July 1, 2010
by Charlie
We seem to have settled on a regular Thursday crowd. Kris, Dave, Ted, TravR, and Charlie are almost always there. We also have Doug and our newest regular Sophia, who have been attending for the last month. I may have to get them to write a biography for the "Who we are" page. We also had an old friend of TravR and Dave's show up for gaming. Mike C. lives in AZ but still visits regularly. It is great to see old friends get together. From the inside jokes and general razzing they gave each other, you could tell they were great friends. Mike you are welcome back anytime.
Settlers Card Game - Doug and Sophia tackled this one while the old crowd played Founding Fathers. I think Sophia won.
Founding Fathers - Ted jumped on the faction track and really did a good job of it. H picked up tokens every turn. Dave TravR, and I did a little of everything. However, Mike proved to be the best for the night and won by one point. We have played and taught this a dozen times since we got the copy at Origins. I really like the give and take. The game plays different with 3 than 4 or 5 but it has been a blast to play. If you liked 1960:Making of the President this adds multi-player action to that style game. BTW, it can be chaotic with 5.
Cyrano - We got everyone together for a Party game. It is a poetry writing game. You get a theme and the end sounds of 2 words, such as -ood (as in food, dude, prude) or -ove (as in love, shove, above). You make a 4 line poem using the theme and 2 of the lines must end in one of the sounds and the other 2 lines with the other sound. You score points by using words that no one else uses. It was funny. I didn't play but everyone seemed to like it. You do need to keep people moving so that the game does not bog down.
Defenders of the Realm - Dave, TravR, Mike, and Charlie tried it. Another new co-operative game. This one takes place in a fantasy setting. There are 4 evil generals that are invading "the Realm". You and your fellow players are trying to defeat the evil minions and the generals. Each hero has a special ability (so do the Generals) and each player always has a quest card that gives you bonuses, if you complete it. So you want to complete quests to get extra stuff, but while you are running around the board the evil minions are spreading out. To defeat a general multiple players have to move to the site of the general and then the last player to arrive may declare a battle. All other players at the site can then contribute to the battle. It is a neat system. Overall, this is a challenging game. You can lose the game by all players dieing, 5 minions make it to the capitol city, a General makes to the capitol, and probably some other way. It is hard to win. To many bad things and not enough time. We lost as minions just strolled into the capitol as we were running around the hinderlands. I just we need to try again.
Tammany Hall - Kris, Doug, Sophia, and Ted tried this one. It sounded like they had a great time, until they realized Kris had missed a rule. Sophia continued to have a great time because she won by the rules as explained to her. It was obvious that she wanted the victory and didn't care what the real rules were. Good for her. That is one of my personal rules. "I don't care what rules we play by as long as everyone knows what they are at the beginning." Kris promises to reread the rules and try again soon.
Gipsy King - Doug and Sophia left so the old guys got our Recreational Vehicles out and went camping. This is a quick, abstract, area majority, build chains kind of game. OK, that doesn't do it justice but I like it. Your goal is to have the most RVs around the lakes with fish in them and to connect long chains of your RVs. When you are able to combine these two things you score well. When you can't, you score poorly. It falls into that puzzle type of game that I like. In a stunning occurrence, considering the Appalachian Gamers are all great gamers, everyone forgot the rule about using 2 RVs in the second round. Actually, Kris did not know the rule but for the rest of us, it was pretty silly.
The Adventurers - We ended the night with a quick run through the Temple of Chac (Mayan Rain God). This is a exploration game in the "Indiana Jones" style of archeology. You know, ransack the temple before the bad guys get to ransack the temple. It turns out to be a great light adventure. The big rock rolling down the corridor behind everyone is basically a timer because you have to get out before the rock squashes you or cuts off your escape. I think this is a great little game and we will be running an event at CharCon. Come out and give it a try.
