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Hypermind BoardGame Night - September 2007
Chris Norwood
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Graham
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Come visit me at GamerChris.com for all sorts of chewy, gamery goodness!
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September and the coming of fall have now pounced on the Hypermind BoardGamers, taking us by surprise!


With many stolen away by school and the pressing obligations of work and family (what twisted priorities)...



the rest of us, the remnant, press on towards our goal of maintaining a boardgaming community within a small town in central North Carolina.


We are...

the Hypermind
BoardGamers!
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Chris Norwood
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The "Master List" of our struggles to wrest control of the mundane world from the clutches of 382 different "versions" of Monopoly. We seek to redeem the lost card-floppers and convert the wayward dice-chuckers. All are welcome in the Hypermind BoardGaming family!
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Chris Ingersoll
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You know... as a card-flopping dice-chucker, I'm not sure how to take this entry.
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  • Posted Mon Sep 10, 2007 5:44 pm
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Chris Norwood
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Well, I am a die-hard dice-chucker (RPGer) and have spent years of my past as a card-flopper (CCG addict), but now I have seen the light of being a "wood-pusher" (boardgamer) and I just want to spread the word!

It's all about love, Chris, don't be offended...
ALLblankABOUTblankLOVEblankBABY !
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  • Posted Mon Sep 10, 2007 6:37 pm
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2. Board Game: Ticket to Ride [Average Rating:7.48 Overall Rank:74]
Chris Norwood
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For September, we went in a slightly different direction for our Game of the Month! Instead of just one game, we chose an entire series of games, the Ticket to Ride family of games! So, this month we will see play from the original game, Ticket to Ride: Europe, Ticket to Ride: Märklin Edition, and the Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 expansion.

Other nominated games include China, Shadows over Camelot, Mission: Red Planet, and Vegas Showdown.
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3. Board Game: Hansa [Average Rating:6.98 Overall Rank:314]
Chris Norwood
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Graham
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September 4, 2007

As we began our first Game Night of September, three of us arrived early and were itching to get started. I had brought Hansa several times over the last month or two, and finally Chris Ingersoll and Sabrina decided to give it a try with me.


The rules are pretty simple, so we got started after just a few minutes of explanation. It seems impossible to get a really commanding lead in Hansa, so things appeared close all game long. Sabrina was a little slow to start selling trade goods for victory points, but in the end was still competitive with Chris and me. This game is very dry and analytical, however, and it didn't do a heck of a lot for either of my opponents. Personally, I enjoy it in a very abstract kind of way, but fully recognize that there's not a whole lot of "fun" or "excitement" involved in the game.


Score: Me 49, Chris 42, Sabrina 40
Ratings: Me 7, Chris 6, Sabrina 5

Before we had even finished up our game, Chip, Mark, and Jim had all arrived and began to start up a game of our new Game of the Month!, Ticket to Ride. All of them had plenty of experience playing, so they had a very competitive game.


Score: Jim 138, Chip 133, Mark 115
Score: Jim 9, Chip 8.5, Mark 8.5


Chris, Sabrina, and I also started up a game of Ticket to Ride right after finishing up Hansa. Neither of them had ever played, however, so I had to quickly explain the rules of this game to them as well. Of course, it's probably the best gateway game in existence, so explaining the rules isn't exactly a big chore.

After several rounds of picking up cards, I started strong by claiming the long routes between LA and El Paso, then El Paso and Houston as I attempted to build a huge trans-continental railroad from San Fransisco to New York. Before long, I had a big lead, had completed my initial tickets, and had a very long continuous path.


Then I started with the badness. When I drew more tickets, the only one that looked good was getting from Boston to Miami. Of course, I couldn't find a blue or purple train card to save my life, so I started spinning my wheels for a while. Meanwhile, Sabrina was connecting up the central part of the country and Chris was building the longest path ever to get from El Paso to Denver. In fact, he managed to use up all 45 trains in a continuous path to circle all around the country and, of course, claim the longest path. The difference in the game ended up being one failed ticket card, going from Winnipeg to Little Rock, which I had the cards for in my hand but that Chris didn't give me the chance to finish as he used up his last few trains about 2 turns too early.


Score: Chris 121, Me 111, Sabrina 103
Ratings: Chris 8, Me 8, Sabrina 9
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Chris Ingersoll
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I still wish I had the guts to go for tickets as my final action. The other guys tell me I had two of the next three already connected.
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  • Posted Thu Sep 6, 2007 1:55 pm
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4. Board Game: Shadows over Camelot [Average Rating:7.14 Overall Rank:208]
Chris Norwood
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September 4, 2007 (continued)

The other group had waited for us to finish up, so we decided to try a game that we could all join in on. After a little discussion, we settled on one of my all-time favorites, Shadows over Camelot.

Sabrina was new to the game and a couple of the other guys had not played in a while, so we went over the rules as thoroughly as you really need to before getting started. When we chose up knights, this was the breakdown:

King Arthur - Sabrina
Sir Gawain - Chip
Sir Galahad - Jim
Sir Kay - Mark
Sir Tristan - Chris
and I was...

Brave Sir Percival, scourge of evil!

We secretly passed out loyalty cards and then started the game. After the obligatory turn or two of drawing cards at Camelot, Chip and I decided to head to the Grail quest. Chris headed straight to Lancelot's armor and Mark took on the Black Knight while Sabrina and Jim stayed back at Camelot for another turn or two.


Chip and I made good progress early with the grail, and the "Heroism" card got played on it early, making it worth one more white or black sword (depending on how it turned out). Mark made pretty short work of the Black Knight, earning our first white sword, but Chris got stung by a couple of Lancelot cards in a row, losing the quest and a life point while adding the first black sword to the round table in the process.

Jim started trying to fight the Saxons off the beach while Sabrina headed over to try and get Excalibur. As the Saxon invasion neared, Chris headed over to give Jim a hand and hopefully pick up a life point in the process. Despite Chris not having the correct card to finish the quest on the next turn, Jim still managed to win it the following round.

Then we began our all-out assault on the Grail quest.


While Sabrina drew more cards at Camelot, everybody else joined in on the bandwagon and whittled the despair away. Finally, Chip played the last grail card and claimed the artifact, also giving us 4 more white swords to put us up 7-1 agaist the forces of darkness!

At this point in the game, we were doing very well in terms of swords, but the seige engines were getting a little out of control and we were all rather short on life. I had a two pair in my hand (3's and 4's), so I immediately headed over to the Black Knight, while Mark (Sir Kay) assumed his near-permanent position fighting seige engines and almost everybody else headed over to the Excalibur quest.



Heroism was again played, this time on my Black Knight quest, which I was only one card away from winning. We had forsaken the Dragon quest, and Excalibur was slowly but surely making its way to the near shore. Things were going so well and I was sure that none among us were dirty, stinking traitors.

Then... Morgan played her master stroke. With the flip of a card, each of the knights lost one life, killing all of us but poor Sir Kay, fighting valiantly to keep the invaders from toppling Camelot itself.


Already holding a majority of swords, however, victory was still possible. If we managed to lose two quests among the Dragon,the Black Knight, or Excalibur before Sir Kay was overwhelmed, we would still win. So, time after time, Mark took his solo turns pulling black cards and fighting seige engines. The Dragon was lost, bringing the total up to 7 white to 3 black swords. He continued as tension built. Then, finally, the fourth Black Knight card was pulled and rejoicing erupted among the spirits of the dead knights.

But wait, Chris revealed that his Sir Tristan was, in fact, a dirty, stinking traitor. We had not ferreted out his evil when we had the chance, so would two of our hard-won swords be turned to the "dark side"? In a flurry of rules-book flipping it was investigated and... NO! The traitor must be both undetected and alive in order to corrupt the final score!

Victory was indeed ours, 7 white swords to 5 black ones! In losing two final battles and through the sacrifice of a host of brave knights, the war was won and Camelot was saved! Sir Kay would rebuild the Knights of the Round Table and justice and mercy would continue to reign in all of Briton...

What a great game! I just love Shadows over Camelot! As always, the tension and excitement built and built throughout the game, ending in an unpredictable but thoroughly exciting and enjoyable way. Chris, as the traitor, was both subtle and crafty, but alas his plan was foiled.

Ratings: Sabrina 9, Mark 8.5, Jim 9, Me 9, Chris 8, Chip 6
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Chris Ingersoll
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Chris, as the traitor, was both subtle and crafty, but alas his plan was foiled.


...by that STUPID Morgan card. >_<

...and putting on a facade of being loyal by valiantly doing down to 1 life to pick off a seige engine when I could have had the extra buffer and earned the two-sword "undetected" bonus.

...and by forsaking the two 4's Sabrina had passed me while I was going for Lancelot's Armor, thinking that my trio of 1's would be sufficient (which it would have been, save for that 4th black card coming too early).

I wouldn't consider those mistakes, though; I was just unlucky.

But seriously, without that one Morgan card picking off FIVE of us, the odds of siege engines overtaking Camelot were really good, even if you had succeeded in besting the black knight (with Heroism).
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  • Edited Thu Sep 6, 2007 2:04 pm
  • Posted Thu Sep 6, 2007 2:03 pm
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Chris Norwood
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Yeah, it's almost like the best thing that could have happened at that moment was for most of us to die. That way, we had 100% of the surviving knights (1 of 1) fighting our biggest threat (seige engines). Personally, I wish it had happened 1 turn later, though (after I won the Black Knight quest).
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  • Posted Thu Sep 6, 2007 3:33 pm
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5. Board Game: The Downfall of Pompeii [Average Rating:7.15 Overall Rank:238]
Chris Norwood
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September 11, 2007

This week we took our Game of the Month "Riding of Tickets" all the way to Europe, exploring the second game in this wildly popular series! After waiting anxiously for enough people to arrive, we set it up and got ready. Only one person had actually played Ticket to Ride: Europe before, so we had to take a few minutes to identify what the differences were between this and regular Ticket to Ride.



Denise was going to try and play, but that darn annoying "running the store" thing got in the way before we really even got started. Chip jumped in her place, joining Alton, Chris Ingersoll, Mark, and myself. My "long trip" was from down in Italy up to Moscow, which I was pretty happy with, especially when I saw that pretty much everyone else was trying to compete for the more western parts of Europe. I completed my tickets and drew more before anyone else, and went on to draw more tickets 3 more times in the game, ending up with 7 total completed tickets. For most of the game, I thought I was firmly in the lead, but then Chris made a surge at the end and he managed to grab the longest track. In the end, Chris pulled out the win (a phrase which will grow tired before this entry is done) by a measly 5 points.


Score: Chris 128, Me 123, Alton 122, Chip 120, Mark 98
Ratings: Chris 8, Me 8, Alton 8, Chip 8, Mark 8.5

Overall, I think that I like Ticket to Ride: Europe just about the same as I do regular Ticket to Ride. The board is a little tighter, but the addition of stations pretty much eliminates the cutthroat element of the game. The tunnels and bridges are a nice touch, but I don't know if they really change gameplay that much. In general, I think what I like most about TtR Europe is just the different map, which makes me even more excited about playing Ticket to Ride: Märklin Edition this month and picking up Ticket to Ride: Switzerland very soon!


Next, I'm sorry to say, we witnessed the ending of an era. On his way in, Chip carried only one game – the oft' ignored The Downfall of Pompeii. In fact, he said that he would bring no other games except for The Downfall of Pompeii until we finally gave it some love and actually played it. So, in a moment of weakness, the paper volcano and its little lava tiles finally hit the table.


Chip was the only one of us who had ever played, so he gave us the rules explanation and we got started. Seeing that it was only a 2-4 player game, Alton volunteered to sit out and watch. Despite getting around three of my people thrown into the volcano due to omen cards, I still ended up with the best overall placement of dudes before the volcano erupted, with around 15 of my little blue men scattered all over the board. And even after several rounds of running like heck, I still felt pretty good having five men off the board already, four men right next to exits, and two more only a few squares away. I guess I was overconfident, because Mark screwed it all up when he made an eruption swallow up two of my men (along with one of his and one or two of Chip's) and sealed off one of the exits. That nearly stranded two other of my men, and I was resigned to getting only the last two out before the entire city was consumed by fire and ash.



I don't know what to make of Mark's action. In killing his dude, he took himself out of contention to win. He really screwed me over (and Chip to some extent) and set up Chris to have a good shot at winning. Maybe it was the dreaded "kingmaking", or maybe it was just a case of "let's do this and see what happens". Either way, it lost me the game.

In the end, Chip, Chris and I all had 7 people that had escaped from the city. Opening up the fiery paper cone of doom, we found that I had 11 people there while Chip and Chris each had only 8. So what do you call that? It's a stinking tie, and I'm "first loser". Grrrrr Mark! I'll get you!

Score: Chip 7 (+8 dead), Chris 7 (+8 dead), Me 7 (+11 dead), Mark 6
Ratings: Chip 7, Chris 6.5, Me 6.5, Mark 7
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6. Board Game: Vegas Showdown [Average Rating:7.27 Overall Rank:181]
Chris Norwood
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September 11, 2007 (continued)

While we were still playing The Downfall of Pompeii, Jim came in and wooed Alton into learning how to play BattleLore. They set up and played the introductory "Agincourt" scenario, with Jim playing the cavalry-heavy French and Alton being the archer-infested English. Despite being new to the system, Alton's trusty bowmen served him well and he rode to a 4-2 victory. Alton definitely enjoyed himself, so hopefully we've made a new convert that I will be able to exploit to get in more games of BattleLore in the near future.


Ratings: Alton 10, Jim 10

After escaping from certain hot lava death, we sat around exhausted and tried to figure out what to play. Despite owning the game for nine months now, I had still yet to play the supposed pinnacle of "Hasbro Hill" game design, Vegas Showdown. The other three guys had all played a time or two, and I had read the rules over once or twice. We all brushed up our knowledge of how to play and then got started.


About halfway through the game, I realized that I had started going for "fame" tiles way too early. I tried to correct myself and get my income and population up a little, but I was too late. I still thought that I had at least avoided being the biggest loser until someone pointed out that I had purchased and placed the "Space-Age Sports Book" without owning a regular "Sports Book", so I backed up 7 spots and wound up in dead last.


Score: Chris 56, Chip 44, Mark 40, Me 37
Ratings: Chris 8, Chip 7.5, Mark 8, Me 7

So then, there we were, in desperate need of a "super-filler" or some other kind of good closer for the evening. After more discussion, we finally settled on a game of Ingenious. I had read the rules and played the solo version a time or two, as had Chris, while Mark didn't know anything about it. That left Chip once again with the only real experience with the game. Learning the rules isn't exactly rocket science, however, so we got started pretty quickly.


Things started well, but pretty soon I realized that I was the king of suck in this game as well. It was apparently a high-scoring game, with both Chris and Mark maxing out all but one of their colors and tying at 14. Chip was right behind with a score of 13, while I had only maxed out a couple of the colors and my lowest was way down at 11.


Score: Chris 14, Mark 14, Chip 13, Me 11
Ratings: Chris 8.5, Mark 8, Chip 7, me 6

I just don't know about Ingenious… Usually, I enjoy abstracts pretty well, but something about this one just doesn't appeal to me. Plus, I was screwed over a couple of times by the sheer chaos of the four-player game and getting poor tile draws. Yeah, it's probably all sour grapes, and I'll definitely give it another shot before writing it off for good, however.

So, Chris either tied for the lead or won outright in every single game we played this week. I think he's been using performance-enhancing drugs or something. In fact, I'm so offended (and shamed by my magnitude of suckitude) that I'm just not going to come back next week. Of course, I'll be at the beach next week, so it would have been a bit of an inconvenience to come anyway, but you can be sure that I'm not coming now.

Take that, Chris!

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Chris Ingersoll
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Well... I didn't win BattleLore...

But still: just makes up for when I finished dead last in everything a couple of months ago. I've lost my faith in a lot of things in ~30 years, but Balance is one that I keep.
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  • Posted Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:54 pm
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7. Board Game: Blokus [Average Rating:7.15 Overall Rank:200]
Chris Norwood
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September 18, 2007

I was out of town this week, but Chris Ingersoll provided a great report that I'll post below. I'll add the scores, ratings, and some pictures when I get a chance.

Vyolynce wrote:
You can get scores and stuff from Denise when you get back.

Ticket to Ride

Things started off slowly tonight, with both Chris Norwood and Chip missing in action (which we knew in advance). Chris Ingersoll and Mark were there alone for a while until Sabrina showed up, with Alton arriving not long after. We decided to get the GotM out of the way and opted for the basic version (using Mark's 1910 cards instead of the game's micro-cards that we all hate). Sabrina concentrated her efforts on the east coast, eventually connecting Miami and Montreal, while the rest of us were more in the Heartland and Rockies. This got her in trouble later on, as we basically cut her off from any additional tickets. A sea of undesirable train cards slowed things down until eventually Alton initiated endgame. After the final turns, we had a tie, with both Chris and Alton at 118; both had completed four tickets (Alton had a fifth that he couldn't complete), so the second tiebreaker of longest line came into play... which gave Alton the nod, as he earned the 10 point bonus for longest line in the first place.


Shadows over Camelot

While we were laying track across America, Jim and a couple of his friends arrived. One of them, Larry, joined us for a game of Shadows over Camelot, which was one of the only viable 6-player games we had handy (Mark's Power Grid was dismissed for essentially being "another rail game"). All of the knights save Sir "Not-Appearing-in-This-Game" Gallahad arrived at Camelot eager to turn back the tide of Evil, but Fate was solidly against us this day. Vivien made an early arrival, but we decided to let her pass unhindered, thinking we could easily knock out the Black Knight or another easy quest to rid ourselves of her. Unfortunately, she was able to summon forth the Mists of Avalon not long after, and we were powerless to stop her.

With things already looking bleak, we fended off the Saxons (+1 White Sword), but in the process Sir Christopher Percival got wind of an invading Pict force that we could not turn back in time; while we finished off the Saxons, Siege Engines mounted at the gates of Camelot until Sir Lawrence Tristam was able to get away from Hadrian's Wall safely, at which point he Picts were regrettably allowed to overrun our northern border (+2 Black Swords due to Mists, +2 Siege Engines). After Sir Markus Kay bested the Black Knight (+1 White Sword), he found himself resigned to Siege Engine Duty yet again. Meanwhile, Sir James Gawain sought to retrieve the Armor of Lancelot, which Sir Kay proclaimed to be a Heroic mission during a well-needed rest from Camelot's defense; we were forced to order Merlin to intercept Lady Guinevere in order to retain Gawain's progress, but to our horror a rapid succession of ill fortune caused the quest to be pulled from his grasp anyway, dooming Camelot to ruin (+3 Black Swords due to Mists and Heroism).

With all knights exhausted and near-death (with that witch Morgan casting her harmful magic not once, but twice throughout the saga), we split our attention between reclaiming Excalibur, finding the Holy Grail (amidst a sea of Despair and Desolation), and fending off Siege Engines. We knew that the next failed quest would spell our fall, and were all largely resigned to our fate, but we bravely fought on regardless. Alas, there would be no miraculous snatching of victory from the jaws of defeat for the Knights of the Round Table, as eventually the Saxons got their revenge from their earlier thrashing and stormed our southern flank unopposed (+2 Black Swords and the final two Siege Engines, just to make absolutely sure we were done) and Camelot was lost.

Just when we thought things could not be any bleaker, the final kick to our collective ribs was dealt when King Aurthur himself was revealed to be a Traitor! No wonder we were doomed, if our very king served the forces of darkness! (But hey, at least Sabrina picked up a win!)

Blokus

After a collective pause while Jim's other friend unloaded some magnificent foam miniatures terrain boards for Denise, Jim and company had to leave (since they were from High Point and faced a long drive). The remaining four of us settled on Chris's recent purchase of Blokus to round out the evening. The fast-paced abstract strategy game quickly won over Mark and Alton, and although Sabrina wasn't as impressed, she still held her own fairly well. We got in three games in the span of ~45 minutes, with Chris taking the first two and Mark sneaking in the third win in a very close game.
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Chris Norwood
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Sorry Chris, I meant to make that correction when I posted it, but forgot. It's all fixed now.

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  • Posted Tue Sep 25, 2007 1:31 pm
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8. Board Game: The Omega Virus [Average Rating:6.24 Overall Rank:2013]
Chris Norwood
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Graham
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September 25, 2007

After a week away on vacation, I was glad to be back at our weekly fun-filled gamefest! I need to figure out something to bring in a few new players because we continue to be plagued by the time constraints posed by the fall. This week saw only 5 loyal members, but that's all we needed to still have a great time.

One thing I brought back from the beach with me was a "fully armed and operational" copy of the early-90's classic The Omega Virus. I found it amongst the junk at a flea market for only a few bucks, and decided to bring it with me to BoardGame Night to give it a shot.

While we waited for others to arrive, Chris Ingersoll, Mark, and I pulled it out and went over the rules. Chris owned a copy of the game many moons ago (until it was done in by corroded batteries left in the "brain"), so he and I taught Mark how to play. We then fired up the condescending virus o' death and got started.

It was my first "real" game (I had only played one solo game before), so I was a little spacy at times during the game, but mainly I just had pretty crappy luck. Chris jumped out to a big lead early, gathering up the necessary anti-virus devices and searching out the virus itself. Mark started slow but then managed to pick up the rest of the devices pretty much back-to-back. Meanwhile, I kept running into trouble and even lost one of my access cards by the end of the game.


So it all came down to Chris raiding the virus' hizzle. Three times he attacked and three times he chose the wrong number. I tried to shoot him and delay him one time, but he managed to fend off my attack. Then, out of the blue, Mark swooped in and, on his first guess, picked the right number and won the game.

The game is light and quick, good for a bit of fun and all, but I could also see it getting rather annoying and frustrating pretty quickly. Our ratings were: Chris 6.5, Mark 8, Me 7

After The Omega Virus, Chip and Sabrina had arrived, so we jumped into our Game of the Month!, which has been the ticket to Ride series. In particular, we finished off the month playing the newest and most complex of the bunch, Ticket to Ride: Märklin Edition.


Dealing with the German board was a little difficult, mainly because none of us know a heck of a lot about German geography. The bulk of the players spent most of their effort in the northern and eastern areas of the map, going for the longer routes. I worked my way up the western side of the map, however, finding the shorter routes involved there to be far less profitable. In the end, Mark rode over 50 points from his passengers to claim the victory.


Score: Mark 149, Chip 144, Chris 144, Sabrina 129, Me 128
Ratings: Mark 6.5, Chip 6.5, Chris 6, Sabrina 6, Me 6

Ticket to Ride: Märklin Edition definitely proved to be the biggest disappointment of the Ticket to Ride series as well as all the previous Games of the Month!. We found nothing particularly special about the board, and all agreed that the passengers were an unwelcome, fiddly addition to the core game. While the tunnels and stations of Ticket to Ride: Europe were a nice variation of the base game, the passengers in Marklin were just annoying.


Even the actual, physical components used for the passengers (those little cardboard circles with the numbers on them) were quite literally "fiddly", being both hard to pick and easy to bump and send flying all into and under everyone's nearby routes. Yes, it was supposed to be more of a "gamer's" version of TtR, but this gamer would by far prefer to just play the far more elegant original Ticket to Ride with the 1910 Expansion thrown in for variety.

This gamer is also, however, looking forward to the upcoming Ticket to Ride: Switzerland, which I hope will reinvigorate the two-player games I frequently have with my wife.
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9. Board Game: Antike [Average Rating:7.21 Overall Rank:226]
Chris Norwood
United States
Graham
North Carolina
designer
Come visit me at GamerChris.com for all sorts of chewy, gamery goodness!
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September 25, 2007 (continued)

So, after putting the Game of the Month! to bed, it was still only 7:30 and we were looking for what to play next. I pushed for Antike, which is a game that I've owned for a few months but only played once before. We decided to play on the Roman side of the board, and random civilization distribution looked like this:

- Chip: Greeks (red)
- Mark: Romans (blue)
- Sabrina: Germanic tribes (black)
- Chris: Phonicians (Gray)
- Me: Carthaginians (green)

After a relatively quick rules explanation (because everybody else was new to the game), we got started. Figuring out the rondel was pretty easy for most everybody, and the starting rounds picked up speed nicely. A few of us went with a marble/temple strategy, while a couple of others went more for expansion or gold/know-hows. All being pretty much beginners, however, no one was punished too harshly for early mistakes. By the mid- to late-game, most of us were running neck and neck.


When all the King and Scholar personages ran out, everybody began to understand that the only way to win the game was going to be by smashing up other people's templed cities. Chris pushed and grabbed up the last Navigator while I managed to build two recently destroyed temples and claim the last citizen. At this point, four of us were pretty much tied at around 6 personages, needing only a couple more to win. Mark, on the other hand, had fallen behind at some point because he grew too concerned about defending his position and spent far too much effort "turtling". If we learned nothing else about the game, Antike is definitely a game where you must keep aggressively pushing ahead or you will quickly fall behind.


I've waited too long to write down the sequence of events in the last round, but it went something like this: Chip started off attacking either Chris or Mark, taking one city and going up to 7 Key People. Chris went next, swarming over Athens to claim his 7th person, but lacking just a few needed ships to be able to also claim my city of Tacape for the win. Had he previously taken the Navigation know-how, he may have been able to pull it off right then for the win. As it was, Mark then went and, having put himself in a bad position, still did pretty much nothing. During my turn, I managed to claim Massilia from Mark to also go to 7, even though I knew that I had no forces left to win the next round, figuring then that Chris had the game wrapped up.

Then Sabrina started her turn, choosing "Maneuver" as well. As opposed to Chris' limited mobility, Sabrina had built an extensive network of roads for her civilization, and she was able to make full use of them in her last turn. Pulling her barbarian hordes from all over her kingdom, she managed to attack and defeat both Greek Pella and Roman Lugdunum to claim two Generals and win the game!


Score: Sabrina 8, Chris 7, Chip 7, Me 7, Mark 4
Ratings: Sabrina 6, Chris 5, Chip 6, Me 8, Mark 6

Clearly, the group didn't give the game much credit. I think part of the problem was that it took nearly two and a half hours to play. The other thing is that the endgame is a little contrived, because (as I've read frequently here at BGG) it usually comes down to people grabbing up all the other other personages then scrambling to defeat templed cities to get Generals and win the game. I wonder, though, if some more advanced planning and just knowing the game better could help to make this a little less of a problem. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some of my fine gaming friends to give it another shot so I can find out!


At this point, it was late but I wanted to get in another game, so I convinced everybody to play a quick game of Cartagena. I really like this game (enough to go out and buy a copy this weekend), and we had another great time with it. Predictably, Chip kicked our butts again, but it was still fun.


Score: Chip 6, Me 4, Sabrina 3, Mark 2
Score: Chip 8, Me 8, Sabrina 8, Mark 8

So, once again we wrap up another fantastic month of gaming. Looking forward to October, we wanted to choose a "horror"-themed game as Game of the Month!. Given that many of the best games of this genre are either a little too long for a weeknight game session or just plain suck, we decided on Betrayal at House on the Hill for next month's featured game.

So, come on out and join us!
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