October 11th, 2005 |
Another busy busy Game Night, with eight of us once again showing up.
| Coloretto |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Lee | 31 | 1 | |
| Jim | 29 | 2 | |
| Scott | 27 | 3 (Tie) | |
| Mike | 27 | 3 (Tie) | |
| Karla | 13 | 5 | |
Notes: Quick easy game that was most notable for getting Lee off the schneid. Karla played really poorly and got hosed a few times hoping to make profitable rows more greedy. Lee was conservative, often ducking out with only two cards and had only 1 point in negatives.
| Shadows Over Camelot |
| Results | ||||
| Player | Character | Role | Result | First Time? |
| Lee | Sir Palamedes | Traitor | Won, Alive | |
| Mike | Sir Kay | Loyal | Lost, Lived | |
| Jim | Sir Tristan | Loyal | Lost, Perished | |
| Scott | Sir Percival | Loyal | Lost, Alive | * |
| Annie | King Arthur | Loyal | Lost, Alive | |
| Dan | Sir Gawain | Loyal | Lost, Alive | |
| Brian | Sir Galahad | Loyal | Lost, Perished | |
Notes: With 7 of us (Karla ducked out after playing one round as King Arthur), I refused to play any other 7 player game except this one. Everyone agreed without too much grumbling.
We should have grumbled, this was an incredibly frustrating game. The Loyal knights never really got their shit together, never getting more than two or three guys some place, and Lee got away with murder as the traitor.
First of all, Lee immediately went for the Black Knight. When I wasted a turn trying to help him (he *cough* somehow didn't have enough cards *cough!*), despite his efforts to fail, I almost bailed him out. But Brian drew a very high Black Knight card and Lee's pair of 2s and 3s (which should have been a signal to the rest of us) left us with a black sword.
Brian and Scott then teamed up to take care of the Saxons (Giving us 1 white and 1 black), but we were getting slammed with special black cards. We got rid of one and we made it around the Dark Forest by defeating the Saxons, but I was called home from certain victory in the Lancelot Quest (with two cards to play) by Guinevere. That sucked. I had to recover cards for a while and then spend turns fending off siege engines.
The rest of us couldn't decide on what to do. Arthur and Tristan made the first forays against the Grail, and established a good start. Then, after the Guinevere disaster, Palamedes (Lee) again tipped us off by using the card that gave him 4 lives. He could have given each of us 1 life, but chose to help himself instead. Galahad, Gawain (with a gazillion cards), and Percival went to the Grail again, Kay fought siege engines, and Arthur went to stop us from losing Excalibur.
Then more bad stuff happened. The Saxons were making another big charge, and it was going to cost us double. It was then my turn. I had re-sorted the top 5 black cards, but they were going to be big trouble. In essence, I warned Tristan and Galahad to get the hell away from the Saxon battle and tried to convince everyone not to draw cards...which Lee did anyway. He drew the card that killed off Tristan and Galahad, who each had one life left when the quest failed, and the loss of Lancelot's Quest and the further loss and victory of the Black Knight quest left us in grim shape, down 6 black to 2 white, with two knights dead, Annie playing a forgetful and sometimes cardless King Arthur.
I thought of accusing Lee this turn, just to accuse somebody...but I didn't, opting to fend off a siege engine (I managed to get rid of 3 all game). Then, we were hit with a card discard as Lee exposed himself, and we grimly and quickly submitted to a poor fate.
We made three big mistakes:
#1: Lee was obviously the traitor and we should have stopped trusting him right away. Sometimes, though, Lee forgets small rules all the time, so he was much better at pulling this sort of "Oh, I can't go back with all my cards still there?" type of stuff. I can't pull that type of thing off, because everyone knows I know the rules. Though after he failed the Black Knight quest he did fend off a siege engine.
#2: We didn't team up. The strength of the loyal knights in a 7 player game is power in numbers. We rarely teamed up to more than 3. We should have gone all out - perhaps 5 or 6, at least as many as 4 - on quests like Excalibur or the invasions, hoarded cards and gone for the grail.
#3: Solo quests are fucking hard with 7 players. I realized this when I was waiting forever to put one card down for Lancelot, and only would have had 4 (had I not helped Lee) before being summoned to Camelot by Guinevere. That sucked and I was really pissed that it happened. I felt like that one card doomed us for the rest of the game.
Next time...next time we'll get 'em.
| Apples to Apples |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Brian | 4 | 1 | |
| Dan | 3 | 2 (Tie) | |
| Jim | 3 | 2 (Tie) | * |
| Annie | 3 | 2 (Tie) | |
| Karla | 2 | 5 (Tie) | |
| Scott | 2 | 5 (Tie) | |
| Lee | 2 | 5 (Tie) | |
| Mike | 3 | 8 | |
Notes: Last we played Apples to Apples, and I couldn't get anyone to take my cards. The Meta-game came into play. At one point, I put in the word "Meatloaf" for the word "Mysterious" with Annie as judge. Dan complimented the word as being "very mysterious", Annie thought Dan put in the card, and she chose "Caves," a bland, trite choice that was not in keeping with Annie's typical choices. So Dan cost me that one.
So I Meta-gamed my way into a card. While Dan was at 3 cards, I complained that I had none and when Annie was judge again I said "If you don't pick so-and-so you're crazy." That got me one card. The rest of my cards just didn't fit in with stuff, and the rare times I had good ones, other folks had better ones. It got so bad I was having people select my cards randomly a couple of times.
Brian won on the adjective "Tasty." He had a blank card, played it, and said, "Dan Schwartz" for the text on his card. Annie chose it immediately and Brian won, snagging his fourth card.