February 7, 2006 |
| Shadows Over Camelot |
| Results | ||||
| Player | Character | Role | Result | First Time? |
| Phoebe | Sir Kay | Loyal | Won, Alive | * |
| Annie | Sir Tristan | Loyal | Won, Alive | |
| Mike | King Arthur | Loyal | Won, Alive | |
| Dan | Sir Gawain | Loyal | Won, Alive | |
| Kaveh | Sir Galahad | Loyal | Won, Alive | |
| Scott | Sir Palamedes | Traitor | Lost, Alive | |
Notes: Out of the collection of six-player games I brought, Annie chose this one, which seemed fine to everyone. I took a while to explain the rules to Phoebe and Kaveh, and we started playing. For once, Dan didn't say, "What? That's not how we played before!"
In the first round three of us headed off to fight some quests. King Arthur went to take on the Picts, and Sirs Galahad and Tristan ran off to fight the Saxons. I thought this was odd, as they are both group quests, and they should have helped me. Sirs Kay, Palamedes, and Gawain stayed in Camelot to amass cards.
After Arthur started the Picts quest, he switched over to help Sirs Galahad and Tristan with the Saxons. (I figured it'd be better to use fewer cards.) Sirs Kay and Gawain gathered more cards and Sir Palamedes zipped over to mooch a couple life points against the Saxons when he saw that it was about to finish. I thought I'd get along by only chipping in one card, but Sir Tristan, who could have finished the quest, didn't have the final card and squandered a turn just sitting there...which was illegal. A Knight MUST do a heroic action - he cannot just sit there doing nothing.
Still, Arthur completed the quest, and Gawain headed over to Excalibur while Sir Kay made a start on the Grail quest. I felt bad that I hadn't been exchanging cards, so I stayed a bit at Camelot to get some more cards. Gawain was grumpily doing some work fighting off Excalibur (and not getting very far), then Sir Galahad bravely went off to take on Lancelot's Quest, despite the fact that there were already 3 black cards there. He wiped out one of them with a Merlin card, and when he started the quest with a 5, I traded him a card and gave him a 5 card.
He played the 5 while I went off to help Gawain with Excalibur. Palamedes kind of helped, staying there for a round or two, then running off to "fight siege engines" despite having about 10 cards in his hand. He and Sir Tristan were VERY slow to sacrifice life points while the rest of us were quickly being depleted to two.
At this point, Sir Tristan (Annie) stopped acting suspicious, and geniunely tried to get the Grail Quest going with Sir Kay. Gawain and Arthur teamed up to slowly bring Excalibur back, and Galahad used the Lady of the Lake to bring it even closer. Then, right after Sir Galahad played a 3 card on the Lancelot Quest, the black cards filled the quest in a heartbeat. I had placed the last card face down (it didn't matter - the quest was over either way) and everyone got suspicious of me. All five cards only totaled 11 points, though, and as Galahad had 13, we won the quest! That was huge, for two reasons. First, Galahad started using the Armor on his turn and we started avoiding some pretty bad cards. Second, a Vivien card had just appeared that forbade us from placing Grail cards until a quest was successfully completed. When Kaveh defeated Lancelot's Quest, we were able to use Merlins again.
I managed to get Excalibur, then Gawain and I returned to Camelot. Phoebe fought a siege engine, which had risen to about 7, and then we split up again. Everyone else managed to get over to the Grail Quest, and I went to face the Black Knight. I was trading Grail cards to the Grail Folks and special cards to Kaveh, who was using them like crazy.
Despite all this, I was completely destroyed by the Black Knight, on which quest Phoebe had placed a Heroism card. Thus, we garnered two more black swords (to the one we already had). At this point we had 5 white and 3 black. After I was crushed by the Black Knight, I accused Scott (Sir Palamedes) of being the traitor. He had pretty much done nothing all game: he mooched lives off of us at the Saxon quest, he helped the Excalibur quest for a turn or two - where he can chuck really helpful cards if he wants, and he spent most turns moving around. He also played a 4 card and lost a battle to the siege engines.
After Scott was revealed as the traitor, I flipped a black sword to white (which was incorrect - I should have just added a white sword). Scott started trying to add siege engines, but then the group managed to complete the Grail Quest, which really made Annie happy. We added three more swords, and despite the fact that I was incredibly low on Lives Dan refused to use the Grail to heal me.
Three of us stuck around to fight siege engines - me, Sir Kay, and Galahad - and Gawain and Tristan went off to fight the Picts. Galahad used Merlins to get rid of Siege Engines, and Sir Kay and I fought them off the old fashioned way - burning cards.
At last Dan pulled a Mercenary card, and chose to place a Saxon out there to fill the table to 12 cards and add two siege engines (placing them at 10). Scott was upset at himself for playing a card (a Saxon) instead of a siege engine, but we still would have survived anyway.
It was pretty fun, though Phoebe said, "You have to have a lot of patience to play this game!"
| Tsuro |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Annie | Still Alive | 1 | |
| Mike | Collided with Dan | 2 (Tie) | |
| Dan | Collided with Mike | 2 (Tie) | |
| Phoebe | 3rd out | 4 | * |
| Kaveh | 2nd out | 5 | |
| Scott | 1st out | 6 | |
Notes: Next up we played Tsuro. Scott was knocked off almost immediately by Phoebe, though she ended up cornering herself in the process. Kaveh kept putting himself at the mercy of others and croaked pretty quickly, too. Then it was Dan, Annie, and me, and Annie and I were nice to each other, though thanks to her presence I had to give her the better section of the board. I made Dan and me run into each other to end the game.
| Igloo Pop |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | 29 | 1 | |
| Mike | 20 | 2 | |
| Scott | 14 | 3 (Tie) | |
| Phoebe | 14 | 3 (Tie) | * |
| Annie | 10 | 5 | |
| Kaveh | 2 | 6 | * |
Notes: To finish up the night, we played a game of Igloo Pop (which Annie said Dan called "Iggy Pop"). After a first turn in which he lost 3 chips, Scott was very reluctant and didn't play one in the second round. Then he tried again and did better. Dan and I were the 1-number luck out artists. I managed to get the 9 and the 7 and Dan got the sole 11, 6, and 8, I believe. Those are tough to manage, especially in a 6 player game.
Annie started strong, but faded, and Phoebe usually only made one or two offers per round, as did Kaveh. Kaveh and Phoebe probably had the worst bids. Once Kaveh put the 13 on the 4 (which I sort of suspect he did to be funny), and Phoebe had a few that were slightly less egregious. When Dan, Annie, and I missed we missed by one or two usually.
I was pleased with my 20 points, but Dan's 29 has got to be a record. (Yup, I just checked, it beat the previous high of 26 set by Jamie on January 12th, 2005.)
When we finished Igloo Pop, it was about 9:35, and we all got up as if Game Night were over. Phoebe asked how everyone knew it was over, as she was just getting into it. Scott said, "We end it like this so everyone leaves wanting more."