As summer winds down, and everyone returns from vacation, we find ourselves back at Borders.
Attending:
- Leslie Barkley
- Shannon and Aubrey Bell
- Dave and Martha Briggs
- April and Michael Charbonneau
- Todd Heidenreich
- Bob and Ben Jones
- Marc Nelson
- Eric and Laura Reinhold
- Bill Salvatore
Since it was a holiday, Bill, April and Michael arrived at 2PM and starting playing Runebound. When I arrived at 6PM, they were still playing. :-) At 8:30PM, the Charbonneau’s had to leave so they quit the game in progress. No word on who was ahead. While we’re generally restricted to playing shorter games at Borders, there is a large contingent of hobby gamers who prefer mega-long, epic games. This was a very good example.
Meanwhile, Eric, Laura, Dave, Martha and Leslie were playing the mighty farming game, Agricola, which is no mean feat considering the size of the tables in the Cafe. It was Leslie’s first game and she did pretty well, finishing with 22 points. She also completed the largest pasture I’ve ever seen, encompassing ten or eleven squares! Dave Briggs did really well for only having two family members. When he finally starts expanding his family during the game, he should do quite well. Laura pulled off the victory. Final scores were Laura 33, Martha 30, Eric 27, Dave 26 and Leslie 22.
With everyone else occupied, I taught Aubrey the quick card-laying, tile-gathering game, Hanging Gardens. As usual, Aubrey picked up the game very quickly. It was a closely contested game but my experience paid off. Final scores were Bob 87, Aubrey 74.
About that time, Shannon arrived, so she joined Aubrey and me to save the world from horrible virulent death in Pandemic. We were doing quite well, having cured three of the four diseases and only needing to get to Aubrey’s turn so he could cure the final disease, when disaster struck! There had been six prior outbreaks, and a bad card turn resulted in an outbreak in the only area on the globe with two adjacent three-cubed cities. The double outbreak made a total of eight outbreaks, spelling doom for the human race. So close!
We then were joined by Todd and a newcomer, Marc Nelson, whose son plays regularly at Rockville on Friday nights. We brought out the gateway game Ticket to Ride with the full 1910 expansion. Finishing my three tickets early, I went on to collect two more and completed them, gaining the "Most Tickets Completed" award at the end of the game. In the final scoring, Todd was slightly ahead, but the 15 points of the award gave me the game. Unfortunately, Marc got cut off and didn't complete four of his six tickets, ending up with a score of 15. Ouch! Final scores were Bob 140, Todd 128, Shannon 61, Aubrey 51, and Marc 15.
With forty-five minutes to go, we played a couple of quick but fun games of Diamant! Intrepidly exploring the depths were me, Shannon, Aubrey, Leslie and Ben. Aubrey and Ben played conservatively throughout, rarely being killed in the mines, making it back to camp with small but consistent loads of gems. But bold plays in the face of certain death paid off for Leslie who won the first game and Shannon who won the second game. Also of note was the first appearance of the Golden Buddha in the mines which was collected by Shannon. It was Ben’s first play and he loved it. Scores: Leslie 45, Bob 42, Shannon 39, Ben 27, Aubrey 14. Shannon 39, Bob 28, Ben 27, Aubrey 21 and Leslie 8.
3 comments:
You say Bill, April, and Michael arrived at 2PM, but there’s no one named Bill in the list of attendees.
Good point!
I think we might have started Runebound closer to 3pm, as we had to setup the board and review the rules. we stopped the game at the 3/4 point. I think another 90 minutes and we could have finished. April had a slight lead, but all the players were in contention for the end game. Runebound is best for 2,3 or maybe 4 people tops - just from a downtime between turns viewpoint.
I would figure 2 hours per person as a good estimator of time, I'm sure it could be played faster - but who wants to rush through an engaging game?
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