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My favorite 2006 Gathering experiences
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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The Gathering provides an opportunity to meet a lot of friends, both old and new. It also provides a wide range of experiences. You can try games you have never heard of, and would never buy on your own initiative. My favorite game this year is one I'd never heard of before last week. Here are my highlights.
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Posted Wed Apr 19, 2006 9:48 pm
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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I arrived in Columbus at around noon on Friday. I walked into the ballroom to find Mik Svellov rounding up players for Thurn und Taxis, a game I had heard about but not yet seen. It plays smoothly and I knew almost immediately that it would go over well with my family. I'm buying a copy as soon as Rio Grande publishes it.
I played Thurn und Taxis nine times during the week. We straightened out many rules questions, such as "can you draw from the top of the draw pile?", "can you flush the display after you draw a card?", "may you flush the display on your first turn?" and "exactly what do you do if you cannot add to your route?"---or at least, I think we straightened them out.
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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I bought a copy of Twilight Struggle a few months ago based on the great time I've been having with Paths of Glory, but I hadn't had a chance to play it. I brought it to the Gathering hoping to try it. Alan Moon had his own copy mounted in a poster frame from A. C. Moore and was playing it with anyone who would say yes. Alan uses red and blue meeples to mark control, a solution that's a lot more distinctive than the red and blue beads I got from my wife's craft supplies.
As I was standing there watching Alan's game, Jim Dietz came up and started watching with me. We realized that we were both interested in the game and Jim asked me if I wanted to play. I got my copy out and we played two games in a few hours. The first ended quickly when one player got a hand full of scoring cards on Turn 3 and couldn't save himself, but the second went all the way to Turn 7 or 8.
Later in the con I managed to play two more games, with Simmy Peerutin and Paul Skrabut. Simmy played the USSR and headlined Missle Envy. By Turn 6, I had an edge in the Space Race that allowed me to see his card before I played my headline card, and I was able to play a headline that lowered Defcon to 2, then handed him "We Will Bury You" for Missle Envy, forcing him to blow up the world. I felt a little bad about taking advantage of someone in his first game, but Simmy was a gentleman about it. Paul also played several games of Twilight Struggle, and our game went all the way to Late War.
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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Back at the 2005 Gathering I had played an unpublished prototype by a designer I won't name, and it was one of my favorite games of the con. I asked for another shot this year, and he obliged me. When we discussed its chances for publication, he explained that he hadn't been able to come up with a suitable theme.
A day or two later I was lying in bed when I started to think about a theme for this prototype. The longer I thought, the better it sounded, and I finally got up and wrote down my thoughts on paper. The next day I explained the concept to the designer, and he didn't laugh me out of the room.
I don't know whether the theme I came up with will be useful, but I was really struck by the way playing a good game brought a theme into my head later in the week.
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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Bonaparte at Marengo is one of the most innovative games of the past few years. It's a war game with hidden movement, but with no luck other than that of a random initial setup.
I saw Terry Bailey and Rob Smolka staring at the board with puzzled looks on their faces. Rob had moved a few Austrian pieces onto the board, but it was clear that they weren't sure how things should work. I used to work as a teacher, and I still miss it. I walked over and asked whether they wanted some help. They happily invited me to walk them through the mechanics. I wound up sitting with them for the entire game, which was a thriller. Terry's French won the game with just one morale point remaining as Rob's Austrians couldn't quite get into position for the final assault needed to break them.
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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Another prototype that's closer to publication is Race for the Galaxy, a game by Tom Lehmann that's scheduled to come out this year. I suppose the wraps are at least partially off this one given that it's been mentioned in the Financial Times!
I played Race for the Galaxy eight times in 2005 and another eleven times in 2006, all at the Gathering. It's a card game in which skill matters a lot, as evidenced by the fact that I lost every game I played to experienced players, by scores averaging approximately 38 to 24. If this game gets the right art work, it has the potential to be a huge hit, especially among teenage boys.
(See news.ft.com/cms/s/201bc9ee-092-11da-9419-0000779e2340.html
for the reference)
I'm using a generic game name because each geeklist item needs a different ID.
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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The first thing Wednesday morning, I walked into the ballroom and found a group looking for another player for Zig-zag, a Kosmos game in the small box. Zig-zag is a real-time game in which you turn over cards looking for the right colors to move your little man through a maze to the finish line. It's not the kind of game that involves heavy strategy, but it's a good way to get your blood flowing in the morning.
For some reason this game made me happy. You turn over cards as fast as you can, looking for the ones you need. Once you turn over a card, you leave it face up so other players can take it if they need it. This means you need to split your attention between turning over cards yourself, looking at what others are turning up, and checking back to remember what cards you need to complete your journey. Of course, it's common for a player to pick up a card that doesn't actually advance his or her pawn, prematurely ending his or her turn, but that just adds to the silly fun.
I don't know why I liked Zig-zag so much---silly games are a matter of taste.
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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After lunch on Wednesday, Michael Tsuk and Joe Huber were contemplating a game of Indonesia. The only problem was that Michael had another appointment at 2:30 and it was already 12:30. No problem---Joe assured Michael that we'd finish in under two hours, and in fact Joe thought we had a chance to finish a 3-player game in 90 minutes. The phenomenon of "Huber speed" is well-known in the hobby, and it's something everyone should experience at least once. Joe is the nicest guy you'll ever meet---friendly, calm, thoughtful and always looking out for the other person. He normally plays quickly, but when you ask him to help you finish a game fast, he shifts into overdrive without you even realizing it. It's like traveling at 99% of the speed of light.
I had played Indonesia once before with 5 players, and this game was much clearer than the previous one. Experience certainly helped, but there's a lot less to keep track of with 3 and I recommend this number to beginners. We all started both production and shipping companies, but as the game went on I lost most of my production to mergers and bought up all the shipping companies. My boat capacity was less than Joe's and Michael's, which led to the need to ship goods all the way from New Guinea to the southwest corner of the map. When this happens, the boat owner gets most if not all of the profit, and I won by a comfortable margin.
We finished packing up the game and looked at our watches, and the time was 2:15. The game took an hour and 45 minutes, including set-up and put-away time. Another game of Indonesia started just after ours and went till after 6:00 (of course, they didn't have Joe...)
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8.
Board Game: Aton
[Average Rating:7.09 Overall Rank:278]
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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Late in the evening, almost everyone was playing a game and there were just two of us looking for a game to play. Evan Tannheimer suggested Aton, a 2-player game from Queen by Thorsten Gimmler. I was not sure I'd like it, but the Gathering is the place to find out about such things, and I was happy to give it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised. In Aton, you get four cards each turn numbered 1-4 by random draw from a deck of your color. You must allocate these four cards to four different roles, trying to build up a position in one or more temples and score points. I wound up playing twice more during the week, once with Christine Blancheria (whose tastes in games I often share) and another time with Ken Hill (who I've known since 1989, when I played in his Compuserve Railway Rivals zine.)
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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During the week I had been noticing an attractive game with wooden pieces. Frank Branham brought a copy of Die Nacht der Magier to the Gathering. It's a new type of dexterity game. Inside the box is a sturdy round cardboard "table" and a collection of wooden pieces (mostly in dark colors.) Certain pieces, the "cauldrons," are marked with player symbols. Your goal is to get one of your cauldrons into a depression in the center of the "table" by pushing the pieces with your "pusher" (a piece that looks a bit like a witch's hat.) The problem is that the "table" is so crowded that a little pushing will knock a piece off, and that ends your turn. Players take turns pushing, with a piece falling off with each turn, until the board clears enough for one player to get his or her piece into the middle.
This is a dexterity game that does not depend on reaction time. You push very slowly and carefully, and the key to victory is envisioning how the other pieces will move when you push in a certain spot. It's more of an applied mechanics game.
Once we had the basic game down, we moved across the hall to a dark room to take advantage of the glow-in-the-dark pieces. In this version of the game you can't even see the outer midnight-blue pieces, so it's a surprise when a piece falls with a "clack!" and your turn is over.
I wound up playing Die Nacht der Magier four times and demo-ing it to a few other groups in games I didn't play. This is my favorite new game of the Gathering. You could bring it out at a party of non-gamers and people would be waiting in line to play it all evening.
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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Several years ago there was a website that allowed you to enter game ratings and used that information to tell you which games you haven't played, but would probably like, based on others with similar tastes. There was one game this site told me I would like a lot more than other people like it: Up Front.
This seemed surprising, given that I hadn't been playing wargames, but I do seem to have a taste for games with card flow (like San Juan or Race for the Galaxy.) Up Front is out of print (though MMP has been teasing gamers for more than 5 years with hints of a re-publication,) but I got a copy at last year's WBC. I brought my copy to the Gathering in the hope of finding someone to teach me.
On Friday night, a few hours before the Game Show, I spied Terry Bailey sitting with Brian Bankler and Jeff Goldsmith, learning Up Front. I hurried over and asked if they were teaching him, and they wound up inviting me to learn as well. Brian and Jeff sat behind Terry and me, answering questions and providing us advice to get us started. We played Scenario A, the Meeting Engagement, with Terry playing the Germans and me the Americans. I had read the rules several times, but it was only with Brian and Jeff's help that it all started to make sense as a game.
In the first game, I drew several of the best Fire cards in the deck immediately, and when Terry moved a squad forward to Relative Range 1, I let him have it with all barrels blazing and the game was over in a few dozen cards. Brian and Jeff said it was the most extreme luck they'd ever expect to see in a game of Up Front.
We immediately tried again with the same scenario. This time it was a much closer fight. Terry moved forward and I got a shot at him, killing one man, but I didn't have the cards to do more. Then I moved forward into a hail of bullets, got several men pinned and one killed, and rushed into some -3 Buildings. I shot back at him only to have 3 weapon malfunctions, including my BAR, which is the key to American fire power. It was looking like a quick win for Terry, but I decided to take the chances I needed to stay in it, and I got lucky with some of them.
Casualties in this game were high, and by midway through the second deck of a three-deck scenario, I had lost six men and Terry had lost five. Either of us would lose if we lost even one more man. At this point we found it hard to get useful cards. Eventually I fixed my weapons and got into buildings, but Jeff pointed out that Terry would win on "aggressive action" points if I kept sitting where I was. I had to move the three men in my "A" squad forward at least one move to Relative Range 1 if I wanted a chance to win. It took forever to get the movement card I needed, but finally I lurched forward, had a man pinned, dropped into a gully, and rallied the troops.
At this point we were nearing the end of the final deck, and I started shooting at Terry's squads just to use up cards. I managed to finish the deck before he could accomplish anything else and won on the aggressive action points just as the Game Show was starting.
I believe our second game was unusually exciting, but I had a great time playing Up Front and now feel able to read the rules for myself and play on my own. I'd like to give a special thanks to Jeff and Brian for spending two hours teaching a pair of beginners.
[In looking for a picture of Up Front to include in this geek list, I note that there isn't a single picture that shows a game in progress. I picked the best picture available.]
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11.
Board Game: Siena
[Average Rating:6.24 Overall Rank:1581]
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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Walter Hunt will be stunned to find Siena on my list of Gathering highlights! Here's how it came to pass. Each year's Gathering has a Game Show, and Dave Arnott did an enormous amount of work to put together a great show for 2006. About 30 teams of 4 entered, and I was on Donna Balkan's team with Rich Meyer and Scott Nicholson. We had fun even though we didn't score many points.
The format was reminiscent of Haste Worte. Dave would give out a category and the teams would take turns saying items that fit in that category. Play would go around and around, with a team dropping out if it could not think of another item, if it gave an item that didn't fit, or (most often) if it gave an item that another team had already given. It's really hard keeping track of dozens of answers given by others when you're trying feverishly to think of your own answers. Our team's best category was "countries of the world" but there were only two rounds and we got just 3 points. We also had a good list for "Disney attractions past and present" but lost when we repeated someone else's item.
One of the categories was "games with colors in their names." The round started off with the usual: Blue Moon, Evergreen, White Lotus, and so forth. We came up with some of our own. A few teams, however, came up with truly clever answers. One team listed "Emerald," which is of course a color. Valerie Putman's team came up with "Aqua-dukt," and of course aqua is a color. The best answer of the night, though, came from David Fair's team. David called out "Siena" and everyone who was old enough to remember that Crayola crayon color (along with Burnt Umber) laughed out loud in astonishment.
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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I entered a number of tournaments during the week, but I did well in just one: Puerto Rico. My first-round game was a 5-player game, and I was fortunate to win, finishing 1 VP ahead of Bruce Reiff, who was second. When you play a game with Bruce, you can be sure of two things: first, you'll have fun, and second, if you win, it's an accomplishment!
The tournament was a small one, as it was already late on Friday night, so all first-round winners went immediately to the final game. This was a 4-player game. Jim McDanold was first indigo and I was second indigo. It was a close game, but Jim played an excellent game and won on the tie-breaker by 2 doubloons. Both of my Puerto Rico tournament games were well-played, exciting games, and all the participants were courteous and fully engaged.
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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By Sunday afternoon everyone was getting tired. Many attendees had already left, and I had sent the bulk of my games home with Rich Meyer (he drove and I flew.) I saved a few games to take home in my suitcase: Daytona 500 because it was too big to fit in my game tub, and Attribute because it was so small it didn't take up much room. Daytona 500 is a great game when you're tired. We play a simplified variant that emphasizes gentle hosage---we use six players and assign cars by drafting, not by bidding
I dragooned 5 other "victims" into playing with me, including Nelson Heintzmann and Doug Hoover, who had played with me before. The other players were David Fair, Matthew Monin and Rob Smolka. I explained the "special" rules: (1) a card laid is a card played, even if you immediately realize it's a mistake, and (2) you may not explain to another player how he or she should move the cars, even if you see a great way to hurt someone. I also explained that we award style points for the best engine noise imitation when you play your "9" card. David Fair was far and away the best at imitating engine noise---you can tell he has lived in North Carolina. Some of the players (and I say this kindly) sounded more like wounded elk than stock cars.
In the first of three races, Nelson started out behind, but zoomed past everyone on the back straight and finished first, with David coming in second and Matthew third. Rob's car ran out of gas just before the finish line and he got nothing. In the second race, Matthew won with Nelson coming in second. Again, Rob's car couldn't make it over the line.
In the third race, Rob was the sixth and last person to draft a car, meaning he'd get whatever car the other players didn't want. David suggested letting Rob draft first to give him a chance to catch up, but I pointed out that he might do better going last! We started our engines and were off. I got out to a big lead, but I got passed in the second curve and---was it possible?---there went Rob's car past me! Nelson, who was leading the game through two races, was way behind, and he used a white '5' card to put Rob over the finish line in first place! Nelson figured that a win by Rob would make it hard for the rest of us to catch him. When you finish, you stop playing cards, and this doomed not only Nelson, but also Matthew. David crossed the line second followed by Doug and Eric, in that order.
When we counted the scores, David had won the game with $480 for two seconds and a fifth. Nelson and Matthew were close behind. I came in fifth, just ahead of Rob, who won the last race but was too far behind to catch up.
We all had a lot of fun playing this game---it's just what a final-day game should be.
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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On Sunday evening Alan took everyone who was still around to dinner at a great Chinese restaurant. We talked and laughed and ate till our stomachs hurt. When we got back we moved into a small room for a few closing games. On a table in the back corner was Ann Lesnik's legendary prototype Botts & Balls. The game plays with up to 6, and there were only 4 people at the table, so I jumped right in. Rodney Somerstein came along in a few minutes to fill out the table.
Botts & Balls is something like Richochet Robots, except it's a game and not a puzzle, and it uses triangles instead of squares, and it involves putting balls into goals using your robots. Ann's prototype is gorgeous---if the game is ever published, the published version could very well be less attractive than the prototype (maybe that discourages potential publishers.)
One nice feature of Botts & Balls is that you may offer a solution to another player who can't see a way to score. If the player whose turn it is uses your advice, they get the points for scoring and you get a point for helping. This keeps everyone involved and introduces some team spirit. I'd love to have a copy of this game, but there are only a handful of copies in the whole world and they must have taken Ann dozens of hours to make.
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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For my last game of the night, I roped Doug Hoover, Mik Svellov, Evan Tannheimer and Bryan and Lisa Johnson into a game of Attribute. This game comes in a tiny box but packs a big wallop. You have a hand of four "attributes" (like "curvy," "green," "limitless" or "opaque.") Each turn you get a face-down sheep card, which is either red or green. A player names a thing and you play an attribute card to the table. If your sheep is green, you want your attribute to match the thing, but if it's red, you want it to not match. Once everyone has played, you turn the attribute cards face up and players try to grab a card from someone who has a (face-down) green sheep.
I explained that there are only two rules: (1) have fun and (2) don't forget the color of your sheep! Everyone laughed, but there was a lot of breaking of rule (2) during the game. My best moment was when someone gave out "Friedemann Friese" as the "thing" and I had an attribute card that said "green" in my hand. Unfortunately, I had a red sheep at the time...
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Eric Brosius
United States
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
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In each of my previous Gathering years, my flight left at "stupid o'clock" (as my daughter would call it) on Monday morning. This year I had the sense to schedule a noon flight. I could sleep to a reasonable hour and hang out in the lobby with other departing Gatherers. Even before I arrived, I made a goal of playing at least one game on Monday, and I got a Lost Cities hand in with Rick Thornquist. We were sitting on comfy chairs and playing on a hotel coffee table in front of the big screen CNN TV. It was a close game, but I won by a narrow margin, tempting Rick to play a white handshake by discarding a few white cards, then snapping one of them up again before he could get it.
I rode to the airport in the hotel van with Tom Lehmann, Peter Eggert and a third person who was actually going to the mall by way of the airport. Time to start looking forward to Gathering 2007!
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Posted Wed Apr 19, 2006 1:49 am
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Winter Springs
Florida
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
Southwestern
Michigan
Phoenix
Arizona
I was part of the team that came up with Siena. Because it wasn't Sienna (I guess), our answer was disqualified, but we sure were pleased with the answer!
London
What about our game of 'Fury of Dracula'?
Best wishes and thanks for teaching me Twilight Struggle.
Needham Heights
Massachusetts
Simmy, if you want to try playing Twilight Struggle via Vassal some time, let me know and we'll see what we can do. Given the time zone difference, it'd probably have to be on a Saturday.