Gathering Report - Day 1

Day one is over...

We left the house around 9:30 and drove here stopping only for gas and meals. Arrived around 5:30 after a bit of a mix-up finding the hotel. I had not printed directions, and we made 1 wrong turn, backtracked eventually, then found our way. Not bad...

After checking in and getting settled, we went back and got the games we brought, and took them down to the con hall. I wasn't in the room 30 seconds before a lumbering Ted Alspach grabbed me and asked if I would join him and Valerie in a game of Age of Steam - they had a prototype copy of the new Mayfair version. We played the game 3 player, and it was pretty good, though in many ways, it felt simply like a new map with a set of variant rules. Much of the normal tension was gone. I suspect that this sill go over well with non AOS fans, and not so good with AOS fans...

Went to dinner with the family, and then headed back to the game room while the kids went swimming with their cousins. Dan Blum invited me to join him and Tom Hilbert (who works for Hans im Gluck) in a game of Wikinger, and Tyler Putnam joined us. After a typically Gathering-esque confusing rules explanation, made all the more fun by the fact that Tom is not a native English speaker and he has a heavy German accent, we got down to play.

Wikinger has some interesting mechanisms, and we played the game and it was OK, but Tom explained the advanced options after the game was over, and we all felt they would have added a lot of depth to the game. In the basic game, luck overshadowed planning a bit too much.

After that, it was two games of Tichu, in which I got spanked (hard) once, but lost both times. I did make 2 grand Tichu calls, and made both of them (A-A-K-K-5-5-Dragon-Dog was my hand in one, and A-A-A-K-Q-Dragon-Phoenix-forget was my hand in the other) scores were 1035 to 35 and 1065 to 835. Ah the joys of getting great cards when you are desperately behind.

Went to bed around 3, after sitting around and shooting the shit for a while, rose at 9am. Noreen is already on a plane to see her family, and my kids will be joining their cousins and heading off to Indiana in a few hours.

Damascus 03/23/2007

This is another poor summary, little more than who was there and what was played, written long after the fact. Sorry...

Attendees:

• Dave
• Noreen
• Corwin
• Andrew
• Lance
• Bryan
• Steve M
• Noah
• Dennis
• Marshall
• Scott P
• Liz
• Ruben
• Melinda
• Raphael
• John
• Phillippe
• Scott Fx
• Judy
• Bob
• Carol
• Rachel
• Ben
• Rose
• Gabe
• Bert

Games Played:

• Attika
• Pillars of the Earth
• Primordial Soup
• Thurn & Taxis
• Tichu
• Puerto Rico
• Attila
• Wiz-War
• Age of Steam (Italy)
• Fire
• Democrazy
• Tigris & Euphrates
• Railroad Tycoon

Germantown 03/19/2007

Hey everyone! Great turnout last night! We actually had three people new to our group bringing us to a total of thirteen players!

Attending were Doug, Bill S, Bill T, Rose, Leslie, Lance, Eric, Laura, Bob, Kevin, and the three newcomers Philippe, David R and Jason.

I arrived a bit before 7PM and found Eric, Philippe, Leslie, Laura, and Doug playing Igor: The Mad Scientists Lament. Eric was the first to build ten victory points worth of devices. Meanwhile, Rose, Lance, Bill T and David R were playing what turned out to be a rather long game of Catan Histories: Struggle for Rome. I didn't find out who won that game.

While the Igor folk finished up their game, I played a full game of Lost Cities with Jason. Jason had a small lead after two rounds but a strong third round nabbed me the victory. Then, as Bill S and Kevin had arrived, we set up for a quick game of Money. After one round, Bill S was ahead and we called the game to join with the other group. Jason headed home.

With eight players, we broke into two groups of four. Bob, Eric, Kevin and Phillipe played a great game of San Juan. Well, everyone else played a great game. I got skunked. Eric went most of the game with only an Indigo plant but built such an effective combination of violet buildings that he was the first to twelve buildings. Philippe focused on the Chapel, ending the game with a whopping nine cards stashed under it. Kevin built six production buildings and the Guild Hall, gaining a huge twelve points for the one card. I had a good combination of cards, but the lack of a 6 building doomed my efforts. At the end, Eric won by a couple of points over Kevin, followed by Philippe with me in the rear.

Doug, Bill S, Leslie and Laura played Blue Moon City. The BMC group started earlier than last time and so actually finished the game this week. :-) At the end, first-time player Laura was victorious with Bill S, Doug, and Leslie behind.

As they were finishing Blue Moon City, the Catan folk finished their game so Rose and Bill T joined me, Philippe, Eric and Kevin for a game of Bohnanza. We started the game at 9:15 and kept things going at an incredible pace. It was rather chaotic, but still involved lots of trading. We finished at 9:59 with me in the lead with 14 points.

Hope to see you all next time on April 2.

Bob

Damascus 03/16/2007

Sorry folks, but due to weather, we had to close down this week... See you next week!

Damascus 03/09/2007

This is another poor summary, little more than who was there and what was played, written long after the fact. Sorry...

Attendees:

• Dave
• Noreen
• Corwin
• Andrew
• Marshall
• Rick
• Rose
• Ruben
• Melinda
• Bryan
• Bill S.
• Monica
• Bob
• Carol
• Rachel
• Ben
• Yusef
• Aden
• Alfred

Games Played:

• Taluva
• Yspahan
• Einfach Genial
• Power Grid (Central Europe)
• Tichu (x2)
• Factory Fun (x2)
• Loot!
• Bausack
• Union Pacific
• San Marco

Germantown 03/05/2007

Last night was another fun night of gaming at Borders! We had thirteen players, which is just fantastic.

Attending were Doug, Bill S, Bob (me), Eric, Laura, Lance, Rose, Leslie, Kevin, Bill T, Helen, Marshall and a relative newcomer to gaming, Michael. Michael has done some gaming with GCOM but this was his first time at Germantown.

I was running late due to work but when I arrived Bill S, Rose, Leslie, Lance, Laura and Eric were just finishing a game of Diamant which had been won by Lance. Bill would like it known that he mined zero gems.

Meanwhile, Helen, Doug, Bill T, and Michael were engaged in a rousing game of Shadows Over Camelot. They took a bit longer than they estimated, finishing up at around 8:45 but King Arthur and the Knights ultimately prevailed over the forces of darkness. No one was a traitor.

The Diamant group broke into two groups with Bill S teaching Eric and Laura the classic game of Acquire while I took Lance, Rose and Leslie to Arabia for the great blind-bidding game, Aladdin's Dragons. The strategies of Acquire are rather subtle, especially knowing when and where to acquire and merge, so Bill took the victory. Bill said that the major lesson of the game for Laura and Eric would be that their fighting over Imperial, which was off by itself in one corner of the board, left him to control the first few mergers. Eric says that, "At the time, I thought I was simply buying more of the chain I had an interest in, and wasn't particularly seeing Laura as a threat. I thought we fought more over the first Western, and for
Continental." By the way, they played with shares open which is a heresy. :-)

The Aladdin's Dragons group was just about to get started when Kevin showed up, so we added him to the game. I started off strong (being the only one who knew what was going on) but everyone else quickly caught on and the bidding was aggressive. One artifact wasn't acquired during the fifth round so we had one final round to bid for it. I have never seen so many bid tokens on a single artifact. Leslie and I tied in the bidding but Kevin had acquired the Camel and so ties broke clockwise from him, giving Leslie her fifth artifact. That gave Lance the victory with 7 artifacts to Kevin, Rose and my six. It's always a pleasure playing a close, competitive game and I thoroughly enjoyed this.

For the last games of the night, we broke into two groups. Marshall, Michael, Bill T, Helen and I played Web of Power. Marshall and Michael were strong in advisors while the rest of us focused more on cloisters. At the end, Helen scored big in both areas (as well as putting together the only cloister chain) for the victory.

Doug taught Blue Moon City to Eric, Kevin and Leslie. They ran short on time and had to call the game before the official ending. In the last round, Doug and Eric were tied at 3, Leslie and Kevin had two.

I want to thank everyone for coming. I hope to see you next time.

Damascus 03/02/2007

This is another poor summary, little more than who was there and what was played, written long after the fact. Sorry...

Attendees:

• Dave
• Noreen
• Corwin
• Andrew
• Marshall
• Rick
• Rose
• Scott P
• Liz
• Scott Fx
• Judy
• Kayla
• Raphael
• Scott Fr
• Steve M
• Noah
• Dennis
• Phillippe
• Bert
• Bill T.

Games Played:

• BattleLore
• Yspahan
• Pillars of the Earth (x2)
• Ticket To Ride (with USA 1910)
• Pizza Box Football
• Canal Mania
• Dragon Parade
• On the Underground
• Poison
• Power Grid
• Alhambra
• Tichu
• Fjords