Gwen, Samantha, and I actually ate some Chinese food at a restaurant right next to the game store this week (where it was far too uncomfortably warm and humid to be inside), so my "girls" (all 2.7 of them) came over for a visit after supper.  Mostly, that meant I was chasing Samantha around the store while she kept alternating between running into the "Employee Area" at the back of the store and playing with the Melissa & Doug kitchen set up front.  Oh, and she also had a poopie diaper that I got to change before they left, so that was fun. 

I really wish that there was still a way for Gwen to participate in game night again, but that's probably an impossibilty at least for the next 7 years or so until all three of them can play.  Anyway, once they headed home and I brought in my stack o' games, I took some time to play with my long-time friend Steve and his little girl, Yarden...

Catacombs [GeekDo]

I've obviously been enjoying this a lot recently, and I thought that it would be a nice game that Yarden could get into.  In fact, she did really well at actually flicking the discs.  Steve handled most of the "tactics" of the game, but she held her own pretty well.  Unfortunately for them, however, I was able to incapacitate all four heroes with my Crypt Spider in the second room, so I technically won at that point.  But for the sake of having fun, I just took all their money and let them keep playing.  But when they ran into two Cerebuses (Cerebi?) in the penultimate room, however, they fell again as I managed to systematically chew away their life and send them all to an early grave. 


But since they had almost made it to the last room to face the Crypt Lord (my Lich), I went ahead and gave them all half their life points and we played out the last room.  After setup, the room contained 6 skeleton warriors (1 hp each), 6 zombies (1 hp each), another crypt spider (2 hp), and my Lich.  Steve made his Barbarian go all rage-y and took out three or four monsters in his first flick alone.  By the end of his turn, only 6 of the skeletons/zombies survived, and my Lich was already wounded.  I got in a few hits here and there, but they were just too much for my suddenly-depleted army and wounded crypt lord to tackle.


Before and after the Barbarian went nuts all over my undead horde... 
Time: 55 minutes
Score: Me (Overseer - Lich) - Won (twice, sorta); Steve and Yarden - Lost, but won the final battle
Ratings: Me 8, Steve 8, Yarden 10

I don't need to talk much more about it, but I'm still having a lot of fun with Catacombs.  I actually left it sitting out for the rest of the evening because Britt wanted to play later on, but then he ditched me because it was getting "too late" for his weenie self who didn't even have to get up and go to work the next day. 

Pandemic (with On the Brink) [GeekDo]

Steve wanted Yarden to learn how to play Pandemic, so we set it up next.  For the first game, we set up with the mutation challenge from On the Brink and used 5 epidemic cards.  The initial setup involved red cities almost exclusively, and a first turn epidemic nearly threw us over the edge right then.  Four turns in (before Yarden even got a turn), we ran out of red cubes and lost the game.  It was a 5-minute game.

We switched out one person (Joe took Kenny's place) and set up for another go, this time leaving out the mutation cards (which really didn't come into play in the first game anyway).  Joe made the mistake of dooming us by saying something like, "Oh, we've got this," early on in the game.  And sure enough, we had literal back-to-back epidemics in the late game that led to a few chain reactions that pushed us over the limit for outbreaks and killed us.

Time: 5 and 30 minutes
Game 1: Pandemic - Win in Record Time!; Humans (Yarden, Brett, Kenny, Steve, Me) - Lose
Game 2: Pandemic - Win on Outbreaks; Humans (Yarden, Brett, Joe, Steve, Me) - Lose
Ratings: Yarden 10, Brett 10, Kenny 9, Joe 9.5, Steve 9, Me 10

A lot of times, losing Pandemic is more fun than winning. And we all had a total blast getting our butts kicked with it this week! 


Notre Dame [GeekDo]

At this point, almost everyone finished up their games at the same time and jumped into stereo games of Notre Dame.  In mine, we had two new players (Joe and Brandon), and through the luck of how we sat down, I was to their collective left.  Graham, the other person with experience in the game, sat to my left.  And since the game always passed cards to the left, he got a lot worse out of the deal than I did.  But of course, it didn't help that he contined to pursue the same strategy that I was using (despite seeing how well it was working for me), so rarely did he get passed the cards he needed.


Graham is envious of my big stack of victory point chips...
As it turned out, I probably did the best job I've ever done in balancing my rat track and points generation.  I scored early and often (aided by the park and the residence) and amassed a huge pile of VP chips, totalling a pretty incredible 75 points!   

Time: 45 minutes
Score: Me 75, Brandon* 51, Joe* 43, Graham 43
Ratings: Me 8.5, Brandon 9, Joe 8, Graham 8.5 (but adjusted to a 4 when sitting to my left)

Why the heck haven't I been playing this game a lot more over the last two years?  It's got so many of the things I love about games, and still plays in 30-45 minutes most of the time!  Notre Dame is another great choice for Game of the Month!, and I hope that my win this week will help me get into the "championship game" on the last week of the month (which is a tradition that I think will stick after last month's inaugural Macao championship) .

No Thanks! [GeekDo]

To kill some time while the a game of Nexus Ops was finishing up, Alton and David joined me for a quick game of No Thanks!  It's cool...

Time: 20 minutes (for 3 hands)
Score: Me 131, David 177, Alton 209
Ratings: Me 8, David 9, Alton 9

Tribune [GeekDo]

We had to figure out how many people were sticking around at this point, and finally figured that we had exactly five players ('cause it was after 11pm).  Kenny picked up Tribune and its expansion cheap at Tanga a little while ago, and it was calling to some of them.  For some reason, I've had some weird aversion to Tribune lately, and haven't brought it to game night myself in a long time.  I went along with the rest of the group, though, and we decided to use the Alea Iacta Est victory condition card.

I started a little slow, picking up the Praetorians on turn 1, but not doing much else.  I lost them a turn later and picked up the Senators and Legates, but also laid some groundwork to pick up a scroll and maybe get a Tribune later by having the Plebian leader.  I lost the Senators then and picked up the Vestal Virgins soon thereafter, but Alton had already raced into his four required victory conditions and ended the game.  He really did a masterful job of managing his actions and speeding to the win. 

Time: 40 minutes
Score: Alton 4, Me 2, David 1, Josh 1, Kenny 1
Ratings: Alton 9, Me 9, David 9, Josh 9, Kenny 9

So afterwards, I was left thinking, "Why the heck have I been avoiding this game?!!!"  It's in my top 10, and I love the freaking game!  Sometimes, it's just easy to get a "feeling" about a game for no good reason, whether it was tied to some level of burnout after it was Game of the Month! or what, I just don't know, but hopefully it's all gone now.

Other Games Played

Citadels
Time: 83 minutes
Score: Chris 35, Britt 32, David* 30, Josh 22, Alton 19, Michelle* 14
Ratings: Chris 7.5, Britt 8, David 8.5, Josh 8, Alton 9.5, Michelle 8.45

Dixit
Time: 30 minutes
Score: Michelle 29, Britt* 27, Chris 27, Alton 23, Josh* 18
Ratings: Michelle 8, Britt 7, Chris 8, Alton 8, Josh 7.5

Nexus Ops
Time: 125 minutes
Score: Michelle* 12, Kenny 9, Britt* 7, Josh* 3
Ratings: Michelle 8, Kenny 7.5, Britt 7, Josh 8

Notre Dame
Time: 42 minutes
Score: Alton 60, Chris 41, David* 28
Ratings: Alton 8.5, Chris 9, David 8

Race for the Galaxy
Time: 40 minutes
Score: James 82 (?), Matt 24, Alton 22
Ratings: All 10's

Tribune
Time: 70 minutes
Score: Graham* 4 (27), Kenny 4 (22), Joe* 3, Matt 3
Ratings: Graham 8, Kenny 9, Joe 7, Matt 7

Unspeakable Words
Time: ??
Score: Joe* 102, Graham 84, James 83 (and nuts), Brandon 73 (and off his rocker), Brett 70 (and looney tunes), Kenny 68 (and frickin' insane), Matt* 62 (and screwy in the noodle)
Ratings: Joe 8, Graham 7, James 9, Brandon 7, Brett 7.5, Kenny 7.5, Matt 7


A cool play shot of Nexus Ops filtered through Photoshop!

* First play for that Person