Weekend Gaming: Dart Days

I spent the weekend at a dart tournament with Phil, Louis, and Ryan.  While darts was the primary focus, I was able to get a couple games played.  Nick and I played Glory to Rome Thursday evening, and then we followed that up with Phase 10 and Euchre with Gina, Laura, and Dana.  Nick won Phase 10 handily with some ridiculous hands.  He had zero points going into phase five, and his phase six had him drawing six Wilds in a row off the top of the deck.

Darts went well, though I played poorly in the Singles event.  Phil and I did alright in Cricket and managed to take 4th in 301.  Ryan and Louis did the best of us and took 1st in their Cricket division.

Following the events on Saturday, Louis and I ended up finding a group playing Cards Against Humanity.  We joined that game and played until the wee hours of the morning before calling it for the weekend.  All in all, a great time.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Here’s to 2014 and 2015 to Come

We’ve reached the end of 2014.

The holiday week has been pretty crazy.  I received Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Panamax, and the Clash of Cultures: Civilizations expansion from my family.  Gina and I played Castles on Christmas Day and had a lot of fun, even though we played with the entire deck instead of just the 22 cards intended for two players.

Then, over the weekend we were visiting my family and played plenty of party games.  We played Cards Against Humanity all night Friday with my sister and brother-in-law and some of their friends.  Then there was some of Cranium and Rummy 500 on Saturday.  It was great to hang out with them and the kids had a blast playing with their new toys.

On Sunday Joe wanted to get a game in, so he and Dana came over for Takenoko.  We followed that by teaching them Castles of Mad King Ludwig, which they both loved.

Finally on Monday, Joe had been hankering for another game of Brass.  He and Kevin joined me and I managed to win by building a bunch of cotton mills to build my income early, and then building mills and ports in the rail phase.  I was helped by Kevin when he decided to build over Joe’s steel mill instead of one of mine on the last turn – otherwise Joe would have taken the win.

Now for some reflections on 2014

I played 40 different games a total of 102 times (~2.5 plays/game)

I had 2 dimes (played 10+ times):
Dominion
Flash Point: Fire Rescue

I had 3 Nickels (played 5-9 times):
Caverna: The Cave Farmers
Eminent Domain
Hanabi

My favorite new game published in 2014 (so far) is: Castles of Mad King Ludwig

My most anticipated game of 2015 is: No clue. I haven’t even looked at upcoming games, since my backlog is too high.

My most anticipated expansion of 2015 is: Terra Mystica: Fire & Ice – I’m still trying to get my hands copy of this.

My biggest disappointment of 2014 was: Snowdonia – It wasn’t published in 2012, but I didn’t play it until 2014. After hearing a lot of good, I found it to be more of the same.

Until next time, happy gaming and have a wonderful 2015!

Weekend Gaming: Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We spent the weekend with family and had a great time. The only gaming was some Cards Against Humanity on Thanksgiving eve. We had a blast playing with my sister and her husband.

We did do some shopping on Friday, while my aunt took the kids to the hotel for swimming. Then, after returning home on Saturday, we started decorating for Christmas. It was a great weekend and lots of fun with family.

Until next time, happy gaming.

Weekend Gaming: Another Birthday Bash

We headed out of town this weekend to celebrate Laura’s birthday over the weekend.  Joe, Phil, and Dana also joined in on the festivities.  On Friday night, after the majority of the party had quieted down, we started in with the board games.  Gina and I showed up while they were finishing up 7 Wonders.  We then setup Trajan and Agricola.

Gina played Agricola with Phil, Nick, and Laura.  I played Agricola with Dana and Joe.  I had intended to use wheat to feed my family and then gather sheep to take advantage of my loom.  Sadly that didn’t pan out.  I never got the wheat rolling, and ended up using my Manufacturer to get the Joinery and Pottery cheaply to help feed my meager family.  Joe and Dana were both grabbing sheep, so I missed out on them.

Joe and Dana both managed to fill their farms, but Joe had played a ton of Improvements for points.  I managed to score 33, but Joe ended up with the win.

While the others finished Trajan, we played a quick game of Dominion.  We had a fairly expensive selection of cards, but the 6 Gold Village that gives another card when it is purchased was available, so that and the Highway went very quickly.  Joe was using the Highways to get a couple Provinces, but wasn’t drawing many cards, so it was hard to sustain.  I had picked up a couple Margraves, so it took a little longer to get my engine running.  It got rolling, though, and I was able start getting points, and even managed a couple multiple Province turns with extra buys.  That was enough to take the victory.

We finished the night with Cards Against Humanity.  Everyone had a blast, and while I only won a few hands, it was entertaining all around.

On Saturday, Gina and I finally went to see Guardians of the Galaxy.  It was awesome all around.  I loved the characters, the special effects, and the music.  I can’t wait to see it again.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Away from Home

We were away from home this weekend so Gina could run in a 10k race.  While we were out, we were able to play some games with Nick, Laura, Dana and Phil.

Friday night was dominated by a game of Cards Against Humanity with everyone.  It was crazy fun with plenty of inappropriateness to go around.  Then on Saturday, Nick, Phil and I played Clash of Cultures while the kids were all playing together.  It was a very peaceful game, with only Nick and I building any armies to defend ourselves from barbarians.  I upgraded my economics advances to grab Taxation.  With that I was able to essentially ignore the happiness of my cities, which was good because I was hit with both an earthquake and a volcano during the game.

Nick and Phil decided to push the Democratic route and both were picking up a bunch of cheep resources with Economic Liberties.  Nick was struggling a bit to find his groove, and it wasn’t helped that he spent resources building armies to fight barbarians and then failing twice.  Phil, on the other hand, managed to build two Wonders, while I was only able to build one.  He also built the first, just before I could, robbing me of a potential objective.

When the game ended, Phil had just barely squeaked past me, winning 45 to 43.  Nick brought up the rear with 32.

After a break for dinner, Nick and I started the evening by learning his new game, Trains.  It was definitely an interesting take on the deck-building genre.  Very reminiscent of Dominion, but the ability to focus on the board rather than just point cards makes for some interesting decisions.  I was able to build more stations, making my track more valuable in the end.

 

Dana had called it a night by this point, so Nick, Laura, Gina and I played a quick game of Love letter, won by Gina followed by Phase 10.  I was getting terrible luck with my opening draws, and was well behind when Laura phased out for the win.

Phil had returned and we finished the night with The Resistance.  I was a rebel, and got us off to a great start, succeeding the first mission with Gina.  Gina then sent Nick and I on a mission with herself, for the second success.  Phil failed to put together a good team, while Nick sent Laura with us, resulting in a failure.  Laura put Phil on the team for another failure, but I was able to seal the deal for the rebels, sending Nick, Gina and Myself on the final successful mission.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Up Too Late

My wife and I headed out of town this weekend as a Valentine’s Day gift.  We ended up spending both Friday and Saturday playing games until the wee hours of the morning with Nick and Laura.

On Friday, we taught them Village and Nick took us all to town.  I was trying to travel with some City Council support, and it just didn’t work.  Nick was able to dominate the market and picked up a ton of points there.

We followed that up with a couple games of Tsuro, which was quite entertaining and quick.  A great filler game with plenty of thought.  The night ended with some bid euchre.  I got off to a hot start and quickly managed to get 19 points, but then stalled.  The rest of them pulled up close and everyone was positive within a hand or two of the finish when finally managed to snag the last two points I needed to take the win.

On Saturday, Joe was able to join us as he was in town as well.  I had picked up a copy of CO2, but hadn’t finished reading the rules, so that would have to wait.  When we arrived, Nick, Laura and Joe were in the midst of a came of Pillars of the Earth.  When they finished, we broke out Cards Against Humanity.  It was a great game full of silliness.  Fun was had by all.  The final haiku round was great, and I failed to read the winning haiku seriously as I cracked up halfway through.  I have a picture of the final haiku, it is read from the bottom up.  I do apologize for the raunchy nature of the card, that is kind of a recurring theme in the game.

After that, we settled down with a game of Tsuro and then Joe convinced us to stick around and play a game of Village.  I was trying to use the Council and Market to maximize my points while aging my family quickly.  Gina was disrupting my plans in the Market, though, so I wasn’t able to capitalize as much as I’d like.  Joe and Laura were doing the Church thing.  Travel was pretty much ignored until later in the game.  Joe had wanted to play in the market as well, but with Gina and I there, he ended up using his wagons to travel instead.

I had to force the end game, as I knew I wasn’t going to score much more, while Joe was racking up points each turn.  It ended up not being enough, though and Joe still managed to beat me by nearly 20 points.

 

Until next time, happy gaming!