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Gary Heidenreich
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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June 14th
The Skull has returned!!! (and so has the Wednesday headache)
I just got done re-stuffing my furnace room with boxes of crap after unloading it so my ex-wife cold get the rest of her stuff when Timm and Kevin arrived. Earlier, since it ended up being a good day, I bought Modelo, Shiner Bock, Lakefront Cherry, and a new 750ml bottle of Crystal Head Vodka.
The Skull.
Without even asking, Timm started dealing out the cards as we started up a new game of Sheepshead. I misplaced the old game we had been playing the last few months so we figured to start anew. Timm was the big winner of the first game, Kevin got into the positives and I, after mocking the Sheepshead Gods, was way back in the negatives. Oh yes, do not mock the Sheepshead Gods. They will smite you. You will be doubled on the bump time and time again.
Do not mock.
Anyways, the cards seemed to be evenly distributed most of the time as we ended up building up a bunch of "doublers". I think we actually only played four hands.
It ended up being a chatty night.
Scott arrived so it was time to figure out a game to play. We tossed around various ideas but ultimately we decided on Age of Steam - the Rust Belt map. We all had played before but needed a very quick refresher of the rules (Scott had been playing Steam). As always, it was a brutal game and the setup wasn't great. Scott got himself into a bind early and had to work on digging himself out all game. Man, this is one of those games where you do not want that to happen. You have to play for pride then. I was fortunate that I was behind Timm in the turn order. He urbanized a yellow city to ship two cubes and I was in a position to also connect to the yellow city to ship two cubes, as well as the refill on my city was more yellow. It helped me get a foot hold. Kevin was on the east coast building up a network, as well, and shipping regularily. I enjoy how brutal the game is and how it works. It's a train game, but for me, it feels more like an abstract than a train game (which works for me). One of the late rounds, I opted to not build, which cost me the game. Kevin pulled out the win with 52 points, I had 51, Timm had 47 (some late shipping, not pushing into -4 income reduction when Kevin and I had, brought him close) and Scott had 11. Scott had to take out too many shares to try and come back.
We had about 20 minutes left so I pushed for Slappy Hands. Scott had not played and at least I was pretty juiced by that time (had a Skull shot 30 minutes earlier). The game NEVER fails to get me laughing. We had some excellent plays, lots of laughs and a good way to wind down from AoS. We played four games with Kevin winning three and Timm won one game. Scott and I were on the long ends of the table so that might have been the reason we didn't win a game. Or that Kevin is a savant Slappy Hands player.
It's probably because I stink at it.
#139
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