As I walked into game night this week, a game of Endeavor had just gotten started.  Thankfully, Chip, Chris, and Kenny let me jump in and take my first turn all together to catch up.

Endeavor

I ended up playing the first two rounds standing up, both because they run so fast and because I was trying to set up my iPod speaker to play the "Theme of the Month!", which happens to be Tears For Fear's "Everybody Wants to Rule the World".  After its poor showing in both games last week, everybody pretty much avoided slavery like the plague.  If there's anything that stands out about Endeavor that I think is a little off, it's that slavery needs to be a little better in what it gives you to make it worth taking.  I like the way that they abstracted it overall, but it just doesn't seem to pay. 

Anyway, I focused a lot on shipping and ended up with 4 Governorships by the end of the game.  I tried to build a few connections on the board as well, but Chris was a total warmonger and knocked me out of a few key points.  Despite us all taking very different approaches, it was looking very close as the last turn approached.  In fact, it was so close that one misplay in the last round cost me the game.  So instead, Chris took the game on the strength of 15 points from city and trade-route control.

Time: 55 minutes
Score: Chris 55, Me 54, Chip 53, Ken 50
Ratings: Chris 8.5, Me 8, Chip 8, Ken 8.5

While I like Endeavor with 5 players, I think that the extra time savings and slightly more open options of the 4-player game make it even more attractive.  I'm going to try something different next week, just to test how viable some of the different strategies are, but from the variety present in this game, I'm already pretty convinced.



Tobago

Everybody else was still tied up in a game of Carson City, so the four of us decided to pull out Tobago to fill in the extra time.  While there's a lot going for the game, it's not really something that lends itself to a narrative.  So I'll just mention that we had a crazy 9-clue map for one treasure, and that Kenny won without ever picking up even a single amulet.

Time: 50 minutes
Score: Ken 37, Me 32, Chip 30, Chris 30
Ratings: Ken 8.5, Me 8.5, Chip 8.5, Chris 8.5

Escalation!

Well, they still weren't finished with Carson City, so we pulled out Escalation and played four hands as well.  Kenny hadn't ever played before, and we all had a great time with it.

Time: 20 minutes (for 4 hands)
Score: Chip 40, Ken 49, Me 56, Chris 65
Ratings: Chip 7, Ken 7.5, Me 7, Chris 7 

Bang!

It wasn't quite late enough for Bang!, but we went ahead with it anyway because Mark hasn't been available to stay late recently and has therefore not been able to participate in most of our games.  We actually played 2 games, because they were shortened significantly by the fact that the Sheriff was surrounded by Outlaws in both.  Thankfully, I was an Outlaw twice.

Time: 20 and 30 minutes
Game 1: Outlaws (Chip, Ken, and Me) - Win; Sheriff (Dense), Deputies (Beth & Brad), and Renegade (Mark) - Lose
Game 2: Outlaws (Beth, Ken, and Me) - Win; Sheriff (Brad), Deputy (Chip), and Renegade (Mark) - Lose
Ratings: Beth 10, Brad 10, Chip 7.5, Me 7.5, Denise 9, Ken 8.5, Mark 8.5

When Bang! is good, it's freaking great.  But when it's not so good, it can be right mediocre.  This evening's games were definitely more on the mediocre side.  Like I said, though, it was just too early for Bang!.  We all definitely needed to be a little more punch-drunk with fatigue to make it the experience it could have been, and luck shouldn't have thrown the Outlaws such an easy pitch.

Shadows Over Camelot

I hadn't gotten Shadows Over Camelot to the table in forever, so I was excited when the group agreed to give it a shot this week.  We had two completely new players so while we played with the extra black and white cards from the expansion, we didn't use the travel cards or bother with Merlin.  As luck would have it, I was actually dealt the Traitor card, and I figured that I would have a pretty easy time of it. 

Things actually started fairly well for the loyal knights, with them winning Lancelot's armor and their first tussles with both the Picts and the Black Knight.  They poured effort into the grail and managed to recover Excalibur from the brink of loss, but couldn't coentrate their actions enough to claim either.  Instead, they lost the dragon quest and a second tournament with the Black Knight while needing to fight off seige engines to keep them in check.  It was then easy for me to make a false accusation to convert two of the white swords to black and therefore win by having 7 black swords.

Time: 90 minutes
Score: Traitor (Me) - Win; Loyal Knights (Brad, Beth, Chip, James, and Ken) - Lose
Ratings: Me 9, Brad 7, Beth 8.5, Chip 6, James 7, Ken 7 

While I won, the game itself was a bit of a letdown.  I don't know if I should have pulled out the expansion cards because they made it too hard, or if it was just the mix of players playing that night.  The other possibility is that the game just doesn't hold up as well against newer coop games like Pandemic and Ghost Stories, which have been played a lot more since the time when Shadows saw more regular play.  I still like it a lot, and I hope that I can get in some more play with it soon to see if this was just an abberation or not.


Other Games Played

Carson City
Time: 135 minutes
Score: Mark 35, Alton 31, James 29, Beth 24, Denise 23
Ratings: Mark 8.5, Alton 8.5, James 7.5, Beth 7.5, Denise 8.5

Race for the Galaxy
Time: 13, 18, 21, 16, and ? minutes
Score: Mark - 4 wins, Alton - 3 wins, Chris - 1 win, James - 1 win, Ken - No wins 
Ratings: Mark 10, Alton 10, Chris 10, James 10, Ken 8.5