2010 WBC - My First Geeklist
Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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Even though I have been a member of BGG since 2003, and visit the site almost daily, I have never done a Geeklist because I didn't think I could offer any meaningful content.
Well, I guess you gotta start somewhere, so I'll try and recap my trip to the 2010 WBC in Lancaster, PA.
Feel free to leave comments about games and experiences!
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1.
Board Game: Kremlin
[Average Rating:7.07 Overall Rank:371]
Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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The 2010 WBC is actually my second time there, last year being my first. In 2009 I went from Thursday to Sunday. This year we (My friends Dan, Mike and myself) decided to add a day and went down on Wednesday.
We left from my place in Oakville, Ontario (just outside Toronto) in the morning and after a smooth ride pulled into Lancaster around 5pm. We checked in at the Continental Inn, dropped our bags off in our room, and headed straight for the Lancaster Host to register.
After taking a quick walk around of the main convention rooms, I caught the end of the Kremlin demo and decided to jump right in and try my luck in the first heat at 6pm.
I had actually never played Kremlin before, but had read the rules a few weeks before and went through the Series Replay in an old edition of "The General". I placed most of my influence on politicians in the lowly "People" section, hoping to have them sneak into the ranks of the Politburo later in game. By the end of turn 7, 2 other players had already waved twice, and I was being shutout. But lo and behold, I was then able to control the Party Chief with my 10+ politician and wave in turns 8 and 9! After barely holding onto to the top stop in the final turn, I needed to roll a 7+ on a d20 to win the game. I rolled an 8! Woohoo! I was guaranteed to be at least an alternate for the final!
I found Kremlin to be a fascinating game. Why on earth has this not been reprinted? My rating - Around 9.
Our game ran a little long, and I hadn't eaten anything since lunch, so my friends and I went to Sonic (one of the only things open after 11pm on Wednesday) for a quick bite.
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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We got back to the Open Gaming room around midnight and decided to try out Mike's copy of Through the Ages. Dan and I had never played before, but Mike had and got us into the game pretty quick.
I found the game to be really interesting, but around 2:30am all of us began to fade from the long day, and we decided to abandon the game. Even though I was exhausted, I could tell this was a great game design, My provisional rating - At least an 8.
Time to get some sleep...
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3.
Board Game: Egizia
[Average Rating:7.57 Overall Rank:109]
Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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After breakfast on Thursday, Dan and I headed for Open Gaming while Mike went to play in a heat of Power Grid.
We found a copy of Egizia in the game library and decided to give it a go. This was another game that I had never played before. I pulled off a very close win. I thought it was a very solid game, and not very long (about an hour, even with rules explanation). I'd really like to try it out with 3 or 4 players. As it stands, I'll probably rate it around 7.5.
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4.
Board Game: Tikal
[Average Rating:7.40 Overall Rank:107]
Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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I had never played any of the games in the Kramer 'Mask' trilogy, so I went to the Tikal demo, hoping to learn enough of it to play in the following heat. The GM, Daniel Broh-Kahn, did a great job of teaching the game, so it was off to the tournament!
I played a 4-player game, with the advanced 'Auction' rule. Boy, this is a GREAT game. I can see how AP might be a problem, but that didn't happen at our table. Everyone did their turns at a decent pace. I finished 3rd, but had a great time. My rating - around 8.5
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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My friend Dan came in 4th at last years Enemy in Sight tournament and every since then I've been curious about learning this classic Avalon Hill card game.
The demo was taught by the GM, William Alderman. I gotta tell you, this was a very entertaining part of my WBC. William gave a great demo. You could obviously tell how much he loves this game, and it showed in the enthusiasm he gave in teaching it to us.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to schedule a game in any of the heats. Hopefully I'll get to play this soon.
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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I purchased D-Day at Omaha Beach last year at the WBC, and read through the rules, but I couldn't find the time to run through it in the last year. About a month before this years convention I contacted John Butterfield, the designer, and asked him if he was going to be demoing DDaOB again this year. He said that he was maybe going to the WBC, and if he did he would surely be demoing the game.
Well, I bumped into John on Thursday, and he remembered our conversation. We made arrangements to meet up in the Open Gaming room on Thursday night.
We sat down around 8pm with my friend Dan and I each taking a sector on the beach. All we were expecting was a quick run through of a few turns. John was unbelievably gracious with his time and walked us through almost the entire 1st scenario. He was still sitting with us after midnight! What a gentleman!
As for the game, this is an incredible design. I am a fan of solitaire wargames in general, and RAF (another of John's designs) in particular, but this may be the finest solitaire wargame design I've come across.
I also just read that DDaOB has just won the Charles S. Roberts Award for best WW2 game, and that John won the Lifetime Achievement Award. Well deserved! My rating - Easily a 9.5.
This was easily the highlight of my WBC. The only downside was that I didn't have any dinner other than a Twinkie and a Dr. Pepper! Spectacular!
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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On the other side of the coin, my friend Mike didn't have a great night. He is a big fan of the BSG game, and got a game going late on Thursday night in Open Gaming. Dan and I went back to our hotel, and when Mike arrived (around 3:30am) he told us that he just had the worst gaming experience. He had an absolute jerk at his table who completely ruined the game for everyone. I'm not going into details or naming names, but the guy was a GM, and acted like a complete douchebag. I guess there always has to be a rotten apple in the bunch.
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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Friday morning, time for the Hammer of the Scots tournament! I get paired with 4-time champ, George Seary. Ouch. Well, I guess it's time to see what I actually know about this game. Now, I'm not a total noob, but I've never played against anyone that plays the game regularly. I bid E2, and George bid S1, so I played the English with Edward not being able to be drawn in turn 1.
So how did it go for me? I was completely crushed by George's Scots. Even with drawing Edward twice and wintering twice, I could get nothing going. I resigned in the 6th turn. It was truly impressive to see George's level of skill in this game.
I gotta say, George was a great guy. He actually sat with me after the game for around 20 minutes. I got a great lesson in opening plans for both sides.
I didn't play any more games of HotS because the Kremlin final was coming up and I wanted to be available as an alternate.
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9.
Board Game: Kremlin
[Average Rating:7.07 Overall Rank:371]
Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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The vendors were open by now, so I walked around and shopped while I waited the Kremlin final.
1pm - Unfortunately, every finalist showed up. Oh well.
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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Dan and I grabbed a quick bite at Cafe Jay, and we started up a conversation with another gamer, Britt. Britt was a great guy, with similar gaming interests as Dan and myself. We hit it off, and decided to go to Open Gaming and give Through the Ages another run through. We agreed that we were all 'on the clock', and if one of us needed to go to a tournament, or dinner, that we would abandon the game.
Well, other than Mike replacing Dan part way through, we all stayed for the entire game. 6 hours. Whew! I really enjoyed it, even though I came in last by a fair margin. It was a big, epic journey. My Rating - 9, now that I've gotten a full game under my belt.
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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Mike, Dan, and I went to Fuddruckers for dinner. Great burgers! Then it was back to Open Gaming and I wanted to play one of my favourites, Tigris & Euphrates. Dan had played once before, but Mike had never tried it. I got everyone quickly up on the rules.
Unfortunately, we got half through the game when Mike started steadily whining that he hated the game. Enough so that I didn't want to continue. Ugh.
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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Britt strolled by as we were setting up Kingsburg, so we invited him to sit down with us for a game. He was the only one who had played before, so he got us up to speed quickly.
The game moved along at a good pace, but by the end I was almost asleep on my feet. I don't even remember who won! As for my opinion on the game, I didn't feel there was a lot of tension. I would be willing to give it another go, but for now my rating is around a 5.
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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Late night gaming nights took their toll on me and I couldn't rouse myself out of bed for the 9am We the People tournament. That'll learn me...
When I finally got to the Lampeter, Dan was playing in the Hell of Stalingrad tournament. Someone had set up an uber-tricked out version of the game, complete with full terrain and miniatures, and Dan was using this in his game. I had to stand around a while just to admire it....
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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I signed myself up for the final heat of the Puerto Rico tournament. I've played PR a ton of times, and I thought that I had reasonable chances of doing well. I was seated with 3 other guys, and we had a very relaxed game, with some good laughs. End result - I came in last by a hefty margin. Wow. That's what I get for jumping into the shark tank...
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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For my last tournament, I decided on giving the final heat of T&E a go. Considering that I had been crushed in my past few tournament games, I had no expectations. And lo and behold, I won! Maybe I'm not a total pylon in this game!
Shortly after was the Semi-final. 3 tables of 4, with the winners going to the final along with the best 2nd place finish. At my table were last years 2nd place winner, Patrick Shea, and the 2005 overall winner, Matt Calkins. A tough table. It was a very tense and quiet game, with a lot of treasures being picked up early. At about the 30 minute mark I had the opportunity of ending the game early by picking up a treasure with 2 external conflicts that I was reasonably sure I could win. I went for it, and won both conflicts, but it was good enough for only 2nd place.
After checking with the GM, I found out that my 2nd place finish was not good enough for the final, but at least I got 6th place overall. Woohoo!
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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And what would the WBC be without their Saturday Night Main Event, 'Slapshot'! Even though we had no clue what were doing, Dan, Mike and I jumped in at a table.
We sat down at Andy Lewis's 'Open Hand' table. We were, of course, thoroughly booed by the rest of the tables! After teaching us the game in about 1 minute, we went at it! Lots of trash talking, and tons of laughs. The playoffs saw Dan against Mike, and Andy against his son, Wes. The final saw Dan against Andy, where Andy's powerhouse team won it all! Good times.
As a game, Slapshot doesn't have much to it. I would rate it around 7. But put into the context of the event, it is an easy 10. We all had a great time.
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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One last time to the Open Gaming room. We found Britt, and he offered to teach us Thunderstone. We got up and running quickly. After playing the game for about 2 hours, we checked to see if we were doing something wrong, since the game should easily be done within an hour, and we still had half of the monster deck to go through. We realized we were playing with the entire monster deck! Oops! We ended the game right there. I can't remember who won, but it surely wasn't me.
And that was our last game of the 2010 WBC.
Edit: Oh yeah, My Rating! I liked this game alot, probably even more so than Dominion, so I'll give it probably an 8.
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Bobby B. Basa
Canada
Oakville
Ontario
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On Sunday morning I walked around a little to watch a few of the finals, and hit the Vendors Room for final purchases.
For full disclosure, here`s what I bought:
Julius Caesar
Liberty Roads
Wilderness War Mounted Map
A Victory Denied
ASL Journal 2
ASL Journal 8
ASL Action Pack 6: A Decade of War
Out of the Attic #2
Zulus on the Ramparts
The Lost Cause
No Retreat
Updated Charts and OOB for Russia Beseiged
No Thanks
And that's it! I had a great time!
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Posted Tue Aug 10, 2010 7:01 am
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