Game Night started off this week by watching part of a Space Hulk game between dueling Chrises.  Chris Wickline (referred to as "Fuzzy" from now on, even though he's not as fuzzy as he was when he earned that nickname) and Chris Ingersoll (our "normal" Chris in these reports) decided to let Kenny teach them the game.  Making sense of all the Chrises at game night can be difficult at times, especially since I'm (obviously, as the name of the blog suggests) also named Chris.  Of course, it's very easy for me to refer to myself as "me", which helps most of the time.

Anyway, Fuzzy didn't take much strategy with him when his Space Marines boarded the hulk, and he got chewed up pretty quickly by Chris' genestealers.  In fact, it was one of the quickest games of Space Hulk I've seen, espcially for a more advanced scenario.

Space Hulk
Time: 36 minutes
Score: Chris (Genestealers) - WIN; Fuzzy Chris (Space Marines) - LOSE
Ratings: Chris 7.5, Fuzzy 7.5


What'cha lookin' at?! This ain't no wussy "euro" game, ya know!!!
Samurai

I finally got tired of watching and waiting, so I set up Samurai for a one- or two-player game.  Kenny decided not to play, since he was still making himself available to help Chris and Fuzzy, but Chip agreed to join me.  We played a very tight game, with several clever tile placements making the difference in getting a number of figures.  By the end, three pieces had been tied, and I won by having just one extra piece.

Time: 20 minutes
Score: Me 1 majority (High Helmets)+5 others, Chip 1 majority (?)+4 others
Ratings: Me 7.5, Chip 7

I wouldn't say that Samurai is one of my absolutely favorite games, but it's hard to argue with a 20-minute game that involves so much thought and tactical play.  I really need to try this with Gwen, because it was a lot of fun 2-player.

Endeavor

Well, things didn't go so well for me this week in playing Endeavor.  As I mentioned last time, I had a strategy in mind as I went into this game, and pursuing it definitely aided in my downfall.  You see, one thing I hadn't really done before was to try out a "military" strategy involving lots of board control (especially in Europe) and limited shipping.  But with the way the chips were placed during setup, Europe and the Mediterranean had very little of anything other than Politics and Money, so ignoring shipping for the most part was not a good move.  And once I got "behind", especially in developing my Culture track, I stayed behind the curve for the rest of the game.  I don't know how many times I saw the action I wanted to take get snatched up just before I was going to do it.  In the end, I managed to tie for having the most points on the board, but the cost was having an anemic score from my development tracks and only 3 cards.

Heck... It was Fuzzy's first time playing, and even he kicked the crap out of me. 

Time: 65 minutes
Score: Chip 56, Ken 55, Chris 50, Fuzzy 47, Me 38 
Ratings: Chip 8, Ken 9, Chris 8.5, Fuzzy 7, Me 8.5

In a lot of ways, losing this play of Endeavor made me like it even more.  I love games that require strategy to do well, but I love games that require dynamic flexibility even more, and Endeavor seems to have both.  Since the setup of the chips changes every time, you've got to take that setup into account as you make your plans.  But there's still a lot of choice in how can approach the game from there, and your plan must always continue to change and adapt based on the actions of the other players.  It's sort of an "emergent strategy" kind of thing, and it continues to make me excited.  My only fear now is that people won't want to play it again soon since it will no longer be the Game of the Month!

Speaking of the Game of the Month!, we decided to go with Carson City for February.  It's a little strange, because I don't know if there has ever been a Game of the Month! before that I neither own nor have even played prior to its elevation to this honor.  That's not a bad thing, but just interesting to notw.  People have said a lot of good stuff about Carson City, though, and I'm hopeful about how it'll go.

Bohnanza

We then had seven people looking for a game, so I suggested that we try Bohnanza.  We hadn't actually played it as a group since February 27, 2007, which was just about a month after we got started.  But in all, I think we had a lot of fun.  Especially in such a large game, it's all about trading all the time.  And even with the cost reduction for the 3rd bean field, I don't know if it's worth it.  Because, frankly, 2 extra coins would have tied me for the win, and I don't know that I got any appreciable benefit from it.  As Kenny said afterwards, I don't think it's something I'd want to play every week, but it was a nice filler for even a large group.


Time: 39 minutes
Score: Alton 11, Chris 10, Mark 10, Chip 9, Me 9, James 8, Ken 6
Ratings: Alton 8, Chris 7, Mark 7.5, Chip 7, Me 6.5, James 8, Ken 7.5

Tribune (with the originally named "Tribune Expansion" expansion)

I up this expansion last week, and was really excited to get it to the table.  Even though it wasn't recommended to try out the Bruti family in your first play with the other expansion rules, I wanted to do it anyway.  So I therefore spent most of the game in a constant state of confusion as I tried to shuffle through two hands of cards (my actions and my normal hand) and figure out what I should do.  I had fun, but I did terribly, only putting together one victory condition by the end.

James, meanwhile, claimed two victory conditions on turn one, when he managed both to free some slaves (and pick up the "Patron" token) and claim a "Favor of the Emperor" tile by having a Patron token and paying some money.  Alton, however, freed some greek slaved later on to get a huge advantage in laurels.  So by the time James gathered up two more conditions to end the game, Alton had accumulated the necessary four as well, and managed to edge James out on the strength of the 1:1 VP value of all his laurels.  Chip and Kenny played too, but they sucked almost as bad as I did.

Time: 80 minutes
Score: Alton 4 (28 points), James 4 (26 points), Chip 2, Ken 2, Me 1 
Ratings: Alton 9, James 8.5, Chip 9, Ken 8.5, Me 9

We all liked what we saw from the expansion.  It definitely shakes things up a bit, but it doesn't detract at all from what makes the game fun in the first place.  Other than being overwhelmed with how different the Bruti family is to play, I still had a great time as well.  And even while I was failing to actually be effective, I still got to do cool things like Veto away one of every other players' workers, or cause a Mass Murder on a faction I wanted to take over.  Tribune is in my Top 10, of course, and I want to play it even more now that I've got the expansion!

Other Games Played

Long Shot (with John, the Z-Man guy!)
Time: 60 minutes
Score: Brandon 220, Alton 210, James 190, Mark 110 
Ratings: Brandon 8, Alton 7.5, James 7.5, Mark 7.5 (they're all wrong, of course, 'cause this game sucks!)

Race for the Galaxy
Time: As Long as it Takes
Game 1: Alton 48, Chris 46, Fuzzy 26
Game 2: Alton 53, Mark 46, Chris 44, Fuzzy 28
Game 3: Alton & Mark (tie) 41, James 38, Brandon 20
Game 4: Alton & Mark (tie) 50, James 18, Brandon 12
Game 5: Mark 41, Alton 34, Brandon 20, James 15
Ratings: Alton 10, Mark 10, Chris 10, Fuzzy 8, Brandon 10, James 10