GAMING NEWS: Yesterday (8 March 2006) At A-1 Comics!

Hi Guys,

I've been helping out my sister this week with her children, my nephews (Ferrying them back and forth to school, making meals, homework, babysitting, etc.), while she's going through some special firefighting classes so I've been over in that neck of the woods so I actually got by A-1 Comics twice this week, once on Tuesday and met with Chern and on my regular night of Wednesday when I met up with my regular crew.

Oh, and I'm including Tuesday in this post even though the title might indicate otherwise.

Here's what happened:

TUESDAY (7 March 2006):

- I met a number of folks down at A-1 including, Aaron Morneau, Aaron McKinley, Katelyn McKinley, and my old friend Eric "Chern" Royer. Eric showed us some really cool asteroid and planet counters that he whipped up for his Babylon-5: A Call To Arms tournament that he will be running at ConQuest Sac. Eric has been playing around with graphics programs for some time and he's really getting to be a whiz at it.

- Eric and I eventually sat down to play a few board games. It was just him and I since Tuesday is RPG night at A-1 and most folks come to play RPGs. The first game we sat down to play was:

- 1. Ticket to Ride: Europe

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/14996

- Eric won and we're starting to see a trend in our games: whoever can complete the giant eight-train-long route from Scandinavia to Sankt Petersburg wins the game. That 21 points seems to be a game winner.

- We weren't sure what to play next so we chatted for a bit and Eric decided to buy a new game. We walked over to the board game area and a title caught Eric's eye: Power Grid. I've played Power Grid several times to date and have enjoyed it alot. So Eric made his purchase and we got on to our second game of the night.

- 2. Power Grid

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2651

- One of the first things I noticed was that Power Grid plays very differently with three or more players as opposed to two players. Having slightly more experience than Eric, I quickly cut him off from expansion routes and won both games if I remember correctly. We played once each on the European and US maps respectively. It was fun, but I think that Power Grid is a much better game with three or more players. Bidding doesn't work as well with only two players.

WEDNESDAY (8 March 2006):

- I arrived pretty late at A-1 and it everyone was already there when I walked in the door. Mike O'Brien, Dick, Mark, Kurt, Dave story and Kimbo were all there. That's pretty much the Wednesday night crew as well. We chit-chatted for a long time before the hardcore board gamers sat down to play a game and the hardcore mini guys went off to pick up some food. Mike and I are sort of inbetween that we belong with both the mini and board gamers while most of the other guys have a strong preference for one or the other.

- Dick, Kimbo and I sat down to try out one of Dave's new experiment games:

- 3. San Marco

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/1041

- San Marco is a very interesting game and it appeared that Kimbo took a very strong lead very early in the game. He was the only one who had played the game before so that made sense. However, by the second phase, it was very much a contest between Dave and Kimbo as they were running neck-in-neck. However, at the very end of the game, I managed to pull off victory. I was as surprised as Dave and Kimbo as I only beat Kimbo by two measly points. Strange game, I don't think I like it much.

- Kurt and Dick played a C&C:A game before I arrived and Kurt won handily from what I understand.

- Meanwhile, across the table, Mark and Kurt started a Bloodbowl game. Mark's lizardman team had been devastated so he started a new High Elf team. Kurt played Goblins, which I think is his way of setting up new players and teams with success. Goblins are a pretty easy team to beat. Mark did end up winning, but that single Bloodbowl game took up their entire evening. That's one thing I don't like much about Bloodbowl. It takes awhile to play.

- Next to them, Mike and Dick played a game of Memoir '44 and Mike was the less memorable as he defated himself with poor dice rolls. It was quick game too.

- And the last game we played was one of Dave's favorites, a simple card game called:

- 4. Wizard

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/1465

- We had a good crew playing: Dick, Kimbo, Dave and I. Both Dick and Kimbo are card sharks and Dave is amazing at making accurate bets. My strength is usually in making conservative bets. Poor Kimbo had a time of it. He kept on taking too many tricks as I seemed to be able to undertrump him the entire game. He was winning tricks with THREE cards! Dave ended up winning the game by a very large margin... more than a hundred points. Mazel Tov, Dave!

- I'm quickly learning that what I like most about playing Wizard with that crew is that the banter is priceless. Kimbo almost makes me want to cry, he's so pitiful and likeable at the same time. Dick seems to have a one-liner for what seems like any situation. He's a regular "wise guy." Dave is also a funny guy. He has this way of sneakily steering inbetween arguments and then ending up like a smiling child caught with his hands in the cookie jar. I really like those guys. I'm blessed to be able to share some time playing games with them... a very good bunch.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.