Gaming this Saturday in Middletown!

The regularly scheduled session for Middletown is this Saturday, January 31, at 3PM. Please join us at Scott Fisher's for some good gaming.

Germantown 01/19/09

On the eve of a new President, we gathered to play games.

Attendance:

• Aubrey & Shannon Bell
• Leslie Barkley
• Dave, Andrew & Corwin Fair
• Doug Hoylman
• Bob & Ben Jones
• Nathaniel Klinger
• Rick & Linda Pasquale

First up, the new Sushi tiles game, Sushizock im Gockelwok. A cousin to Pickomino, this variant plays more quickly and is a little more forgiving. Ben showed his love of sushi by beating the rest of us. Ben 6, Andrew 5, Bob 4, Dave 3, Doug -4.

Next up, a quick, fun word game that's easier than Scrabble and plays in about 10 minutes, Bananagrams. We were very wary of going against word-game-master Doug, but everyone did surprisingly well. Doug was the first to use all his letters and signified so by saying "Peel", triggering everyone to draw a new letter tile. He then did the same another half dozen times. Dave got in on the act and then Leslie. Once there were only three tiles left in the center, however, the next player to use all their letters would be the winner. In this case, Bob shouted out "Bananas!" first, but, alas, "Peet" isn't a word, thus disqualifying Bob. At the time, Dave had 1 tile left, and Leslie and Doug had 4 tiles each.

Meanwhile, the boys played Cheeky Monkey with Andrew outscoring Ben and Corwin, 48 to 30 to 12, respectively.

Afterwards, Ben, Corwin and Andrew took on worldwide epidemics in Pandemic. Alas, the diseases won.

Next, Dave, Doug, Leslie and Bob took on ghosts attacking a small Chinese village in the cooperative game, Ghost Stories. Despite some close calls, an easy master ghost was quickly wailed upon and the good guys beat the ghosts to win the game! Total number of ghosts banished by the players were Bob 14, Leslie 10, Dave 9 and Doug 8.

When Rick and Linda arrived, they joined Aubrey and Shannon for the fun race game, Power Boats. It seems that every time we play this game, someone gets creamed. This time, it was Shannon's turn. Her son, Aubrey, however crushed everyone. Scores were Aubrey 18, Rick 8, Linda 8, and Shannon 3.

After Ghost Stories, we played a quick game of Worm Up where players play their number cards simultaneously. If your number is unique, move your worm forward that many segments. If not, you don't move. Bob won this fairly easily. Also playing were Nathaniel, Leslie, Dave, and Doug.

Since we had nine and we were on the verge of a new President, I brought out the always fun voting game, Democrazy. Shannon made up for her Power Boats performance by a big victory here. What's really interesting is that scores ranged from 4 to 13 (sans 12) with no number repeated. Scores were Shannon 13, Rick 11, Linda 10, Dave 9, Leslie 8, Bob 7, Aubrey 6,Doug 5, Nathaniel 4.

The boys played two more games of Cheeky Monkey. They didn't record the scores for the first game, but the second game ended Ben 42, Corwin 30 and Andrew 23.

We then broke into two groups for the last games of the evening. I wanted to play Lost Cities Board Game which is a four player version of Knizia's excellent Lost Cities. Shannon walked away with the victory after two rounds of play. Shannon 235, Aubrey 205, Bob 200, Nathaniel 150.

Finally, Dave taught the very alliterative Fast Flowing Forest Fellers. From first to last were Rick, Dave, Leslie, Doug and Linda.

That's a lot of games for a single night!

Germantown 01/05/09

Ah, the first session of the new year!

• Aubrey & Shannon Bell
• Leslie Barkley
• Dave Fair
• Ethan Goffman
• Todd Heidenreich
• Doug Hoylman
• Bob & Ben Jones
• Nathaniel Klinger
• Carol Loman
  
• Laura & Eric Reinhold
• Marianne Szlyk

Joined by GCOM Rockville folk, Ethan (creator of AmuseAmaze) and Marianne, we had a full night of gaming. First up was a six player game of Alhambra with expansions. Eric had a fantastic wall set up early and although it closed off his Alhambra, it gave him enough points to win the game handily. Scores were Eric 100, Todd 77, Doug 75, Dave 71, Carol 63, and Laura 46.

Meanwhile, Shannon, Aubrey, and Leslie played the brutal Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. In a battle of the titans, Leslie finished an astounding 13 tickets only to lose to Shannon! Oh, and Aubrey played too. Shannon 135, Leslie 126, Aubrey 94.

When I arrived, I engaged Ben in a quick game of Cheeky Monkey. Ben narrowly edged me out 53 to 51.

Ben wanted to play Wasabi and since it's a great game, I taught it to Ethan, Marianne, and Nathaniel. Ben's experience proved decisive. Ben 30, Nathanial 20, Marianne 18, Ethan 16.

With Laura leaving, I joined the Alhambra crew in the "cooperative" game that's seeing a LOT of play, Battlestar Galactica. In a game with a full two Cylons and a Cylon sympathizer, it pays for the Colonials not to be doing exceptionally well at the halfway point. Unfortunately, we were and so Cylon Sympathizer Dave, who happened to be Admiral Adama, joined the Cylons to make it three against three. Things went downhill from there. The Colonials, Bob, Eric and Todd, correctly identified the two Cylons, Doug and Carol, but by that time we'd had it. The Cylons wailed on the humans. See here for a cool drawing of us playing BSG.

Having exhausted TTR, Leslie, Aubrey and Shannon played a quick game of Cheeky Monkey. This was a complete blowout. Leslie 63, Aubrey 19, Shannon 17.

With a small switchup, Nathaniel joined Leslie and Aubrey for Blue Moon City. Nathaniel won in a close game. Nathaniel 5, Aubrey 4 and Leslie 4.

Then came Cheeky Monkey with the same group. Aubrey 51, Leslie 32, Nathaniel 14.

Marianne and Ethan wanted to try Wasabi again and so played with Ben. This was a much closer game. Final scores were Ben 30, Ethan 26, Marianne 26.

Finally, Ben, Ethan and Marianne played one last game of Cheeky Monkey. I didn't get the scores as we were hustling to close up.

Thanks to everyone for coming out!

Damascus 01/09/09

With Damascus on Hiatus, we took to the road, and played games at the Jones house in Germantown.

In Attendance:

• Rick & Linda Pasquale
• David & Noreen Fair
• Jason Cheng
• Bob & Carol Jones
• Bert Feliksik
• Dan Hucker
• Eric & Laura Reinhold
• Luke Conte
• Aubrey Bell

Games played:

• Sorry Sliders, with Bob and Dave tying for the win on the same turn, over Dan and Bert.
• Fast Flowing Forest Fellers, With Rick winning, followed by Bert, Dave, and Jason.
• San Juan, with Dan crushing the opposition, Carol, Eric, and Luke.
• Sushizock im Gockelwock, where Rick won handily, followed by Jason, Dave and Bert (who was stuck with -13!)
• Gloria Picktoria, With a win by Eric, followed by Jason, Rick, and Dave.
• Agricola, in which Linda out-farmed Laura, Bob, Aubrey, and Noreen.
• Stone Age, where Luke won, followed by Bert, Carol, and Dan.
• Powerboats, where Linda raced like a pro, followed by Noreen, Rick, and Dave maintained his losing streak!
• Tichu, where Dave & Noreen won in a long slugfest over Rick & Linda.
• Silberzwerg, with Bob winning over Luke, Aubrey, and Jason.

See you again soon! Thanks to the Jones'for hosting; We had a great time!

Gaming This Friday!

While we're still looking for a permanent home for the Damascus Friday Night sessions, since we haven't been able to get together for a few weeks, the Joneses will be hosting this Friday night, January 9, starting at 7PM. So if you've got the gaming bug, please come on by. Please note that this is an hour later than the usual Damascus start time.

E-mail for directions if you need them. RSVPs are not necessary, but are appreciated.

Hope we'll see you this Friday night!

Gaming Image

This past Monday, while enjoying a game at Borders, a woman approach our group, handed us a piece of paper, and then walked away quickly, when I looked at it, this is what I found (click for a larger image):

From L-R: Aubrey, Todd, Carol, Dave, Bob, Eric, Doug

It was very nice of her to share it with us. Hope you like it.