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Hypermind BoardGame Night - June 2007
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Weeks come and weeks go, but it is the gaming that makes the week worth bothering with. May was a high-water mark for our gaming group in Burlington, and we're hoping that June and the onset of summer will only continue our run of fantastic gaming. So stick around with us and witness our journey. And if you're in the central NC area, come and join us one Tuesday night! [shameless plug]By the way, for more information about the Hypermind Boardgamers and other gaming in my life, check out my blog at www.gamerchris.com .[/shameless plug] And in other cool news, I've just taken advantage of the new Guild feature here at BGG and set one up for the Hypermind Boardgamers!
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Posted On: 2007-06-07 21:44:21
Edited On: 2007-06-27 22:08:18
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Once again, this is the story of our inception and the first two and a half months of our BoardGame night. It'll help you catch up on the people involved and show you the progression of our membership and the games we've been playing.
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Posted On: 2007-06-07 19:34:23
Edited on: 2007-06-07 21:46:16
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Game of the Month! - Tigris & Euphrates
(Check out my final review of this great game at http://gamerchris.com/2007/04/27/tigris--euphrates--game-of-... )
Games played: Tigris & Euphrates, Bang!, Shogun, Taluva, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Munchkin Bites!, Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition, Princes of Florence, Puerto Rico, Vegas Showdown, Rumis, Settlers of Catan, RoboRally, and a prototype of Ascendancy designed by Nigel Buckle.
Highlights: Start of the Game of the Month! program, playtesting of Ascendancy, and my first game ever of Puerto Rico! |
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Posted On: 2007-06-07 19:37:37
Edited on: 2007-06-07 19:51:51
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Game of the Month! - Princes of Florence
Games played: Princes of Florence, PitchCar, Struggle for Rome, Taluva, Star Wars: Episode 1 - Clash of the Lightsabers, Tumblin-Dice, To Court the King, Amun-Re, China, Pillars of the Earth, Tier auf Tier, For Sale, Mission: Red Planet, Terra Nova, and Tichu .
Highlights: My favorite game was the Game of the Month! I (and several others in the Hypermind Boardgamers) had our first exposure to such classics as El Grande, Tichu, and China. We witnessed the bliss of pure and innocent (platonic) monkey love...
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Posted On: 2007-06-07 19:49:18
Edited on: 2007-06-07 20:01:18
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4.
Taluva [Average Rating:0.00 Unranked]
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Our Game of the Month! for June is Taluva. This game has been a big hit with our group from the first time it hit our table. We were kind of looking for something a little lighter this month after having heavyweights in our first two months, so most of our discussion centered around games that could be played in around 30 minutes or less. Plus, we also wanted to explore a newer game, since both of our choices so far had been "classics".
Other nominees included Ra, Ticket to Ride, and To Court the King. |
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Posted On: 2007-06-07 20:00:39
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June 5, 2007
As I entered Hypermind this Tuesday, the "Magic" and "Fuzzy" Chrises were already busy getting started with a game of the new Days of Wonder game, Colosseum. Denise joined them, and for the next 90 minutes or so they proceeded to parade around Rome putting on little shows.
I was a little disappointed (and surprised) that I didn't, not even once, hear anyone shout "Are you not entertained?" in a bad Russell Crowe imitation during the whole game. I did pick up something about "Magic" Chris putting on some kind of "Pony Show" without any ponies, though.
Scores: Denise 83, "Fuzzy" 77, "Magic" 76
Ratings: Denise 8, "Fuzzy" 8, "Magic" 7
Mark and I were both there, salivating at the shiny gaming goodness we had been shut out of, so we decided to make our first foray into the new Game of the Month!, Taluva. We pulled out Mark's copy and set to playing. In just 14 minutes, we had split a pair of games and were ready to start again with Chip and Alton who had just come in.
We played one more game (which I won), before we moved on to another filler to try and kill a little time while Denise and the Dudes Named Chris got finished. Chip pulled out High Society and taught us the (very simple) rules.
Our scores were...
Game 1: Mark 10, Chip 1.5, Me 0, Alton -(least money)
Game 2: Me 10 (won tiebreaker), Alton 10, Chip 8.5, Mark -(least money)
Game 3: Me 20, Chip 13, Alton -20, Mark -(least money)
Ratings were: Chip 8, Mark 7, Me 6, Alton 7 |
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Posted On: 2007-06-07 20:13:52
Edited on: 2007-06-07 21:47:19
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June 5, 2007 (continued)
Still, even after we had our fill of filler games, the game of Colosseum was still going on. So I concinved our little play group to give a try to Industria. The main reason for wanting to play this was that I had spent a few hours over the last week (with the help of my lovely wife) applying all the cool English-language paste-ups that ferengi provided over in Industria's "files" section. As far as I know, the store's demo copy had never actually been played (which I attributed to it language-unfriendliness), so I took it upon myself to fix it up. In a rare moment of foreshadowing, I'll tell you that I shouldn't have bothered. But I will inflict upon you another beautiful picture of my beautiful sticker-applying ability...
As far as the game itself goes, we were less than impressed. I found the auction mechanic to be pretty neat, but in general the game is just boring. It's almost like the game needed one more mechanic to be involved to stir up more action. I bought a lot of the bonus tiles early, which paid off in the final scoring when I jumped ahead for the win.
Time: 69 minutes
Scores: Chris (Me) 39, Chip 37, Mark 37, Alton 18
Ratings: Chip 5, Mark 5, Chris 5, Alton 4
Of course, the other group had finished their game and played a few filler games of their own by the time we completed our snooze-fest of a game. Pam and Rick had come in and played one game each of Pentago and Terra Nova. They didn't fill out my extra-special reporting sheets, however, so I don't know how the games turned out. Then they joined "Magic" Chris and Denise for their first game of Taluva of the month. When the tiles ran out, "Magic" Chris had managed to place the most temples and claimed the win.
Most of the crowd were then ready to call it a night, but I managed to woo Denise and Chris to join me in a game of Mykerinos, which was new to all of us. I explained the rules as best I could and we got started.
The game is quick and relatively simple, and the only issue we had with it was that the little symbol they use on Lady Violet is not very informative. Especially once we got into the second season and began to figure out and use the patrons' powers, the game really came together. It is almost a double-barrel area influence design, with four rounds of placing cubes into excavations that then give you the ability to place cubes into the museum, which multiplies your score for each patron. There is also a tough choice between how many patron tiles to take and how many cubes to place in the museum. All in all, it was a really fun and quick middle-weight game that I hope to play again soon.
Scores: Chris (Me) 60, "Magic" Chris 50, Denise 46 (We later noticed that I made a little oversight in how scoring worked, but I don't think it would have changed the order in which we finished.)
Ratings: Chris (Me) 8, Denise 8, "Magic" Chris 7
So thus ends another fine BoardGame Night... Alas, we must wait with great expectation for another week to pass. Hope to see you then! |
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Posted On: 2007-06-07 21:42:22
Edited on: 2007-06-08 19:21:02
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June 12, 2007
As I prepared to write this week’s session report, I uploaded the pictures from my camera and was horrified to see that I had screwed them up royally. I had been playing with the different settings and apparently didn’t get them all back like they were supposed to be, so my color and focus are all screwy. Therefore, I won’t include many “fresh” pictures this week.
The good thing about this week was that I had two of my best and oldest friends, Kenny and Steve, join us for the first time. Of course, that makes the whole picture thing even worse, but I’ll just try to get over it (I hope you can move past it as well).
Anyway, on to the games!
Once again, seeing that it is the Game of the Month!, I taught Taluva to Kenny, Steve, and Steve’s wife Michelle. I provided a little coaching along the way on the rules and about basic strategy, but by the end everybody had a pretty good handle on things.
Scores: I won by using up all my Towers and Temples
Ratings: Chris (Me) 8, Steve 6, Kenny 7, Michelle 6
Meanwhile, Mark, “Magic” Chris, Chip, and Britt had another game of Taluva going at the other table. Chip pulled out the victory by having played out all of his Temples by the time the last tile was placed.
Ratings: Mark 9, Chris 9, Chip 8, Britt 7
My lovely wife Gwen then joined us as I taught To Court the King to our newcomers. Once again, getting used to the different characters and how to use their abilities took a little getting used to for them, but in the end Michelle won both games, taking the first by rolling eight “6’s” and the second by rolling eight “5’s”.
We’ve played this a lot lately at the Hypermind BoardGame night, and my impression of this game has changed a lot recently. Basically, I think that it does a really good job of pretending to introduce a lot of strategy into a dice game, but that in fact the whole thing is still dominated by blind luck. (Check out my review at http://gamerchris.com/2007/06/13/to-court-the-king--putting-... for a more in depth discussion of it).
Ratings: Michelle 9, Steve 8, Kenny 8, Gwen 7, Me 6
After their game of Taluva, the guys at the other table set up Britt’s shiny new copy of Warrior Knights. Between getting the multitudes of bits placed all over the table and teaching the rules to everybody, it took them a while to get started. Three hours and 20 minutes later, Mark proved victorious.
Scores: Mark 12, Chris 11, Alton 11, Britt 11, Chip 7
Ratings: Mark 7.5, Chris 6, Alton 8.5, Britt 7, Chip 7
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2 Comments []
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Posted On: 2007-06-13 20:04:28
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8.
Antike [Average Rating:7.44 Unranked]
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Posted On: 2007-06-11 08:15:47
Yeah, my first performance of "The Ponies of Epona" (of three...) was done without any horse Event Asset tiles in my possession. Don't ask me where we got the coconut shells, but the problem was corrected in the next round(s). I'm sure the crowd appreciated it.
I think the game was hindered by the very limited number of rounds (a scant five), which combines with the "can you top this?" scoring system to more or less dictate a specific route to victory rather than providing you sufficient options. The trading phase was also a source of lag, although with only three players it probably didn't have any real potential for us.