Game Days Report

Well, I got back today around 6pm-ish. The wife & kids were off seeing the new Wolverine movie, so I came home to an empty, quiet house. I went to bed almost immediately.

I had a great time at Game Days, arriving Friday around 11am. Played Vegas Showdown with Brian Carpenter, Howard Wagner, James & Paul. Brian crushed us all. It was great to see Howard again and play a game with him. Been too long...

We followed this up with about 6 games of Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside, and a game of Galaxy Trucker with Brian, Lije, and Tom McCorry who arrived right around 7pm. I had almost forgotten how much I liked Galaxy Trucker so it was great to play that again. Brian won again despite my stellar 3rd round. My 3rd ship was great looking at the end, and had lost NO pieces during the running phase. Truly a feat!

Ended the night by getting crushed at Tichu, 1040 to 160. We will not be discussing that any more. OK, maybe a little. I started making desperation calls when we were down 700-ish to 200-ish and made 3 of the 5, but it was not enough. We did manage to set them on both a GT and a Tichu call early on, so this was just Karmic revenge, I guess...

On Saturday I started the day with a game of 1861 with Jason Cheng, Dan Karp, Tom and Ray Pfieffer. We had a great game and it was very close. Dan did not have much investment in his second railway, and did not think I would sell a stock of my primary to take it over, but I did, and the ensuing run on its stock made it a rich company with a moderately low price, enabling it to buy and run one of the special trains for 3 rounds, making it a lot of money. The Russian State Railway never actually even opened (!!) which lengthened things a bit, but despite that, the game end caught us all a bit short when the first 8 was sold and there was a lot of cash in hand but no ensuing stock round. In a game with scores in the 3600 range, only 60 points separated me in first place and Ray in second, so it was quite a nail-biter.

I played 2 more games of Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside and then headed off to Overlord some Descent. I had selected a Tomb of Ice scenario, but the stellar play of the heroes combined with terrible dice luck for the overlord (I rolled 6 misses in a row at one point) meant that it ended up being an easy day for them.

By this point, I was a bit fried so I played Street Paintball with Brian, Lije, David Kudzma, Kathy Kudzma, and Eric Haas. Followed that up with a quick game of Six. Then we sat and talked about going to bed, but I was finally able to convince enough folks to play BSG and we started that at about 2am.

I was Athena, Dave was Kendra Shaw, Kathy was Tyrol, Logan was Helo, and new player Nathan was Roslin. We set about doing well early but after the sleeper phase, I began to suspect Helo and a subsequent toss of him in the brig failed when Kathy tossed in a hand of blue cards, so I suspected her as well. The humans were losing slowly, and progressing slowly, but when President Roslin gave suspected Cylon Admiral Helo a choice on a Crisis Card where he could force a Cylon Victory, and he didn't take it, my world got shook up. The shock was even greater when Helo revealed a few moments later and tossed Tyrol in the brig! at this point, we just needed to jump again, and Tyrol provided the orders to Kendra Shaw that made it happen, and we found our way to Earth despite the frakkin' Admiral and President being Cylons from day 1. Humans Rule. So say we all!

I headed back to the hotel room and hit the bed at 6:20 am, then turned around and got up at 9 and had breakfast and returned for more gaming. after a quick game of the Z-Man games 2-player abstract Magnet with Brian (he crushed me). I spent the next 2 hours manning the booth and the organizers found out how bad an idea it is to give a sleep-deprived Dave access to a microphone. I played a game of Race For The Galaxy while up there as well, with Brian Stallings, Josh Cooper, and Eric Haas. Eric won, IIRC.

It was then time for another game of BSG, and this time I played Romo Lampkin. Rodney was Apollo, Brian was Dualla, Sheila played Doc Cottle, and John was Aaron Doral. I started out as a Cylon but stayed hidden early on, encouraging bad decisions and only tanking 1-2 skill checks, but being very careful as Brian has an almost 6th sense about who is doing that. After the sleeper phase, I got XO's to draw Quorum Cards, but instead threw Apollo in the brig and made Doc Cottle the next to choose our jump. Then I revealed, tossing Aaron in the Sickbay and making Apollo the President (him finding the Pardon card in his hand but being unable to pardon himself was a juicy little knife in the back!). Shortly thereafter, Sheila revealed and we spent a few turns activating the dwindling Cylon fleet. A sudden rush of our brothers and sisters arriving in "Welcome Wagons" meant that there were a ton of Colonial Civilian ships on the board, and suddenly the fleet went from 4 Population, 3 Morale, 2 Food and 2 Fuel to 1 Population, 1 Morale, 2 Food, and 1 Fuel. All in the space of 1 round. 1 more round meant the loss of 2 more civvies and the Population loss meant it was a great day to be a Cylon. Cylons Rule. So say we all!

I drove home, fighting hard to stay awake. I had a great time and saw a lot of our regulars (Eric & Laura, Rick & Linda, Doug, David & Martha, John-Paul, Howard, Jason, Tom, Shannon & Aubrey, Tiffany & Chris) but didn't get to play with many of you guys. :( The time at these things is so short, and my predilection for long games makes it tough to play with everybody. I hope you all had as good a time as I did. I also saw a lot of our regular convention folk (Brian & Denise Stallings, Beth & Nicole, Jeff, Michelle, John & Sheila, Dave & Kathy, Kevin & Kat, Eric, Don, Will, Hal, Sandy, Rick, Keith and a lot of others) and only got to play games with a few of them. Almost everybody asked about Noreen & the boys as well as Bob & Carol. They were all missed.

It was a great time, and I look forward to the next one, almost as much as I do to getting back to bed...