While the holidays have already seemed to help attendance at game night, the busyness they bring have also kept me from reporting much about it.  But as I finally get around to it, I have to say that I had a lot of fun this past week.  My long-time friend Steve (as in, since middle school) was able to make it, along with some other members that live a little further away and don't make it very often (like Jim and Adam).  But enough of that intro stuff, let's get into the games!

Pandemic (with On the Brink)

Steve had never played Pandemic before, which I now consider a great tragedy, so we pulled it out and set it up along with the Mutation challenge from the expansion.  As we counted up players, we ended up having 5 willing to play, so we tested out the "new and improved" scalability from the expansion (since Pandemic used to officially be for only up to 4 players).  But anyway, we had a nice selection of roles and worked together well, and just as the board was about to go to hell in a handbasket, we cured the last mutant space herpe and won the game!

Time: 43 minutes
Score: Valiant Humans (Chris, Jim, Ken, Steve, and Me) - WIN; Impotent, Mutated Would-Be Pandemic - LOSE
Ratings: Chris 7.5, Jim 7.5, Ken 9, Steve 9, Me 10

I need not talk more about Pandemic here, but I was glad that Steve's initial impression was as positive as I'd hoped.

The Stars Are Right

Chris had picked up this new Cthulhu-themed Steve Jackson game a week or two ago, and based solely on that theme, most of us agreed to give it a shot.  What we found was an almost abstract set of puzzly mechanics where you have to manipulate the position of various astral configurations in order to summon forth Old Ones and, presumably, end the world.   The game was very close, where everyone was within strinking distance when Jim finally summoned his last arcane, alien monster-like thingy-bob and won.

Time: 71 minutes
Score: Jim 10, Chris 9, Me 8, Ken 8, Steve 7
Ratings: Jim 8, Chris 7, Me 7, Ken 7, Steve 7

There's actually a very solid game here, even if it does have a healthy dose of player-induced chaos thrown in as well.  Right now, there are two things that bother me about it: 1) the crazy potential for analysis paralysis, and 2) the fact that I was screwed by my cards and had no chance to win in the end.  The AP issue is mainly due to the fact that you can't really plan ahead, since the action of the player right before you has a great potential to totally screw up the board and make you start over.  The card draw thing was because all I could draw in the last 3 or 4 rounds were more of the Lesser Servitors, which are only worth 1 point.  I was really wanting a "flush" action that would let me ditch my entire hand and draw a new one, but instead, I had no chance to catch Jim and Chris as they powered to the finish.

Still, I'd be willing to play The Stars Are Right another time or two at least, especially with 3 players or so.

Dixit

We were waiting for the other group to finish up their game, so we jumped into a 5-player game of Dixit to fill the time.  I jumped out to an early lead (heh, heh... "jumped"... you know, since we're all bunnies) and never looked back.  Overall, the game played pretty much just as well with 5, so I'd feel fine about that number in the future.  I'm still not sure about 4 or less, though.

Time: 29 minutes
Score: Me 30, Ken 25, Chris 21, Jim 18, Steve 14
Ratings: Me 7.5, Ken 8.5, Chris 9, Jim 7, Steve 8

Bang! (with Dodge City)

We then had 8 people available, time was running a little short, and we definitely wanted to let Steve experience the glory that is Bang!  Unfortunately, we sort of jumped the shark a bit in our Bang! experiences by including the Dodge City expansion into the mix. 

Kenny was the sheriff, and I was a deputy sitting directly to his right.  As it turned out, Alton was also a deputy and sat directly on his left.  Between that and the multitude of defensive items and cards Kenny drew, it was pretty much an impossibility for him to be killed.  They managed to do away with Alton and me relatively early, and the bulk of the time was spent in a faceoff between the two remaining outlaws (Brad and Jim) against the two Renegades (Josh and Steve).  Since the Renegades couldn't let the Sheriff be killed until the end, they might as well have been deputies themselves.  Finally, Josh was killed, followed by both Outlaws, and then finally Kenny did Steve in as well to give us (the lawmen) the victory!


Time: 132 minutes
Score: The LAW (Ken - Sheriff, Alton & Me - Deputies) - WIN; Renegades (Josh & Steve) and Outlaws (Brad, Chip, & Jim) - LOSE
Ratings (for the game with Dodge City): Ken 7.5, Alton 8, Me 5, Josh 4, Steve 9, Brad 7, Chip 6, Jim 8
 
Yeah, it took over two freaking hours!  All of the extra cards, and especially the one-shot items, made it a lot harder to kill people and dramatically extended the game.  It just seems like there's way too much redundancy in the game with the expansion, and the mix of cards is definitely skewed towards defense.  Personally, I never want to play with it again, but we also discussed the possibility of removing those items from the game once used once, which might make it a bit better.  Of course, I also detest the extra General Store because of how it delays things, and I don't think that the expansion adds much of interest to Bang! other than the possibility of adding in an 8th player. 


"Vintage" Photos of my role (Jourdonnais) and Brad, who has the eyes of a killer! 
Other Games Played

Automobile
Time: 120 minutes
Score: Josh 4810, Adam 4250, Alton 3320
Ratings: Josh 8, Adam 8, Alton 8

Roll Through the Ages
Time: ?, 35, and 40 minutes
Game 1: Chris (solo) - 64
Game 2: Chris 21, Josh 9, Mark 7, Adam 4
Game 3: Chip 27, Alton 26, Josh 23, Adam 20
Ratings: Chris 8, Chip 8.5, Alton 8.5, Josh 8, Mark 8, Adam 8

Small World
Time: 55 minutes
Score: Mark 103, Kyle 97, Michelle 92, Brad 71
Ratings: Mark 8.5, Kyle 6, Michelle 8, Brad 9