Weekend Gaming: Anniversary Edition

My wife and I celebrated our anniversary over the weekend, and our friends were in town for the occasion.  On Friday, Nick, Laura, Gina, and I played a game of Castles of Mad King Ludwig.  It was a tight game throughout, with plenty of competition for the bonus card and basement rooms that were fairly plentiful.  I had managed to take a commanding lead on the first goal for most square footage of activity rooms.  I was was also in the running for most basement rooms, but Laura overtook me late in the game.  The surprising one for me was the number of external exits that I wasn’t really focusing on.  My bonus cards fit well with my game plan and ended up leading to a victory.

On Saturday, the four of us started the evening with Flash Point: Fire Rescue using the expansion laboratory board.  Things started off well, clearing out a couple hazmat items and rescuing one victim.  Then things devolved quickly.  We weren’t able to extinguish the fire on the upper level quickly enough and it started a series of explosions, quickly reducing the structural integrity of the building to the point of collapse.

Joe joined us at that point for The Manhattan Project.  I had decided to use espionage as much as possible, mostly focusing on Joe’s strong mines.  I had picked up a nice university that provided either engineers or scientists, so I quickly expanded my workforce and picked up some decent uranium bombs.  Joe was expanding his airforce and bombed my buildings, but not before I was able to quickly build and load a small bomb.  I was still spying regularly, though, and was able to get close to building the bomb I needed to win.  Joe sensed I was close and bombed everyone’s uranium plants, making it difficult for me to finish.  He didn’t count on me having a backup bomb that I was able to build and then load into a hastily built bomber to grab the win.  Laura revealed her hand and was only about one turn away from building two bombs and taking the victory as well.

We finished the night with Hawaii.  After teaching Nick and Laura we were off and running.  Joe started off by buying the boat and surfer bonus point god, but I got to the actual boats first, buying two.  Gina grabbed a spear hut, while Laura focused on fruit.  Nick was running all over the island building small villages for his kahunas.  With my boats and a few extra fruit and foot resources, I was able to concentrate primarily on visiting the islands.  I did get the god that increased the end of round bonuses along with a couple surfers, so I was pulling in points that way as well.  The final scores were fairly close between Gina and I, but my large village provided more bonus points to hold the lead.  Joe pulled in second.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Tabletop Day

I was unable to celebrate Tabletop Day on Saturday in any organized fashion, though Joe was running an event.  I have been busy with family things and Nick and his family were in town.

I did get to play a few games, starting with Clash of Cultures on Friday with Nick.  It was my first play with the Civilizations expansion, and Nick’s unfamiliarity with the game proved to be unfair.  He was playing as the Celts and founding a bunch of settlements, but wasn’t defending them.  I was focusing on boating with Carthage, and Nick didn’t realize that I could sail pretty much anywhere once I learned Navigation.  He left two coastal cities undefended and I was able to sail in and claim them as my own.  After that it was pretty much a forgone conclusion and we called the game.

Then on Saturday, Laura, Nick, and I kicked things off with Castles of Mad King Ludwig.  I had a decent castle going, but I was trying to complete the “one of every room size” bonus card.  I was able to complete it, but at the cost of passing up on some high scoring rooms.  Nick had a much better flow, and was able to snag a couple extra bonus cards that helped propel him to victory.

We finished the evening with Firefly.  We were playing the Desperadoes story, trying to avoid the authorities and accumulate 15k credits before retiring.  We were each doing our own thing.  Laura was collecting crew to prepare for a big job.  Nick was gathering a small crew and started missions early.  I gathered a crew of mostly companions and planned to talk my way through trouble.  Things were going well in general, though I did get ripped off on my high paying negotiation mission and only got paid half of what I deserved due to some trouble.

Then the Reavers hit.  Nick and I got hit hard when I drew the Reaver attack card.  The deck was shuffled and I got hit again immediately.  It was looking ugly, but Nick and I finally managed to escape the outer rim, but not before he was hit again, costing him two more of his crew.

I finally made it to my mission location and was able to waltz through, thanks to a handy fake ID.  That provided the last few credits I needed to end the game.  Nick made one last push to close the gap, but was hindered by some Alliance entanglements and came up just short.

Until next time, happy gaming!

 

Weekend Gaming: Peppers, Castles, and Caves

Joe, Louis, and I tried out a couple new games Saturday afternoon.  We started with Joe’s copy of Scoville, a game of planting peppers and making the best chili.  It was a lot of fun with some neat mechanics.  I was able to position my farmer to monopolize the rare ghost peppers that are needed for the highest scoring recipes.  I created a bunch of different recipes and ended up running away with the win.

We followed that with my copy of Biblios.  I was collecting brown cards and had a little bit of green and orange.  I had pushed the value of the brown cards up, but then when a #4 in brown came up for auction I wimped out.  Louis outbid me and ended up taking control of brown and the victory.  Joe had blue and red, but they were pretty low value colors.

Then, Saturday evening Kevin joined us for a couple more, starting with Caverna.  I was going third in the initial turn order and watched Joe and Kevin take the two spots that I had planned on focusing on.  I ended up starting towards a mine, but failed to follow through and Louis took the lead in that.  After that I was struggling to find a good way to feed my family and really get anything going.  Louis had a ton of donkeys and ruby mines all provided by two well-armed dwarves, Kevin was farming like crazy, and Joe had a huge family of armed dwarves and was concentrating on bonus tiles.  Joe’s bonuses ended up being the difference as he broke the 100 point barrier.

The final game of the weekend was Castles of Mad King Ludwig.  I bought as many activity rooms as possible, since they were needed for the end game bonuses and one of my bonus cards.  The big swing in the game, though, happened with the final card.  Louis had a bunch of the small, round rooms, while I had a bunch of the small rectangles.  Each pile only had a single room left and would provide a big boost if depleted.  The final card ended up being a small rectangle, netting me a 10 point bonus and sealing the game for me.  I managed to win with nearly 100 points.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Castles and Lords

It was just Kevin and Louis this Saturday for games.  We started off with Castles of Mad King Ludwig.  Kevin and I were fighting over the utility and food rooms, while Louis was building a “frat castle” with nothing but sleeping rooms, activity rooms, and a dungeon.  Louis built a sizable lead with the help of his basement rooms, and his bonus cards just added to it.  I lost by a large margin.

We followed that with Lords of Waterdeep.  I was trying to complete a bunch of easy quests to satisfy my baron.  Louis was building tons of buildings and Kevin was focused more on high scoring quests.  I did manage to complete 13 quests, but Kevin had nearly as many with much higher scores.  His baron also rewarded him for his high point missions and he ran away with the lead, scoring over 200 points.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Bavaria and Britain

It was just Kevin, Joe, and I for games on Saturday and we kicked things off with Castles of Mad King Ludwig.  I jumped to an early lead with some large recreation rooms, but then stalled.  Kevin bought the basement room I was hoping to get, and Joe grabbed my back-up, so I never built a single basement.  Joe was racking up points with the purple rooms and Kevin had a bit of everything.  It looked like Joe might run away with the game, but the gap was quickly closed with the end game bonuses.  Kevin’s bonus cards ended up being the difference maker and he took the victory.

We followed that with Railways of Great Britain.  It ended up that Kevin had the North, I had the center, and Joe ruled the South.  Joe and I were fighting over a couple bonus cards, while Kevin just kept delivering and increasing the capability of his train.  He had a nice loop from Edinburgh to London and back, and was making 4-6 point deliveries consistently.  It was pretty close, but Joe and I couldn’t overcome Kevin’s deliveries.  I was hoping for second place, but Joe’s baron was worth 8 points to my 5, and that left me in last.

We finished the evening with Brass.  I didn’t have a real strong plan in the first phase of the game, mainly trying to set up some coal and positioning for phase two.  The best play for me was probably sneaking two cotton mills onto the board and tanking the external market before Joe was able to ship.

In phase two I ended up with a bunch of Liverpool and port cards, so after building a decent network of rail links, I focused on building as many ports as possible.  I ended up with four of them along with a few more cotton mills.  Joe was forced to use my ports to ship his cotton at the end of the game, providing me quite a few points.  Kevin was building boats, and managed to get two of them built, but he was lacking links.  In the final scoring, Joe had the most points from his links, while Kevin had a ton from his buildings.  I had the best of both, though, and managed to come away with the win.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Castles, Caylus, and Firefly

Most everyone was busy Saturday night, so Gina and decided to play Castles of Mad King Ludwig.  Gina was scoring quite a from the purple rooms, but I has a nice thing going with the L shaped rooms.  I managed to build every one of them so I received the bonus for the empty pile along with my bonus card for the same thing.  Gina had bonus cards for nearly everything she built as well, and we split the royal favors; she won for most square footage of hallways, while I had the most basement rooms.  After totaling everything up, the score was tied until we realized that the supply of stairs was also empty and needed to be scored.  My extra stairs ended up being the difference.

Joe was interested in a game at that point, so came over for Caylus.  I didn’t really have a strong plan, but I was trying to build as many buildings as possible.  I was doing alright, but had to switch things up about halfway through.  Gina was focused on contributing to the castle, while Joe was jousting and taking advantage of the favors.  I had stockpiled some cloth, so I began jousting in an attempt to get to the point where I could built the residential buildings.  I was successful in that, but it was far too little, too late.  Joe was in a position to build prestige buildings, and although I was able to build the castle, it wasn’t enough.  I ended up in third, while Joe took the win.

Then on Sunday, Gina, Jax, and I played my new copy of Firefly: the Game.  It took a bit to get rolling.  Jax didn’t want to do anything evil, so he was looking for all the legal jobs he could get.  I started off with some simple deliveries before stopping at the Bazaar for goods and crew.  I had a strong crew with Jayne’s Hat, a fancy tie, and a fake ID.  I was ready to roll.  Gina was pretty much working delivery missions, and Jax had found one crime job to do.  He was having a tough time making trouble.  He didn’t have a ton of resources, but he was lucky.  He managed to roll two sixes in a row to complete the job, and shortly after had the funds needed to win the game.  He just needed to cross the galaxy – while short on fuel – before Gina or I could turn get to Ezra to do the same.  He had the advantage of turn order, and made the trip safely to claim victory.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Welcome to 2015

Joe, Kevin, and I got the new year rolling Saturday with Castles of Mad Kind Ludwig.  Joe was building as many Utility rooms as he could get his hands on — paying a premium for most of them.  I had a few basement rooms, and a bunch of activity rooms.  My bonus cards rewarded hallways and corridors, but I didn’t have many opportunities to capitalize on that.  I was doing well on points throughout the game, but when it came to score the bonus cards Joe had us beat by a bunch.

Brass finished the night, and Joe and Kevin were both developing early.  I was able to build Ironworks to take advantage of the demand, and then finished the first phase with a couple cotton mills and ports to increase my income.  I started the rail phase with quite a few ports and a coal mine available to quickly build from.  I continued to build ports and then eventually built into more cotton mills.  Joe had developed to his level four cotton mills and built them in Colne before I could get there.  I ended up in Macclesfield and Stockport instead.  Things were very close at the end, while I had plenty of money to spend, there just wasn’t much to build.

Joe and I had nearly identical scores from our links, but he had me beat by two points after scoring his buildings and cash.

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!