Middletown 11/30/07

Eleven gamers made the trek, over hill and over dale, to the Mecca of Meeples in Middletown, the Cradle of Cardboard, the Domain of Dice, the... I'll stop now... In attendance:

• Scott Fisher
• David Fair
• John Weber
• Raphael Lehrer
• Tom McCorry
• Katherine McCorry
• Marshall Miller
• Jason Cheng
• Bryan Snyder
• Karl Musser
• Kathy Hallahan

We started out the night with a game of Martin Wallace's newest economic game, Brass. This is a meaty game that offers a lot to folks brave enough to play it a second time. It is very confusing and hard to figure out in your first play, but it gets much better after that. John came 4th in this game, his first play, scoring 101 points. Scott was next (also his first play) with 112, then veterans Tom (114) and David (131). See what I mean about a little experience?

Meanwhile, some other games got underway... In no particular order: Raphael, Jason, Bryan, and Marshall played St. Petersburg (it was Jason's inaugural game). Scores were 94-Raphael, 86-Jason, 58-Marshall, 50-Bryan.

Katherine, Karl, and Kathy played Thurn & Taxis, developing postal systems across ancient Germany. Kathy was first with 26, followed by Katherine with 20, and Karl with 17.

Showmanager is one of my favorite games, but it got played without me this night, as Kathy, Karl, Marshall, Bryan, Jason, and John all competed to make the best of the actors who showed up in cattle calls for their broadway shows. Kathy posted another win with 43 points, followed by Jason-41, Marshall-36, John-34, Karl-34, and Bryan-32.

Uptown is a cute little essentially abstract game by Kory Heath that has been getting a bit of play of late. Tonight, Jason won, followed by Karl, Kathy, John, and Marshall.

There were 2 games of Race for the Galaxy, one with Jason, Bryan, and Marshall, and one with Jason, John, and Marshall. In game A, Marshall won with a score of 26 (the lowest winning score I have seen), followed by Jason-23, and Bryan-20. In game 2, Jason-39 won, followed by John-27, and Marshall-24.

We had a 5-player game of Agricola end at about this point. We played with the K-Deck, the deck that breaks the rules more than any other, despite having 2 new players in the game. Katherine (new) came 5th with 24, and Tom was 4th with 30. Next was Scott with 31, then Raphael (new) with 38. David came first with 48.

We ended the night with a pair of filler card games... Holzworm and Ziegen Kriegen. We aren't sure we got the rules right for Holzwurm, but in the other game, Scott was last with 6 points, followed by Jason with 9, Marshall with 22, and David & John tied for the win with 25.

A great night of gaming... See you next month!