Damascus 03/28/08

We had sixteen gamers on Friday...

• David, Noreen, Corwin & Andrew Fair
• Jason Cheng
• Rose Byington
• Steve Lollis
• David & Martha Briggs
• John Stup
• Bob, Carol, Rachel & Ben Jones
• Helen Powell
• Dave Fogel

While the kids rocked out with Rock Band and Guitar Hero II & III and shot each other to pieces with Halo 3, we atarted out with the bargain-hunting game, Schnappchen Jagd. This is an excellent trick-taking game, and one we don't play often enough. Noreen (11) won over David (9) and Jason (4).

Next up was Alhambra (w/Expansion #2), and I had almost forgotten how much fun this can be with fewer players. I know i am one of the people who has, in the past, said that the game is fine with 6, but it really does play much better with fewer. We played with the City Gates and Diamonds from expansion 2, and it made things interesting. Jason had a big wall early on, and a lot of white buildings, and Steve took over Purple's by the third scoring, but this was not enough to overcome Dave's combination of lead in Red and Green, and long wall. Final scores: Dave 131, Jason 102, Steve 98, Rose 72.

We polished off a pair of back-to-back Race for the Galaxy games, with the first game going to Jason over Dave and Bob, 31-23-20, on the strength of his consumption chips, mostly. Game two went to Dave, who had a lot of points on the table, and a moderate number on consumption chips, and the only 6-dev card. Bob consumed for more than 2/3rds of his total points! Final Scores: Dave 38, Bob 29, Jason 26.

At this time, the Agricola game ended, and it seems in doing a Monday Morning Audit, the score sheet had a few errors... Namely, Noreen added points to David and Martha for empty spaces, while deducting them from her own score. This changed what was thought to have been a tie into a win for Noreen (30), followed by Martha (24), and David B (17).

Next up was Timbuktu, an interesting game from Dirk Henn. the theme is one of camels moving in caravans across the desert, carrying goods, but as we move, thieves will attack and steal from the camels. Bob showed once again that he is in league with the dark ones, making sure we were all stolen from while his camels traveled in relative safety. Final scores: Bob 164, Dave 143, Jason 141, Rose 64.

The theme of Diamant has the players scrambling in and out of mines trying to grab gems and avoid disasters. The disasters in this game were plentiful tonight, and it lead to some rather low scores. Final Scores: Martha 20, Noreen, 9, David B. 6, Dave Fogel 0. Ouch!

Another push-your-luck game, this time themed around birds chasing food, is Pickomino. This game uses dice, not cards, but it still takes a mix of luck and skill to win. Final scores: Martha 9 (and the tiebreaker), David B. 9, Noreen 0, David Fogel 0. Again, ouch!

Sequels rarely live up to the original, but that is not the case with Rails of Europe. A tighter board, a shorter game, and a more unforgiving economy make the game an excellent addition for rail game fans. Bob showed he can win on the continent even if not in the colonies. Final scores: Bob 71, Dave Fair 54, Rose 53, David Fogel 51. Look how the scores are grouped. Except for Bob, we all sucked about the same!

Finally, the longest game of Imperial in recorded history came to a close. this is usually a fast game with little downtime between turns, but something made this game go for almost 4 hours. In the end, Helen (201) won the marathon, over Carol (176), Steve (171) and a very tired John (131).

Reminder!
There will be no gaming at Damascus again until 04/18/08.
See you then, and everyone have some great gaming while we are gone!