If last week was crazy, this week was much calmer, and even a little bittersweet as it is Dennis' last game night with us before his move up north. Everything gelled, no arguments over what to play, and everyone just had a great time.
I tried to start the night with another round of Paris Paris, but during the rules explanation enough people streamed in that we quickly went over the limit and moved on to something more group friendly.
King of Tokyo + Power Up! (Chris, Cristian, Dennis, Emily, Keith) I said it so it wouldn't come true again, and it still came true - I died first. Again. This time I managed to get into Tokyo fairly early and survive a few rounds with only minimal damage, finally sustaining 5 total and yielding. Cristian, who had been sharing the board with me in Tokyo Bay moved up to Tokyo, and Chris took his spot in the Bay. Then Cristian rolled 5 damage ending my game quite early. We played with the expansion but this time they came into play far less than previous plays. It's all in how the dice are feeling any given night. Emily had never played before but like everyone else, picked it up quick and had a sneaky play, purchasing a card that dealt three damage to all players. This brought Cristian and Dennis down to one each, and with Dennis stuck in Tokyo, it was his doom. Cristian never really recovered and went out shortly thereafter. One of Emily's evolution cards gave her the power to go to 12 health, something she frequently did. Chris managed to heal up rapidly as well, and bought a card, the Sidekick (probably expansion), that said if he was killed by another player his health went back to 10, his points to zero and his fate was tied to the other player. It was something to the effect of if they won, he won, if they died, so did he. Emily's strategy thereafter turned to chasing victory points, a category she was already well ahead in due to her 1+1+1=3VP card, something she achieved fairly quickly to win the game.
Pickomino (Chris, Cristian, Dennis, Emily, Jamar, Jen, Keith) Since Jamarnifer had just arrived, we knew we would have to split up for any substantive game and decided to play at least one game that could incorporate all of us. Luckily as much as the dice hate me in King of Tokyo, they seem to love me in Pickomino. The game went four times around the table, with me scoring two to three worm value dominoes each time. There was plenty of petty stealing around the rest of the table, the 26 being the hot potato this time for some reason. Luckily I managed to steer clear and won easily.
Walking Dead: The Board Game (Chris, Dennis, Emily, Jamar) Jamar was determined to play this one right after our last apocalypse simulator session. It turns out this game is just plain hard to beat. About a half hour in we were done familiarizing ourselves with the rules and set up of Power Grid, and they felt their game was almost over. Then they kept rolling sixes. Dennis and Jamar died first and became the zombie team (and therefore the ultimate "winners" but not before Emily managed to make it to the very last corner card she needed. In order to win she had the supplies to get her down to having about a 50% chance of rolling a win - then Jamar played a fury card on her. She needed a 6 just to survive, and of course didn't. I believe they ran out of scrounge card very early on and only due to miraculous rolling did the game go to an hour and a half. The key difference between this session and the one we played wrong is that they felt like there might almost be a tiny chance of winning. That the game is not impossible to bead. But boy is it hard. (That's what she said.)
Power Grid - Brazil Board (Cristian, Jen, Keith) Meanwhile it had been a while since we played Power Grid so it took some time to re-familiarize myself with the rules. We chose the Brazil board for the first time. The board is fairly straight-forward, and the rule modification fairly minor. Trash is more popular in this game, and so trash power plants are excluded when discarding 8 plants to get down to the correct deck size. This leaves more trash powered plants than normal, and the amount of trash resources are boosted to make up for this. Uranium is still the rare resource here, but coal becomes the second rarest at some point.
I recently move Power Grid to my second favorite game after Descent. The time it takes to play and the fact it doesn't cause riotous outbursts kept it from seeming glamorous and from getting played very often. Tonight I was reminded why it is such a great game. The conflict and agony is often internal, so an outsider watching won't be engrossed. The picture was essentially this: Three people staring at their money, then the power plants, then the resources. One might exclaim, "Damn!" then look back at their power plants, the ones up for auction, then back to the houses. Then they make a move. Holy crap. Not very cinematic, but good god is it tense for the players.
Jen had an extraordinarily strong start, picking up several cheap power plants for cost. I made big errors in calculation on bids as I tried to remember the strategies and to hit the right balance between bidding and town placement. Nevertheless I made enough mistakes that I was trailing for a little more than half the game. My chance finally came when Cristian bid Jen to astronomical heights on an average late game plant that they both "needed to have" for some reason. It powered six cities and was the first of its kind to show up. I think they both forgot how many of those there would in stage 3. The money spent kept Jen from powering her many cities. I eventually passed both and encountered a tense moment late game when I realized Jen could run the market on oil leaving me able to power only a handful of my cities and likely completely dashing my chances for success, or even second place. Luckily she was in the mood to buy and after Cristian beat her on a plant, she purchased a wind powered plant and removed one of her oil consumers, ensuring enough resources for all. Cristian made the mistake of buying too many resource heavy plants early to mid game and suffered for it. On the last turn he was at 13 cities, and bought only one with the potential to power six. I was planning on ending the game that turn, sitting at 15 cities and easily able to afford 2 more, plus the power. Cristian only chose to buy one city and I knew it was over for him. Jen then surprised me with the amount of cash she had - buying three cities to hit 17 and trigger the end game. She blocked out my cheap spots and forced me to go another direction, though luckily I was still able to purchase the two cities I needed to match her 17 - being a dozen dollars shy of getting the 18 I needed and could potentially power to beat her outright. We bought our resources, luckily there were enough to go around, and she finished with six dollars to my sixteen. It was much closer than we had realized - her lead early on was extraordinary, and nearly gave her the edge even with the mistakes. Man, I love this game.
Pandemic (Dennis, Emily, Jamar) We were about halfway through Power Grid and this trio needed a medium weight game to carry the night. Since Dennis and Emily had never played before Jamar chose a beginner variant. I only had two check-ins with them. In the first Jamar was regretting the beginner variant since they were cleaning up the disease left and right without a real challenge. The second time I checked in they had lost - the one single city in existence that couldn't have an outbreak and couldn't possibly come up next did - and the world perished.
Monopoly Deal (Dennis Emily, Jamar) Yeah, we still weren't done with Power Grid. This may have been the longest ever game our group has played of Monopoly Deal at almost a half hour. Jamar was again the only one who had played before. It definitely left him with a huge advantage, even in a game as luck driven as this one. To their credit, Dennis and Emily held on for quite a while, all parties getting one or two monopolies with houses and/or hotels. It was all for naught as Jamar eventually took out the competition with his third monopoly.
I tried to start the night with another round of Paris Paris, but during the rules explanation enough people streamed in that we quickly went over the limit and moved on to something more group friendly.
King of Tokyo + Power Up! (Chris, Cristian, Dennis, Emily, Keith) I said it so it wouldn't come true again, and it still came true - I died first. Again. This time I managed to get into Tokyo fairly early and survive a few rounds with only minimal damage, finally sustaining 5 total and yielding. Cristian, who had been sharing the board with me in Tokyo Bay moved up to Tokyo, and Chris took his spot in the Bay. Then Cristian rolled 5 damage ending my game quite early. We played with the expansion but this time they came into play far less than previous plays. It's all in how the dice are feeling any given night. Emily had never played before but like everyone else, picked it up quick and had a sneaky play, purchasing a card that dealt three damage to all players. This brought Cristian and Dennis down to one each, and with Dennis stuck in Tokyo, it was his doom. Cristian never really recovered and went out shortly thereafter. One of Emily's evolution cards gave her the power to go to 12 health, something she frequently did. Chris managed to heal up rapidly as well, and bought a card, the Sidekick (probably expansion), that said if he was killed by another player his health went back to 10, his points to zero and his fate was tied to the other player. It was something to the effect of if they won, he won, if they died, so did he. Emily's strategy thereafter turned to chasing victory points, a category she was already well ahead in due to her 1+1+1=3VP card, something she achieved fairly quickly to win the game.
Pickomino (Chris, Cristian, Dennis, Emily, Jamar, Jen, Keith) Since Jamarnifer had just arrived, we knew we would have to split up for any substantive game and decided to play at least one game that could incorporate all of us. Luckily as much as the dice hate me in King of Tokyo, they seem to love me in Pickomino. The game went four times around the table, with me scoring two to three worm value dominoes each time. There was plenty of petty stealing around the rest of the table, the 26 being the hot potato this time for some reason. Luckily I managed to steer clear and won easily.
Walking Dead: The Board Game (Chris, Dennis, Emily, Jamar) Jamar was determined to play this one right after our last apocalypse simulator session. It turns out this game is just plain hard to beat. About a half hour in we were done familiarizing ourselves with the rules and set up of Power Grid, and they felt their game was almost over. Then they kept rolling sixes. Dennis and Jamar died first and became the zombie team (and therefore the ultimate "winners" but not before Emily managed to make it to the very last corner card she needed. In order to win she had the supplies to get her down to having about a 50% chance of rolling a win - then Jamar played a fury card on her. She needed a 6 just to survive, and of course didn't. I believe they ran out of scrounge card very early on and only due to miraculous rolling did the game go to an hour and a half. The key difference between this session and the one we played wrong is that they felt like there might almost be a tiny chance of winning. That the game is not impossible to bead. But boy is it hard. (That's what she said.)
Power Grid - Brazil Board (Cristian, Jen, Keith) Meanwhile it had been a while since we played Power Grid so it took some time to re-familiarize myself with the rules. We chose the Brazil board for the first time. The board is fairly straight-forward, and the rule modification fairly minor. Trash is more popular in this game, and so trash power plants are excluded when discarding 8 plants to get down to the correct deck size. This leaves more trash powered plants than normal, and the amount of trash resources are boosted to make up for this. Uranium is still the rare resource here, but coal becomes the second rarest at some point.
I recently move Power Grid to my second favorite game after Descent. The time it takes to play and the fact it doesn't cause riotous outbursts kept it from seeming glamorous and from getting played very often. Tonight I was reminded why it is such a great game. The conflict and agony is often internal, so an outsider watching won't be engrossed. The picture was essentially this: Three people staring at their money, then the power plants, then the resources. One might exclaim, "Damn!" then look back at their power plants, the ones up for auction, then back to the houses. Then they make a move. Holy crap. Not very cinematic, but good god is it tense for the players.
Jen had an extraordinarily strong start, picking up several cheap power plants for cost. I made big errors in calculation on bids as I tried to remember the strategies and to hit the right balance between bidding and town placement. Nevertheless I made enough mistakes that I was trailing for a little more than half the game. My chance finally came when Cristian bid Jen to astronomical heights on an average late game plant that they both "needed to have" for some reason. It powered six cities and was the first of its kind to show up. I think they both forgot how many of those there would in stage 3. The money spent kept Jen from powering her many cities. I eventually passed both and encountered a tense moment late game when I realized Jen could run the market on oil leaving me able to power only a handful of my cities and likely completely dashing my chances for success, or even second place. Luckily she was in the mood to buy and after Cristian beat her on a plant, she purchased a wind powered plant and removed one of her oil consumers, ensuring enough resources for all. Cristian made the mistake of buying too many resource heavy plants early to mid game and suffered for it. On the last turn he was at 13 cities, and bought only one with the potential to power six. I was planning on ending the game that turn, sitting at 15 cities and easily able to afford 2 more, plus the power. Cristian only chose to buy one city and I knew it was over for him. Jen then surprised me with the amount of cash she had - buying three cities to hit 17 and trigger the end game. She blocked out my cheap spots and forced me to go another direction, though luckily I was still able to purchase the two cities I needed to match her 17 - being a dozen dollars shy of getting the 18 I needed and could potentially power to beat her outright. We bought our resources, luckily there were enough to go around, and she finished with six dollars to my sixteen. It was much closer than we had realized - her lead early on was extraordinary, and nearly gave her the edge even with the mistakes. Man, I love this game.
Pandemic (Dennis, Emily, Jamar) We were about halfway through Power Grid and this trio needed a medium weight game to carry the night. Since Dennis and Emily had never played before Jamar chose a beginner variant. I only had two check-ins with them. In the first Jamar was regretting the beginner variant since they were cleaning up the disease left and right without a real challenge. The second time I checked in they had lost - the one single city in existence that couldn't have an outbreak and couldn't possibly come up next did - and the world perished.
Monopoly Deal (Dennis Emily, Jamar) Yeah, we still weren't done with Power Grid. This may have been the longest ever game our group has played of Monopoly Deal at almost a half hour. Jamar was again the only one who had played before. It definitely left him with a huge advantage, even in a game as luck driven as this one. To their credit, Dennis and Emily held on for quite a while, all parties getting one or two monopolies with houses and/or hotels. It was all for naught as Jamar eventually took out the competition with his third monopoly.