Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Germantown 06/16/08

Bob is on vacation with his family right now... he has promised to post the entry for June 2 when he gets back...

On the 16th, we had a nice crowd:

  • David & Andrew Fair
  • Doug Hoylman
  • Carol Loman
  • Leslie Barkley
  • Eric Reinhold
  • Richard Christin
  • Mike King
  • David & Martha Briggs
  • Todd Heidenreich
  • Shannon & Aubrey Bell
Games played: Well, we started the night off by playing about a half-dozen games of FFG's Rattlesnake. This game is ridiculously fun... The publisher describes it thusly:

Who will be the first player to get rid of the dangerous eggs of the Rattlesnakes?
Rattlesnake is an easy, fun game for kids of all ages. The game will challenge their strategy and dexterity!
Players will compete to be the first to place all their 'snake eggs' on the board, but these funny magnetic 'eggs' will clash if you make the wrong move, and then you will have to pick them all up!
The first game published by Nexus for family entertainment, Rattlesnake will be a sure hit with parents and younger players, as well as seasoned gamers looking for a fresh, quick dexterity game.

The games each took 2-3 minutes as your turn consists of rolling a die, then putting a very strong egg-shaped magnet on the board, and hoping none of the other magnets come clashing in. Or go spinning off.

It was so fast to play, we didn't bother keeping track of winners and losers. Andrew, David, Leslie, Carol, and Doug played it. Later in the evening, Andrew taught it to Martha, Aubrey and Shannon as well, and they played 3-4 games. Lots of laughter every time it was played. We'll be carrying this one around for a while...

Eric and David B started a game of Big Points, and Mike and Richard joined them. this is fun little abstract game of collecting colored disks and trying to manipulate things so that the disk you have are worth more than those the others have. This was a very close game, with Richard and David B. tied at 22 for the win, and Eric and Mike also tied at 20!

In Pandemic, the players work together to try to contain global outbreaks of communicable diseases. Each player takes on a different role, and they work together to use the special abilities of those roles, traveling the world, treating, and researching disease, until they find a cure. In this game, despite doing well early on, we had too many outbreaks, and thus lost. But we had fun. Doug, Leslie, Dave and Carol played the roles of the Medic, Scientist, Researcher, and Dispatcher, respectively.

Next we split into two groups, and the first group played Hanging Gardens. This is a game where players build connected landscapes to create scoring opportunities so they can collect scoring tiles that become more valuable the more you have of a given type. I had some very lucky tile draws at just the right times, and was able to complete all my sets. Final scores were Dave 74, Carol 55, and Mike 48.

Meanwhile, the game of Citadels was still going on, so I joined the group at the big table wand we played 2 games of Big Points. In game one, Andrew won in a nail biter, scoring 27 points to Aubrey's 26, Shannon's 26, and my "also playing"score of 17. In game two, Shannon and I tied for the win with 25 each while Andrew had 22 and Aubrey 20.

Citadels is far deeper than many card games, and Richard reports that he really enjoyed it. he followed a strategy of taking the King and the Architect over and over, building expensive buildings and acquiring gold. This worked well, and he was doing well until the final turns when the General attacked his buildings and the thief stole his money and the assassin prevented him from doing anything! Final scores: Doug 33, David B 26, Leslie 25, Eric 23, Richard 19.

As the two teens took off to find reading material in Borders, Shannon, Leslie and I played a quick game of Honeybears, racing our primary pigmented ursines towards the caves. Two of the rounds were very close (21/21/20, 32/30/29), but the round in the middle, Shannon had a brain hiccup and forgot how scoring worked causing a blow out (31/25/8). Final scores: Dave 81, Leslie 78, Shannon 58.

A short game of Igel Ärgern is always in order, and tonight was no exception. In the race of hedgehogs, Mike was first to get 3 hogs across the line, while Doug and Eric had but two each, and David B had only one.

It was mostly a night of old classics, but one new game was played: Ticket to Ride the Card Game. This has similar theme and graphics to the board game, and while the card drafting is lifted directly from the board game, the way you play cards is quite different. In this game there are also multiple endgame bonuses, based on tickets completed to a given city. In it's inaugural outing, Carol managed to get several of those end game bonuses to take the win, with 145 points. She was followed by Martha with 117, Todd with 99 and Mike with 83.

June is one of those rare gems of a month where we get together 3, yes 3, times... See you again on the 30th!

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