Ralph's Game Log for January 2006 | Minutes | ||
3rd | |||
Purchase: Mike is having a 50% clearance sale, can't say no to that!!! Anno 1503 (25) and Bootleggers (20) | |||
Tikal | BGoR:
Cody bought this game over a year ago and had yet to play it. Of course I didn't hesitate to teach it to Jake and Cody. This was the strangest game of Tikal I've ever played. First of all Jake and Cody were treasure hunters getting most of the treasure. Brad and I went heavy on Temple exploration and we actually used all the tiles. I capped a level 9 temple before the first scoring round which really annoyed Brad since he was helping build it up. Also, I was able to create a little alcove of temples with a tent at the entrance. Jake and Cody placed volcanos to stop my expansion but they unwittingly made it very defensible.
| 90 | |
Palazzo | BGoR:
The other group started Hacienda losing Cody for Nate. It was tough to get a game to play, I pushed for New England but Nate wasn't interested, I suggested San Juan which was torched by Brad. Eventually we decided on Palazzo. I went over the rules for Brad and Jake. What a weird game this one turned out to be. Most people usually start by getting money but the guys jumped right into builder action. I got lucky and had several 3 of a kind which helped me outbid the others for the floors that I needed. The game ended rather quickly. I was only able to build two building with four floors each but it was enough to win.
| 50 | |
Basari | BGoR:
Same dilemma again, no to Maharaja, no to Louis XIV, eventually settling on Basari. Nate got to an early led at he choose Movement or points, when bartering, he would give up any gem except yellow. Eventually Nate ran out of gems to barter and began losing his lead. I bartered like crazy and I scored two sets in each of the last two scoring rounds. Nate eeked it out.
| 40 | |
6th | |||
Purchase: I was in SLC to sell my condo and found a couple game store. I just had to buy stuff Serenissima (47) and Fairy Tale (15) | |||
10th | |||
Purchase: More 50% off clearance!! Tower of Babel (18) and Doom The Boardgame (27) | |||
Wallenstein | BGoR:
Cody brought another of his “owned but haven't played” games and he had the English translations too. So I went over the rules for Jake and John V.
I was pushing for quick set up but Cody wanted to try the advance method of picking your starting provinces.
Results of the set up, Cody was in the north, Jake in the east, John V in the West and I was mixed in here and there.
The first year was pretty quiet between the players, most were concentrating in taking over neutrals and building buildings.
At the end of the first year Jake and I were a point away from a tie and Cody was close behind.
I guess John didn't realize the value of buildings and paid for with a low score.
The second year was exceptionally brutal. First, all the event cards were harvest failures with winter grain numbers of five or higher.
We were a little more combative with a couple of provinces getting devastated. The real nastiness happened during winter where most had to deal with at least two revolts.
I lost three province to revolts, Jake two, Cody two and John none. John and Cody both felt that game went a little to fast, they felt it should have another year.
Interesting, first time I've heard that!!
| 120 | |
St Petersburg | BGoR:
I had one more game left before I had to go to work so I suggested St Peters bug. I went over the rules and stressed that getting money early was more important than getting VP early.
I guess Jake didn't believe me cause he went for buildings early and paid for it with serious lack of funds during the game.
This was pretty much a runaway game from the start. By the end of the game I was cranking out 48 gold via works, 15 via building and another 20 via aristocrats.
Cody tried to catch up by trying to acquiring aristocrats but had way too much of a point lead.
| 40 | |
15th | |||
Carcassonne the castle | Home:
My friend Roger came up to Reno for some snowboarding and gambling.
We were playing video poker at the Hilton and he scored a Royal Flush. He called it quits since the weekend was now paid for.
We decided that games were in order but I had trouble scrounging players for Settlers or Puerto Rico, his favorites.
I figured it was a good time to pull out the two player games in my closet. First up was Carcassonne the Castle.
I hosed myself by jumping onto two market areas really early in the game, resulting a lack of meeples. Meanwhile Roger would
boink here and there for points and acquiring those bonus tiles. The game would have been even more lopsided if it was for my breaking into
one of his large towers.
| 40 | |
Lost Cities | Home:
Next up was a game that proved he should have stayed at the hilton and gambled some more!! First hand he score positive points on all suits, an amazing job for a first timer.
Then on both of the next hands he got full suit runs that just destroyed me.
| 30 | |
Battleline | Home:
This turned out to be the closest of all the games that we played.
The game was almost mine when he drew the Alexander card which allowed him to win his fourth battle before I could claim it for myself.
This resulted in a forced play which allowed him to win the fifth battle. Arghh!
| 20 | |
Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper | Home:
Proof again that Roger should have been gambling.
First hand, four victims came out in the first 3 rounds. Roger then played a scene card to pull out the final victim from the discarded deck and followed it
by the Ripper Escapes card!! We played three more hands and each time I was completely outplayed.
| 40 | |
17th | |||
Hare and Tortoise | BGOR:
We welcomed a new player to the group today, her name was Helene.
I suggested H&T as our first game while we waited for the rest to show up. Her initial statement was "That a kids game".
My race started out bad for me losing my first turn but that allowed me to hang back and eat my lettuce.
While the rest of the racers were posiiton to jump onto the eat lettuce spot I cruised to the finish line.
Helene changed her tune after the game by saying "That was no kids game". He he.
| 40 | |
Ra | BGOR:
we the rest of the group was already playing their game, Siena. We decided to play some Ra.
Helene had trouble understanding the concept of the game but she picked it up after an epoch.
I went out early thinking the epoch would end quick but it streached out. I did pick up lots of
river/floods and 5 different monuments. In the later round I would continue to build up my monuments, eventually
getting 7 of 8 and a triple.
| 40 | |
Cloud 9 | BGOR:
Well, I needed to get to work so we picked a quickee. Helene kept jumping out a little too early but she soon figured
the memory/bluffing aspect of the game. The game turned out to be a close one and it came down to a game of chicken between
Cody and Helene. Helene won by having the wild cards in her hand.
| 40 | |
21th | |||
Purchase: Elasund (45) Well so much for my game diet, next month!! | |||
Age of Steam | Sacto Meetup:
Well I couldn't attend UGx so I drove to Sacramento to attend the Sacramento Boardgaming meetup's monthly gaming session.
I arrived and quickly jumped onto a game of AoS. Kevin was refreshing the rules for Sean, Aaron and Jim.
Kevin initial placement was the east, Jim in the west and the rest of us in the middle.
The production roll came out big for Kevin. The weird part is no one really made an attempt to break into Kevin's cube stash.
As the game progressed only Jim had any attempt to take cubes from the east side.
I made a route that went west/north and manage to get some good cube runs but never enough to catch kevin.
| 180 | |
Settlers of Catan 3D | Sacto Meetup:
Oh some crazy boy paid big bucks for this set. We had to play with it, such sweet bits!!
I got off to great start, getting to my ore access and blocking out Aaron, owner of the wood port, from more wood.
Snagged the longest road and it was looking like a sweet win. Sadly, the rolls ran out and I stalled.
Mike caught on fire and
start upgrading his settlement to cities and polished it off by taking my the longest road points.
| 60 | |
Taj Mahal | Sacto Meetup:
Sean left to attend another game session, luckily Derrick was milling around and was looking forward to playing
Taj since our aborted attempt last October. Went over the rule for about 10 minutes, trying to make sure I showed them
all of the tricks. The initial turns where normal, nothing surprising.
Mike was able to grab the +2VP card and hang on to it for a long time. Once the other guys realized the power of that
card it started to move around. Derrick suffered two painful no wins, ie committing lots of cards and winning nothing.
In the final province, it looked like it was going to be a big battle for goods between Mike and I but he bailed out early to grab
the 4 VP spot. Derrick having no real shot at winning, made sure I wouldn't get the goods with out a fight.
I ran out of my suit so I walked away with two temples and made an okay connect but not enough to win.
| 70 | |
Traumfabrik | Sacto Meetup:
The guys spotted my Traumfabrik, it was new to them so they were very interested in playing it.
I went over the rules, add another notch to games taught. I'll chalk up this victory cause I was playing with
first timers. They concentrated on create great picutres while I made a quick green for the bonus plus I got the quarterly bonus.
Eventually, I got all three first picture bonus, one quarterly, worst picture, best green and four complete movies.
Derrick really liked it, he bummed that it was OOP.
| 50 | |
Hare and Tortoise | Sacto Meetup:
We less than an hour to play before the closed up the library. The guys seem interested in give the game a shot.
It was a close race, beating Derrick by only one turn.
| 40 | |
22nd | |||
Titan | Home:
I screwed up my scheduling. Jake and Cody came over to play Titan, Roger and Rebecca show up from a day of skiing.
I had no problem convincing Roger to play, I had to work a bit to get Rebecca to play.
We spent a few hours mustering creatures. The action started when Jake jumped Cody's Titan stack.
Rebecca was doing an excellent job of recruiting but I pull the godfather manuevor, smacking Jake and Rebbecca's titan
stack during the same turn. I defeated both stacks to make my titan a 16. A few turns later Roger attacked
my titan stack. It wasn't strong enough to wipe out my stack but it was strong enough to cripple me, so
I decided to committed my titan to battle early.
I kept my wyvern and warbear in background so I could have breeding stock. My titan did well but he whiffed on the last
roll to kill the final creature. It go the kill on the next turn. Shucks!!!
| 720 | |
24th | |||
Elasund | BGoR:
Broke out my new catan game. Went over rules and hoped that I didn't miss any major rule.
| 70 | |
Roborally | BGoR:
| 45 | |
Roborally | BGoR:
| 45 | |
Elasund | BGoR:
| 60 | |
28th | |||
Metro | Home:
| 50 | |
Elasund | BGoR:
| 60 | 60 |
29th | |||
Carcassone The Castle | Home:
| 70 | |
Puerto Rico | BGoR:
| 60 | |
San Juan | BGoR:
| 60 | |
Railroad Tycoon | BGoR:
| 150 | |
Loot | BGoR:
| 15 | |
30th | |||
Wallenstein | BGoR:
Cody has class on Tuesdays this quarter, so in order to make up his game fix we've started a Monday session.
We don't have a name yet but it'll be something like "Reno's Real Gamers", "Reno's Heavy weights" or something like that. Our first game of the night was Wallenstein. The first time in a while that I haven't had to do a rules explanation for this game. We used the advanced set up. I usually play a passive strategy only really making attacks against neutrals and end of the year grabs. This time I went on the all out rabid dog offensive. It was chaotic and my aggression seemed to keep the other players off balanced.
| 90 | |
Dino Buffet | BGoR:
Next was a prototype that Cody is working on.
Not gonna say much but I thought it was good game for its rough state.
It had a good theme, some hard choices and good tension.
Actually the goal seemed almost impossible but I did manage to score two points.
| 45 | |
Elasund | BGoR:
| 60 | |
31st | |||
Elasund | BGoR:
The game went over so well last week that the group wanted to give it another try.
This time I placed my building along the backside of the city, figuring that there would be less build destruction which is what happened. Most of the volatility occurred along the shore and center of the board. Brad once again got out to a very good start.
It was looking like he might squeeze out another victory but I built over one of his seaboard buildings and TC wiped out one of his wells to bring him back to the group.
A big battle was brewing in upper columns where at one point there where seven permits on the board.
TC gave up and built a 2 x 2 building allowing me to build the 2x3 and followed it up with a church tile for the victory.
This was my fifth play for this game and I really do like it.
| 60 | |
Hacienda | BGoR:
| 80 | |
Hare and Tortoise | BGOR:
I always like to take a chance early in the game by landing on the hare spaces.
This time I got really lucky and earned a total of three free turns. The rest of the guys tried my strategy but didn't nearly the luck that I did. I cruise to victory.
Bruce and TC were racing for second. Bruce had too many carrots so he was stuck at the last carrot spot ditch carrots. TC was about to finish when he incorrect choose to land on a Hare space. He rolled bad and had to lose one position, second place lost to a bad roll.
Bruce got eventually got second, Mike rolled into three and TC was bummed.
| 40 |
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