Germantown 06/04/2007

With two new players, we hit 15 attendance on Monday night!

• Leslie Barkley
• Kevin Bealer
• Martha and Dave Briggs
• Michael and April Charbonneau
• Dave Fair
• Todd Heidenreich
• Doug Hoylman
• Bob Jones
• Carol Loman
• David Raley
• Eric and Laura Reinhold
• Bill Trac

On Monday night, we were happy to welcome Michael and April Charbonneau to GCOM Germantown. Michael e-mailed Dave and I about our group months ago but has been unable to attend. We were very happy to finally meet him and his wife.

First up, San Juan with Doug, Bill, Carol and Leslie. No scores were recorded, but Doug most successfully managed his colonial holdings for the victory.

Meanwhile, Dave taught the beautiful new Mayfair game, Alchemist. Laura won by what seems a considerable margin with 74 points, followed by Eric with 57, Dave Fair 53 and David Raley with 42.

I arrived and joined Dave and Martha Briggs and Todd for a quick game of Aquarius. Something of a dominoes variant, Aquarius is produced by Looney Labs, the makers of Fluxx. Players lay one card at a time, trying to link up seven cards picturing their secret "goal" artwork. Several special cards allowing you to move cards, zap cards, trade or shuffle goals add to the strategy. It can be a bit chaotic, but Aquarius is a fun filler with beautiful Peter Maxish artwork. After I laid down my sixth linked "cloud" card, Todd stopped me by removing (zapping) one of my cards. Martha then laid down her sixth linked card and I zapped it. Unfortunately I zapped the wrong card as this allowed Todd to drop a card into the new spot and link all of his "fire" cards up for the win.

Dave Fair bought Days of Wonder's huge new game, Colosseum, last week and since others were interested, he brought it out to teach them. Joining Dave were April, Michael, and Doug. (See Dave's summary of the Damascus 6/1 session for more info on how to play the game.) Personally, there were a couple of things I didn't like about the game. But seeing it set up on the table as they played definitely made me want to play it again. So I guess I did like it more than I thought. At the end, April put on the best show worth a fantastic 96 points. Following her were Dave 94, Michael 88 (and the tiebreaker), and Doug 88.

Having finished Aquarius, Dave Briggs, Martha, Todd and I broke out Blue Moon City, our most-played game at Germantown. What followed was a very interesting and close game. The dragon scales paid out three times during the game. In both the first and second instances, two players tied for the most scales and everyone possessed at least three scales so all players received only three crystals. This made things very close throughout the game. On what turned out to be the last round, however, Dave triggered a dragon scale scoring and I had a one scale edge over Martha, giving me six crystals; enough for me to make my last contribution and win the game.

After a quick explanation by Dave Fair, Eric, Laura and Carol tried out the new sheep game, Volle Wolle. Laura won 72 to Eric's 62 and Carol's 50 points.

When Laura left after Volle Wolle, Eric taught Carol the great two player game, Lost Cities. Carol learned her lessons well and won 97 to 65.

Meanwhile, David Raley, Bill, Leslie and Kevin played Carcassonne: the Discovery. David won with 68 points followed by Bill with 65, Kevin 52, and Leslie 44.

Later, the same group followed up Carc with three (presumably chaotic) games of Eco Fluxx. Fluxx can be a lot of fun and I think everyone enjoyed it. Leslie won two games to David's one game.

Finally, with just seven people left, Todd and I split off to play Canoe. This is a two player abstract that was obviously designed by a Backgammon fan. The game makes interesting use of doubling cubes to determine points and the ability to capture other pieces. I'm not a big fan of abstracts, but this was a quick, interesting game. Todd won 112 to 104 despite my last minute burst of points when I cleared my last piece off the board, sweeping up several of his pieces.

The other five players, Dave Fair, Doug, Eric, Dave Briggs and Martha broke out another favorite of ours, For Sale. After some wheeling and dealing in the real estate market, Dave Fair came out on top. Scores were Dave Fair 66, Eric 61, Doug 56, Martha 40, and Dave Briggs 32.

Thanks for coming out!