05/18/09 Germantown

Attendance:

• Leslie Barkley
• Shannon & Aubrey Bell
• David & Martha Briggs
• Ben & Bob Jones
• Chris, Tiffany, Alidia & Clarisa
• Doug Hoylman
• Carol Loman
• Doug Mercer
• Eric & Laura Reinhold
• Claire
• Wei-Hwa Huang
  

When I arrived, three groups were already deep into gaming.

At one table, the three girls, Alidia, Clarisa, and Claire were playing Spy Alley. I don’t know how the game finished but they seemed to be having fun.

At a second table, five folk were building their Spanish Alhambra’s with the Limited Gold Edition of Alhambra. In a fairly tight finish, Doug won with a score of 100 to Laura 94, Eric 93, Carol 63 and David B 41.

At the third table, a large stack of altered playing cards and home-made chits signaled that a prototype was being played. It turns out that Wei-Hwa Huang, who was visiting from out of town, was demonstrating a new Race for the Galaxy Expansion. In a commanding victory, Chris won big. Chris 74, Wei-Hwa 50, Tiffany 34, Leslie 23.

Ben and I broke out Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation which has seen many, many plays over the last several weeks. Ben represented the forces of Darkness and crushed the Fellowship of the Ring controlled by me.

Reiner Knizia’s auction game, Ra, always has a welcome place at our table. Everyone had played before and we had a very good game. Final scores were Bob 47, Shannon 42, Ben 37, Aubrey 33, and Doug M 30.

A high scoring session of the Puerto-Rico-light card game (and second cousin to Race for the Galaxy), San Juan, was played. Final scores were Doug H 37, Eric 35, Carol 27, Laura 23.

Two more games of the Race for the Galaxy expansion prototype were played. In one, Leslie squeaked out a victory over Wei-Hwa, 50 to 48, with Aubrey at 24 and David B at 21. The final game with three players was less close. Wei-Hwa 45, Leslie 24, Aubrey 16.

Playing Qwirkle with Doug H is dangerous due to his awesomeness at Scrabble, which has some very big similarities. In this game Doug won by quite a bit. Doug H 132, Martha 111, David B 102, Shannon 95.

I thought Chris and Tiffany might enjoy one of my favorite Knizia games, Blue Moon City, and so was happy to bring it out. Despite my early lead of two cubes into the bottom row, I was unable to keep up with Eric who powered past everyone. Final scores were Eric 4, Bob 3, Chris 2, and Tiffany 2.

Finally, the hedgehog racing game, Igel Argern, closed the night. Shannon 3, Doug H 2, David 1, Martha 1

Thanks to everyone for coming out!