John's: John and company, being big Catan fans, have been dying to play Starfarers. I spent about twenty minutes going over the rules. John had a super quick start getting several colonies and a trading post set up before the rest of use could set up our first. John stalled once he reach 9 points. James got a worm hole jump early but it didn't help him since the location he selected was uncolonizable. It took him several more turns to find a good site. Meanwhile I concentrated on setting up several trading post so I could pick up the carbon and ore production enhancements. Those abilities allowed me to get lots of guns and freight rings. Using my freight rings I was able to colonize an ice planet and with my guns I was able to defeat pirate enounters which translated to two free trade ships. I was one turn away from winning by taking John's trading VP with my trading fleet but he was able to build a final colony ship to beat me to the win.
John (15), Me (13), Penny (9), James (9)

John's: Cultivation at work. ER was starting in 20 minutes so I figure I teach John and Penny a fun little game. We played one hand and the game was pretty close. Looks good for another play. Their next game on the menu, Carcassonne.
John (9), Me (8), Penny (7)

John's: John called from Sacramento with an offer to bring food from my favorite Thai restaurant. Two hours later I was eating the best garlic pork in the world. Afterwards, I broke out my latest Catan product "Historische Szenarien II", choosing played The Great Wall scenario. In this version, each player is responsible for defending China from the steppe riders, which is done by improving the strength of the wall. Every time a settlement is created or upgraded, a steppe rider is placed on its waiting area. Each waiting area has a set of numbers that send the riders to an attack hex when rolled. The riders attacked when there are more riders than the strength of the wall. Each rider will occupy a hex in the breached column. The strength of the wall is reduced by one, the player who failed China gets a -1 vp chip and occupied hexes don't produce resources, doh! If the steppe riders breach the wall five times then all players lose. First player to ten vps win. The rules for the knights have been enhanced to allow players to move a rider between meeting area, remove riders from hex or move the pirate ship (no robber).

This being our first play we were all worried about the riders. Johnny concentrated on building his wall segment and got it to level four. John and I developed our walls enough to prevent an attack due to unlucky rolls and then concentrated on building our road network and building settlements. I quickly got the longest road and reached my five settlement limit but stalled since I had no access to ore. I tried to get some but it resulted in getting Penny upset (I took good spots from her) and she kept picking on me for the rest of the game. John and Johnny played dueling knights but John got the largest army first and was able to keep. John won by creating a settlement followed by a quick upgrade to win. No riders entered China.
John (10), Me (8), Penny (6), Johnny (3)

John's: We were going to play Bohnanza but James wasn't interested so we switch to Wyatt Earp. Went over the rules to James and Johnny. Johnny had a good first hand scoring 9 points while most of us had five or less. The second hand was better for John and I as we were able to catch up. I totally dominated the final hand. I scored five of the outlaws, winning two outright.
Me (32), James (23), Johnny (22), John (21)

Online: We were half way through a game when James experienced a drop out. I was so winning that game too. On the restart Lloyd just smoked us. He quickly got longest road and built up to the green metro. He actually had 13 points when he received a progress card VP but James built his road to break it. During the several turns that it took Lloyd to recover the longest road, John and I double our score so it could look respectable.
Lloyd (14), John (8), Me (7), James (4)

Gadgettree: Joe and I arrived a bit early. I meandered over to the sports book to look at the payout for the bosox (+170) to beat the Yankees (-200) in the ALCS. I got back in time to start playing a game of Transamerica. Anne whiffed in the first round by placing track on a segment that she wasn't connected to. Well I guess we all whiff cause no one noticed till it was too late in the round. The game ended after the third round. Nate just always seemed to be off by 5 or 6 spaces.
Anne (8), Tin, Joe (6), Me (3), Nate (-2)

Gadgettree: I had brought Traumfabrik, which excited several people, and more were eager to play. I went over the rules for Anne and Tin. There were a couple of times when the newbies were going to take something wrong during the party. I stopped them and explained to them the several options available. Joe got the early actor lead and was able to keep it through out the game. Joe had the actor lead but didn't seem to get enough stars in his other tiles to produce good movies. Nate and I on the other hand had minimal stars but both of us were able to complete lots of movies. Nate had 30 points in awards while I had 20. The game ended in a tie. I was later told that they really appreciated the help and that they liked my style.
Me, Nate (74), Tin (63), Anne (60), Joe (33)

Gadgettree:
Nate pulled out a classic Milton Bradley game for six players (Dave, Nate, Joe, Tin, Anne, Joe and Me). Initially, no one was interested in playing Mr X but when Dave took the Mr x pawn he sounded very confident that he would survive. Four turns later he was captured. Doh! Anne decided to be Mr X but changed it to Dr X cause it sounded more menacing. Anne did a little better than Dave but we were able to surround her by the 10th turn. Joe was next to take the mantel of Dr X. Joe had definitely picked up the strategy and was able to elude us twice when we had him cornered. In our third attempt it appear that we had him cornered but I had a nagging suspicion that he was going to elude us again. So I did something unexpected and backtrack my pawn. Sure enough on his next surfacing he had been blocked by my move and we were quickly able to round him up. Phew! That was close.
Game 1: Mr X (Dave) loses on the 4th turn
Game 2: Dr X (Anne) loses on the 10th turn
Game 3: Dr X (Joe) loses on the 19th turn

John's: Finally got around to teaching Carcassonne to John and family. Went for the basic rules not willing to overload them with all the rules. When playing with a bunch of newbies I usually back off the heavy farming. Johnny and Penny got into the farming early while the rest of us concentrated on building cities and roads. John and I were developing a large city but we had to do some tricky placements to prevent James and Johnny from breaking in. The defensive attempts actually prevent us from completing the city but we still got 14 points at the end of the game. Johnny and Penny scored the majority of the farming points.
Johnny, Penny (89), James (83), John (69), Me (58)

John's: Taught the crew another game. This game lasted only three hands. After the first hand I was the leading loser, losing three points. In the second hand Penny got a really bad set and putting her in the "lead", which set the end contition at four. In the final round, I was the first to complete my path because Johnny connected one of my cities on the way to his. Penny again lost the most points.
Me (8), John, James (7), Johnny (3), Penny (1)

John's: We were looking forward to playing Troy from the Historical Scenario expansion but were off by one player. The scenario needs 4 or 6. So we played a five-player game of SOC using the island variant.
Starting order Penny, Me, Johnny, John, James
In the islands variant a spot that has three productive hexes is tough. Getting two good spots is especially difficult when picking early. Several players decided to go after a port strategy and I was able to get another good hex for a balanced production strategy. James and Johnny got out to fast starts by the use of their port strategies. The smack the leader attacks stalled their development. I was able to acquire the longest road and built three more settlements. I became "Mr. He so winning" and Johnny numbers started coming up for the big push to victory including stealing my Longest Road VPs.
Johnny (10), Me, John (7), Penny, James (6)

John's: The boys were really excited about playing Risk. After the rules explanation they were kind of disappointed that the game had a non-conquest end condition. Not that it matters; John and I were good while Johnny and James were evil. I'm not sure they understood that the object of the game was to score VPs. Johnny's initial attack drew the ire of the James and the game proceeded to become a grudge-fest. John and I solidified our positions while the boys were busy. Johnny managed to wipe out James, which the rules didn't cover so we decided to do old school risk rules. Tempers were high and James stormed off. All of a sudden Johnny was control half the board with a few turns left in the game. I was able to break Johnny's hold on two of his three regions but he was able to recover and busted into my region. John ripped through Johnny's territory to finish a mission. The fellowship exited the board at the end of his turn. I have doubts that we'll play any kind of combat game when the both boys are around. Teenagers!
John (28), Me (25), Johnny (23), James (4)

Online: When I launched the scenario I forgot to set the no first turn events rule and it hurt. I didn't get any resources until the barbarians sacked my city. On the next wave, Lloyd's city got sacked leaving James with the only city and the lead. He never had to worry about the outcome of the game. We definitely dragged the game as Lloyd and I did everything to slow him down. I stole a level two knight and used "Intrigue" to wipeout another level two knight, which allowed the barbarians to sack one of his cities. It didn't matter he upgraded it on his next turn. In the end he had all the specials: two Metros, the trader, longest road and a defender point.
James (13), Lloyd (7), Me (5)

Gadget Tree: About a dozen people show up for game night, enough for three games. I went over the rules for our game of ES&R. Tin suggested we do a quick practice round. Guess Tin picked up something during the practice cause he had an amazing first turn, scoring over forty points while the rest of us were under twenty. With four players the "Free Choice" card is not included as a player's option, which added more tension to the game. It felt like Nate and I always picked the same actions while Joe and Tin always got their action. Tin still had the lead after the second turn but Joe was catching up. I was at the rear of the pack. In the third turn Joe made a pretty strong advance but in the end Tin had more gems to win the tiebreaker.
Tin (86+), Joe (86), Nate (64), Me (61)

Gadget Tree: We got a late arrival (Dave) to join us on our next game. Joe, Tin, Nate, Dave and I started a game of Sleuth, which is an old classic deduction game from the sixties. One gem card is removed from the deck and placed in the middle of the table. The rest of the gem cards are dealt out to the players. Additionally, each player also gets 4 search cards. The object is to determine the type of gem card in the middle of the table by the use of the search cards. Each turn a player can use one of the search cards to query about a player's gem cards. At the end of the turn the player draws another search card from the draw deck. The hardest part of this game was trying to figure out how to notate all the information. Nate having played before was able to determine the missing gem card on the first try.
Nate deduced correctly

Gadget Tree: Since we were still waiting for the other games to finish, I whipped out a quick card game. Quickly went over the rules and started the push your luck fest. Tin was one lucky bastard getting 4 seven cards but had too many of the same color for a good score. Even though Nate played the Gala, Joe won with his trios.
Joe (48), Nate (42), Tin (38), Me (37), Dave (35)

Gadget Tree: A game in which Joe had the clear lead by taking early control of Pavilion and Serail sets plus a nice wall. He lost the game with an impressive final turn by Nate who got control of several sets and the perfect tile to merge his two wall segments to create a monster wall.
Nate (102), Joe (82), Me (79), Mike (66), Tin (63)

Gadget Tree: Mike went over the rules for us, even though I had played before I still need the refresher. Turned out to be a short game as we quickly found the 12 monuments. More than half the board was still unexplored.
Mike (41), Me(37), Chris, Jared (33)

Online: Damn I kicked ass tonight, actually the random number generator really helped me out. After my initial placement I realized that I had 10 on three of my six hexes (brick, wood, sheep). Lucky for me the 10 rolled early and often. I quickly extended my road to get the longest road vps. It took a while but I finally got the wheat I need to build my first settlement. The tens just kept coming and the other guys had no hope. I eventually got the green metro, the traders and lots of settlements and cities. James got a defender VP.
Me (14), James (6), Lloyd (6), John (3)

Borders: Mike started the night by teaching us Uberplay's reprint of High Society. The rules are simple enough. Each player starts with the same amount of money 25, 20, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. On each turn, players bid for status cards. 10 of the sixteen status cards are luxury item values from 1 to 10. Three of the status cards are doublers which double the value of your items. The other three status cards are bad such as the IRS (1/2 value of luxurty items), Casino (-5) and Robbed (lose an item). Like Traumfabrik player keep bidding for the item until all players but one pass. The winning player takes the item and discards the money offered. There is a slightly different bidding scheme when the status card is a bad card. During that bidding segment, the first player to pass takes the item and the other players lose the money bidded. It like a game of chicken, how much are you willing to lose to not take the nasty card. Four of the sixteen status cards are red bordered and the game end when the fourth red bordered card is flipped over. Before actual scoring takes place, the player or players with the least money are automatically out. The player with the highest luxury item score wins.

Damn, what a game for so little components. It reminded me of Raj. Terri got the early lead cause she was agressive with her bids. I decided to wait until people ran out of money to make my push. I waited too long as the fourth card came up before 1/2 the deck was gone. Mike had the least money and he also had the least points. That IRS card is really nasty!
Terri (24), Tom (12), Me (8), Mike (-)

Borders: Played again with several new players. Mike and others played Venezia, the pigeon game. I started to note the ratio that items would go for. The initial cards went 2$ for 1 point but by the end they got to the 4$ to 1 point ratio. On the bidding round for the -5 card, I decided to take the pain and have everyone else lose their money. It didn't pay off. Nate and I were bidding for the 10 card which finally went for 40 but it cost Nate the game. Tricky game. Love it!
Tin (22), Tom (12), Me (11), Terri (6), Nate (-)

Borders: Nate was experimenting in this game. He was trying the trio strategy. It didn't work since I was able to complete the gala in about 12 draws.
Me (43), Tin (39), Nate (29), Terri (27)

Borders: We got a new player, Jeff, to join us. None of them had ever played this game so I went over the rules for them. These newbies are quick learners and got the hang of the game during the first hand. The first hand belong to Nate and Tin as they got to the teens while Jeff and I had less then the number of digits on one hand. The second hand was a little better for me. Jeff got screwed by Nate and scored nothing during the second round. The third and final hand was a close one for Nate and Tin. Jeff was finally able to score some points. They enjoyed it and are looking forward to playing again.
Nate (26), Tin (23), Me (17), Jeff (14)

Borders: We were waiting for Venezia game to finish so Nate pushed Coloretto. I think I wimped out a little too much. Nate got a perfect final turn draw to score him the big points, he got two blues to get a full set.
Nate (30), Jeff (26), Tin (23), Dave (22), Me (20)

Borders: Looks like I've been bring the "I wanna play games" to the sessions. Joe was hot for this game, while Tin and Nate just groan cause they thought I was another Streetcar. I guaranteed them that it was not and they joined us. The other group started Wildlife. The rules explanatin went smoothly, although Rolf seem to have the most trouble. They quickly picked up the screwage factor of the game. Half of my trolley were quickly score for a measly nine points. I took my turns hosing Nate and Tin. Rolf and Joe were ignored and they took advanage of it. People started picking on Rolf as he had no trolleys scored while most had at least two off the board. It quickly became the hose Rolf game and Joe was completely forgotten. Joe's last two trolley's scored a total of fourty points.
Joe (63), Rolf (55), Nate (41), Me (39), Tin (31)

Borders: We had less than 40 minutes to play before Borders would kick us out. We decided to give High Society a try with three players. First bid was the IRS card and I decided it was early enough to take it. It took too much money to recover those point. From now on I must avoid the IRS card at all cost!!! Not as much fun with three as it is with five.
Nate (12), Tin (10), Me (-)

John's: I got a co-worker and his wife to play Catan at John's place. Joey being a ex-SFB, picked up the game. I had to take over Suzy's spot because their munckin, Payton, started getting cranky. The numbers to have in this game were the 3, 11 and 6. Joey and Penny got good output on those numbers. My spots generated lots of wheat so I went for the wheat port. Being blocked out from the Ore by John and Joey I had to play port god by building on the sheep port which was another commidity I had plenty off. I was able to build two cities by just trading in two for ones. Penny had grabbed the longest road early in the game. Penny, John and Joey battle for longest road. John won when he regained from Joey the longest road, played his third knight for the largest army award. Joey and family left but he was very excited about the game. He was also interested in giving Puerto Rico a try. Looks like I got another convert.
John (10), Me/Suzy (7), Joe (7), Penny (6)

John's: John was still up for learning Puerto Rico and it also gave an opportunity for James and Johnny to join us. Penny decided to bail. I went over the rules and tried to cover some of the gotcha of the game. It was a typical game with first time players. Buildings were bought, no set strategy. Saw the light blubs go on during the game. They soon realized that cash is king. I went super trader, getting the markets and all of the commodities. Yeah I could have gone for the factory too but I didn't want to crush them. The money flowed and I finished the game with three large buildings; the Guild Hall, Custom House and Fortress for an additional 15 points. All I have to do is get Joey hooked on this and we're playing PR for lunch. :)
Me (47), John (31), James (30), Johnny (28)

Lunch Time: Living 2 miles from work is great! I convinced John and Joey to come over for a game of Catan during lunch time. This was the quickest game of settlers I've ever experienced. John started out smoking hot! He upgraded to a city in the first turn and the rolls kept coming. There really was no game. Joey and I just watched as John got longest road and largest army. Game over.
John (10), Joey (3), Me (3)

Lunch Time: Well since we had some extra time, I got John and Joey to give this quickie a try. Joey got he Gala and five sevens. Another spankin'!! Better get back to work, sigh.
Joey (63), John (52), Me (40)

Gadget Tree: Started the night with a quick game of High Society. The first card up was 10-card and I was amazed that I picked it up for only 35. The thing that hurt was the IRS card came up next and I had to take it after the bids got over 40 something. Once again that IRS card killed me.
Bruce (18), Nate (12), Me (7), Tin (4), Anne (-)

Gadget Tree: Bruce had recently picked up Zombies and was pushing it. Anne, Omar and Nate were willing' to play. I gave them fair warning about the game and off we went zombie killing. Tin bailed with in a couple of turns and off he went to play another game of High Society. I had a nice lead in zombie kills when the helipad appeared. I decided going for zombie kills victory condition but I got a bad streak of die rolls. I died and lost half my kills. Anne also suffered a death. Two hours later Omar had to leave. At that point we all decided to give up the game. Bruce was a little surprised at the length of the game. I gave him the link to Vitas' game tweaks for making it a shorter game.
Bruce (19), Me (8), Anne (6), Omar (had to leave), Tin (Bailed out)

Gadget Tree: We played another game of High Society while we waited for the other group to finish their game of the Wildlife. Played a little better but I had realized how much Jared had spent I would have big for the last card which would have won me the game.
Joe (17), Me (11), Tin (8), Nate (0), Jared (-)

Gadget Tree: We were down to four players and were looking for a quick game that everyone knew. Mike started out a long wall, which gave him the lead after the first round. I took the lead during the second round by taking lead in three of the sets. I had a fragment wall so I tried to hook it up by the end of the game but that cost me my leads. I got the wall linked up but lost the game big time.
Jared (125), Joe (120), Mike (110), Me (93)

Mike's: Mike's wife had a book club meeting so he decided to have an impromptu game night. Joe and I were the only ones to show up with such a short notice. After perusing Mike's 300 + collection of games we decided to play Nautilus. This was Joe and my first play, so Mike had to go over the rules. This is a money management, tile placement and exploration game. The final score is a multiplication of two scores, Research and Exploration. In the research area there are five technologies. Getting to level 2, adds a victory point to the player's research score while the leader get three points. In the exploration side there are three types of discoveries. Shells for zero points, animals for a point, and metals for two points. Atlantis discoveries are worth variable points based on number of pieces found (5,3,1 vps). Each player gets a special mission card that gives an extra point for a shell type and an animal type.
Initially, I decided to buy a sub station and started exploring immediately. I found four pieces of Atlantis in my initial exploration. Joe and Mike went for improvement on several research areas. While I tried to catch up on research technologies, Joe was able to crank out three subs to start his exploration. Mike on the other hand was the leader in three research areas for some big VPs. I made a concerted effort to lock in a lead in two of the research areas while getting to at least level 2 on the rest of the areas. During the rest of the game my exploration never uncovered Atlantis pieces. \ I did find lots of treasure for some needed cash flow. In the final turn, Joe was able to take over one of the research leads from Mike. Joe had uncovered the most piece of Atlantis but only found 6 points in other discoveries. I came in second and found 12 points in other discoveries. Mike came in last for Atlantis discoveries and found 8 additional points in other discoveries.

Afterwards, I read the rules online and discovered a couple of errors on our play.

• In the three-player game there is a buy limit of three researchers per habitat.
• We forgot to move researcher extra spaces when Atlantis pieces are found.
• Didn't use the shell discovery special abilities of sneaking a peek at unexplored chips.
• I got to pickup a tile in the trench when I had a research area at level zero.

Mike's: Our second game would bring a smile to Vitas and make Chris Lockheardt cry in horror! All of us had played before but it had been at least a year for me. The game felt a less cutthroat than my previous plays. I figured it was one of those the three players vs. four players issues. Joe had a nasty habit of place tiles so it was difficult to access. I used that to my advantage as I was able to set up a base camp and create a set of isolated temples for 16 easily defendable victory points. That cache of temples gave me the lead after the third round. As the end of game approached I remembered that there was something weird about the end of the game. As I read the end game scoring, I realized that we had played the other scoring rounds wrong. We were taking a snap shot of the current condition instead of doing the 10 actions point and scoring per player. That's why it felt friendly.
Another asterisk game!
Me (116), Mike (97), Joe (88)