2/22/2022 6:53:42 PM
JohnKerr
( John Kerr)
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Last game day was a relaxed return to gaming after our covid hiatus. We played a couple older games, starting with five for Vegas Showdown, always a favorite. I don't have the details handy, but it was a game with a lot of limited bidding rounds, due to expensive choices and/or no-bid tokens. It was looking like we were going to quickly deplete one of the building stacks, but then it evened out and the game went long.
This was the last game we will have with Chris for a while, as he took off after that and is moving to Richmond. While hopefully after he gets settled in he'll make the trip up to join us, until then we'll miss his always positive attitude and cheerful willingness to play almost any game, Formula De aside.
Next we played Wingspan with both the european and oceania expansions (thanks to Jeff). The expansions added new birds and a wildcard food type, as well as some new types of cards. Added some diversity, but didn't make any fundamental changes to the game play.
Who is interested in gaming 2/26?
New acquires that I could try to learn beforehand are On Mars, the Martian colonization game, Pax Pamir (2nd edition), the tableau builder set in Afghanistan and the real expansion to Dune: Imperium, Risk of Ix, I still have Imperium: classics on my list of like to learns, as well.
Let me know if you can make it and if there is a particular game that will draw you out!
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2/25/2022 12:31:28 PM
JohnKerr
( John Kerr)
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Posts: 1207
BggId: johnkerr
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It sounds like we have Mike (possibly with a guest), Marvin, Larry, Scott and myself. (Late additions are welcome of course)
Potential games include Furnace and Pipeline.
See everyone tomorrow!
Most of this was decided via an email chain, which anyone is welcome to receive on request, but ether mode of communication (email or here) is fine with me.
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2/27/2022 11:14:09 PM
JohnKerr
( John Kerr)
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Posts: 1207
BggId: johnkerr
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The 4th Saturday of February came with a great game day!
We had 8 folks, Me, Mike, Rick, Cheryl, Larry, Scott, Marvin and Tiffany. Tiffany is new to ABG and an enthusiastic newcomer to many of our games. We started with a quick game of Tsuro. I managed to slam into a wall fairly quickly and Tiffany not long after. Rick stealthily maneuvered to last the longest, followed by Cheryl, Larry and Mike.
Then we broke into two groups. Hansa Tuetonica is a favorite and seemed like a nice middle weight to follow up Tsuro, so Mike, Tiffany, Marvin and I launched into that. We play the newer map with the co-located action and bag tech. This instance of the game was a bit of an odd one, as the battle for more actions lasted longer than normal, to the point where the game was close to over once it settled down. There was very little focus on the bonus disks and I don't think a single person increased their key tech (increasing the value of each kontor in the largest network). In the end, some captured towns near the techs netting me a slow trickle of points that put me over 20 to trigger the endgame and led to the victory. I had 41, Mike 35, Tiffany 23 and Marvin 18.
Meanwhile, the other table was playing Bonfire, a popular new(ish) Feld. Apparently Scott was so busy doing cool things that he also ran away with it. I'm not sure of the details, except that Larry wasn't certain he was actually playing the same game that Scott was. Scott 93, Cheryl 66, Rick 51 and Larry 29.
Back on the other table, we followed up HT with some real estate wheeling and dealing with For Sale. A fairly early bidding war had me spending most of my money on a 27, but a quirk of the cards made that not be as painful as it might of been. And the relatively low value average I ended at was compensated for by some wild swings of the checks that let me tie for 2nd, losing the tiebreaker to Tiffany. Marvin was the most astute of investors, making the best use of this properties. Marvin: 63, Tiffany: 58.3, John: 58.2 and Mike 45.
While bonfire finished up we had another quick game of Tsuro, with Mike victoriously sliding around with several tiles of game to spare by the end: Mike 1st, Tiffany 2nd, John 3rd and Marvin 4th.
Mike graciously dropped Marvin and Tiffany off at the metro and rejoined us. Rick and Cheryl were a little black eyed and blue from their bonfire game, so only had one game left in them, but perhaps a little coffee would perk them up. We chose an old time Rosenberg favorite, Bohnanza, the bean trading game. The trading was fast and furious, but the interest in a 3rd bean field ran chili, with not a single one sold. The game ended up very tight, with Cheryl and I tied for first and Cheryl taking it, leaving me simultaneously green with envy and red in the face, it stinks. Cheryl: 13.4, John: 13.3, Rick 11.4, Mike 11.3, Scott 11.0 and Larry 10. A 2 way tie for 1st and a 3 way tie for 2nd, soy close!
Rick and Cheryl left us, leaving four to close with a game of Anno 1800. We decided to house rule that the people were in unlimited supply, as the limits just seemed like an un-fun game situation. We only had one bonus action, the one that lets you purchase an extra action for 3 navigation and 3 trade tokens. We seemed to quickly exhaust the low level people cards and we did hit the limit on red guys and have to bring in more mid game. Everyone was happily cranking along making their people happy, when suddenly Larry decided to end the game. A mildly strange situation happened where everyone seemed to have a stockpile of extra actions, so the last turn was actually many turns and the scores ended up tight, but Larry's unpopular decision to end the game won it for him! Larry:134, John: 131, Mike: 130 and Scott: 120.
Thanks everyone for the games and company, hope to see you again in 2 weeks.
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