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Hypermind BoardGame Night - August, 2007
Chris Norwood
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Graham
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As the oppressive dog days of summer settle over central North Carolina like a smothering wet blanket, sapping our strength and parching our very souls...


the Hypermind BoardGamers again find respite in the cool, refreshing embrace of the friendliest of the friendly local game stores.



Still plagued by the interruptions of summer vacation activities, we nevertheless push on in pursuit of our beloved boardgaming hobby, trying to maximize the last few moments we can before some of our number leave us again for the rigors of school life.

These are the continuing adventurers of a newly awakened group of gamers, struggling to make their way in the mundane world around them...
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Posted Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:04 am
Edited Fri Aug 10, 2007 2:22 am
Chris Norwood
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Here is the master list of all the different Geeklists I've built to chronicle our weekly Boardgame nights starting way back in January. We've played a ton of games and had a lot of fun, so check this out if you might be interested in where we've "come from".
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2. Board Game: Ra [Average Rating:7.73 Overall Rank:28]
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Our Game of the Month! for August is another excellent Reiner Knizia masterpiece, Ra. It had come up several times before in our Game of the Month! discussions, and finally its time has come!

I really enjoy Ra a lot, and it was actually the subject of my first game review here at BGG. And hopefully, I (and the rest of the Hypermind BoardGamers) will have an even greater understanding of and appreciation for it after this month.

Other games considered: China, Struggle of Empires, Shadows over Camelot, and Shogun.
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Edited Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:16 am
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3. Board Game: Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition [Average Rating:7.84 Overall Rank:31]
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Chris Norwood
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Saturday, August 4, 2007

August boardgaming began a little early with one of our ever-special Saturday Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition sessions!

Instead of our usual plan of getting started in the mid afternoon, we decided to try and start (and therefore finish) earlier this time. So, at just a little after 10am, we were already getting set up and preparing to play.

Joining us today were:
- Josh, playing the stinking humans from the Federation of Sol
- Alton, leading the warmongering Embers of Muaat
- John, commanding the greedy and self-indulgent Emirates of Hacan
- Britt, playing the soul-less L1z1x Mindnet
- Nick, charting a new course for the high-minded Universities of Jol-Nar
- Me, playing the proud Mentak Coalition, trying valiantly to overome generations of gender repression throughout the galaxy

Now, in the past one of my repeated complaints has been about how unbalanced the galaxy setup usually is. The last time the group played (which I was unable to attend), Britt pretty much solved this. To ensure balance, the galaxy is built before players know where they will be sitting. Therefore, it is in everyone's best interests to make sure that no starting areas are significantly weaker or stronger than others, because each one of us could easily fall victim to any inequalities that we allow to exist!

In addition, we all also decideced to try out playing on the bigger map made possible with the Shattered Empires expansion, which essentially adds one extra ring of systems outside of the normal map. To keep the races close, however, we placed our home planets in the third ring instead of the extra fourth one. This was the result (before and after home systems were placed):


When we randomly rolled to fill in home systems, I ended up with Josh on my left (I'm blue, he's green), then came Alton (gray), John (Red), Britt (purple), and finally Nick (yellow) to my immediate right. Finally, we also decided to play with the "distant suns" rules, in which each planet has a random, hidden counter placed on it, some of which produce beneficial effects (like giving an extra technology or trade goods) while others caused more complications when they are claimed (like killing the first settlers or housing indiginous forces that have to first be conquered). We also played with the entire replacement set of strategy cards from Shattered Empires.

When we finally got started, the first two rounds were pretty much uneventful. At this point in the report, I will take a moment to voice my strong opposition to the very existence of one particular Political card that has now screwed with the last two games I've played. First thing on round two, this agenda was proposed which, if passed, prevented anyone from ever invading Mecatol Rex for the rest of the game, but which, if defeated, prevented anyone else from invading any system other than Mecatol Rex for the rest of the round. Last time I played, we passed the law and it screwed royally with all the people that had secret objectives involving Mecatol Rex. This time, we defeated the law (against all my impassioned pleading), and it pretty much ruined the whole second round, since it prevented us from expanding into new systems during a time in the game when expansion is very important.

So, along with the crappy politics card, there was a long rules question/debate between Britt and me which also slowed down the second round. We were therefore very happy to see the game finally get into gear on the following turn. Britt was not so happy, however, as his invading forces continually were foiled by one bad Distant Suns counter after another. Meanwhile, Josh made a mad rush for Mecatol Rex, way overextending himself in the process.


I had a pretty solid peace agreement on both of my borders, so I was just trying to build up my technology and military while positioning myself to make a move later in the game. On turn 4, I was the first person to actually choose the "Bureaucracy" strategy card, so for the first time in the game we got to see some public objectives. I was able to complete two of them that round (using the special Bureacratic power), and took an early lead.

Over the next few rounds, however, Alton began to take advantage of our newer players with his dark Jedi mind tricks. Somehow, he had John firmly convinced to maintain a lasting peace on their common border. And then before I knew what was happening, Josh rolled over and Alton take control of his home system!

Even Princess Leia was able to take advantage of Josh!

I reinforced my system near to Alton, who I'm pretty sure was busy man-raping Josh and all his stinking humans out of two turns' worth of VP's. It was a good thing, because next thing I knew, Alton's two big war suns were swarming into my peaceful, sovereign territory.

At this point, Britt was getting a little frustrated at how Alton was just walking all over the new guys. More than just frustrated, he was down right perturbed (in fact, we were a little afraid that he's end up as an entry on the Games Where Some Guy Just Totally Flipped Out geeklist). He called a "secret" pow-wow of the AAL (anti-Alton league), in which we plotted the dark jedi's downfall. John (who had taken Mecatol Rex from the poor, pitiful humans the round before) and Nick were poised to strike at Alton with their hugely amassed fleets. I and Josh would exact revenge against our warmongering neighbor, while Britt would try to get into position as well as he could using wormholes.


I was the first to strike and drive Alton from the area that was rightfully mine, but I was followed shortly thereafter by Josh, whose humans finally grew a collective pair and struck a chord for freedom in the galaxy.


Alas, however, it was all for naught. Alton had taken the Bureaucracy card, and found the Imperium Rex objective within the top two cards of the deck, which allowed him to play it and win immediately, being one VP ahead of Britt and me.


Public objective cards and final score.

While none of us were particularly excited to see Alton resume his long-standing rule over the galaxy, we nevertheless had a great time and were rather happy to actually finish at just after 6pm!

Final Score: Alton 7, Britt 6, Me 6, John 4, Nick 4, Josh 4
Ratings: Alton 10, Britt 10, Me 8, John 7, Nick 10, Josh 8
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Edited Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:54 pm
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Alton Todd
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Gentlemen what an even greater game Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition is with the Shattered Empires expansion. This game has it all, both on the board and off the board with the clandestine group meetings and all. Don’t get me wrong, I want you all to know that I take it as a sincere compliment from my fellow gamers when they feel they must form the “anti – Alton League” to bring me down. I thank you.:D I will say however that I was surprise to see John and Nick become involved in what is becoming such a trite game tactic of late. I guess the true Dark Jedi of the game Britt and Chris persuaded them. For is it not the dark side that preys on the dark emotions of anger, fear and hate. Hmmm...;) Then one must wonder who had the most to gain by a mass attack against the game leader, could it be the ones who where just a few points behind. Hmmm…;) Talk about taking advantage of our two newest players, Oh! The shame! :)

No I am no Dark Jedi that uses mind tricks as some may think. I am only a gamer who plays to win using honor, reason and listening to what others are saying by their deeds and words. Yes I made a peace with the players on both sides of my borders. No different than any other player. At best it is an uneasy peace. You wonder if it will be honored or broken off in your back. When John asks me for an accommodation to conquer a system with an artifact next to me, we came to an agreement. Later when he wanted a system we had agreed to let me have in exchange for the artifact system, we came to an agreement and he conquered it. The same reasoning skills came into play with my other border player Josh. Josh had taken Mecatol Rex and was way overextended and needed help. So he just allow me an accommodation. For that accommodation I would attack Chris, who was positioning to close to Josh and his Home system. In other words Josh did me a favor and I did him one by attacking Chris with my War Sun fleet. Then Chris did just what I wanted; he came in and destroyed my fleet, which was half way across the Imperium and of no use to me there. I simply just rebuilt my War Sun Fleet back where I wanted it and for my efforts gained two VP and set myself up to gain one more.

Then Chris at the Galactic Council, had the Council vote on to execute a leader for war crimes, to no surprise to anyone the Galactic Council voted to have me executed. This took away all my action cards, -1 on my dice rolls, I lost all my trade goods and it stopped me dead in my tracks… What a brilliant play… that is why I love this game so much! I had to fall back and regroup while the others started to make moves towards Mecatol Rex the focus of the game to gain valuable VP. On my next turn I gained a VP for an artifact in a system I conquered and was at eight VP. It was then, when I was only two points away from victory that the Dark Times set on the Imperium and the players formed the AAL (anti-Alton League)… all honorable play was lost into the Twilight of the Imperium.:(

I who had acted as a second foundation to shore up the first, a guardian of honor and fair play in the galaxy. Was now being attacked from all sides… oh the humanity to see the death of honor in such a wonderful game, which has its own way of dealing with players who forge ahead on the VP track. The attacks begun and I lost my system with the artifact and one VP point and was now down to only seven VP. However I was still in the lead and I did managed to hold on to my next turn. I looked at my options, which were few and knew that I had to take the Bureaucracy card and play it to be able to control the objective cards to my advantage. Not really wanting to play the Imperium Rex card, because I really enjoy playing this game and did not want it to end, I could see the impending Doom on the horizon and had to go for the less than satisfactory win of a seven VP victory.

It was a very enjoyable game and I want all to know that we had no initiate players in this game; all had experience playing the game. Also Josh was never my Padawan, had he been I would haven suggested he waited a bit before going after Mecatol Rex. He learned a valuable lesson, one that will win him a victory in the Twilight Imperium one day. To John and Nick I salute you; I like the way both of you play with a sense of Honor and do as you say turn by turn. I see victories in this game for you both and Nick your time is now.
The way I see it... to win at Twilight Imperium be ready roll with the punches, stay cool and always focus on your game plan to acquire VP.;)

I will conclude with these very Jedi thoughts since that seems to be the theme.

Britt my good friend, remember “There is no emotion; there is peace.”

Chris my favorite gamer, remember “There is no passion; there is serenity.”

Josh our young padawan, remember “There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.”

I look forward to the next meeting with my fellow gamers in the Twilight Imperium… it is because of you TI is so much fun.

Game On!

Alton, Imperator Rex
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Edited Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:39 pm
B Davis
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:snore:

Good to see that propaganda does not end once the game is over.

The Hegemon is still at work...
4. Board Game: Warrior Knights [Average Rating:7.05 Overall Rank:283]
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Chris Norwood
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Tuesday, August 7, 2007

With this being John's last week with us before heading back to law school, a group of us decided to take on one more "epic-level" game this week even though it was a regular Tuesday evening game night.

As were were getting set up for Warrior Knights, however, Chris Ingersoll, Mark, and Sabrina pulled out the Game of the Month!, Ra and gave it a try.


I don't really know how the game went, but it was obvious that Mark smacked them around pretty good.
Score: Mark 47, Sabrina 36, Chris 26
Ratings: Mark 7, Sabrina 8, Chris 8

Afterwards, Pam joined them as they all figured out and played their first game of On the Underground.


Once again, I really wasn't able to pay much attention to how this game went, but Chris said that he seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, and that the passenger really "moved around". It was also quite a close scoring game!


Score: Chris 48, Mark 45, Sabrina 44, Pam 43
Ratings: Chris 8, Mark 7, Sabrina 7, Pam 7

Anyway, we set up Warrior Knights and I even taught it to Steve and Kenny (my two best friends from high school who were able to make it to Boardgame Night this week) while we waited anxiously for Alton. Once again, I knew that I had to absolutely leave at 10pm, and time was running short.

Finally, Alton got there and we managed to get started at about 7:20pm.

After a little confusion about combat in the first round, things got moving pretty well. John jumped out early to claim the title of "Chairman of the Assembly", which he kept for the whole game but which he was never able to convert into much actual influence. Alton claimed "Head of the Church" early, but Kenny seized it in the midgame and held it to the end. Everyone had a good handle on how all the actions worked, and all the triggered phases were going very smoothly when they were put into effect.



Meanwhile, Steve, Britt, and I quietly worked on claiming and controlling cities, which put us in the lead. In a bitter border dispute, Britt and Steve carried out a series of skirmishes against each other. God was also apparently against Steve, however, because he managed to have three nobles succumb to the plague in one round!



As our time ran out, we were still probably about 1 or 2 turns from finishing. Consensus was to just call the game where it stood, however, and these were our results:

Score: Me 12, Steve 10, Britt 8, Kenny 7, John 6, Alton 2
Ratings: Me 9, Steve 8, Britt 10, Kenny 8, John 8.5, Alton 8.5

So, I was able to pull out the win in what is fast becoming one of my favorite games of all time! I won't go into much detail right now, but I'd still have to say that even with only getting in one, mostly-played game on game night theis week, I'd still consider it a success and a heck of a lot of fun! (Check out my personal blog at www.gamerchris.com for some additional discussion about Warrior Knights, however).
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Edited Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:08 am
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5. Board Game: Ra [Average Rating:7.73 Overall Rank:28]
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Chris Norwood
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August 14, 2007

After playing only one, big game last week and not even participating in a session of Ra (our Game of the Month!), I decided to go more for variety this week. So when I and a few others arrived at Hypermind just a little before 6pm, we got right down to it.

So, we whooped out (for those of you who don't speak North Carolinian, that'd be "pulled out" or maybe "selected for play") Ra and got to it. At the table were Chip, Sabrina, Pam, Chris Ingersoll, and myself. Pam had never played before, so we took a few minutes to explain the rules to her and then got started. Now, I do not claim to be any great Ra expert or anything, but I've played my share of games in person and online, so I was hoping to do well. I was wrong... dead wrong. In fact, after the first Epoch was scored, this is all I had:


Yep, only 10 points (which you get at the start of the game, kinda like the points you get for just signing your name on your SAT's) and one lonely little pharaoh carried over to the next round. The second Epoch was pretty much the same, riding another "whammy" into a total of 13 points. I think that I was trapped by the "big sun" phenomenon, being too hesitant to pull the trigger in auctions because I didn't think that I was getting enough for my high-value suns. I really prefer to have lower-value suns and to be more aggressive, and I'm going to mainly blame it on the fact that I've rarely played with 5 people.


Score: Sabrina 40, Chip 34, Pam 30, Chris 28, Me 24 :soblue:
Ratings: Sabrina 9, Chip 8.5, Pam 7, Chris 9, Me 9

Meanwhile, Mark, Britt, and Carol had come in and were wanting some Game of the Month! action as well. Carol and Britt had never played before either, so after watching our game a little Sabrina filled them in on the rules. Having only three players, they finished up before we did and started a second game. Ra is a game that Mark just really "gets", and he won both games pretty handily.


Game 1: Mark 47, Britt 40, Carol 37
Game 2: Mark 62, Carol 46, Britt 34
Ratings: Mark 8, Carol 8.5, Britt 8
6. Board Game: Cartagena [Average Rating:6.78 Overall Rank:359]
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August 14, 2007 (continued)

So, of course, we finished our first game of Ra while they were still playing their second. I had planned to play Tigris & Euphrates with Britt and Carol this week, so I went ahead and set that up, but then didn't want to waste time just waiting for them to finish.

Chip had brought a couple of games that I had requested, so I suggested that we play Cartagena in the meantime. The game is pretty simple and Chip was able to explain it to us in just a couple of minutes and then we got started.

I was doing pretty well in the first game, but Chip's experience proved to be to much and he ended up winning. Seeing that the rest of the crowd had started up another game, we reloaded and played a second game of Cartagena as well. In this game, I had trouble getting my little pirates onto the ship, however, and finished in last place.


Game 1: Chip 6, Me 3, James 2, Chris 1
Game 2: Chip 6, Chris 3, James 3, Me 1
Ratings: Chip 7.5, Chris 8, James 7, Me 8

I really liked Cartagena a lot. I thought it was a good mix of hand management with tactical play, and I really liked how you could always back up a pirate to draw more cards. I don't own many race games (I think [gameid=18 is the only one], and this one is going straight to my Wishlist.

Nobody was much for waiting tonight, so when Carol, Britt, and Mark finished up Ra, they struck up a game of Liar's Dice with some of the other people floating around the store. In fact, they ended up playing 3 sessions of this excellent dice game (check out my review to see exactly how excellent it is!)


Game 1: Mark (won with 2 dice left), Carol, Sabrina, Dan, Pam, Rick, Britt
Game 2: Dan (won with 1 die left), Carol, Sabrina, Mark, Pam, Rick, Britt
Game 3: Sabrina, Leslie, Alton, Pam, Rick, Mark (don't know who won)
Ratings: Carol 9, Sabrina 9, Dan 9, Pam 9, Rick 9, Britt 9, Mark 9, Alton 9, Leslie 9

Again, as we finished Cartagena, the rest of everybody was still playing Liar's Dice. So, Chip, James, Chris, and I just decided to go ahead and play that game of Tigris & Euphrates ourselves. Nobody did terribly well this game, but Chip started to take control during the midgame. I tried to stay isolated along one short side of the board, planning to build a monument or two and just protect myself as much as possible. Unfortunately, I was one tile short of being able to build the red/green monument for 2 or 3 rounds. So finally I just decided to go ahead and play the one temple I had, hoping to draw into another temple and finish it up the following turn. Chip chose that moment, however, to plop down a leader in that very appealing, temple-rich space I had just created. I never was able to recover from that, and my green output was terrible for the rest of the game.


Score (lowest single color): Chip 7, Me 5, Chris 3, James 1
Ratings: Chip 8, Me 10, Chris 9

At this point, I had about 30 minutes left before I had to go. We discussed what to do next and some people mentioned going home. My friend Kenny had come in during the T&E game, however, and I wanted us all to play something together. Therefore, after some convincing on my part, we played our first true party game this week, and it was Cranium Hoopla.


Despite some hesitation from a couple of people, by the second round everybody was really into it. We played throgh a quick first game and then started over to let another couple of people in. If you haven't heard much about Cranium Hoopla before, it is a word-guessing game where a group plays cooperatively against a timer. You roll a die to determine which kinds of clues you can give, start the timer, then choose the card you have that you think you can get people to guess using that type of clue. For instance, you might roll "Soundstage" where you can only act out your clue (charades-style) or "Cloodle" where you have to draw your clue (like Pictionary). Anyway, it's quick and fun, and we did pretty well with it.


Ratings: Chip 7, Chris 7, Kenny 10, Mark 7.5, Sabrina 9, Me 7

Overall, it was an evening certainly filled with the variety that I desired. And while this gathering is certainly going to remain BoardGame night, I'm glad that people were open to trying out a party game for a chage as well. So, if you're in central North Carolina next week, come on by and join us for more fun!
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7. Board Game: Arkadia [Average Rating:7.14 Overall Rank:195]
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Chris Norwood
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August 21, 2007

I have a couple of awards/announcements to make before I get started this week:

First of all, I wish to declare that this BoardGame Night was dominated by Dudes Named Chris, seeing that either Chris Ingersoll or I won four out of the five games played week. All hail the collective Chris!

Second, I want to award the official "Always a Bridesmaid/Jr High Dance Wallflower" prize to Chip's copy of The Downfall of Pompeii. I'm sure we've given that poor game a complex, making it watch as we pass it over week after week for newer or more alluring games. What's bad is that I actually want to play it, but things just always seem to conspire against it every week. Just keep on bringin' it, Chip, I promise that we'll play it soon!

Now on with the games!

This week started off with a 3-player game of Arkadia. Chris Ingersoll, Mark, and I competed to complete the castle and earn the most money. Well, I competed anyway; I'm not sure what Chris and Mark were doing...


Score: Me 140, Chris 79, Mark 68
Ratings: Me 9, Chris 9, Mark 7.5

By the way, I want to also point out that trying to photograph Arkadia has become the bane of my existance. I'm going to blame it on my camera, because I just can't seem to get anything into proper focus with all the different levels of detail present in the game. I don't think I've had but one or two pictures of it where the little builder dudes were in focus. So anyway, I bow down to gollum and his madly superior photography skillz to produce the masterpiece I used above.

Anyway, after getting beat down in Arkadia, Mark and Chris joined up with Chip, Alton, and Treva (a new visitor to our evening of games) for our Game of the Month!, Ra. I was involved elsewhere, so all I know about it is that a Chris dominated!


Score: Chris 46, Alton 44, Mark 34, Chip 18, Treva 17
Ratings: Chris 9, Alton 7, Mark 8, Chip 9, Treva 8
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Edited Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:56 am
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Chris Ingersoll
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While the rest of us were helping Treva with strategy, we were getting some of those weird tile pulls that makes Ra so curious; we literally drew 7 of the 12 Flood tiles in the first Epoch, which obviously did strange things to our scoring later on. Disasters popped up at the most inconvenient times, effectively blanking two other tiles on the acution track, and generally the whole affair was an ugly mess.

Alton spent most of the game sitting on high-value Suns, seemingly reluctant to actually bid on many of the admittedly meager offerings. I built up a quick Pharaoh lead that kept my point total fairly safe, and went about amassing Monuments like I did last week; this time I was able to pick up 3x Fortress and 4x Temple to go along with 7 different types for a massive 3rd Epoch score.

Ultimately, the deciding factor in the game was Sun total, of all things. I had the highest (amazingly, and barely), and Alton had the lowest; the resultant 10-point swing handed me the game, so "dominated" clearly wasn't the right term to describe my two-point victory. ;)
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Bite your tongue, Man! We dominated last night!

Chris Power Rules!:devil:
Chris Ingersoll
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Oh, I won't deny that I dominated On the Underground (see below), even though both of the games that I've played of that have been incredibly close; my five-point lead was solely due to being able to complete a major loop and having the advantage of being the last player to move the Passenger, but I held that lead pretty much throughout the entire game.
8. Board Game: BattleLore [Average Rating:7.69 Overall Rank:40]
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Chris Norwood
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August 21, 2007 (continued)

Meanwhile, I stole off to play a game of BattleLore with Jim Clark, another visitor with us this week who came from the High Point area. It had been a while since I've played, so I had to brush up a little on the rules. In talking about wat scenario to play, Jim suggested trying out an Epic game. I own the Epic BattleLore rules and the Call to Arms expansion, but have only skimmed over them and hadn't had the chance to play with either yet. So in the end, Jim ran over the changes for Epic play with me, as well as introducing some of the units from the new Dwarf and Goblin expansion packs.


For those of you playing along at home, we went with Epic scenario 18A, with Jim taking the side with Dwarves while I played the side with the goblin hordes. Both of us chose to replace a few units with some of the new specialist units as well, Jim taking the Dwarf Axe Swingers and Dwarf Spear Bearers, while I added to my horde with some Goblin Slingers and Goblin Spear Bearers.


After the 35 minutes of setup time (the one true drawback of this game), we finally got started. Early on we both just carefully advanced our units, trying to maintain support where possible. Jim made a little bit of a mistake when he moved one of his Spear Bearer units adjacent to my forces, thinking that they would be able to attack. Since they had moved two hexes, however, all they proved to be were sitting ducks that suffered a pretty hefty counter attack and soon became the first loss of the game.


We had therefore engaged on both the left and right flanks, and initially I had a slight advantage in both places due to the greater mobility of my goblin units. Then I chose the "Mounted Charge" command card which allowed me to activate all five of my remaioning mounted units. In the ensuing carnage, I smashed his units on my right flank and further weakened those on my left.


My Goblin Spear Bearers were monsters, resisting attack after attack and dishing out vicious Battle Back damage with their special ability. A few turns later, I used the "Chain Lightning" Lore card along with a concentrated attack to kill his 6th unit, putting me up by 3 and just one away from the victory condition. On his turn, I used the "Ambush" Lore card to destroy one of his attacking units and seal the win.


Final Score: Me 7, Jim 4
Ratings: Me 8.5, Jim 9

As we started the game, I realized that I had misunderstood the whole "Battle Back" ability, thinking that it was only triggered when an attacker rolled flags that could be ignored. Instead, any bold unit that remains in its original hex after being attacked gets to battle back. That makes it even more powerful than I thought.

But the key to BattleLore is still definitely to support your units. Jim freely admitted that he just allowed himself to get over extended, while my superior mobility allowed me to swarm and take advantage of his exposed units.

Still, BattleLore is a great game and I really need to play it more often!
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Edited Fri Aug 24, 2007 12:43 am
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B Davis
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Aargh!
How could I miss this being played?!?

Chris, I hope that we get a chance to play sometime. I dont have the BL expansions, but they sound great.

BTW, I got on the pre-order for the re-release of Mordred (Martin Wallace game) and Liberte. Ill let you know when they come in. They would make for great game night games, if I can find the time to come...
Chris Norwood
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Like I said, I've got the Epic and Call to Arms expansions, and after playing with these specialist packs I'm sure I'll pick them up as well. We definitely need to play a few games sometime.

By the way, Liberté is on my wishlist and I'd love to play it when it is re-released. It may be a little long for regular boardgame night, but maybe we could schedule a time some other night to get it on!
9. Board Game: Zooloretto [Average Rating:7.05 Overall Rank:198]
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Chris Norwood
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Graham
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August 21, 2007 (yes, still going...)

While Jim and I continued the BattleLore: Epic BattleLore struggle, the other group finished up with Ra and started a game of On the Underground. I have still yet to play this, but it has apparently developed a bit of a following around here, so maybe I'll get to play it sometime soon. As was the protocol for the evening, Chris Ingersoll once again dominated the game, winning another stunning victory for the Dudes Named Chris!


Score: Chris 45, Mark 40, Pam 37, Alton 36, Chip 32
Ratings: Chris 8, Mark 8, Pam 8, Alton 8, Chip 7

Mark then ran off to play a game of Star Wars Miniatures with Ian (Denise and Nick's eldest son). I don't know how that turned out, though.


After helping Jim mostly clean up Battlelore, I taught some of the guys to play Zooloretto. I actually managed to pick this up recently, grabbing one of the five available copies from the last Tangathon in the 35 seconds (or whatever) before they sold out. I had played a couple of 2-player games with my wife Gwen, but I really liked the multiplayer game a lot better.


Alton did a really good job of not picking up extraneous animals, while I opened my barn doors to all-comers. I still had a shot to do well, however, until I made a huge mistake in the last round and grabbed a truck before doing all the money actions I wanted to do...


Score: Alton 21, Chris 19, Chip 16, Me 12
Ratings: Alton 8, Chris 8, Chip 8, Me 7.5

Yes, Alton thwarted the Chris-tacular sweep of the evening's games. But anyway, everybody was rather impressed with Zooloretto and thought that it would have pretty great appeal to all sorts of wives, children, and other non- to semi-gamers in our lives. I'll bring this a lot in the coming weeks and hopefully we'll be able to explore the "deeper" potential for the game more as well.

So, that does it for another wonderful week among the Hypermind BoardGamers. Until later... Game On!
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Edited Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:38 pm
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10. Board Game: Zooloretto [Average Rating:7.05 Overall Rank:198]
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Chris Norwood
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Graham
North Carolina
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August 28, 2007

This week's BoardGame night began as it ended last week, playing our one copy of SdJ-winning Zooloretto. Sabrina, Mark, and Pam hadn't played before, so Chris and I taught them the rules and got right down to it! I did pretty well, having only one extraneous Panda in my barn before the last round (which I humanely put to sleep, of course). Even having to pick up two more "bad" animals on my last truck, I managed to pull out the win.


Score: Me 27, Chris 26, Sabrina 21, Pam 20, Mark 20
Ratings: Me 8, Chris 9, Sabrina 9, Pam 8, Mark 9

Chip had gotten there by then, and I stepped out so that he could have a play. Mark took control in this game, though, winning by a huge margin.


Score: Mark 28, Chris 22, Pam 22, Chip 20, Sabrina 18
Ratings: Mark 9, Chris 9, Pam 8, Chip 8.5, Sabrina 9

We then split up to play two "perfectly-sized" games of Ra for the last time as Game of the Month! Mark, Chip, and Chris started first and played a very competitive game. They reported having a lot of early Ra! tiles and ended up with several tiles still in the bag.


Score: Chris 47, Mark 42, Chip 37
Ratings: Chris 9, Mark 8.5, Chip 9

Meanwhile, Pam, Sabrina, and I also took a tour of ancient Eqypt. As opposed to their game, we used up most of the tiles and had tons of Pharohs come out all game long. I did pretty well from the start, getting all but one type of monument in the first Epoch alone! I ended up with 25 points from monuments, I won most pharohs twice, and got five points from having three civilizations in one Epoch.


Altogether, our game wasn't very close. This made me feel a little better about my ability to play Ra, after the miserable performance I had a couple of weeks ago.



Score: Me 63, Sabrina 43, Pam 32
Ratings: Me 9, Sabrina 9, Pam 9

Afterwards, we were all talking about what a great game Ra really is. It obviously gets great ratings from everyone around here, and people just seem to enjoy the game so much, win or lose. It's quick and easy to play, and several people have already begun to take the "next step" of understanding strategy after just a few plays. It's definitely another great Game of the Month!, and I just hate that I didn't get to play it more this month.
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Edited Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:33 pm
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11. Board Game: Wits & Wagers [Average Rating:7.13 Overall Rank:190]
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Chris Norwood
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Graham
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August 28, 2007 (continued)

We then had another foray into the wonderful world of party games, pulling out Wits & Wagers for the first time. Only Mark and I had played before, but it didn't take long to fill everybody else in on the rules, of course. Many of us did not do well at all in the first game, and in the end only Chris and Sabrina had any chips left at all.


We immediately played again, and things were a little different this time. Several of us hit pretty big on a 5:1 payout on the "all other contestants overbid" space. In fact, in order to pay out Pam the 50 points she earned, we had to break open a copy of Vegas Showdown and get some green chips to serve as 25 point markers. It went all downhill from there, however, and everyone ended up betting pretty much everything on the last question. So in the end, things looked even worse than the first game with Sabrina pulling out the win solely because she had the "correct" answer.


Game 1: Chris 47, Sabrina 32, Chip 0, Me 0, Mark 0, Pam 0
Game 2: Sabrina 10, Chris 5, Chip 0, Me 0, Mark 0, Pam 0
Ratings: Sabrina 7, Chris 7, Chip 8, Me 7.5, Mark 8, Pam 8.5

Only having about 30 minutes left before I had to leave, we decided to finish up the night with our old standby, Liar's Dice. We lured Denise into the game, insisting that she shirk her duties as store proprieter.


Despite being one of the newest to the game, Chip absolutely dominated, finishing with 4 dice still in his cup!

Ratings: Chip 9, Chris 9, Me 9, Denise 10, Mark 9, Sabrina 10

During the evening, we also discussed what would be the Game of the Month! for September. In hopes that a few new people might wander over from nearby Elon University, we decided to go the "gateway" path and make the entire Ticket to Ride series our chosen games. Personally, I love TtR but haven't even gotten the chance to play Ticket to Ride: Europe or Ticket to Ride: Märklin Edition yet, so I'm looking forward to it as well.

If you can, come out and join us - we'd love to have you visit!
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Edited Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:34 pm
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8 comments [Hide]
B Davis
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Raleigh
North Carolina
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FINALLY!

Just kidding, Chris.

Thanks for putting up the August glog. Excellent writeups and pics, as usual.

Hopefully, we can get another game of TI for 8/18.
Let me know.
Chris Norwood
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Graham
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I don't know about Struggle of Empires. I love the game, but after only getting on one (mostly-completed) game last week, I kinda want to get in 3-4 shorter games this week. I'll bring Tigris & Euphrates, though, 'cause it might be do-able.
Alton Todd
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How about TI on the 25th... I will be out of town on the 18th.
B Davis
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TI on the 25th is good for me.

I believe that Mark said that he cannot do TI on the 25th, but is a probable after lunch on the 18th. Nick is in both dates.

Chris, are you in for TI on the 18th AND the 25th?

BTW I started a Geeklist ONLY for our TI sessions and discussion.
Here is the link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/23786

(sorry, but I don't know how to put the name (Hypermind Twilight Imperium) instead of the URL in the visible link....Chris, can you help me on this?)
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Edited Mon Aug 13, 2007 3:59 pm
Chris Norwood
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Hypermind Twilight Imperium

And no, I don't think that I'm available on the 25th... sorry.:soblue:
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Edited Wed Aug 15, 2007 3:16 pm
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