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Hyperminds! BoardGame Night in Burlington, NC
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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Gaming in the rural south... not always a successful venture. But we appear to have quite a little gaming group going at the Hypermind FLGS in Burlington, NC these days! I thought I'd create a GeekList to chronicle our gaming exploits, and I sincerely hope that our continuing story brings inspiration to other hopeful game-group organizers in similar small towns all around the world. This is the Geeklist Blog of the first 3-4 months of our weekly boardgame night. Check the end of the list for links to our latest gaming adventures!
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Posted Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:05 pm
Edited Wed Apr 4, 2007 4:49 am
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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January 16
As do many stories about the evolution of gaming somewhere, this tale also begins with a few games of Settlers of Catan.
Back on January 9th I wandered into Hypermind frustrated with the fact that I had been unable to play virtually any of the nine new boardgames I got for Christmas. Alton and Mark were there playing Pirates of the Spanish Main, so the three of us talked with Denise (Hypermind's co-owner and operator) about setting up a regular BoardGame Night! The date was set and Settlers was chosen as the game of choice.
I contacted Chip and Ian here on BGG, who are also local gamers, and so it was just the six of us (plus Chip's wife and kids) that first fateful night. Chip, Ian, Alton, Mark, and I played one 5-player game of Settlers while Denise and Chip's family played Gulo Gulo
and Tsuro
.
Then Chip and Ian had to go, so the rest of us finished the night with two more 4-player Settlers' games.
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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January 23
For our second session we chose Shadows Over Camelot, which is one of my favorite games. Our first game consisted of a full array of 7 knights. The players were (left to right/clockwise in the picture): Ian, Chip, Zack, Alton, Mark, Denise, and myself (not pictured, obviously).
It was the first play for everyone except myself, but everybody picked it up pretty quickly. We were doing pretty well until we lost control of the seige engines and "Morgan" plopped down the last two for the loss. Mark was the traitor, so he alone enjoyed the sweet taste of victory. Unfortunately, we (okay, it was actually Chip) later realized that we could have at least delayed the end of the game because we had already won the Excalibur quest and could have used it to cancel out the Morgan card as it was played. [I should write a nasty little letter to Days of Wonder, because apparently writing that little rule on every one of the Knight cards is clearly not obvious enough for the "(slightly-below)average" gamer to notice.]
(Just before the last two seige engines were placed)
Anyway, we played again, but apparently the forces of evil were destined to win that night. It was paranoia and infighting that doomed us on the second attempt, as three of our white swords were turned to black from false accusations. Ironically, there was no traitor at all in the second game. After two lost relics, two dead knights, six black swords, and twelve seige engines, Camelot was in flames and the round table disbanded for the evening.
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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January 30
As our third BoardGame night began, I was a little worried because several of our "regulars" were not there when 6:30 rolled around. We did, however, have three new players (Chris I., "Magic" Chris, and my wife Gwen). So, to kill a little time, the six of us started a game of For Sale.
In the meantime, several more people rolled in to join us. In fact, our numbers increased so much that we had to divide ourselves among two different games.
Chip taught the first group Ave Caesar...
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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January 30 (continued)
while I led Zack, "Magic" Chris, Chris I., and Gwen in a game of The Princes of Florence. My wife, Gwen, won the game (she's 3-0 now, by the way), edging me out by one Prestige Point.
Afterwards, we shuffled ourselves up a little and split up into another game of Shadows Over Camelot (Zack's new favorite game) and Citadels.
There was also at least one game of Pirates of the Spanish Main played during the evening as well.
In total, there were 11 of us that actually played games this week, plus Ian's wife and baby and another mom who spectated.
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5.
Board Game: Ra
[Average Rating:7.73 Overall Rank:28]
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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February 6
We had one illness and a couple of people that couldn't make it this week, so our numbers were a little down. We did, however, add one other person to our group. When time to start rolled around, there were 7 of us ready to play, so we divided to play two games.
Ian, Chris, Zack, and myself started playing Ra, which none of us were terribly familiar with. After conducting two auctions wrong (with blind bids) and then scoring monuments wrong (after each epoch instead of only at the end), we finally finished. Despite the errors in gameplay, we still had a good time and hopefully will play it again soon.
Meanwhile, "Magic" Chris, Gwen, and Kendall (a new first timer nabbed here on BGG)played San Juan. Gwen and Chris hadn't played before, but they still had a great time.
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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February 6 (continued)
So then we jumped in another couple of games. The two other Chris's, Ian, Gwen, and myself (also a Chris), played a game of RoboRally. Only Ian and "Magic" Chris had played before, but we all picked up on it quickly. After lots of falling into pits, being pushed off the board, getting shot with lazers, and other assorted mayhem, I tagged the third flag first and took home the victory! Woo-hoo!
Kendall taught Denise how to play Blue Moon City during the daring robot race.
I really hate that I couldn't play in both games, because Blue Moon City has been off and on my wishlist for a long time.
Alton also came in late at this time, and he and Elliott (Denise's middle child) played a game of Kinder Bunnies.
We finished up the evening with another game that was new to us, Diamant. Kendall taught us all to play (us being Gwen, Chris, Chris, Alton, Denise, and myself), and we had an instant hit on our hands (enough to play 3 games in a row). Of course, we all recognized that the game is mainly luck, but sometimes fun can just trump "proper" game mechanics.
As you can see, Denise's youngest (Aiden) was on hand to help us out whenever we needed some instruction.
Things are still going well, and we are making plans for a big Saturday event in the near future as well as our weekly sessions.
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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February 13
My wife was not feeling well this week, so we were unable to attend BoardGame night this week. The show carried on without us, however. See the comments below for a description of the games. Thanks to Denise for these pictures.
The evening started with a game of Acquire (but for which no pictures were taken).
Afterwards, that half of the group immersed themselves in a war to build the best casino in Vegas Showdown. The game took about 2 hours (which sounds a little bit long to me) but everyone I've talked to seemed to have a good impression of it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the crowd started out with On the Underground...
And then Iliad.
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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February 20
We're really hitting our stride now at Board Game Night. There were a total of 9 players who attended, and that was missing 3 "regulars".
The "hottest" game for the whole group right now appears to be Liar's Dice, or more specifically, the Disney tie-in Pirates Dice version (which we actually play with the full Liar's Dice rules I found here at BGG). We started and ended the evening with this game, and I think there were a total of 5-6 games played. It's very addictive, simple, and lots of fun.
Most all of us then jumped into a huge, 7-player game of my recently-purchased "pretty" version of Kill Doctor Lucky.
It was a lot of fun, in general, but I can definitely see the flaws that I've read about here on the Geek. The hardest thing in the early going was that in a 7-player game, there aren't a lot of places where no one can see you. Initially, the "extra turns" you get from being in the same room with the good Doctor were very frustrating (since it seemed like some people were never getting to take a turn), but in the end it all seemed to eventually even out. Ian and I learned pretty quickly that getting stuck in hallways really sucks, because there's no chance that Dr. Lucky will ever come and visit you. After several rounds of redistributing spite tokens to thwart murder attempts, the game finally ended when someone just decided to it was time to quit and chose not to spend the tokens required to stop poor Doctor Not-so-Lucky's demise. I get the feeling that a lot of Kill Doctor Lucky game sessions probably end that way...
Of the 7 players in that game, 4 of us were named Chris. So I'm proposing that we make the name of our game group "Dudes Named Chris". I don't know if it will catch on.
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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February 20 (continued)
My Valentine's present from my lovely wife was Mission: Red Planet, and I was very excited to give it a try. So three of the "Dudes Named Chris" started a game, and we let a "Chick Named Denise" join in just to prove that we're not elitist. Overall, I think everyone enjoyed the game, but there was a little bit of a learning curve involved in the early going. I never really figured out the best balance between managing astronauts and choosing characters/special abilities to really make the biggest impact on the game. In the end, the "New" Chris won and claimed control of Mars.
Meanwhile, Ian and the other Chris (who we call "Magic" Chris) played a scenario for Heroscape (Chris on the left, Ian on the right in the pic below).
And Alton and Mark played a little Pirates of the Spanish Main with one of the kids who drops by to play occasionally (since we kind of stole away their usual Pirates' Night).
We also got in one game of Ra, which I think I'm finally starting to figure out strategically.
Of course, now that I've declared that I'm starting to really "get" the game, I must admit that I got spanked up and down last night. I finished the first round with only 3 points, the second with only 12, and the whole game with only 28. Meanwhile "Turd" Chris (so named because of the color of his token in the Kill Doctor Lucky game... and because he beat me in Ra) ran away with the game and won handily.
We played pretty late (for a Tuesday anyway) and we're planning on having a special "Saturday Edition" this weekend as well. Woo-hoo!
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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February 24 (Special Saturday Edition!)
Our grand plan was to start up a game of Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition at about 3:00 in the afternoon, but Britt and I ended up with a bit of a wait for a couple of other players in order to get started. In the meanwhile, we played a game of Titan: the Arena (now renamed as Colossal Arena). It's a simple and elegant game, and Britt ended up buying the new version before he left. Finally, Alton and Darren turned up and we got started with the "main event" at around 5:00 pm.
Here, Britt explains the game to us as we get started. Things then started slow, of course, since there's so much to get straight and process in this magnificent game.
In setup, Darren got pretty screwed with having virtually no planets near him. I didn't do so hot either, with two asteroid fields and a bunch of crappy, low-resource and low-influence planets near my home system. All of us seemed to start our expansion laterally, and tentative truces were agreed upon at all fronts.
The most dramatic thing I did all day was to jump on Metacol Rex pretty early, building a Space Dock and arming it to the teeth. That pretty much made me the big political player in the game, but I couldn't touch the military build-up that Alton and Britt had due to their resource-heavy planetary holdings.
Partly because 3 of us were newbies to the game, no one wanted to commit to any military actions against a neighbor. This resulted in an "Interstellar Cold War" that remained throughout the game.
The only conflict of the whole game was due to some political strongarming that I did which caused an insurrection on one of Britt's planets, handing it over to Alton and his human ground forces. Of course, it was put down in one turn and then things returned to their icy status quo (before and after pictures below).
 
Without military action to rely on, Britt's better understanding of the game led him to be in a better position when the Imperium Rex card came out, and he won with the most victory points sometime ater 10:00pm.
Now that I have a decent handle on how to play, I hope I get another chance in the near future to really put it all together. The game is fantastic, and all of us had a great time.
A few of us then finished up the evening with another game of Titan: the Arena
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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February 27
Some of the guys gathered together early and started playing Star Wars: Epic Duels.
Playing were Mark, "Fuzzy" Chris, and "Magic" Chris [the Chris formerly known as "Turd" (see last week's entry for the reference) looks on]. It looked like a lot of fun and they certainly enjoyed themselves. I'll have to give it a try sometime soon.
Meanwhile, more of us (Alton, Chris "Formerly Known as Turd" Icenhour, Ian, Sherry, Gwen, and myself) wandered in and eventually started up a game of Citadels.
It's my game, and I've played it far more times than everybody else, so theoretically I should have had an advantage. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Alton had some kind of weird Jedi mind trick thing going on and managed to assassinate me three times and steal my gold once. Here is a picture just before he thieved away my little stash (see how everybody else has 4-5 districts and I've only got one...
But I guess I should have known I was doomed when I sat down across from such a highly focused opponent:
(That's Ian and Sherry's baby girl, Anita, who's showing Sherry what to do.)
I lost (of course), and still hold ill will towards Alton and the winners (which were Ian and Chris Icenhour, who tied with 25 points).
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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February 27 (continued)
As we were finishing up with Citadels, Denise joined the guys playing Star Wars: Epic Duels for a game of Taluva.
Then we all came together for our stand-by, Pirate's Dice. We played a four-player game first, then had a big 8-player bluff-fest that brought everyone together.
Just for the sake of imtimidation (and to straighten out who we are), we also had all four Dudes Named Chris on the same side of the table.
From right to left, that's "Magic" Chris, Chris Icenhour, "Fuzzy" Chris, and then me.
Afterwards, those of us not ready to leave yet tried out Bohnanza.
Gwen and I had played a couple of 2-player games, but the full experience was way better. We all took really quickly to the trading mechanic, but in the end "Magic" Chris edged me out 16 to 15 for the win.
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13.
Board Game: Taluva
[Average Rating:7.17 Overall Rank:186]
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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March 3
This is the second Saturday in a row where I've been free to dedicate the day to gaming, so I tried to make the most of it. I arrived at Hypermind crazy early, and had to amuse myself for a while learning how to play Ingenious. I played the solataire variant from the rules sheet, which at least gave me the chance to practice how you place tiles and all.
The only problem is that there was no indication of what was a "good" score, so I have no idea if I was successful or not in my solo attempts to master the game.
Next, Denise took pity on me and we played The Settlers of Canaan. I've played quite a bit of regular Settlers, but this was my first time playing the Caanan variant.
Overall, I think it's a very good twist on the basic Settlers game. The lack of replayability from the static board is made up for by the addition of the "building Jerusalem" rules. Especially if you are looking for a Christian/Jewish themed game, this is a good deal. (I beat the crap out of Denise, by the way.)
Pretty soon, the rest of the guys for the main event were showing up, but I'll cover that in a minute. As we were setting up for Twilight Imperium, we also played a quick game of Hey! That's My Fish!, which is really simple and quick, but not really my favorite game.
And just so I won't muddy up the glorious TI report, I'll also talk about what we did after the big game. As it has become our fall-back game of choice, we had to dive into a couple of games of Liar's Dice.
Then, I tried out something new. Denise and Nick taught me how to play Taluva, which I found to be truly cool. The beautiful (and incredibly thick) tiles were visually stunning, and the gameplay was just different enough from the other tile-laying games I've played to make it feel fresh and new to me. Definitely going on my wishlist...
(That's Denise and Nick's oldest youngin', Ian, in the midst of analysis paralysis)
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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March 3 - Main Event!
For the second time in two weeks, a group of us gathered to play the "mother of all space-opera games", Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition. This time, there were five of us; three who played last week (and had at least a little experience) and two new players.
The players were (left to right):
- Nick, playing the turtle-folk of the Xxcha Kingdom
- Alton, reprising his role as the filthy, stinking humans of the Federation of Sol
- Chris Icenhour, playing the regal, lion-headed Emirates of Hacan
- Britt, playing the hulking, tentacle-faced Sardakk N’orr, and
- Me (not pictured), playing the peaceful yet inordinately-large-and-vegetable-headed professors at the Universities of Jol-Nar
Somehow in setting up the galaxy, my side of the table got screwed again as far as good planets go, while Alton and his stinking humans were entrenched in good systems. We all expanded rapidly and within a couple of turns pretty much all the empty real estate in the galaxy had been claimed. Then, unlike last week, the excitement started.
Britt's warmongering ways detected weakness in Chris' inexperienced plans. His black horde swept over the yellow trade caravans, claiming system after system and pushing Chris back into the first circle of systems surrounding his home planets. Alton protested and threatened, but was more concerned with his buildup on Metacol Rex than he was with actually putting a stop to the violence. Finally, more for out-of-game ("let's not ruin the new guy's day") reasons, Britt halted his advance short of complete genocide.
Meanwhile, Nick pressed forward and attacked one of my planets that bordered Metacol Rex. I quickly retreated and hammered out a non-aggression pact with him. I also continued to build up my technology (which the University is pretty good at) and made the War Sun breakthrough.
As you can see, I had a pretty sparse military, but the War Sun did a good job in the role of deterrent. Even though I led most of the way in victory points (from taking the Imperial strategy card a couple of times), my diplomatic ways and non-threatening approach kept people from targeting me.
Nick was sitting back and waiting for Alton to commit his forces elsewhere so he could launch an attack at the human homeworld (a little something that he and I worked out), and Chris was rearming for retaliation against Britt. Alton, meanwhile, built his forces up on a wormhole system that gave him direct access to Britt's territory. Eventually he pulled the trigger, and here we see the before and after of the stinking human invasion of Sardakk N’orr space:
 
While Britt pulled back and fortified his home system, he gave me the right to liberate the contested system, so I beat Alton back and planted a War Sun on top of it. Alton meanwhile launched from Metacol Rex and began to approach from the other direction.
Everybody was very occupied by their military exploits, but I just kept up the research and invested in learning Imperial strategy. After completing a few public objectives, I again chose the the Imperial strategy card and the rest of the table soon realized that they couldn't stop me from winning. Just for fun, the galaxy was consumed in all-out war on the turn before I ascended to the throne and assumed control through my superior intellect.
Here's a picture of my final technology developments (sorry the picture's not more clear):
Once again, Twilight Imperium proved itself to be spectacular! This game was more of the "full experience" than last week, and TI has vaulted to the top of my favorites list. All in all, the game lasted about 7 hours from set-up to pack-up (not including a meal break), and I'd do it again tomorrow if I had the chance. And I believe that everybody else playing would agree with me...
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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March 6
This week on our regular Tuesday-evening session, we had a few people missing. When we finally got started, there were six of us that sat down to play Bang!.
In the first game, Alton was the Sheriff and I was his deputy (not that anybody knew that, of course). From the get-go, Ian, Mark, Gwen, and "Magic" Chris were gunning for him hard. I did what I could to beat them off, and even though Alton hid behind a barrel a lot it was pretty hopeless and the Outlaws won the first round.
Next, Gwen was the Sheriff and I had the role of Renegade. Things went very differently this game, mostly because almost no one actually attacked the Sheriff at all. Of course, that might be because she picked up the Mustang on the first round (and "Magic" Chris couldn't get a ranged weapon) and on her other side was Mark the deputy. Of course, Gwen was so confused by the lack of action that she ended up killing her deputy while I finished up "Magic" Chris and got to work on Ian.
In the end, it came down to the two of us - Renegade vs. Sheriff, winner take all. Unfortunately, I didn't walk away with nothin' but a bullet hole in my heiney. Bang! was a hit, and Gwen was 2-fer-2 for the evening.
Meanwhile, three new players had come in (Cody, Amanda, and James). Cody and Amanda had recently purchased Arkham Horror and all its expansions, which they were setting up on another table. Alton, Mark, James, and Denise joined them and dove into an epic struggle against Cthulu and his arcane cronies.
Now, I'd have loved to play, but I knew there was no way they would be able to finish before, say... the next morning. I therefore managed to convince Gwen and "Magic" Chris to join me in a game of Tigris & Euphrates, which I had owned for a couple of months but not played yet. So, being the first game ever for all three of us, things went a little slow. We came to understand the importance of Monuments pretty soon, and near the end figured out how powerful catastrophe tiles could be.
In general, Chris and I got too confrontational with each other early and let Gwen play by herself off to the side. That was a mistake, because by the time we realized our mistake she had established a kindgom too powerful for us to break into. Finishing her sweep of the evening, Gwen (my lovely wife, who continues to refute being a "gamer") was the unquestioned "big winner" of the night.
I also now see why everybody loves T&E so much. The game has so many possibilities, but is still (to some extent) intuitive in its game play. It's really cool how entire kingdoms can be obliterated in external conflict, while a new leader can still slip into an established kingdom and steal away the support from a leader who has been there for most of the game. I almost can't put into words how the game just completely "worked" for me, and I hope to play it again soon.
After cleaning up, I loitered around and watched the rest of the Arkham Horror game.
As I figured, they called it quits a little bit later and called it a night. Still, Arkham Horror is beautiful and I definitely need to play it sometime soon.
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16.
Board Game: Shogun
[Average Rating:7.82 Overall Rank:25]
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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March 13
This week was a little different from most of our weekly BoardGame Nights. Instead of playing a few different, shorter games, I convinced a big group of people to play one big game of Shogun.
When I arrived, the "Magic" Chris (now Vyolynce her at BGG) was teaching "Fuzzy" Chris how to play SPANC: Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls. It looked very interesting, in a typical Steve Jackson Games kind of way.
I had Shogun set up all pretty (check out the picture to the left), waiting for others to arrive or for the two other Dudes Named Chris to finish their game. Pretty soon I had Alton, Ian, Sherry (with little Anita), and Mark show up and agree to play. I felt a little bad that Ian has brought Torres for two weeks now and we haven't played it yet, but the lure of the shiny new goober with Shogun was overwhelming.
I explained the rules to everybody, which they all seemed to pick up on pretty quickly. I had set up for the "Sun" map side of the board, so we then took turns choosing our starting provinces (as prompted by the rules) and got started. In hindsight, this step of the game is pretty huge. Maybe it was just beause we barely knew what we were doing, but it seems like the people on the ends of the board have a distinct advantage. It also seems like it's better to have a moderate presence in 2-3 regions instead of controling only one.
Anyway, after the first year Ian and I were tied for the lead in victory points, but I was in a terrible position, in number and strength of provinces as well as money. Meanwhile, Alton and Mark had huge armies and well-fortified positions but were lacking in VP-producing buildings and numbers of provinces. Ian had tons of provinces and was well-balanced in his buildings, while Sherry was both well-fortified and well-funded.
During the second year, people began to get the hang of things a little better. Our turns picked up in pace and more strategy was involved in the choices we made. In the end, Ian out-paced us all, winning handily despite having tons of provinces to feed and there being a -7 grain loss in the final winter.
The game lasted about 3 hours, but that included teaching time and accounting for the learning curve involved. Alton wanted the game to go another year or two (mainly beause he was poised to sweep over the rest of the map with his massive armies), saying that the 6 action turns is just not enough to really build up your strategy. I'm still on the fence about that, because I see what he's saying (that two years is kinda arbitrary) but I also think that the game is much better having a definite time limit rather than dragging on forver. Overall, I thought the game was really good, and that I definitely need to play it again now that I sorta know what I'm doing (strategically speaking) to really decide what I think about it.
While we were playing Shogun, Denise joined the other Dudes Named Chris to try out Fairy Tale. I picked up the game a while ago mainly because the idea of the drafting mechanic seemed pretty novel to include in a non-collectible card game. They played several games, and all of them said that they really enjoyed it.
After Shogun, Alton, Mark and I played a game of Ra. In the theme of odd, random occurrences, Mark and I tied with a total of 51 points each. I mean, is there something special about the number 51 that I'm not aware of? It was kinda weird.
Meanwhile, Denise and "Magic" Chris had jumped into a few games of Dreamblade. I've never played the game, but they were definitely enjoying themselves (just check out Denise's elation at playing out that big dragon figure).
All in all, another great Board Game Night!
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17.
Board Game: Torres
[Average Rating:7.31 Overall Rank:116]
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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March 20
When Gwen and I arrived, "Magic" Chris (Vyolynce) was already involved in a game of Dreamblade...
and Ian already had Torres set up and ready. After a little discussion, Sherry, Ian, Mark, and I leaped into my first ever game of Torres. Ian and Sherry had played a lot (it was their game after all), but Mark and I picked it up pretty quickly.
The game itself is pretty highly rated here at BGG and Ian says that it's his current favorite. Even after one play, I can see why. The use of action points gives each player a ton of flexability, but limiting the number to 5 a turn keeps away too much analysis paralysis. The set number of turns with specific times for scoring gives the opportunity to make plans and strategy, but the interaction with the other players requires you to make important tactical decisions as well. Then on top of all that, the added variability of the king and the special cards throws in a little more variety to shake things up and create more variety in the game.
I managed to hang in pretty close after the first two rounds and then pushed forward into second place as the game ended. Ian won by a mile, Sherry was third, and Mark brought up the rear.
Meanwhile, Alton tackled a task more comparable to his significant mental prowess... playing with Anita's blocks. (I'm so proud of him!)
Gwen and "Fuzzy" Chris also played a few games of Fairy Tale while we were busy building castles.
In all, it was a pretty impressive table of gaming going on...
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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March 20 (continued)
For the next round of gaming, "Magic" Chris had set up his Mayfair edition of Cosmic Encounter. I had never played before, so I was pretty excited to get the opportunity to play such a great, classic game. Both "Magic" and "Fuzzy" Chris, Mark, and myself joined in the game (so three Dudes Named Chris were involved) and chose up Alien Powers.
Mark had the Fungus power (who could steal other peoples' defeated fleets, stack on top of them and make his fleets more powerful), "Fuzzy" was the power that can steal their opponents conflict card after a conflict (the Filch I believe), "Magic" Chris was the Void (who utterly destroyed fleets he defeated), and I was the Chronos (who could "time travel" to essentially make an opponent play a different challenge card). "Fuzzy" and I had never played before.
Once again, there was a little bit of a learning curve involved, but the game is pretty simple in its core mechanics. With a little luck and what I hope is a good measure of strategery, I actually managed to pull out a surprise win. (I was dark blue, "Magic" Chris was yellow, Mark was Orange, and "Fuzzy" Chris was light blue/white)
Before they had to go, Ian and Sherry pulled out Rumis for a couple of quick sessions that Alton and Gwen joined in. I hate that I haven't had the chance to play this one, because it just looks so cool both to play and when it's all finished.
Finally, the remaining few of us played one of my long-time favorite games, Illuminati. In particular, it was Illuminati: Deluxe Edition along with the Y2K expansion.
Now, I've played Illuminati since back when my brother had the original plastic box edition, and I played countless games with the old black-and-white Deluxe Edition in high school. The game is a heck of a lot of fun (once again, in a Steve Jackson Games sort of way). It has its flaws for sure, however, and when Alton, "Fuzzy", Mark, "Magic" Chris and I sat down, I was a little afraid that we would run out of time (because it was nearing closing time). I explained the game and we got started - Alton was the Church of the Subgenious, "Fuzzy" was the Society of Assassins, Mark was the classic Bavarian Illuminati, "Magic" Chris was the Servants of Cthulhu, and I was the Bermuda Triangle.
We had a pretty crappy selection of groups to start, but it seemed like Mark kept drawing high-power groups that he was gobbling up with his priviledged attacks. "Fuzzy" committed suicide because he had to go, and Alton mainly just sat back and built up some money. When Mark was up to 32 total power (just three away from his special goal), I neutralized one of his core groups and set him back significantly. "Magic" Chris meanwhile destroyed up to 7 different groups I believe while Alton finally stretched out his power and began to build a strong power structure.
In the end, I took advantage of good timing (just after everybody spent most of their money to prevent somebody else from winning) and a lot of good luck (the Semiconscious Liberation Army was on the board and I drew High Fashion on my turn) to gobble up the last two groups I needed to control every alignment for the win.
Once again, I hate that it came and went so fast. It's terrible that I wish my life away, but I can't wait until next Tuesday when it'll be time to play again!
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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March 27
Tonight was a bit of an odd evening for the Hyperminds from the get-go. As I walked in, "Magic" Chris was in the middle of a totally new game to me, Diceland - Deep White Sea.
While was over chucking paper dice-thingies with a couple of other people, Mark and some other ancillary people were playing a game of Munchkin... except that they were going to 20th level.
Alton was hanging around, but was leaving soon to attend his youngest son's lacrosse game. Gwen was at home still recovering from a minor surgery late last week, and Ian and Sherry were no where to be seen. I ended up picking up a game of Axis & Allies Miniatures with Jason, who is already a veteran of our current Iraqi war and new to both our game night and AAM. I lent him a big Russian tank, then he had the gall to turn around and beat my heiney with it. Anyway, I guess I really need to play AAM more often if I want to be any good at it... (and I didn't even think to get a single picture of the whole game -  )
In the meantime, Chip actually wandered in and let us know that his daughter's swimming lessons will be ending earlier, so maybe he can start participating in Board Game Night again from now on. So he, "Magic" Chris, Jason, and I pulled out Taluva and played a couple of games.
I pulled out the first win, getting rid of my huts and towers before we ran out of tiles. Chip (playing the game for the first time) managed a close win in the second game, aided by my disruption of "Magic" Chris' game-winning move. I just like this game more and more, by the way, and it has certainly become one of my favorite tile-laying games.
Mark and the other Munchkins were then found playing a game of Settlers while we played Taluva.
Overall, any night playing games is a good night, but for next week I hope that we can get back to normal both in terms of numbers and cohesiveness.
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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Continue following our BoardGaming journey through the month of April!
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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Our journey continues, and this time our Game of the Month! is The Princes of Florence!
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Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
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Game of the Month!: Taluva
"I laughed, I cried... it was better than 'Cats'!" - Weeping Viewer
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Posted Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:23 pm
After that we broke out Vegas Showdown for a 5 player game. The players were Mark, Chip, and 3 Dudes Named Chris. "Magic" Chris has the game, but it was the first time playing for all of us. I think it was a success. I was really surprised how much I enjoyed playing this game, so much that I went back a few days later and purchased it(I think Mark did the same). My enjoyment may have been helped by my victory.
While we were playing Acquire, a 5-player game of On the Underground was started on the next table. I believe the players were Kendall, Alton, Ian, Sherry, and Denise. I don't know how the game went, maybe one of them could chime in here.
And during Vegas Showdown, a 3-player game of Iliad was played by Kendall, Alton, and Denise. Overall, I believe a good time was had by all.