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Monday 2008-05-26 - Memorial Weekend Gaming
Written by Dragon
Saturday was a crazy day for us, but in the evening we finally got to relax a bit with our friends Blain and Candice. We played a couple of board games and talked about various things, including the upcoming Demon Hunter/Living Sacrifice concert.
We played Acquire, another game that Blain and Candice hadn't played, but I guess most of my games would fall into that category for them at this point. I warned them ahead of time that Beth is very good at Acquire and that I can't remember beating her other than maybe once. Blain did very well in the game and came out with a few thousand dollars more than Beth.
After that we played San Juan. Beth asked to play up to 15 buildings this time, which I reluctantly agreed to. Beth and Candice were constantly talking about home improvement projects throughout the game, which slowed things down in addition to the larger number of building needed to end it. Because of the longer game requested initially, I planned by construction a little differently so when she got to 12 and said, "why don't we just end it right here?" I said no. Even though I never want to play up to that number of buildings again, I was not ready to just end the game at the official ending point when we had agreed to something different. In the end, I won the game and felt, as I had expected, that there was not nearly as much variety in players construction by the end of the game. I won the game in a tie breaker with Blain at 44 points.
On Sunday I went to Charles and Wendy's place to join some local and long distance friends for some gaming.
When I first arrived I played Carcassonne with Chris, Dan, and Pat. I won the game almost lapping Tim and Dan on the scoring track.
Next we played Alhambra - a game that I'd really like to add to my collection. I think it's a game that I could enjoy playing with my wife. Chris beat Pat by a few points. I had built my Alhambra up with very few walls, so I had lots of flexibility for building but I ended about 10 points behind them. Dan had built his walls so tightly that he was very restricted and spent most of the game with one or two buildings in storage.
After Charles and Tim got back from the beach we took an lunch break and then got into some other games. We played a little Stuntman Ignition before getting back into some board games. We had talked about playing Descent, but we had more than the max number of players. Even though Chris offered to be an assistant, I wasn't really ready to be overlord for the game and no one else was familiar with playing either, so we felt like we should choose something else so Doom (deathmatch) was chosen.
Once the deathmatch board was set up and rules were explained, Dan quickly grabbed the red key and the rocket launcher. Chris then spent much of the first half of the game walking toward Dan and getting blasted back where he couldn't take a shot any more. After a heated discussion about the omission of proper descriptions of grenades, we finally continued on with the game and eventually Tim and I teamed up to frag Dan and cause his "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (aka the rocket launcher and couple other weapons) to be dropped. Chris finally came around and had a face off with Dan. Chris won the fight but with little health, so I tried to come in a pick up another frag. Unfortunately, I missed the shot and Chris blasted me to oblivion on his next turn for the win.
Geschenkt (No Thanks), Robo Rally, Formula De, and Blue Moon City were eventually played too. Geschenkt is a quick card game that was played a few times and was a fun little filler. Robo Rally was won by Chris, two flags ahead of the competition. Formula De, which the women and children joined in on, was won by Charles, Pat, and Tim (I think that was the order). Chris, Pat, and I played Blue Moon City while the others played Ra. I'm not sure who won Ra, but I won Blue Moon City. Pat commented about enjoying Blue Moon City, even though he doesn't like the Blue Moon card game, and he said that is one he'd like to add to his collection.
Once again, it was another enjoyable game day with the guys from California (and those from Florida too, of course). I hope that next year, or at least the year after, I'll be able to join them again.