Gathering of Friends 2004 Report

by Susan Rozmiarek
I have finally gotten my Gathering of Friends report written and posted. It includes my impression of the event itself as well as the many games I played.

Check it out:

Gathering of Friends 2004

Gathering of Friends pictures

by Ed Rozmiarek
Susan and I recently attended Alan Moon's Gathering of Friends in Columbus, OH. This was the first time we have been able to attend and had a great time. We were able to spent some time with many gaming friends and were able to meet several people we have only "spoken" with on the internet. We also met many people we didn't know before going. You might go to these events to play the games, but the people really make it a time to remember.

I have posted some pictures from the event in our picture gallery. They can be found in our Gathering Gallery. We'll post more about the games we got to play (including many new ones) when we catch up from being away. Until then, enjoy the pictures.

Session Report for April 8, 2004

by Susan Rozmiarek

 

The UPS guy dropped off a box from Game Surplus a mere two hours before game time, containing such goodies as Alexandros and Ticket to Ride. Ed and I were both able to peruse the very simple Ticket to Ride rules with the plan of roping the first players through the door into a game. One of first was Mark, back from a business trip to Japan and bearing some very interesting and very cute raccoon candy.

Ticket to Ride

Wow. What a fabulous game. As soon as it ended I wanted to play it again right away, which is very unusual for me. It is very simple and not all that deep, but it created such painful turn angst that we found ourselves impatiently moving each other along, hardly able to wait for our turns, a sign of a very good game.

Days of Wonder has once again done a supreme job with the presentation and quality of components. The map is enormous, almost like a large print version of Union Pacific or Santa Fe Rails. The plastic train cars all come separated by color in ziplock bags, including a separate bag of extras. The art is super and the cards have that nice linen weave finish. Very nice, indeed.

The rules are incredibly simple, yet the decisions can be agonizing at times. You have to choose between claiming routes before somebody else can claim them, or collecting the cards that are needed to claim the routes. To add to the tension, you are also trying to connect secret destinations, which will get you points at the end of the game if you are successful, or take away points if you are not. The game reminds me slightly of TransAmerica with the same additive quality, but having many more decisions. In TransAmerica, the little bit of tension comes with hoping the other players lay their track such that it helps you connect your cities. In Ticket to Ride it is the opposite. You gamble with your decisions and sweat out the other players’ turns, hoping they don’t lay their track such that they ruin your plans. The tension here is much greater and very enjoyable in a painful sort of way. This is simply a fantastic game.

I started out the game by grabbing the short connections in the central area that were needed to connect one pair of my destinations easily. The other pair, Seattle and Los Angeles, was on the west coast and I held off claiming those routes, as nobody else seemed to be interested in that area. About midgame, I had my two destination cards fulfilled and chose to draw another. I got extremely lucky and drew one that overlapped one of my others, giving me instant points. I then tried to work on building the longest continuous route, but a key blocking move by Mike spoiled my chances. With that plan ruined, I concentrated on just collecting cards to claim larger routes, particularly the pink ones, as I noticed nobody else was choosing this color. Rick, however, was not only able to claim the longest route bonus, but also connect some very high value destinations and he won the game handily.

Results: Rick 124, Susan 96, Ed 82, Clark 78, Mike 58

Mike, Susan, Clark, Rick and Ed try out the recently released Ticket to Ride.

Midway though Ticket to Ride.

Ed and I had to take some time to resolve some issues with our kids, so we missed getting in on the start of the next games. We decided to give a few two-player games a whirl.

Coda

This is a very light deduction game. There is a lot of luck in it but it is very short and the bit of brainpower required makes it a pleasant filler. We played it twice, with each of us winning once. I have a hunch it plays better with more players.

10 Days in Africa

I love the challenge of putting together a route, but I had yet to win a game of this. This time I got really lucky with my initial card draws and was able to piece together about half of my route at the very start. The middle got a little muddled but then a few key cards came up and I was able to sort it out for my first win. I love the puzzle-like feel of this game and plan to pick up the others in the series as they come out.

Cloud 9

We needed something light that could handle six players to close the evening with. This whimsical, push-your-luck favorite was perfect. I ended up with a large hand of blue and green cards for most of the game, causing the balloon to crash early on my turn a couple of times to the astonishment of the others. Ed held the lead for most of the game and it came down to a tight finish between him and one of our newest attendees, Francisca.

I’m glad to see that this game is going to be republished by Out of the Box Games. It is an excellent family game and a decent filler.

Francisca 55, Ed 51, Mark/Susan 45 Peter 29, Mike 24

Other games played: Ra, Oh, Pharaoh

A third table in action tonight! Jon, Mike, Clark, Robert and Rick play the classic Ra.

Mark, Doug, Robert and Roxana play Oh Pharaoh!.

Hmmm?? What can it be?!? Mark brought this back from Japan

Just too cute eat!

For more pictures from this gaming session and others, see our Gaming Picture Gallery.

Formula Dé April Race

by Ed Rozmiarek
Time flies. It's already April and time for our fourth race of the season. This past Sunday found us racing at Nürburgring in Germany. The track does not have many long straights and did not offer many chances for fifth gear. There was a lot of corner to corner racing.

Today turned out to be "Ladies Day" at the track. Susan and Roxana were one/two in pole position and never let any of us guys to get past them. In fact, Roxana took the lead from Susan in the first corner of the race and then lead for the rest of the race, taking her first league victory.

Highlights from this month's race included:

• The fourth race of the year was on the fourth day of the fourth month of 2004. Too weird.
• Sunday was Roxana's day for the hot dice. I don't think she missed a corner all day.
• A truely brave (and many would say fool hearty) sixth gear roll by Doug on the back straight during the second lap. It turned out to be a great move as he made the 3-stop Veedol-S corner and had time (and fuel) to geardown and still make his three stops. This allowed him to catch up to the pack and he went on to finish a strong third, almost catching Susan.
• After hitting the the 3-stop Veedol-S corner with a high fifth gear roll Kevin barely made his second stop. This caused him to gear gear down to first and in truely evil fashion, pulled in directly ahead of Robert hoping to block him. But he left a gap where Robert could get around.
• No crashes. :( We we're hoping to enact a new house rule we heard about recently (from Angela Gaalema). If someone crashes, you roll the black die and that's the number of spectators that die from the crash. It really makes the black die the "Die of Death". Maybe next time.

The point standings after Sunday's race are very close, with Roxana and Ed tied at 25 with Jon and Mark just behind with 24 and 22 points. Looks like a good close race this season.

See our Formula Dé webpage for the detailed results of today's race or visit the picture gallery for the pictures from the race.

New Family Gaming Blog

by Susan Rozmiarek
Those of you who play games with your kids may be interested in Stacy Whiteman's weblog. You'll find comments and ratings on a variety of games she has played with her two sons, ages 6 and 8.

This is also a good time to mention the KinderSpielFrieks Yahoo discussion group, an excellent place to discuss gaming with kids.

Session Report for March 25, 2004

by Susan Rozmiarek
Tonight we were happy to see the return of Clark. Clark and his wife, Milena, had attended a few months ago before the birth of their new baby. It was good to see him back and hopefully Milena will be able to come soon as well. It’s amazing just how much a baby can turn your life upside down for those first few difficult months.

Hansa

I immediately started pushing for Hansa, while it was still fresh in my mind from my first playing of it last week. Since I described the rules pretty thoroughly in my last report, I won’t repeat them here.

I’m not so sure now if there is much long-term strategy in this game. A few general strategies did start to become apparent to me. For one, keeping in mind that you score at least two points at the end of the game for each city in which you have a market, I often found it better to use good tokens with a single barrel to establish markets, rather than saving them to sell (also two points). I tried to sprinkle markets all over the board, not only for the endgame scoring, but also so that no matter where the ship was, I would have a market close by in case I could sell goods. I paid more careful attention to what goods people were collecting, so I didn’t get burned when and if they sold them, and also to look for opportunities to prevent or delay them from doing so. There is an element of luck with how the goods are distributed among the cities, but not to the detriment of the game in my opinion. It adds to the temptation to refill the board on your turn, hoping a good you need turns up close by. The short-term tactics give a puzzle-like feel to the turns, a feature I dearly love in a game. So far, this is the best of the newest releases.

Jon was able to buy and sell a lot of good tokens with three barrels and beat us all soundly. The rest of the scores were pretty darn close.

Results: Jon 49, Susan 25, Clark 33, Robert 32

Hansa with Jon, Clark, Robert and Susan.

Oasis

My second playing of this one and it did nothing to change my lukewarm opinion of it. The luck in the trade offering mechanism still bothers me and overall the game just doesn’t grab me. Chris Farrell has an excellent session report of the game in his blog and my feelings mirror his. Many of the mechanisms in Oasis feel similar to other, older, Moon titles, games that I enjoy much more. However, had I met Oasis first, I’d probably be going crazy over it and not be nearly as critical.

Chris also brings up another interesting point. This game could practically be played without the board. The blocking plays on the board seem to play only a minor role in affecting the card trading decisions of the game. Of course, it’s hard to make sweeping judgements with only two plays.

Once again, I did poorly, perhaps helping to color my opinion of the game. It always seemed that the cards I needed were the ones I turned over for others to choose.

Results: Doug 103, Ed 97, Mike 72, Jon 65, Susan 47

Susan, Mike, Jon, Doug and Ed finish off the night with another playing of Oasis.

Other game played: Santiago, Marco Polo

Santiago end game with large pepper and potato plantations.

The Marco Polo board as we head out, trying to be the first to reach China.

For more pictures from this gaming session and others, see our Gaming Picture Gallery.