I got to game night late (8pm) for various reasons. Most everyone was in a game of 7 Wonders except Kenny. He was setting up Command & Colors: Napoleonics for he and Chris. Once he got it set up we played a game of Parade. He beat me pretty handily. Around then the 7 Wonders game finished. Adam, Shawn, Keith, and I started a game of Homesteaders. 
I’m not sure I did a good job of explaining the game but my fears were alayed soon enough as Adam jumped out to what seemed to be a substantial lead. He and Shawn went back and forth for the first several auctions. Shawn picked up some good properties early and got a $ engine working well. He was taking in 5-7 silver each turn at first then 9-12 by game end. Adam picked up 5 debt tokens by the fifth round but had some good properties for it. Then he built the bank and those debt tokens began to disappear. Meanwhile Keith and I were struggling to keep up. Keith picked up a couple of workers to get some income coming in. He started gaining some victory points with the meatpacking plant. Early on I realized that I was not going to do well competing for properties as I could not get any $ or trade tokens coming in. So I decided to go strictly for victory points. I worked up the railroad development track and also was able to get the church. That earned me 10 vp and generated 2 vp per turn. That seemed to be pretty weak to me, especially since I only had 2 workers on my gold mine. So I was getting some gold each turn and was able to buy some resources once in a while. The last auction was a battle with Adam for the 6 vp charity token. He had the lawyer and was upping each time. He finally bowed out at $12. I had to take a debt token to pay but I got it. That enabled me to take the lead. The final scores were 41, 37 – Adam, 32 – Shawn, 28(?)-Keith. My second win at Hypermind!
Next up was Hansa Teutonica. Chris has been raving about this one so I was eager to play. He set it up for Keith, Adam, himself, and me and explained it to Keith and I. It took a minute or two but I got a control of a couple of important cities and kept scoring from them. I also started putting a chain together. Keith was really working his cube bag, enabling him to replenish his supply each turn. Adam was having some trouble getting a strategy going. But Chris was eating the special tokens up. This enabled him to take extra actions at key times or wide a threatening opponent (usually me) from my strategy of getting a long chain of controlled cities. In the end, Chris’ accumulation of the special tokens did us in. I did not realize that they were worth points at the end so I didn’t pay them much attention. Keith was able to get control of the central chain of cities for 7 vp. And he activated his key to get a multiplier on these to get second place. I came in a respectable third.
It was a good if short night. Parade is fun and one I will be picking up. I was very glad to get Homesteaders to the table again and introduce it to some new people. Everyone rated it an 8 and want me to continue bringing it. I enjoyed Hansa Teutonica. I didn’t think I would but I was surprised. It is going on the buy list. Only downside is that I did not get to play Eminent Domain.
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Tuesday night I got in the following games:
Roll Through The Ages – this one just hasn’t clicked with me yet. I want to like it but it’s just not doing it for me.
Macao – I walked in the store and Adam, who was playing Ghost Stories, says ‘We’ll play Macao when I’m done here.” Macao is so great. Lose constantly but I still love it.
Pandemic – My number two game – it was a short game as the outbreaks broke us. I really like it and need to play it more.
Dream Factory – first time play – it was a pretty good auction game and I did ok. Next time I’ll get started earlier though.
It was a good night.
I’m playing several games online either at Yucata.de or SpielByWeb. On Yucata I’m playing Atta Ants with Eric and losing again. This is another one that just eludes me. I’m also playing Hey! That’s My Fish with Chris. I’m up by one at the moment but he has more penguins. And I’ve started a game of Stone Age. I want to learn this one but boy is it slow online.
Over on SpielByWeb, Chris, Kenny, Steve, and I are playing Wallenstein. And it seems to be gang up on Tom time. I’m down to only 5 provinces. The cube tower is hateful. I was attacked by Steve with 5 armies against my 12 and I lost!! That just ain’t right.
Played a lot of Halo3 with Z too.
That’s it.
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It was Game Night at Hypermind so I played some games.
First was Pandemic with the mutation variant. There were five of us and we won in a tight game. This is such a fun game. Why is it so fun? It’s intense. It is ever changing. It sneaks up on you. You’re working on one disease then bam! another one outbreaks suddenly and you’re in a crisis. There is a time limit. It’s hard. It is one of the best designed games I’ve played. Each play is different. And adding the On The Brink expansion just makes it better. Everyone should own it.
Next up was Princes of Florence. This is a thinky game. I like thinky games. Most of the time I lose but I still like them. I was doing pretty good. My initial hand worked well together. Only the buildings were different. So I thought I was in good shape. And I was until the second to the last turn. I had 4 works in place and was in third place of five. And I had a 19 point work in my hand ready to go. I forgot that I couldn’t build buildings next to each other with only one builder!! So I couldn’t do the work!!!! So What to do?? I lose. I ended with 2 Prestige Points cards that were worthless. The last Freedom had been bought out from under me in the previous round. And because of my forgetful self I lost the Lake which would have given me 8 points, enough to get me into 4th. Argh!
Next up was a 7 player game of Bang!. I had played Bang! once and liked it. And was glad to be able to get in another game. The first outlaw blew herself up with dynamite. The second revealed himself soon after and went out several hands later as Vulture Sam began blasting him with his Volcanic. I was the last outlaw. Great name for a Western. We lost. Vulture Sam had a mean on for me and made it his goal in life to make sure that I died. I almost got him. His bigger hand was my undoing as he held back a Beer to give him a life after out duel. Come to think of it, he played that on my turn. I had played the Duel card I think. Can he do that? Oh well it was a blast. The cool thing about this game is that people role play and get into character. Lots of fun. And Kenny has Ennio Morricone music playing through out.
The last game was just Chris, Kenny, and I. Chris was itching to play Pandemic with the Bioterrorist so that’s what we did. It really changes the game. The BT takes his turns after EACH of the other players take their turn. So he gets double turns in this case. And the way he infects a city is different. He moves in secret too. This is a very cool twist on the game that we will play again. Kenny and I lost when we ran out of cards in the draw pile. It was huge fun though.
All images are from GamerChris and are used with permission.
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I’m not sure I did a good job of explaining the game but my fears were alayed soon enough as Adam jumped out to what seemed to be a substantial lead. He and Shawn went back and forth for the first several auctions. Shawn picked up some good properties early and got a $ engine working well. He was taking in 5-7 silver each turn at first then 9-12 by game end. Adam picked up 5 debt tokens by the fifth round but had some good properties for it. Then he built the bank and those debt tokens began to disappear. Meanwhile Keith and I were struggling to keep up. Keith picked up a couple of workers to get some income coming in. He started gaining some victory points with the meatpacking plant. Early on I realized that I was not going to do well competing for properties as I could not get any $ or trade tokens coming in. So I decided to go strictly for victory points. I worked up the railroad development track and also was able to get the church. That earned me 10 vp and generated 2 vp per turn. That seemed to be pretty weak to me, especially since I only had 2 workers on my gold mine. So I was getting some gold each turn and was able to buy some resources once in a while. The last auction was a battle with Adam for the 6 vp charity token. He had the lawyer and was upping each time. He finally bowed out at $12. I had to take a debt token to pay but I got it. That enabled me to take the lead. The final scores were 41, 37 – Adam, 32 – Shawn, 28(?)-Keith. My second win at Hypermind!
