John's: Ended the year by playing games till 3:30 am and started the new year by playing even more games. I trimmed down my Rage deck so we could play Wizard. After going over the rules they said it was a game they used to play called "Dirty Ernie". I later found out that "Dirty Ernie" is their name for "Oh Hell" which is the progenitor of Wizard. James and John got off to a good start and were tied for first after the first five rounds by bidding nothing. John went for a bid of three in the sixth round and missed. John had to become aggressive to catch up to James' one or none bidding strategy. John moved paid off and he scored twenty more points in the final round.
John (200), James (190), Me (170), Heather (150), Kate (150), Penii (120)

John's: John wanted to give "Land Unter!" another try. We had to teach Cate and Penii the game. Nobody's hand was particularly nasty. Penii had trouble getting a hang of the game and drowned in the first two rounds. James and I scored big points in a couple of our hands but I almost gave him the game as I drowned in the final round. Still had enough of a lead to win, barely!!!
Me (14), James (13), John (7), Kate (7), Penii (2)

John's: I've taught Transamerica, 6 Nimmt, Bucket King and Land Unter to Kate. So I decided to teach her Carcassonne. I was shocked when halfway thru the game she said "I don't like it". I don't believe it, the usual newbie game portal failed!!! This was a game of a bunch of medium sized cities. A fourteen-point city the largest score. I had meeple management problems as I spent most of the time wishing I had an extra one. John dominated the main meadow for the winning points.
John (82), James (73), Kate (58), Me (57), Johnny (57)

John's: The boys wanted to play a game which including Jacob, an eight year old. So I pulled out a game that he could handle. James and Johnny got out to good starts getting several tokens on the boat but I got most of my tokens on the board which is a big advantage. I got some good draws and I was able to quickly load the boat with my guys.
Me, James, Dave, Johnny, David, Jacob

John's: Kate wanted to play her current favorite game. Went over the rules for Bob and his daughter Heather. Heather, who is twelve, had troubles in the first round and racked up 43 points. She got a little better later in the game and played well enough to hold out for another three rounds.
Kate (22), Me (31), John (50), Bob (79), Heather (92)

John's: Last game of the day, since I had to work the next day. John wanted to give "Land Unter!" anther try, as he was still looking for his first win. John had three fantastic hands, scoring well with his hands and earning low flood card bonus. He drowned in the final round but it didn't matter since I didn't have enough possible points to win. Kate had a really bad game drowning twice and almost drowned on the two other rounds.
John (7), me (4), Heather (0), Kate (-2)

Mike's: This was Joe's first play but only Mike had the advantage of experience since Chris and I had only played once. We punted the predetermined setup in favor of our own chit placement. I have trouble wrapping my mind about these area building/control games. Just like in Clans, I really have trouble seeing the big picture and only react to the current setting rather than setting up my positions. Joe, on the other hand, is a natural. Halfway thru the game he was already seeing the implications of our placements and moves. The game came down to a tie in Masters and Joe had the tiebreaker.
Joe 25[13], Mike 25[11], Chirs 20, Ralph 18

Mike's: Next up, a secret influence game with a music theme. Each player is a promoter for a record company that is trying to get their songs to rank high on the charts. This is done by a secret voting mechanism by the use of a funky "album". Each player draws seven chips (value range -4 to 4), five of which will be used to influence five songs. In addition, each player also has two special chips. One chip is used to identify the expected number one song of the week. If correctly guessed the player scores an extra five points. The other chip is the player's Pick of the Week, which will score points equal to the change in position. Yep, choose badly and you'll lose points. These special chips count a one point for influence. Once the player places his chips into his "album" it is placed on another contraption, which is used to merge all the players chips. This platter is rotated for each song, which spills out all chips allocated to that song. The chips are tallied up and the song moves the resulting number of positions. Once the new order is determined player score point for songs that place in the top six slots. Players also score points for pick of the week, correct number one song and lose points for any song that fall below 14. The player in last has the option of switching record companies for the cost of five points. Play continues until someone passes 70 points.
This is a chaotic game but I'm pretty sure there is some strategy when it comes down to song influence. Mike had a slight lead after the first round with the rest of us only a few points apart. It was looking rosy for me after the second round as I was able to correct deduce the number one song which gave me the lead. Mike with some really good prognostication snagged the lead but later lost it to Chris. I started lagging behind but never took the option of switch record companies since give up five point seemed a little steep. Mike was actually behind me in points just before staring his impressive push in the final rounds. No worries for Chris though, he had plenty of points to spare.
Chris 80, Mike 74, Joe 72, Ralph 59

Mike's: This is a light game with some heavy eye candy. The game has a square cloth map, 8 sailing ships (about 2 inches tall and made of metal), a sand clock, a deck of event cards, and lots of dice. The contents of the game come in a wooden treasure chest. Object of the game is simply the sinking your opponent's ships. Movement is based on your ship's facing to the wind, which changes direction when the sand clock times out. A big wooden die is used to determine wind direction. Combat is simply rolling dice equal the strength of each player's ship. At the beginning of each combat the attacker draws an event card. Some are good, some are bad and not necessarily combat related either. The attacker scores damage if he rolls a high dice value than the defender. If the defender is attacked via the broadside, he is allowed to counterattack. The strength of a player's ship is determined by the magnetic disks at the base of the ship, maximum limit being two. A ship sinks when it is forced to lose a disk and cannot.
Mike and Chris traded ships while Joe really ripped my ships to pieces. Joe trying to save his hurt ship moved away from combat but moved the wrong one. This allowed me to sink Joe's ship and run to a port for repairs. Joe suggested attacking me since I still had two ships while the rest of them were down to one. Chris's bloodlust got the better of him and he sunk Mike's remaining vessel. Doh! I used my two to one ship advantage to sent Joe to the deep blue. The dice went Chris' way and he managed to whittle down my fleet to one very hurt ship. The game came down to the player who would score the last hit.
Me, Chris, Joe, Mike

Boardgamers of Reno: It was a packed cafe tonight. The early birds had to hawk for a table. Luckily for the latecomers a table became available upon their arrival. We started the night with a game of Kingdoms. Did a quick rules explanation since this was a new game to the other players. The first round was a mind blower as Joe was able to score 125 points. I was second with a paltry 30, Nate third with 25 and Dave's 14 was last. The second round was still leaning towards Joe's favorite but I managed to catch up a bit. Joe's steam didn't run out in the third round either. It was a total spanking. Joe's left-brain processing is definitely superior!!
Joe (312), Me (176), Nate (142), Dave (121)

Boardgamers of Reno: I broke out Zirkus Flocahti while we waited for the other group to finish their game (king me). Dave got burn early in the game so that he quit drawing cards from the draw deck and pursued the safe option of taking a face up card. As a result of that, he played lots of trios. Joe and I played one a piece. Nate achieved the gala and won the game. Dave's safe approach secured him second place.
Nate (61), Dave (50), Jared (39), Joe (38), Me (35)

Boardgamers of Reno: Bruce had been pushing me to teach him Pirate's Cove for the past few weeks. I went over the rules while we punched out his set. Ann had play Piratenbucht before so I explained the slight differences between the games (i.e., parrots, ship speed, mutiny, etc). Our starting legendary pirate was the Flying Dutchman. Bruce and Ann had the initial bad luck as they both lost their early battles and had to return to the cove to repair. Bruce on the third round mistakenly sailed the island that contain the legendary pirate. Even though he had guns, its hull repairing ability made him flee. He failed his mutiny checked, losing all his cash and two vps. I ran into a streak where I had to battle somebody and I lost each one. Getting hurt midway through the game really hurts. Jared had a dominating lead. No one challenged the legendary pirate ship until the end of the game. That's when Bruce and I sailed to treasure island where we were able to defeat the Flying Dutchman for 3 fame points apiece. Bruce at that point unloaded his treasure and gold. Jared went to the tavern island to buy tavern card in hopes of getting more fame points. Bruce had eight points in hidden fame points for the win.
Bruce (40), Jared (39), Ann (27), Me (24)

Boardgamers of Reno: We started a game of Settlers with about an hour before closing. Bruce didn't think we would finish, I thought he was wrong. Well, I guess he knew his opponents better than I did. There was lots of dickering during trading, especially between Jared and Ann. At the rate we were going it definitely was going to last 1 1/2 hours. My initial output wasn't all that great so I invested in development cards. My first two cards were VPs. Bruce got the longest road but I stole it a turn later. Ann got the largest army. I was leading when had to terminate the game. I probably wouldn't have won since Ann was the player having the best production.
Me (7), Ann (6), Jared (4), Bruce (2)

John's: My number one played game last year was Bluff, even through I didn't play it the last three months. So I'm gonna start pushing Bluff among my new groups. We only had four players so I had everybody start with six dice. In the first round Johnny push the bid a little too high and got called. He lost three dice. The next two rounds were exact hits so everybody lost dice except for James. John went out next on a big bust. James and I then trade dice but he had more.
James, Me, John, Johnny

John's: Next up another of my favorites that had fallen off the play list. The lack of the experience allowed me to score 900 points in the first round. Johnny had dumped the cards I needed to almost complete my second set. In the second round John had figured out the game matching my score for the round. The boys were only able to score 150 a piece. The final round John out scored me to give me some competition but my first round score gave me the edge.
Me (1710), John (1500), James (980), Johnny (810)

John's: We broke in John's newly acquired copy of Cities and Knights. John got out to quick lead but he stalled due to Penii as she played every nasty progress card on him. Everyone caught up and then the game turned really nasty. John was out to get Penii; Johnny was out to get James. Normally, I enjoy that fact the people would forget about me but the tension was really thick. I was glad when John built the blue metro and stole the longest road from me.
John (14), James (12), Me (10), Johnny (10), Penii (8)

John's: Closer for the night. James went out quickly this time, wonder if he still loves this game. :) I went out next getting hammered by a wierd roll(not enough fives). John and Penii dueled but John was better at the bluffing.
John, Penii, Me, James

Poker Night: My work group decided to have a Texas Hold'em tournament. I, of course, saw the opportunity to introduce some of my co-workers to some Euro games. Well, I didn't count on making it to the final table. By the time I popped everyone had left. Eventually John and Mike left the game. We watched the game for 30 minutes or so before starting a game of Land Unter. Went over the rules for Mike. Mike had trouble figuring out the game but he thought it was entertaining. He even pushed for another game.
Game 1: John (14), Me (6), Mike (2)
Game 2: John (8), Me (2), Mike (0)

Lunch Time: Alrighty, back to lunch time gaming. We played a game of basic carcassonne. John and Joey got all the monsestary which was really annoying. The farmer battle came down to a three-way draw for 9 cities.
John (112), Joey (109), Me (92)

Online: A full house for C&K. Lloyd and James got out to a smoking start, both expanded their network while battling each other for longest road. Lloyd got the blue metro and both of them where still at 12 points while the rest of us had seven points. Then it was a hammer the leaders by the trailing four players. I started by stealing Lloyd's metro, John made sure that he controlled Green Metro and the Longest Road points. Helen made sure that no one would get the Yellow Metro. The pirates also did a job on them force them to lose a city apiece with Lloyd getting hammered twice. Long game but all of us agreed that this was the best 6-player C&K game.
John (13), Penii (11), Me (10), Helen (9), James (9), Lloyd (7)

Lunch Time: Staring Order: John, Me, Joey
It's nice to live only two miles away from work. I preset the game the night before so we could start playing the instant we arrived. Joey got going with the cash through coffee while I went with a mix of good and markets for my cash flow. John used the Hacienda and Construction Hut to develop his plantation strategy. I used my distributed production to prevent the other players from shipping and force them to spoil goods. Joey was making lots of money with his coffee and office setup but he made several mistakes. He had two opportunities to end the game early. His whiff allowed me to continue my shipping, which canceled out his big building development. John bought the Residence, I got the Guild Hall and Joey cranked out the City Hall and Fortress.
Me (57), Joey (51), John (51)

Boardgamers of Reno: Finally got John to come to the BoR session at the Gadgett Tree. King Me is a simple game of placement and secret voting. The board represents a seven-level tower. Each level of the tower can hold four characters except of the top level which only one character can occupy. First everyone get a card, which identifies six of the characters that will score points for the player at the end of the game. Going clockwise a player will select one of the characters and place it on the board between levels 1 and 4. Each player will do this twice and the left over characters are place in the basement. Then each player must move a character up one level. If a character reached the top level a voting round occurs. Each player starts the round with a yes and two no votes. If anybody votes no, the character is removed from play and the game continues. No votes are discard for the round. If all vote yes then players will score based on the location of their characters. The game is three rounds long. This is a fun deduction game. I thought the no votes were the only one you have for the whole game so I didn't use any votes thinking I had to save them. You almost never want to move your characters to the throne room early since everybody is full of no votes and ready to use them.
Mike (73), Nate (61), John (53), Me (52), Ann (45), Tin (44)

Boardgamers of Reno: Jared was supposed to be teach us Domaine but had yet to arrive. So Mike and I decided to play a two player game while we waited. It'd been a while since I played this game so I had forgotten how annoy this game can be if you don't get the cards. Mike was really nasty, always making sure he could win the four cube tile. Once I figured out what he was doing I made sure he played all the card on the level while I concentrated on the other tiles. It came down to the final trophy and Mike had the better set of cards.
Mike (3), Me (2)

Boardgamers of Reno: Jared arrived but so did Dave and Chris so now we had too many to play Domaine. We picked Drahtseilakt while we waited for one of the other games to finish. I guess everyone in this game needs practice cause only one player score a zero in the entire game and that was in the first round.
Jared (17), Me (21), Dave (24), Chris (28), Mike (41)

Boardgamers of Reno: I was showing John the poker chip set I was thinking of buying and missed out on joining the Domaine game, doh. When I mentioned that this was an "Oh Hell" variant everybody said they knew the rules. I explained the differences and we started playing. Tin and I were out in the lead half way thru. Nate then showed his skill by make bidding in the threes and fours and getting them. He racked up 200 points in the last four rounds. Dale got to 50 points and proceeded to miss the rest of his bids by one. We stopped after the 10th round because other people were looking for game.
Nate (220), Tin (190), Me (150), John (110), Dale (0)

Boardgamers of Reno: I wanted John to give Clans a try so I pushed for it. Still having trouble with this game. It's my lack of seeing four moves ahead. I was a little better in this game but that's because John was a newbie.
Nate (43), Joe (42), Me (39), John (30)

Boardgamers of Reno: Broke in my new game, which is a trading, set collecting game. The game has two sets of cards, peoples and technologies. Initial players get only people cards and need villages to acquire technology. A set of five people cards are used to form a village and a set of five technology build cities. The trading player start his Trade by using "I want x" or a "I have x" statement. A conjugate is allowed in the statement. The other players are allowed one reply using the format that the trading player used. Once everyone has made an offer the trading player chooses with whom to trade. After trading, the player can play sets and draws new people and technologies to end his turn. Play proceeds clockwise. The game ends a turn after the technology deck runs out. John and I got to a fast start and both of use had two villages early. John and I concentrated in getting technologies and it allowed the other players to get three villages. I really felt that was the winning edge but it turned out not to be.
Me (28), John (25), Nate (24), Joe (24)

Boardgamers of Reno: Nate and I played a two player game of Clans. This was a much easier game for me since I have no problem seeing a move ahead. Once I figured out Nate's color I was able to make a big push for the lead. I was two points ahead but he had complete two more village which resulted in a tie game.
Me (28), Nate (28)

Lunch Time: Joey wanted a rematch. Joey definitely has the money making aspect of the game down. This time he got the factory strategy going and was flush with money; eventually getting the City Hall and Fortress. I got a couple of quarries and a large market to make money. I had factory going but a little too late. I was able to build the Guildhall. I had enough money for the second big building but John got to it first. John secured two buildings. It's like everyone was going builder strategy cause everybody had the same number in buildings and bonus points. I was a bit short on the shipping. Joe had an extra doubloon for the victory!!
Joe (47), John (47), Me (43)

Lunch Time: John couldn't make it to lunch today so we decided to break in my copy of the new game in the Carcassonne family. Joey got to quick start and snagged three bonus chips, 2 of the +2 keep and +5 VP chips. A nice start for Joey while I had a slow start due to my tile draws. I got four market stalls early, which I just had to farm. He kept scoring but skipped a few of the chips along the way. I picked those up which happened to be two tower doublers. I caught up with the tower doublers scoring 20 with one tower and I managed to push up my keep level to 8. Luckily, Joey never completed any dwelling greater than three. The bonus Keep points and 4 market stalls were my winning edge.
Me (110), Joey (83)

N8: Only Nate was home when I arrived for Friday night games. We quickly broke out Carc the Castle. Nate got to an early start snagging the first three bonus chips. It was starting to look like Nate was going to run away with the game but I got some nice tower doublers to make the game a close one.
Nate (86), Me (78)

N8: Well, it was looking like lite night so we decided to play a quick game of Medici. Last time we played I 'schooled them', but this time it was back to my old self. I overbid for too many items for the heavy boat score but didn't even get one heavy boat. Twice Nate was able to get the heaviest boat on the final load of cards and free to boot! I was able to take the top stop for one of the commodities that gave me nice increase in points but not even close to enough.
Nate (157), Tin (114), Me (93)

N8: After that Medici spankin' I needed a win so I suggested Alhambra. Tin went for the long wall bonus early and concentrated in getting the expensive sets like the Towers. Nate went for Gardens and Gemachers, while I went for the rest. Those cheap buildings don't payoff in the early round but they're almost as good as the towers at the end. I was able to extend my wall, which almost got me in trouble as I was starting to seal myself up. I managed to get second in any of the sets in which I didn't have the lead. The points just flowed!! Ahhhh, a win.
Me (150), Tin (133), Nate (124)

N8: Nate is becoming a Knizia fan because every time I mention Knizia his ears perk up. It was an easy push to play Money. First round was uneventful till the last bid when Tin dumped about 140 points in Chinese money. Not much to him but huge to me. Dragged again in the second round as the newbies started to outscore me by a good margin. I was able to get two sets going for a nice burst o points but not enough to beat Nate.
Nate (510+750+560=1820), Me (470+500+830=1800), Tin (500+640+530=1670)

N8:
Nate (72,800), Me (71,800), Tin (29,100)

John's:
Penii (53), Me (52), James (45), John (44), Johnny (38)

John's:
James (6), Me (4), John (-)

John's:
Penii (102), Me (93), James (86), John (81), Johnny (68)

John's:
Johnny (86), Me (55)

John's:
Johnny

John's:
John (12), Me (3), Penii (3), Johnny (1)

Lunch Time:
Me (222), Joey (114)

Boardgamers of Reno: People took the suggested theme to heart and brought plenty of racing games involving cars, boats, camels and elves.
Rolf (18), Mike (14), John (11), Me (10)

Boardgamers of Reno:
Me (18), Mike (17), John (17), Rolf (17)

Boardgamers of Reno:
John (122), Me (112), Nate (96), Rolf (81), Mike (72)

Boardgamers of Reno:
Nate (41), John (33), Rolf (30), Me (24), Mike (17)

Boardgamers of Reno:
John (68), Me (64), Nate (59), Mike (58), Rolf (51)

Lunch Time:
Me (105), John (81)

Lunch Time:
Joe (223), Me (107)

N8:
Game 1: Me (69), Tin (63), Nate (57)
Game 2: Tin (81), Me (61), Nate (53)

N8:
Rolf (47), Me (45), Tin (34), Nate (31)

N8:
Me (107), Nate (93), Rolf (83), Tin (70)

N8:
Me (61), Nate (44), Tin (42)

Online:
Helen (13), Me (11), James (10), John (9)

Boardgamers of Reno:
Me (36), Nate (36), John (35), Bruce (32)

N8:
Ann (50*), Bruce (50), Nate (46), John (41), Me (33)

Boardgamers of Reno:
Me (89), Bruce (82), Nate (82), John (73), Rolf (66), Ann (58)

N8:
Nate (105), Rolf (102), Me (92), Joe (89), John (87)

Boardgamers of Reno:
James (9), Penii (8), Me (5), John (5), Johnny (2)

Boardgamers of Reno:
Penni (240), James (232), Me (214), John (201)

Online:
James (13), Penii (10), John (8), Me (7)

Boardgamers of Reno:
Nate (31), Rolf (28), Jared (27), Me (26)

Boardgamers of Reno:
Me (381), Nate (339), Jared (302), Rolf (232), Tin (226)

Boardgamers of Reno:
Rolf (66), Tin (64), Nate (60), Me (47), Jared (44)