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Game Logs: February 21st, 2004
As we hoped, after the Lansing State Journal article about us, we had a great turnout.
We were even roping in bystanders. In all 18 different people played games! That's an all time record for us. I really have to thank 21st Century Comics & Games for their hosting us. Jennifer was very patient with us and kept us in check so that we didn't overflow the trash in the store with all the food & pop consumption going on. :-)
Ten games were played ranging from Cosmic Encounter to Guillotine. A lot of people learned new games today. Everyone displayed some pretty good patience even though the learning curve is always higher for these types of games. Well worth the bumps though! Tim Hunt from Foundation Con stopped by and I want to remind everyone that LBG is hosting a number of the boardgames offered their from March 5-7 in Okemos at the Holiday Inn Convention Center. Check out their website at Foundation-Games.com
Jump To: [ Cosmic Encounter Starfarers Of Cataan Santa Fe Rails Guillotine TransAmerica Bohnanza Give Me The Brain 1 Give Me The Brain 2 Give Me The Brain 3 Modern Art ]Cosmic EncounterWow, it had been a long time since I played this. Marvin brought his old EON edition, quite a collectors item. I will say we may have tried to bite off more than we could handle -- two powers a piece, lucre, etc. Once we got up to speed though we were having a lot of fun. Powers were distributed at follows: Marvin: Philanthropist & Force, Greg: Anti-Matter & Inscect, Dave (me): Assessor & Filch, Mike: Grudge & Warrior, Rachel: Judge & I cannot remember because the Judge was so evil... :-) I was quite a pain myself with the Assessor and in the very end it cost me. I was the first to try for a fifth base (the win) and I whipped out my Attack 30 card, but the Philanthropist (Marvin) gave a card to Mike that was the Virus Flare. That card allowed Mike to win the battle. Then, Mike went and cut a deal with Marvin since I had at one point earlier traded him a taxed Marvin token which made such deals possible. They each gained a base and shared in the victory. Quite a wild game. I think we'll all be better capable of getting off to a quicker start next time.
Winner: Marvin & MikeScores: Marvin: 5, Mike: 5, Dave: 4, Rachel: 3, Greg: 3
Ratings: Marvin: 10, Mike: 7, Dave: 8, Rachel: 7, Greg: 6
Average Rating: 7.60Starfarers Of CataanIn Starfarers of Catan, you are the leader of a group of settlers trying
to niche out a living in space. This was a virgin play for all six of us (using the 5-6 player expansion), so
we needed significant help to get started, and one of the store
employees offered to help. We were soon up and running, or should I say
flying. To break it all down to basics, you try to inhabit planets, and
make alliances with space aliens. Every alliance and settlement you make
counts toward your victory points. The first person to reach a number of
points wins. Of course its a lot more complicated than that. I would say
that the game play is more complicated than Settlers of Catan, which in
my opinion is a good thing. With it being a new game to us all, no one
could get into strategy too much, but I noticed that Dan was really
collecting on the planets which produced products when 8's were rolled.
You can be sure that in the next game I'll be starting my settlements on
the 8's. Although the game took over 3 and a half hours to finish, I really liked it and I would play
again anytime. I believe this was the general consensus among the
group. -- Josh
Winner: DanScores: Dan: 15, Hugh: 11, Bob: 8, Josh: 7
Ratings: Dan: 9, Hugh: 8, Bob: 8, Josh: 8, Keegan: 7, Aaron: 8
Average Rating: 8.00Santa Fe RailsBonnie, Rob and Joe played a three-player game of Santa Fe Rails. Santa Fe Rails is one of Rob and Bonnie's favorite games; Joe had never played before. After a brief explanation of the rules to Joe, we started the game. Bonnie and Joe did a good job of getting onboard money by connecting trains to their historical destinations. My (Rob) strategy was to have more end game scoring by having more cities in play. At the end of the game, both Bonnie and Joe had double the number of money on hand. My city advantage was not enough to overcome those leads. Joe was afraid that he might have to leave early as he was waiting on the arrival of a friend. Joe's late arriving friend gave him plenty of time to not only play Santa Fe Rails, but to win it in a close contest with Bonnie. -- Rob
Winner: JoeScores: Joe: 173, Bonnie: 156, Rob: 152
Ratings: Joe: 8, Bonnie: 8, Rob: 9
Average Rating: 8.33GuillotineGuillotine is a simplistic, but entertaining game. Its one of those games where you don't mind losing. Its quick and undoubtedly you've beheaded some interesting folks. Basically there's a line of nobles ready to get their heads chopped off. You want to collect the heads of the more sinister politicians and avoid the "Hero of the People" as well as the Martyrs. You play up to 1 card per turn to help you capture the right people by rearranging the predetermined order of choppings. Our "house rule" is that when you chop you have to make a chopping motion with your hand and exclaim "CHOP!". Adds to the entertainment factor! After the mandatory 3 rounds, I managed to tie Ruth for the win.
Winner: Dave & RuthScores: Ruth: 14, Dave: 14, Marvin: 12, Dean: 11, Kim: 5
Ratings: Ruth: 4, Dave: 8, Marvin: 6, Dean: 9, Kim: 7
Average Rating: 6.80TransAmericaTransAmerica is a fun, fast game where you try to connect your five random cities across the U.S. more quickly and efficently than everyone else. We played a six player game with three people having played before (Bonnie, Rob & Mike) and three being new to the game (Greg, Rachael & Joe). Each turn, you play one or two tracks depending upon the terrain. You can only build off of your network; but once your network connects to another players, you can then build off of the combined railway. Once a player has connected their five cities, the other players count how "far" away they are. I (Rob) won the second and third rounds which led me to winning the game. -- Rob
Winner: RobScores: Rob: 1st, Rachel: 2nd, Bonnie: 3rd, Joe: 3rd, Mike: 5th, Greg: 6th
Ratings: Rob: 6, Rachel: 6, Bonnie: 6, Joe: 6, Mike: 8, Greg: 7
Average Rating: 6.50BohnanzaBohnanza is a game about bean farming. That's right, bean farming. I was a little slow on the uptake as we were all new and Rachel was explaining rules faster than I could process. The other players seemed to grok this game better earlier on. After we dissected the rules and figured out that you plant the beans you "keep" right away and we mastered the nitty gritty on trades and donations we were underway. Kim took a scorching lead and mocked my puny farms that sat to the right of hers. Dean had a massive coffee bean farm, but Marvin ended up winning by one over Kim at the end.
Winner: MarvinScores: Marvin: 10, Kim: 9, Ruth: 5, Dean: 5, Dave: 4, Rachel: 2
Ratings: Marvin: 6, Kim: 8, Dean: 7
Average Rating: 7.00Give Me The Brain 1Opting for a shorter game, Dan, Rob, Bonnie & Keegan played three games of Give Me the Brain. Give Me the Brain is a fun, quick & silly card game where you are trying to discard all of the cards in your hand. There is a strong element of "screw your neighbor" to the game. Everyone enjoyed the game enough that we played three times (adding other players along the way.) -- Rob
Winner: RobScores:
Ratings: Rob: 7, Bonnie: 8, Keegan: 8, Dan: 6
Average Rating: 7.25Give Me The Brain 2
Winner: RobScores:
Ratings: Keith: 4, Joe: 7, Bonnie: 6, Rob: 7
Average Rating: 6.00Give Me The Brain 3
Winner: BonnieScores:
Ratings: Keith: 4, Joe: 7, Bonnie: 6, Rob: 7
Average Rating: 6.00Modern ArtModern Art is a game where 3-5 players become "art dealers" and try, over the course of 4 rounds, to buy valuable art, as well as sell art from their hands, in order to amass a fortune. The player who ends up with the most cash at the end of 4 rounds is the winner! The strategy lies in the fact that only 3 artists out of the 5 that are present in the game will be worth anything at the end of a round. Whether they are worth anything, and how much they are worth, is determined by how many paintings sell during the round (and each round they are worth even more IF they were previously worth anything). So selling paintings from the same artists drives up the value of the artist, while making you $$$. But buying paintings can be even more lucrative, IF you choose to buy thre right paintings. Paintings are bought in player-controlled auctions, which are a riot in and of themselves.
In our game, Bonnie, despite being a newbie, managed to acheive the zen state that a good Modern Art player achieves, and always ended up with more valuable art than the rest of us. Despite being a Modern Art veteran, I ended up with the lowest score, most likely because I sold too many paintings in double auctions too early in the game. Because of this I had no "ammo" in later rounds when those paintings could have been worth a fortune. Trying new strategies is a good excuse, eh?? -- Dean
Winner: BonnieScores: Bonnie: 572, Rob: 510, Dave: 462, Dean: 362
Ratings: Bonnie: 10, Rob: 9.5, Dean: 10, Dave: 9
Average Rating: 9.62 | |
