Session 1: April 1, 2008
Time: 90 minutes
Final scores*: Alton 81 (+4 pesos), Chip 69, Chris 81 (+21 pesos), Mark 78, William 70
Individual Rankings: Alton 8.5, Chip 7.5, Chris 8, Mark 8.5, William 8

After Alton spent all weekend with the rule book, we finally got to play this game correctly, with the two starting resources. What a difference actually being able to get a decent building in the first round makes! There was some confusion after the 1st round as to whether or not someone can retain the Start Player honor, but in the end we decided that "highest 4th action" trumped the inherent meaning behind the "pick a new start player" rule based on the fact that there was no mention of what to do if the old start player happened to play the highest 4th action.



Almost immediately, Mark established a rum-running operation and rode that throughout the game. Chip, seated next to Mark, didn't want to fight him over it and opted for Cigars. Alton stuck with his Hotels plan from our last play session, while newcomer (to the game, not game night) William just did what he could here and there, including picking up a Sawmill. But the game was really dominated by my political stranglehold; the Corruption Act showed up in the first round and I invested about 8 pesos to make sure it happened. From there I picked up the Town Hall and made sure to hold back my Mayor to control the Edicts for pretty much the entire game; it didn't occur to anyone to pick up the Church until well after the damage had been done. This allowed me to manipulate the Subsidies to my favor and adjust the taxes/duties as I saw fit. I let the Corruption Act expire in the 5th round (replacing it with the Drought Act to curtail the production of my competitors), but won the final vote anyway when no one wanted to compete with my 2 free votes and fistful of pesos (I used 3 for votes), riding the "3 pesos -> 1 VP" subsidy to 7 or 8 VP for several rounds.

It was close towards the end, however, as Mark's rum factory was paying off to the tune of a ton of VP every round, and I was unable to really capitalize on the shipping since I had to hold back my Mayor every Action Phase; Alton and Chip really hit the docks hard when they could, although Chip fell behind somewhere and never really recovered. It's entirely possible that if someone had stepped up to take the final vote (if they could -- the taxes were pretty brutal for a while there, thanks to the "one peso per building" tax that I was essentially forced to enact one round) that someone else would have emerged victorious, but in the end Alton and I tied at 81 points with my hoard of pesos easily claiming tiebreaker.

*We didn't count the starting warehouse in the final tally, if we were supposed to.

Session 3: April 15, 2008
Time: 70 minutes
Final Scores: Alton 71, Chip 69, Chris 60, Mark 66
Game Ratings: Alton 9, Chip 7.5, Chris 7.5, Mark 8.5

Our fourth consecutive session of Cuba (counting the initial session at the end of March) was slightly different from the rest in that we only had four players instead of the full five. While this would appear to reduce the competition for buildings and VP-scoring opportunities, it also somehow seemed to reduce the overall scoring.

Despite being denied access to his usual Hotel/Inn strategy, Alton was able to maintain his "score at least 12 VP per round" strategy that has served him very well. Chip and Mark did their best to catch up, but when the end of the fifth turn looked like this we all sort of knew how things were going to finish...



For my part, I seem to be unable to efficiently plan ahead when it comes to developing any kind of coherent strategy. Without fail I always wind up misplacing a building, constructing the wrong one, and/or creating incredibly favorable scoring opportunities for everyone else. It's really frustrating, but the worst part is that I recognize the failing is in my own gameplay and not necessarily that of the game itself (although there could be contributing factors there). There's just something about Cuba that I can't quite wrap my head around, which is really getting in my way of enjoying it. There's still two more weeks to go, so hopefully I'll achieve some sort of breakthrough and personally justify the whole GotM program.

Chris I. I just want to say you are doing a great job on the weekly write ups of our gaming efforts... for each one of your weeks so far...

I also wanted to remind all Hypermind Board-Gamers that on the last Tuesday of April (4-30-08) We will be don our finest Panama Hats, faux Cuban cigars and enjoy the finest of tropical drinks to party like a bunch of Batista high rolling Plantation owners and recreate our own little albeit four months late New Year Eve party circa 1959. Come and let's put a little role in our play and party like it's 1959 as the GotM CUBA ends its regime.

Session 4: April 22, 2008
Time: 46 minutes
Final Scores: Alton 87, Chris 74, Mark 86
Game Ratings: Alton 9, Chris 8, Mark 8

Last week we only had four players, this time we were down to the bare minimum, although we did have a newcomer observing our play while we went about our business. I decided to go for Tobacco production, but failed to realize that the Market Act up for vote would -- and did -- wreck me by driving market prices for the leaf through the roof. I never really recovered from that and was behind for pretty much the entire game. Mark jumped Alton's claim on the Hotel/Inn/Bank strategy, using a Large Branch Office to get some extra shipping VP along the way. He wasn't able to manipulate the docks as well as Alton, however, who soared to a staggering 87VP (just barely edging out Mark's 86) this session to continue his dominance of the game in general.

I upped my rating a half-point this week; the game feels better with fewer players, as there isn't as much competition for the restricted buildings, although now that we've run the gamut of possible players I think four might be ideal.

Session 5: April 29, 2008
Time: 87 minutes
Final Scores: Alton 79, Chip 74, Chris I 57, Chris N 71, Gwen 72
Game Ratings: Alton 9, Chip 7.75, Chris I 7.5, Chris N 6.5, Gwen 7

Tonight, in celebration of our final week with Cuba as our GotM, we decided to commemorate the game with oranges, (fake) cigars, and maybe even an appropriate piece of clothing or two...



Also making this game interesting was the participation of proud parents Chris and Gwen Norwood, making their first appearance in the group since (just prior to) the birth of their baby girl Samantha -- who was also in attendance! Let me tell you, if there's anything more attractive than a woman who games, it might very well be this:



As for the actual session... man, Cuba is Cuba -- and Alton is Alton, going 4-1 for the month thanks only to a miraculous vote-seizing, peso-hoarding play on my part during our first week. Every other time, I just can't assemble a strategy without something going wrong (usually my building placement) and my score winds up looking like this:



Everyone else is usually in a nice tight pack and are all competitive, but it's just Not My Game. Adios, Cuba -- your time as GotM has ended. We had a good couple of weeks, but in the end I don't think it's going to work out between us.

Session 1: April 1, 2008
Time: 40 minutes
Final Scores: Alton 38, Chris 42 (+2 cards in hand), Mark 42 (+2 goods), William 20
Ratings: Alton 10, Chris 10, Mark 9.5, William 7

I was stuck at the mechanic's getting some maintainence done on my increasingly-junking car for the first couple hours of the night, but my arrival almost immediately triggered the busting out of the star-covered black box. We gave William the run-down of how the game operated and got right to business.

Homeworlds were William manning Earth's Lost Colony, presumably an offshoot of Alton's Old Earth; I was staring at the zero-point windfall Alpha Centauri once again while Mark naturally wound up with his old friend New Sparta. When Mark's first turn involved developing Drop Ships yet again, Alton and I were about ready to punch him. ;P

To say the Race was on at that point was an understatement. While William was understandably slow to start and confused on several of the finer points, he was able to convert his Colony Ship into a Terraformed World -- and then played a second Colony Ship. Mostly he was having problems developing his tableau, which is fine when everyone is equally new to the game, but he was dealing with three pros and was sort of left in the spacedust.

Alton apparently continues to not follow any specific strategy (or at least not one that I can recall), but it seems to be working for him as he was only 4 points away from the leaders this game; I think he just explores like mad and leeches off everyone else's actions. Mark deployed his usual Military path, although he was denied New Galactic Order and instead had to settle for Galactic Imperium and a bunch of Rebel worlds. Meanwhile, I lucked my way into Rare Earth, drawing exactly what I needed when I needed it, including the Mining League (after drawing both New Galactic Order and Free Trade League at the same time) and everything it wanted; my last-turn play was a x2 Consume that gained me like twelve VP (in addition to the 13 from the League itself). It came down to the wire, and somehow the stars aligned in such a way as to bestow Mark and I with 42 points each; I had two cards in hand, but he had two unconsumed goods on the table, so it was a stalemate and a draw. If Alpha Centauri was actually worth any VP on its own I would've had this one -- stupid 0-point starting worlds!

I'll get you next time, Gavlak!

Another week at Hypermind, another triple-threat Race...

Session 6: April 22, 2008
Time: 28 minutes
Final Scores: Alton 20, Chris 58, Mark 42
Game Ratings: Alton 10, Chris 10, Mark 10

We knew Chip wouldn't be able to attend this week, but there were whispers of the newly-expanded Norwood family dropping by, so we decided to delay GotM Cuba for as long as possible. So naturally the three of us dove straight into RftG...

In our first game, Alton led with New Sparta and was able to develop Expedition Force, Space Marines, and Drop Ships throughout the course of the game. What he wasn't able to do, however, was really capitalize on all of that military might and he was unfortunately left in the dust by the excessive consumption of both Mark and myself. Speaking of Mark, he literally took a novel approach, starting from Epsilon Erandi and soon establishing a Free Trade Association and a Galactic Renaissance as he palmed off a ton of novelty goods to the suckers on his Tourist World. But even with all that, he was still unable to keep up with the fact that I drew just about every card I could possibly have wanted, establishing a rare earth empire; it started with playing a first-turn Consume: Trade thanks to Alpha Centauri and leeching off someone's Settle to place Space Port for a huge gain. From there I was able to develop Trade League, Mining League, Mining Conglomerate, and New Economy, which Voltroned along with some Consume: x2 actions to push my total up to a staggering 58VP for the win.




Session 7: April 22, 2008
Time: 21 minutes
Final Scores: Alton 14, Chris 29, Mark 43

We quickly reset for a second game; this time it was my turn to kick off with New Sparta, but despite developing a Trade League to let me leech off the other guys' Consume phases I was unable to draw any military worlds worth placing and never really got rolling. Alton was having an even tougher time, looking to go with rare earth thanks to receiving Alpha Centauri as his homeworld, but some play errors cost him valuable tempo and he was barely a factor. Between our respective woes, Mark was able to run away with this session pretty much unhindered, riding some ridiculous production abilities to develop both New Economy and Merchant Guild, ultimately scoring as many points as both Alton and I combined. Ouch.




Session 8: April 22, 2008
Time: 19 minutes
Final Scores: Alton 42, Chris 36, Mark 39

Yes, you're reading those scores correctly -- after struggling longer than most of us with the finer points of the game, Alton snuck in under the radar to claim his first Race for the Galaxy victory in our final session for the evening! Via an Epsilon Erandi military path, Alton was able to place some high-scoring worlds like Lost ALIEN Battle Fleet, Rebel Homeworld, Rebel Outpost, and Rebel Underground while amassing enough cards to settle a Deserted ALIEN Library and develop Galactic Survey SETI along the way.



Mark and I didn't make it easy on him, however. I once again assembled a strong rare earth tableau (including the albatross around my neck that is Alpha Centauri... I can't wait for the new homeworlds in Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm) which featured Replicant Robots for massive settling discounts, and finished the game with a Consume: x2VP action that harvested 14 of the precious blue tokens off the back of my Mining League and Tourist World. Mark, meanwhile, was kicking tail with New Sparta and his New Galactic Order, even pursuing some non-military options with an ALIEN Research Lab and an Imperium Armaments World to provide some production, but not having a lot in the way of actual consumption caused him to fall 3 VP shy of denying Alton his win.

Somewhere along the way Mark decided to finally up his rating of the game to the Full Monty, meaning the RftG received straight 10s tonight! However, I erred last week in recounting our month-long win totals, as I forgot that he and I tied the first session. The current totals, discounting that draw, have Mark and I tied at three each and Alton on the board with one. There's still one more week left in the month... can Alton catch up? One thing's for sure: Mark won't be able to pass my total, as he won't be able to attend next week.

Bad new Chris, I will be there on Tuesday!

Bad news for you, perhaps.

Session 9: April 29, 2008
Time: ?
Final Scores: Brett 22, Mark 49

It was a busy BGN at Hypermind...

Session 10: April 29, 2008
Time: 24 minutes
Final Scores: Brett 30, James 39, Mark 48

...and we had a lot of players...

Session 11: April 29, 2008
Time: 24 minutes
Final Scores: Alton 37, Brett 18, Chris 30, Mark 44

...who played Race for the Galaxy a lot...

Session 12: April 29, 2008
Time: 35 minutes
Final Scores: Brett 32, Chris 47, James 25, Mark 50

...but at the end of the day...

Session 13: April 29, 2008
Time: 24 minutes
Final Scores: Brett 31, James 31, Mark 41

...there was just no stopping Mark that night.

Although I tried, darn it... my 47-point game was achieved without any 6-point Developments on my part, but Mark just snuck past me tanks to an ALIEN Tech Institute on the last turn. I would have killed to have seen Merchant Guild, but really just about any 6-pointer probably would have been fine. Thus Mark claims the month 5-3(-1) in our head-to-head games.

Game Ratings: Alton 10, Brett 9, Chris 10, James 7.5, Mark 10

Session 1: April 1, 2008
Time: 45 minutes
Final Scores: Chip 2, Chris 4, Mark 3, William 2
Ratings: Chip 8.5, Chris 8.5, Mark 8.5, William 8

After Cuba, Alton had to leave early and recommended that we go for a 4-player game; while Eric (from last week), Kat, and a couple of other part-time Boardgamers were also in attendance, they were engaged in conversation so we decided to restore the City of the Blue Moon rather than travel Through the Desert or combating a Pandemic. Mostly because three of us would have been new to TtD; of the other two choices, it would be much easier to explain BMC to Chip and William quickly compared to trying to get across the complex cooperative strategy of Pandemic to just William. Besides, Pandemic can be kind of a downer, and no one wants to end the night like that.

We got things set up quickly and were soon underway. Mark's first-turn play drew some looks of disgust:



But things were pretty even throughout. I took the early lead with a pair of seven-crystal contributions, but before long everyone was tied up at two. We spent some time wandering around the city restoring buildings and suffering from some unfavorable draws, then Mark made his third contribution and took the lead, with only four required to win a four-player game. I quickly made my third, and then on his turn Chip triggered a scoring of Golden Scales that gave me the three I needed to make my final contribution without even having to move!

Session 2: April 8, 2008
Time: 55 minutes
Final Scores: Brett 2, Chip 4, Chris 3, James 2
Ratings: Brett 9, Chip 9, Chris 8.5, James 9

Chip was so impressed with BMC after last week that he asked to borrow my copy to try out with his daughter. He said that she did well, mostly thanks to there being zero reading required, and will probably purchase the game for his own family sometime in the near future.

We closed our night this week with another trip to the City of the Blue Moon, showing Brett and James around the wreckage after they waited so patiently for our game of Cuba to finish. They got the quick rundown and jumped right in.



This game was a saga of weirdness. Either because we didn't capitalize on the neighborhood bonuses in the correct order or just because of the random layout we dealt out, we nearly ran out of buildings to complete long before we made our final offerings. I took a gamble, but it paid off for Chip more than it did for me and he handed me my first non-win in BMC.



For their part, James and Brett were initially confused by the various powers, but quickly overcame that (plus Chip and I allowed a little leeway when it came to forgetting to move dragons before making contributions) and soon things were running smoothly. At several points James was one crystal short of making some key contributions, and Brett similarly was short-handed once or twice; being able to make those offerings could have changed everything, since this game always seems to be so close at the end. None of that affected their enjoyment of the game, however, as indicated by their ratings. I was on the verge of upping this to 9 myself, but didn't pull the trigger -- this week.

Session 3: April 29, 2008
Time: (approx. 60 minutes)
Final Scores: Brett 4 + 7 crystals, James 3, Mark 4 + 9 crystals
Game Ratings: Brett 9.5, James 8, Mark 8

While five of us were engaged in our lengthy stretch of Cuba, Mark (the owner of the copy of Cuba we were using!), Brett and James engaged in some more casual fare, starting with my copy of Blue Moon City. This session was somewhat unique in that none of the three were able to complete five offerings to the Obelisk thanks to completing the reconstruction of the city, so Mark wound up winning on leftover crystals after all possible offerings could be made.



If it weren't for it's low player capacity,
Blue Moon City could have been a serious contender for GotM down the road, but it serves its role as a lighter-weight alternative extremely well.

Session 1: April 1, 2008
Time: 40 minutes
Final Scores: Chip 10, William 13, Tim 8
Ratings: Chip 9, William 8.5, Tim 9.5

Not sure what happened here, as this game went down after I had left for the week. Maybe Chip can fill us in, and explain the huge change in ratings from our last session...

William and I decided to play one more game, so I suggested Pompeii. While setting it up, Tim ask if he could join and I said sure. I was the only one who had played before, so I gave a quick rules explanation before we started. For the first part of the game(getting your people in the buildings), things seemed pretty even although it did seem that more red tokens(mine) got thrown into the volcano from the omen cards. While setting up the deck, I decided to mix the AD 79(eruption) card into the bottom 12 cards instead of the bottom 15 as stated in the rules. I figured we could get a few more turns of placement before the hot lava started flowing. When the AD 79 card was turned over, there still looked to be a lot of cards left. I counted them and of course wouldn't you know it - 12 CARDS LEFT! So, the lava started flowing as early as it possibly could in our game, but we each seemed to have a good amount of our tokens on the board. As the deathly hot lava flowed into the city, it seemed to do so in a fairly balance way area wise, but it still seemed that more red tokens were tossed into the volcano than the other colors! After several turns, I had a slight lead with 8 'people' safe, but only 2 left on the board while both Tim and William had quite a few of their peoples still in the city. William especially looked to have a lot of people still on the board. We took a peek into the volcano and as I expected, there was a lot of my tokens in there. Tim also had some in there, but William DID NOT HAVE ANY of his people in the 'death pit'. Soon after that, Tim decided to sacrifice the rest of his men along with most of William's by closing off a large portion of the city. I think he just wanted to see a lot of people go into the volcano. Very quickly though, we realized that the hot deathly lava flow would not reach William's remaining men and he was able to get them out to safety, giving him the victory.

As far as the high ratings, I have played Pompeii several times away from Hypermind and I really enjoy the game. My rating here on BGG is 8.5, which is where I'll keep it. Maybe last time, I was weak and too influenced by the rest of the group, I just don't know. I think Tim just really likes this type of game that has a 'take that' element to it. He said that he would play this game every week. When I ask him for his rating, he said 9 or 10, so I put down a 9.5.

Yeah, when I looked up the last session I thought the scores seemed on the low side. I can't remember what made me go with 6.5, though.

Session 1: April 1, 2008
Time: ?
Final Scores: Mark 142, William 136
Ratings: Mark 7.5, William 8

No clue here; Mark and William must have hit this very early on in the night. I'm not even sure which version was played, but I'm assuming it was the regular ol' "American" TtR

Sessions 1 & 2: April 1, 2008
Time: 30 minutes (total)
Final Scores (in thousands of $): Alton 82/89, Mark 102/82, William 75/71
Ratings: Alton 8, Mark 7.5, William 9

I'm guessing Alton showed up while Mark and William were playing Ticket to Ride, then they opted for something quick while they waited for Chip and me to arrive.

Session 3: April 22, 2008
Time: 15 minutes
Final Scores: Alton 54K, Chris 67K, Mark 64K, Neil 47K
Game Ratings: Alton 8, Chris 7.5, Mark 7, Neil 9

Following Taluva, Neil was just about ready to head out, but Alton convinced him to stick around for one more quick filler, specifically For Sale. As usual, this game flew past in just 15 minutes and was entertaining all around; I edged past Mark thanks pretty much to the coins I had left over after the action round, but things were pretty close all around.

Session 3: April 29, 2008
Time: 20 minutes
Final Scores: Bobby 42, Denise 77, Rodney 61, Wendy 64
Game Ratings: Bobby 8, Denise 9, Rodney 8, Wendy 9

This game was going on while I was busy struggling to contain four crazy viruses, so I don't really know what happened here. I can only speculate that Denise used her experience advantage over the three newcomers to crush them like bugs.

Session 1: April 1, 2008
Time: ?
Final Scores: Mark WIN (towers and huts); Alton, William, and Anna-Marie LOSE (no score recorded)
Ratings: Alton 8(?), Anna-Marie 7, Mark 8.5, William 8

This game was just finishing as I finally arrived that night. Yes, the "Anna-Marie" listed up there is Mark's five-year-old daughter; no clue on how she did on her first play of Taluva, but it speaks well for the game that she could even play it at all. (Although to be fair, Anna is very advanced for her age -- in both height and intelligence.)

Session 2: April 22, 2008
Time: 25 minutes
Final Scores (buildings remaining): Alton 1 Tower/7 Huts, Chris 1 Tower/6 Huts*, Mark 1 Tower/7 Huts, Neil: 1 Temple/10 Huts
Game Ratings: Alton 8, Chris 9, Mark 8, Neil 8

After watching the three of us play Cuba, we decided to let newcomer Neil, a teacher at one of the local schools, in on a few games before he had to leave. I suggested Taluva as an introductory game and for sentimental reasons, as it was one of the first games that became popular among the Hypermind group. Neil got the quick rundown and we were good to go.



Thanks to the relative simplicity of the game, Neil held his own despite being faced with three veterans, even recognizing tactical errors not long after making them (although too late to take them back, sadly). The three of us were engaged in the sort of passive-aggressive interference that makes this game deviously amusing, with inconvenient "craters" and lone huts continually getting in the way of eruptions and expansions. At the end of the game it looked as if I had secured the narrowest of victories -- one hut -- when I found one somehow clinging to the breast of my T-shirt. Nobody had any idea how it could have got there, but the concession was that it was most likely a "crushed" hut and not one of my stock (which I kept on the table) and I got credited with the victory instead of a mind-boggling three-way tie. Easily one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to the group, but not enough to mar what was an otherwise fine game session.

Session 1: April 8, 2008
Time: 18 minutes
Final Scores: Brett 29, Chris 24, James 41, Jen 26, Mark 48
Ratings: Brett 7, Chris 7, James 6, Jen 7.5, Mark 7

Following our weekly RftG session, we were still waiting for Chip's arrival before initiating Cuba. Expecting him at seven, we only had a few minutes to kill before he showed up, so I brought my copy of Fairy Tale out of its pocket and rounded up some players. Only Jen and myself had played before, but Mark, James, and Brett were all CCGers and were quickly able to pick things up; playing with five necessitated the "advanced" game, but that wasn't too much of a problem.

I started off heavily in the Shadows, while Jen looked to be collecting Homesteaders and Children of the Dragon. James played some high-playing locations, unflipping them to make sure they counted, and Brett was off to his own start. Mark, however, had a faerie magnet hidden somewhere on his location and played out the red-bordered cards almost exlusively. A well-timed Faerie Queen on his part negated several Shadow cards (including my own) in the final round, pretty much ensuring his victory, although James was surprisingly close on his heels.



And just like that, eighteen minutes later, Chip had arrived (along with Jim) and we were ready for Cuba. Its job successfully completed, Fairy Tale once again returned to its hiding place, patiently waiting the next time we need a lightning-fast filler.

Session 1: April 15, 2008
Time: 65 minutes
Final Scores: Alton 32, Chris 31, Mark 45
Game Ratings: Alton 8, Chris 8.5, Mark 8



Perhaps fittingly, the second-ever Hypermind play session of Primordial Soup was comprised of three of the four players from the previous session. Mark developed Struggle for Survival almost immediately, while Alton and I focused more on maneuverability (him with Movement 1 and me with Streamlining); unfortunately, some poor decisions and food shortages (plus Mark's taking numerous bites out of my poor green algae) led to several of my poor amoebas dying and costing me huge amounts of points early on. I never really recovered from that and got my pseudopod handed to me for the second time (I was also dead last in our original session). Alton and Mark were racing flagella-and-flagella for a while there until Mark turned his Hungry Hungry Hippos-to-be against the peaceful yellow paramecium. Neither one of us were able to catch him after that, and he sailed to an easy victory while we fought a close battle for the bottom rung of the evolutionary ladder.

Played a private session of this at home last night with Kat, James, and Brett. For the third time, I finished dead last; Brett took the victory, and James just edged out Kat -- who was leading most of the game -- for second.

Why do I love this game so much even though I apparently suck at it in a huge way?!

Session 1: April 15, 2008
Time: 27 minutes (not including set-up and rules explanation)
Final Scores: Alton 50, Chip 54, Chris 80, Mark 76
Game Ratings: Alton 8, Chip 8, Chris 8, Mark 8

Following our session of Cuba, the four of us found ourselves with plenty of time left in the evening an a bunch of quality four-player games at our disposal. After passing it over for so long, we finally decided to let Through the Desert out to breathe; this was the first time playing this game for pretty much all of us, excepting one other play (presumably with his family) that Chip was only half-counting, but the game was simple enough that we veteran gamers picked it up in no time. There was a weird distribution of initial oases that led to several high-scoring zones and a couple of low-point wastelands:



The play was fast and furious, with each of us driving our Easter-basket camel herds towards point-scoring opportunities. Mark and Chip had their cyan herds clashing for superiority on one end of the map, while Alton and I cut each other off several times on the other half. Towards the end of the game there were several blockades in place and camels, camels everywhere. I ended the game after claiming a large central portion of the map and then placing the last cyan camel.



Each one of us took at least one of the longest herd scoring chips (with Mark claiming two, I believe), but it was my game-ending play that pushed me into the lead (while preventing several others from blocking off similar territories).



TtD made a good first impression on the group, earning easy 8s from all four of us. The game could have ended long before my final play, but we were all reluctant to pull the trigger until I finally decided to cut everyone off, which was definitely part of the game's charm; we probably could have prolonged the game at least five more minutes if we had felt generous.

Session 1: April 22, 2008
Time: 45 minutes
Final Scores: Alton 8, Chris 17, Mark 19
Game Ratings: Alton 7.5, Chris 8.5, Mark 7.5

Looking for something different, we decided to finally investigate Thurn and Taxis after collectively hearing a lot about it. We broke out the store copy and got to work setting things up and reading over the rules (this time is not included in the play time listed above). There was a little confusion once we finally got underway, but after a couple of rounds we were running like well-organized post offices (if not better). Things were pretty even for most of the game, and not really very memorable; Alton was the first to establish a foothold in each region, while Mark pushed the game into its final round by being the first to complete a seven-city route. After the final round ended it was basically the penalty for leftover houses that made a difference -- a penalty about which we were all completely unaware until it came time to actually do the scoring. That wound up costing Alton a lot of points, but I think Mark would have won anyway.



I think T&T made a good impression, although I suspect that my rating for it will come down with subsequent plays. There really doesn't seem to be a lot of variety, and I don't think the game has the legs to withstand a GotM treatement down the road, but it's solid enough to see play a couple of more times.

Session 1: April 29, 2008
Time: ?
Final Scores: Brett ?, James ?, Mark ?
Game Ratings: Brett ?, James ?, Mark ?

Uh... yeah. That's all the information I have here. I'm just going to go with the trend for that night and assume that Mark won until he comments otherwise.

Session 1: April 29, 2008
Time: (40ish minutes?)
Final Scores: Mark wins, Brett (2nd) & James (3rd) broke and/or unconscious
Game Ratings: Brett 9, James 6, Mark 7

Much ale was drunk, much gambling was done, but in the end Priestess Diedre (Mark) outlasted Gerki the Thief (Brett) and Zot the Mage (James).

Session 1: April 29, 2008
Time: 60 minutes
Final Scores: Wendy (win, presumably Traitor), Bobby/Rodney (lose)
Game Ratings: Bobby 10, Rodney 10, Wendy 10

I don't know what the Haunt was or what else happened here, but the game certainly seems to have won some new fans!

Session 1: April 29, 2008
Time: 22 minutes
Result: Players (Chip, Chris I, Chris N, and Gwen) LOSE as Scarlet Fever spreads across the world!

While all that other casual gaming was going on, those of us who had finished playing Cuba -- minus Alton, who had a prior commitment that saw him leave early -- decided to kick some virus hiney in Pandemic. The fact that viruses have no hineys to kick probably led to our ultimate downfall...

Without the Medic (What?! Who the heck attempts to cure four concurrent outbreaks without a medic?! Losers, that's who.), we were somehow able to quickly assemble the blue cure and eradicated that disease, then found cures for both red and yellow. While we were working on the black cure, however, sudden epidemics of the red virus started cropping up like wildfire and eventually overwhelmed us -- even though we had the cure! A medic would have been able to contain that problem and bought us time, but it was not meant to be.



Frustrated at being so close, we immediately reset for another attempt...

Session 2: April 29, 2008
Time: 35 minutes
Result: Players (Chip, Chris I, Chris N, and Gwen) LOSE as Scarlet Fever spreads across the world!

If that looks like a copy/paste job with some quick editing, there's a reason. Although we had a medic this time, we were without a dispatcher, which made getting around extremely difficult. To our credit, we cured the red, black, and blue viruses before the red cubes once again overwhelmed us (this time we had the medic, but he couldn't get to the problem area). The kicker was that I had six yellow cards in hand and was just waiting for my next turn to seal the deal. ARGH!

Game Ratings: Chip 9, Chris I 9, Chris N 10, Gwen 10

There's been talk of having Pandemic be our GotM down the road, but I don't know if I want to get beaten by a board game on a weekly basis. It's an awesome game and all, but it's so demoralizing...