the other player targeted my new bands with negative points, knocking them off the list and forcing me to lose more points. Oh Yeah, I can play that game too. So I got into the habit of "protect my"/"attack their" vulnerable. The track only went to 75 but Mike had a huge final scoring round and got some 10 additional points. Not a bad game, felt a little random but it was a fun family game.
Mike (75+), Joe (66), Chris (66), Me (62)

Mike's: Mike taught us another new game. The game has 11 turns where each turn is comprised of several phases; auction, placement, canal and drying. Four tiles (five types) are flipped over at the beginning of the turn. Player to the left of the canal builder makes a bid for one of four tiles followed by the next player. The bid scheme is like New England except that multiple players can bid zero. If a player bids zero then he will get one less cube on their plantation. The player with the lowest bid or the first player to bid zero becomes the canal builder. Beginning with the highest bidder, players will select and place a tile. They will also place on their tile, cubes equal to the number of workers pictured on the tile (1 or 2 workers). If a player bid zero then he will get one less cube. During the canal phase other players may make suggestion (money) to where the next canal will be placed. The builder may place the canal on a suggestion location in which case he gets to keep the money offered for that spot. He may instead place the canal on a location of his choice but he must pay one more than the highest bid. In the drying phase, any tile not adjacent to a canal must lose one cube. If a tile has no cube to lose it is turned over and becomes a desert. Finally each player earns three bucks. After the final turn, any tile not connected to a canal is automatically desert and players will earn money for each plantation. The value is calculated by the size of the plantation times the number of cube of his color. Player with the most money wins.
I really liked this game. New England like but the canal building/drying phases gave this game an interesting twist. Mike set himself up with a solo four size plantation (24 end game). We manage to block it out so its growth was terminated. Meanwhile the rest of us were building a large cane plantation but the lack of canals reduced my presence in that plantation. Later I would spend big bucks to get back into that plantation eventually equal my count with Joe. Joe and I also shared a banana plantation. In the final turn Joe ran out of money so he was forced to be the canal builder. Both Mike and Chris offered big bucks to water their tile that would break into our seven-tile banana plantation. I countered by offering him one dollar to build a canal somewhere else, which he took.
me (86), Joe (82), Mike (62), Chris (48)

Mike's: Played another rhomboid game from the makers of Tom Tube. The board is a hexagon shaped city, which are subdivided into a bunch of triangles. During a player's turn, he may place one of his four tokens or place a tile. A token can only be place on a spot next to an open triangle. Once a token is completely surrounded it will score and returned to the player. Occasionally, a rhomboid will be placed so that a triangle will be created. That triangle is now considered active and the tokens next to it will be affected. There are three types of triangles. "2X" doubles the score of the token, "Coat of Arms" makes negative values into positive and the "Guard" will force out neighboring tokens. The game ends when no one can place a token or a tile. This fact wasn't made clear to use until the end game. The game started out friendly as player placed their tokens and surround them will good tiles. Two of my token were locked in to their position when some tiles were placed so that active triangle were created. Little did I realize that I would seriously benefit by those moves. When we were down to the final two tiles someone asked about the end condition. Mike read the rule and after that there was a rush to fill in the final open spots. Mike and Chris had most of their token left so they were forced to place on some really bad spots. Joe wants to play this again!!!
Me (79), Joe (38), Mike (5), Chris (1)