Well, my wife is way across the country in Los Angeles getting trained in the new software that UNC - Chapel Hill is about to install, leaving me home alone all week long.  What's a poor, lonely gamer dude to do?  Play as many games as possible, of course!

I've been wanting to visit some other relatively local game nights for some time now, and I thought this would be the perfect chance...

Monday  

So, it all started Monday night as I travelled east to Durham and the Sci-Fi Genre Comics & Games store.  Now, I've visited the store a handful of times, and been told about their boardgame night by one of the staff.  Their website told me that it started at 6pm, and I made it there just a few minutes late.  Three people were already involved in a game of Power Grid, however, so I kind of missed the boat.  I stood ominously over the game for a few minutes then stalked around the store perusing their wares.  Sci-Fi is a "geek heaven" kind of store, with lots of comics, graphic novels, action figures, miniatures, RPG's, collectible games, and, of course, board games.  They don't have a huge stock of games in-store, but they tend to have a good mix of the new and most-wanted games currently on the market.  There's not a lot of non-gamer friendly stuff there, but that didn't bother me even a little, since I'm a firm geek to the core.

Anyway, they had a copy of Kingdoms, which I had recently seen a Bookshelf Games vlog about (and which is relatively cheap), so I bought it, read the rules and punched it all out while waiting for the PG game to finish.  One of the guys, Jimmy, had purchased Arkham Horror and wanted to play that, and we were hoping that someone involved in the Warlord CCG league would join us when he got done, so we pulled out To Court the King to kill time while we waited.  As I said in my review of this game, it's light and fun as long as you don't worry too much about needing to win, so I didn't.  Jimmy, who was new to the game, ended up winning, but that's just how TCtK works.

Things pretty much disintegrated at that point.  The Warlord league was still going strong and only Jimmy and I were left wanting to play board games.  What was kind of interesting is that this was Jimmy's first night there as well, as he was relatively new to the area.  I had brought along a few games, and while he decided that he didn't really want to jump into a 90+ minute game of 1960: The Making of the President (my first choice), we settled on trying out my unplayed copy of Cold War: CIA vs. KGB (apparently I was determined to play something with a colon in the title).  Anyway, the game went pretty well.  I like the "black jack with a twist" thing, especially with the way the abilities of the groups interact.  I have a few questions about the rules, though, and that slowed down play a bit at times.  I ended up winning, and we called it a night.

Well, the first night of my game-filled week was a bit disappointing.  From talking to the guys at Sci-Fi, this CCG league really hurt the participation at their boardgame night.  All the people were friendly and all, but I doubt that I'll make the trek there again unless I hear of the group growing a little and becoming more active.

Tuesday

This is the night for my regular group, the Hypermind BoardGamers, to meet.  We had a good night and I stayed until after midnight (thankfully, I had taken Wednesday off to clean the house for my lovely wife's return).  I won't go into too much detail here, though, because you can just check out my Geeklist for December for the whole play-by-play.  In general, I played 6 different games and had a blast (as usual).  The games I played were Cold War: CIA vs. KGB, Cutthroat Caverns, Pillars of the Earth, Maus nach Haus, Kingdoms, and Thebes.  All but Pillars were for either the first or second time ever. 

The best game of the night was undoubtedly Thebes.  It's just so richly thematic and downright fun!  I can't wait to own this one and try it on some non-gamers I know! 

The nicest surprise of the evening was Kingdoms.  I really like the balance between mathy analysis and random tile pulls.  It made for a really nice filler that I hope to try out again soon. 


Wednesday

One other cool thing about BoardGame night this week was that John was home from school for Christmas break, and we arranged to meet again on Wednesday afternoon to play a game of 1960: The Making of the President.   Once again, check out my glog for more datails, but this game was just as impressive the second time around.  The balance that makes this game so cool is the mix between the big strategy of where to generally put your influence versus the tactical decisions of what to do on each round with the cards you have in your hand.  It's a grand tug-o-war that plays quickly and, once again, pulls you deeply into the theme.  

Thursday

To finish out my last night as a pseudo-bachelor, I headed over to the Apex/Cary area to the game night at All Fun & Games.  Things really worked out for this to happen, because I was also committed to participate in a Christmas dinner for the Baptist Young Men group at my church.  Completely without any manipulation on my part, the guys chose for the dinner to be held at a restaurant in Apex only about 5 minutes from the store!  So, with things all aligned like they were, I drove straight to All Fun & Games after work and browsed around to see what was getting started. 

All Fun & Games is a great store that I've frequented for several years now.  I even used to participate in some D&D Minis events there as well.  It's a very family-friendly store (like Hypermind), with tons of puzzles, children's games and educational toys, a little RPG and miniatures stuff, and lots of board and party games.  It's always clean and smells nice, and it's just got a great atmosphere about it. 

Anyway, since she has been in California all week and hasn't had any chance lately to prepare for our anniversary this weekend, my wonderful wife told me that if I didn't mind, I could buy a game which would be her anniversary present to me.  I didn't mind, and picked up the store's only copy of Khronos.  I had heard some mixed reviews of the game (mainly that it was incredibly complex/confusing), but the whole theme and idea of the game has had me pretty interested since I first heard about it.  I guess I'll find out more about it soon!

Anyway, while I was there, I met Geoff (gtatters at BGG) in person, who I have had some contact with online before.  We talked for a bit, but soon it was time to go to dinner.  I got a steak, and it was great.  The fellowship was pretty great too, but I have to admit that as dinner ended I was a little anxious to leave.

When I got back to All Fun & Games, things were in full swing.  Games being played included: Brass, Dust, RoboRally,  Amun-Re, and Cloud 9.  Of course, they were all already in progress, so I wandered around a little and watched all the fun.  Eventually, a lady named LuAnn finished punching out the new copy of La Citta she had just picked up, so we decided to play a game or two.  First, she pulled out Hive from her bag o'games.  We played a couple of times, with me pulling out close victories both times.  The second was very touch-and-go for a while because I realized that she was ahead and would finish surrounding my Queen Bee before I could get all my pieces into place.  What I managed to do instead, however, was block access to the one empty side of my Queen and pin down all her pieces that could "drop into" the space (her beetles and grasshoppers).  It took a while after that to nail down the win, but there wasn't much she could do to stop me at that point.  I really like Hive, both for how quick it is as well as the strategic depth that it has.

Well, everyone else was still involved in their games, so LuAnn went back to her bag and rummaged around for a bit.  I didn't know what she would pull out next, but I was certainly surprised when I saw the Twilight Struggle box emerge in her hands.  I glanced down at my watch and saw that it was already after 9pm.  Knowing that I still had some housework to take care of before I picked Gwen up at the airport, as well as actually needing to get some adequate amount of sleep, I heard myself say, "Sure!  That'd be great!"  Yes, I'm an idiot.  

Anyway, I'm obviously familiar with 1960: The Making of the President, and I've read quite a bit about Twilight Struggle and even watched other people play a few turns, so the rules explanation didn't take too long.  Since the game is arguably balanced a little in favor of the USSR, LuAnn offered to let me play the Soviets while she represented the USA.  She had only played a couple of times herself, so the first round or two were a little rough, but things got smooth really quick after that, with the only real delays being reading the new cards we got and occasionally having to think extra hard about a move or two.  

Things stayed pretty close for most of the game, with the score swinging back and forth up to about 4-6 VP on either side of the center.  LuAnn got several scoring cards early, allowing her to set the stage as best she could for each.  As the mid-war set in, I began to gain a commanding lead in Europe.  Distracting her there, I also managed to sneak in a score in South America, having full Control there when she didn;t even have Presence, which vaulted the score from two VP for the USA up to 8 VP for me.  I also managed to maintain control of Eurpope and was just hoping against hope to get the Europe scoring card so that I could win the game early.  

In both the 8th and 9th rounds, however, I didn't draw it.  So, I took a stupid risk.  As my headline on turn 9, I played an event that allowed me to make the USA randomly discard one card.  I figured that I had the potential to disrupt some of her planning for the round, and the only real risk was discarding the Europe scoring card if she happened to have it.  But that would still be only a 1 in 8 shot, and otherwise I would make her play it even sooner.  So, of course, when the time came I pulled the Europe scoring card from her hand and had one of those sinking feelings wash over me.

In the 10th and final turn, however, my luck swung back the other way.  For my headline, I played an event that allowed me to look at the US player's hand and order it however I wanted to, as well as preventing them from playing the China card (which I conveniently used the turn before).  I also had the "War Games" card in my hand, which allowed me to win the game immediately if the DEFCON level was at 2 and I could give the other player 6 VP and still be ahead (which I could).  I started coups all over the place to drop DEFCON, but in the end had forgotten that I also "programmed" a card for LuAnn that also dropped the DEFCON, so she started WWIII and I won that way.  Sure, the world ended up a molten pit of radioactive slag, but at least the Soviets had the moral high ground throughout the apocalypse. 

Of course, having played both 1960: The Making of the President and Twilight Struggle on back-to-back days, I'm pretty sure that I'm required by law to compare the two.  Clearly, the two games are very similar mechanically.  TS is a deeper game experience, but it's also twice (or more) as long.  I like the tension of having interim scoring and the possibility of a premature end to the game, but that also feels pretty random at times.  While there's certainly some real skill involved in bluffing whether or not you have a scoring card (as well as picking up on the bluff), the person that draws the card is still at a significant advantage.  The random card draw (especially of powerful events) in both games makes it seem at times like the game is "playing me" instead of vice-versa, but this seems to be more true for TS than 1960.  The dependence of so many actions and events in TS on single die rolls also makes it feel more random.  In general, in the end I think that it really all comes down to time investment.  The "fun and experience" payoff for TS may be a touch higher than for 1960, but when you divide that by the amount of time involved, 1960 comes out on top.  Plus, 1960 is more streamlined and feels more cohesive mechanically, and I think that it will be way easier to introduce to others.

Summary

It's been one doozy of a week.  I've sacrificed quite a bit of sleep, but I've gotten in a lot of gaming and met some cool new people.  I especially want to thank Jimmy, LuAnn, Geoff, and all the crew at Hypermind, and I hope that I'll have the chance to game with you all again soon.  Now I just need to get to work organizing a boardgame-only open-gaming day somewhere in central NC to get us all together under one roof!