Germantown 04/21/08

April has been an unusual month with smaller than average attendance. Nevertheless, we had ten gamers and that's more than enough for some good gaming.

• Kevin Bealer
• Dave and Martha Briggs
• Dave Fair
• Todd Heidenreich
• Doug Hoylman
• Bob and Ben Jones
• Helen Powell
• and a new player, Richard Christin

First up, Dave Fair and Doug played a two-player game of Uptown. Uptown is a tile placement game where each player lays number, letter and symbol tiles, trying to have the fewest groups of tiles on the board at the end of the game. Dave and Doug proved equally matched as they tied with 6 groups each. Doug, however, won with the tiebreaker.

Richard arrived with a portable Go board and our resident Go fan, Todd, happily broke out his larger set for a game. Todd won this ancient and contemplative game.

When Helen arrived, she joined Doug and Dave for the beautiful new game, Stone Age. Players work as hunters, collectors, farmers, and tool makers to gather resources and raise animals to build their civilization. As it was the first time for Helen and Doug and only the second time for Dave, it took a while to finish. Final scores were Dave 309, Doug 214 and Helen 182.

Meanwhile, I arrived with Ben and we taught Dragonland to the other new arrivals, Dave and Martha. The dragons were mightily pleased as we rescued all of their eggs and most of their treasure from the imminent volcanic eruptions. While last to collect all my rings, I ended up with the most sets of gems and eggs. Final scores were Bob 44, Ben 34, Martha 34 and Dave 23.

Once Go and Dragonland were finished, Kevin arrived and Ben left, so we joined for a quick six player game of For Sale. As usual, bidding was somewhat crazy, and several players paid dearly for less than fantastic properties. At the end, Todd was the clear winning seller. Todd 56, Kevin 46, Dave B 45, Bob 45, Martha 36 and Richard 27.

With all games over, we had one hour and nine people. So we started a four and a five player game.

The four player game was Race for the Galaxy with Bob, Dave F, Helen and Todd. While I built a powerful blue planet produce and ship engine, I was several worlds and developments behind; the game ended before I could use the engine much. Todd actually played down thirteen cards to my seven. Still, he wasn't able to stop the RFTG juggernaut that is Dave. Final scores were Dave 36, Todd 34, Bob 33 and Helen 28.

The five players tried to get in a quick play of the tactical race through the London Tube game, On the Underground. Alas, they needed about fifteen more minutes to finish. When they quit at 10PM, Martha was ahead with 29, Kevin 26, Doug 25, Richard 24, and Dave B 16.

Thanks to everyone for coming out!

(All images from Boardgamegeek.com)