As I pulled up to Hypermind this week, I immediately saw the object of my long-term desire sitting in the window, the On the Brink expansion for Pandemic!  So while others finished up a game of Escalation!, I gleefully purchased and fondled the bits of my shiny, new copy.  When they finished, however, I actually kicked off my evening with a play of our Game of the Month!

Toledo

Since we had two games going at the same time, each only contained 3 players.  I'm not sure, but I think that this may have been my first time with that many, but it didn't really matter one way or the other.  It was a quick and tight game all the way through.  Alton, of course, went straight for the El Greco paintings, but Chris and I shut him out of constructing the big (12- and 15-point) swords.  Things were extremely close at the very end, with Chris sitting at 17 points and being able to end the game on his next move.  I was sitting at 15, but managed to rid myself of my "movement" training tile to tie him at 17.  On his last turn, though, he managed to pick up a 1-point El Greco painting and get his third pawn into the fortress to take the win.

Time: 35 minutes
Score: Chris 18, Me 17, Alton 10
Ratings: Chris 7.5, Me 7, Alton 9

My feelings about Toledo are pretty set.  It's a solid filler-length euro that has some nice choices to make, but is heavily influenced by luck.  It's on my top 100 list (at #77), and pretty safe there for the time being, but it's not a game that really excites me or that I really feel the need to get to the table any more in the near future. 

One interesting little tidbit, though, is that I'm pretty sure that we've been playing out the endgame wrong.  I was glancing at the rules last week, and I think it said that the other players all get one more turn after someone triggers the end of the game (which we haven't been doing).  Of course, it was an even playing field for us (since we all played that way), but I wonder if that would have made a difference in many of our games?

Yahtzee! Free for All

A demo guy from Z-Man games was supposed to show up at 7pm, so instead of diving into something more complex, we instead pulled out Yahtzee! Free for All.  We ended up with 6 players, and, surprising as it was, we had a freaking great time!  In one turn alone, Kenny picked up a large straight (1-5) in two rolls, then I did the same thing, and before Kenny could take another turn, Graham beat his straight (and therefore stole his card) by rolling 2-6.  There was lots of laughing, "take that" smack talk, and even a little bit of strategery!  In the end, however, luck still ruled the day as Alton won on the strength of being the only person to roll a Yahtzee (5 of a kind), which is worth 10 points alone.


Time: 25 minutes
Score: Alton 33, Me 28, Chip 20, Graham 20, Chris 16, Ken 15
Ratings: Alton 8, Me 7.5, Chip 8, Graham 6.5, Chris 8, Ken 8

After one play, I'd already say that Yahtzee! Free for All is my favorite "Yahtzee" game (including games such as Catan Dice Game, To Court the King, and Doodle Dice as well as actual Yahtzee).  It may not be quite as fun with less players, but it's definitely something that anyone (gamer or non-gamer) can play and enjoy, and it fits really well into the filler mold.

Batt'l Kha'os

The Z-Man demo dude (sorry, but I can't remember his name) had set up three games of Batt'l Kha'os by this time, and we all pretty much just moved over and sat down at them.  I had already read the rules, and Graham had actually played it earlier in the week, so we went ahead and started while the rest of the guys were getting the rules teach.  Well... actually, Graham played, but I mainly just laid down and offered myself as an orcish sacrifice to the mighty human armies swarming all over my lands, pillaging my towers, and totally ignoring even my most beautiful women.  

Graham then gave his seat to Denise, who proceeded to also smack me down mercilessly.

Time: 27, 23, 23, and 22 minutes
Game 1: Graham 7, Me 0
Game 2: Alton - Win, Ken - Lose
Game 3: Chris - Win, Chip - Lose
Game 4: Denise 8, Me 3
Ratings: Graham 8, Denise 8, Alton 6, Ken 7, Chris 7, Chip 6.5, Me 6

The more I've thought about it, my rating of 6 was pretty generous.  Whether it was being unlucky with my tile draw, the tendency for analysis paralysis, or just because of (as Graham suggested) my aversion to little green square tiles, I just didn't care for it at all.  He's supposed to bring Endeavor next month, but I'm a little afraid that it might be a little anticlimactic, since we're hoping to get it in next week (and it will certainly be played before then). 

No Thanks!

Some people were still finishing up games at this time, and others were getting ready to go, so we pulled out No Thanks! and gave it a try.  We ended up playing 4 "hands", and I again lost miserably.  What's really bad is that I was in second place going into the last hand, but then got screwed by having 2 very important cards not show up.  Meanwhile, Brett scored an incredible 4 points, putting together an 8-card run! 

Brett's amazing run!
For those of you not familiar with No Thanks!, it's a quick filler where you try to avoid taking points.  There is always one card face up in the middle of the board, and on your turn you either place a chip on it or take the card along with all the chips already on it.  At the end of the game, you score points equal to the face value of all your cards, minus the number of chips you have.  But if you manage to put together runs of numbers, you score only the smallest number in the run.  The only complication is that 9 cards are randomly and secretly removed from the deck each turn, so you can't be sure that the card you'll need is even going to be available.  In Brett's case, he got lucky, while luck beat me like a rented mule.

Luck kickin' me in the 'nads!
Time: 27 minutes (for 4 hands)
Score: Brett 161, Chris 161, Graham 181, Me 201
Ratings: Brett 8.5, Chris 7.5, Graham 9, Me 8
 
No Thanks! has jumped to the top of my favorite filler list.  It's just perfect in its simplicity, while still being a crapload of fun.  I can't imagine anyone on the planet not being able to understand it (any somewhat competent adult, anyway), and it can fit into any time that you have available.  I have a feeling that it will become a staple both at game night and at any other game gathering (and maybe non-gaming gatherings as well) that I attend for a while.

Pandemic:On The Brink
  
And then, finally, the moment that I'd been waiting for!  While Kenny had heard us talk about Pandemic a lot, he hadn't ever actually played, so we began with a quick rundown of the rules.  We chose to try out the Virulent Strain option first (with "standard" difficulty using a random 5 of the new Virulent Strain epidemic cards), and used all new roles.  I randomly picked the Archivist, Chip had the Epidemiologist, Brett got the Containment Specialist, and Kenny ended up with the Generalist (which was probably good for him on his first play).  On the second turn (like, when the second player took his turn), it all hit the fan when an epidemic card was drawn and the black disease exploded all over Eurasia, Africa, and the Middle East.  Black became the Virulent Strain, and the card was the one that made us always spend an action to remove a black cube from a city before we could leave it. 


Yes, that was after turn 2!

Miraculously, we pulled together and actually got a handle on black for most of the game, despite the other curveballs thrown at us by the additional virulent strain cards.  We were helped some by Brett playing a card that let Chip change his role, especially when he decided to pick up the good old Medic.  In the end, though, we had to spend way too much effort on board control, only made one cure, and still got our butts handed to us when three of the four cards in our last turn led to chain-reaction outbreaks.

We then reset everything and started over with the Mutation Challenge.  Brett got the Field Operative, Chip had the Containment Specialist, and I got the Troubleshooter from the expansion, while Kenny had the Scientist from the original game.  This game looked a lot better for us, and for a while I thought that the Mutation variant would be no problem (note the foreshadowing there).  Brett managed to cure red very early with three cards and three cubes (as per his power), and we managed to eradicate it soon thereafter.  Chip was doing a great job of putting out fires with the Containment Specialist's power (which is even better than the Medic's in some ways), and I was trying out some nice tricks in flying around the board giving cards to people.  

The first mutation happened in London, and then they would continue to pop up from time to time in other places all over the board.  For the most part, though, we looked at them as a distraction at worst, and didn't put much effort into treating them.  That is, of course, until we looked over and were almost out of purple cubes!  Then trying to keep an eye on its growth, we redoubled our efforts to cure diseases.  We soon managed to put together cures for black and blue, and Kenny held the cards to cure purple as well.  We all worked together, and figured out that we were going to be able to cure yellow and win the game on Brett's turn!  Then we counted the player deck and saw that Kenny was going to end the game by drawing the last card in the deck as his first draw card... one turn before Brett could cure yellow.  We played it out anyway, and found out that purple would have actually had an outbreak on Kenny's turn anyway and killed us by running out of cubes, so we were doubly destined to die before Brett would have been able to save us.

Time: 45 and 42 minutes 
Game 1 (Virulent Strain): Pandemic - WIN; Brett, Chip, Ken, Me, and the rest of humanity - LOSE
Game 2 (Mutation): Pandemic - WIN; Brett, Chip, Ken, Me, and the rest of humanity - LOSE AGAIN
Ratings: Brett 10, Chip 9.5, Ken 10, Me 10

Wow, that was the most fun that I've had losing a game (twice even) for a very long time!  Pandemic is just so awesome, and this expansion is already living up to my expectations, both in terms of gameplay and renewed excitement about the game.  The roles that we used (with the possible exception of the Epidemiologist) were all interesting and have some great potential for exploration of new strategies.  Playing the Virulent Strain challenge was like being a masochist getting smacked in the face repeatedly, but I think that most of our problem in that game was just the bad timing of that first epidemic.  And I really liked how the Mutation challenge complicated our efforts more through distraction and delay, as opposed to the brute force approach that the Virulent Strain uses.  I plan on reading up more on the Bio-Terrorist before next week, and hopefully we can try it out soon as well.


Other Games Played

Arkadia
Time: 42 minutes
Score: James 91, Chris 87, Graham 84, Alton 74
Ratings: James 8, Chris 8, Graham 7.5, Alton 7.5 

I was so enthralled in Pandemic that I didn't even notice that they were playing this!  I sort of hate that I missed out on one of my top 10 games, but I wouldn't have changed places with them right then...

Escalation!
Time: ~65 minutes for 13 hands
Game 1 (3 hands): Mark 64, Chris 99
Game 2 (4 hands): Brett 27, Mark 45, Chris 52, James 99
Game 3 (6 hands): Brett 96, James 107, Mark 121
Ratings: Brett 8.5, Mark 7.5, Chris 7.5, James 9

Race for the Galaxy
Time: ???
Game 1: Alton 71, James 68
Game 2: Alton 58, James 41
Ratings: Alton 10, James 10

Toledo
Time: 25, 40, and 33 minutes
Game 1: Alton 18, Chip 0, James -1
Game 2: Chip 21, Alton 20, James -1
Game 3: Mark 22, James 19, Brett 14
Ratings: Alton 9, Chip 9, Mark 8.5, James 8.5, Brett 7.5

Witch's Brew
Time: 26 minutes
Score: Chris 26, Brett 21, Ken 20, Graham 16
Ratings: Chris 9, Brett 9, Ken 9, Graham 8