Five players tonight! That means we should be able to get in some great gaming. Our head count shows Chris, Dave, John, Mike and me. Here we go...

Matching up 5 players to the games we got for Christmas and "El Grande" just kind of jumps out at me. This is our first time playing it, so we aren't quite sure what to expect. I explain the rules and we begin. John has actually played "El Grande" before at a convention and he helps clarify a rule that I can't find in my English edition; that is, once a Power Card is played it is discarded. We all agree to the rule because it seems to make sense.

Everything appears to be moving along normally, albeit a little slowly. We are all unsure of the strategy at this point. Also, since it is our first time playing, a lot of the cards surprise us. In one round I manage to send all the Caballeros from everyone's courts back to their provinces. This really hurt Chris as he had built his court up to 8 Caballeros. John managed to make a great play by putting one Caballero in each of three different regions that had no others in them. He then chose the card that allowed him to score the region with the least Caballeros in it. That scored every one of those regions, giving him a commanding lead. After the required 9 rounds John won handily with 96 points. Chris, me and Dave were very close to each other with 82, 81 and 80 points respectively. Bringing up the rear was Mike with a mere 58 points. In spite of his low score, Mike did enjoy the game, as did we all.

"El Grande" took longer than anticipated (about 3 hours) which I attribute to our unfamiliarity with the game. As such, we decided to play something a little quicker for our next game. "Durch die Wüste" seemed the obvious choice. We played this game last week with only three players. What a difference it makes to play with the full complement of five. It seemed that there was very little room to maneuver. Everywhere you turned, there was another camel getting in the way. This created some very frustrating turns (also some wonderfully nasty turns, depending on whether you were on the giving or receiving end!) After the Dave used the last of the light green camels, the game ended. Mike ended up the winner in what turned out to be a very close game with 60 points. Chris and John tied for second with 57 and Dave and I tied for third with 55 points. It turned out the key play of the game, as far as Chris is concerned, was when I placed a camel and shut him out of an Oasis. If he had reached it he would have had an additional 5 points; enough to win the game. This game is getting high ratings from our group because of it's speed, simplicity and, most of all, the sheer fun of playing it.

It was now midnight and everyone was willing to stick around for a game if it was both fast and simple. So, Mike brought out "Guillotine", another Christmas game. This fit the bill perfectly. In fact, we ended up playing 2 games of it. Everyone enjoyed it for what it was: a good filler game. John managed to win the first game with 21 points, followed by Mike with 17, Dave with 11 and Chris and I tied for 10. The second game saw Chris rebound and win it with 13 points. John was next with 12, Dave and Mike tied with 10 and I only managed to collect 9 points worth of noble heads (I did get the "Piss Boy", though).

Another Game Night was now officially over. We all agreed that "El Grande" would be better with a second playing (maybe next Game Night?) I'm sure "Durch die Wüste" will become a regular feature and we will probably see a lot more of "Guillotine" as either an opener or a closer. It would work well both ways. Then again, we still have a number of other Christmas games that we haven't even broken the shrink wrap on!

Only three of us tonight; Chris, Dave and me. So it looks like a good opportunity to break out a four player game.

Mike has a game that we've been wanting to play on game night for some time and he was gracious enough to drop it off at my house even though he couldn't be here tonight: "Lowenherz".

Mike and I have played this game before and thoroughly enjoyed it, we couldn't wait to share it with the group. Judging by the reaction of Chris and Dave, I am glad we did. They both really enjoyed it, although Chris thought it was a little long. I was the first person to wall in a kingdom, but the others followed suit soon enough. It became evident fairly early on that Chris would be the one to beat (so what else is new?) He had managed to fence in most of the silver mines on the board and did a great job of defending them. Dave and I realized too late that this would probably be our undoing…and it was. Very close to the end of the game I did manage to hurt Chris a little by cutting off a particularly long peninsula that he had built. It set him back 12 points, but even that was not enough to make a difference. When the King finally shuffled off this mortal coil Chris had managed to corral 13 silver mines. Dave and I found out the hard way that those little hills are a lot more important than we had thought. The final score was Chris 72, Dave 60 and yours truly 57.

Next I brought out a new game that I had just purchased, "Durch die Wüste". After a very brief explanation of the rules, the game was afoot! This is truly a remarkable game, the rules are very simple, it plays very quickly, and the strategy is very deep. All of this without a hint of luck entering the game. Our first game took about an hour to play and I ended up the winner with 84 points, followed by Chris with 72 and Dave with 50.

There was a unanimous decision to play "Durch" again, so we started our second game. About 20 minutes into it we noticed an illegal play: two camels of the same color, but different players, were in adjacent spaces on the board. After about two minutes of thinking of possible was of correcting this, we just opted to scrap the board and start a new game. After all, it does seem to play fairly quickly. So, we set up again and started our second "second" game of "Durch die Wüste". This game went much smoother and we were all keeping an eye out for any more illegal plays. There were none and the game concluded with Chris winning it at an even 100 points. Dave came in second with 87. I was a distant third with only 58 points.

It was now after midnight and time to call it a night. I think we are all anxious to play "Lowenherz" again, hopefully with four players next time. I think we will be seeing a lot more of "Durch die Wüste" in the future as we needed a game that could be played fairly quickly while we await the evening's late arrivals. So another great Game Night concludes.

This turned out to be a good night with 5 players slated for this evening's festivities.

Mike was going to be a little late, so my son, C.J., sat in as the 5th player in a game of "Take 6". This game amazes me in how easy it is to play and how frustrating it can become. Just when you're sure you have a play that will allow you to avoid picking up cards, someone comes along and plays a card that changes the entire playing field. This night's game was pretty close…for the losers! We finally finished the game when John tallied up 68 points. Dave was next with 52 and I trailed closely with 51. Matt came in second place with a mere 17 points. C.J., however, set a new record with only 4 points! In fact, both he and Matt didn't score a single point during the first two hands.

Mike showed up just as we were finishing "Take 6". We were looking for a 6 player game when C.J. announced that he was retiring undefeated. WWF Wrestling was coming on and, well, some things are just more important to a teenager than playing games with Dad and his friends.

So, with our numbers at 5 what better game to play than "Titan: the Arena". I know I've said this before, but I feel compelled to repeat myself: this game gets better with each playing. This evening's play was particularly vocal with players trying to bargain with each other to prevent certain monsters from biting the dust. Dave seemed to be ready to strike a deal with just about everyone if they would help the Ranger survive. I clinched the game when I played a strength card on the Hydra in the last round, which allowed me to play another card to end the round. When all was said and done, I walked away the victor when my bets on the Hydra and the Warlock paid off with 14 ducats. Dave and John tied with 7 ducats each and Matt had 5 ducats (his secret bet). Mike ended up without a single ducat when the last of his bets went down the drain with the Unicorn.

The funniest play of the game was when Matt placed a bet on the Titan making him the backer. He didn't play a strength card on it so couldn't use it's special power, but, through a slip up on everyone's part, we allowed him to snatch a card anyway (the Titan's power). He chose three cards from Dave, kept one and returned the other two (per the rules). Suddenly, we realized that he shouldn't have been able to do that. So, we made him give the card back to Dave, but Dave kept trying to refuse the card. It was then that we found out that Matt had taken the "10" strength card for the Cyclops from Dave. This would normally have been a good choice, except that the Cyclops had died in the previous round!

Next came a game that John had picked up at a used game sale, "Heimlich & Co.". The game consists of moving several detectives around a board and every once in a while forcing play to stop (by landing on a space that contains the "Secret File") and scoring points based on the value of the space the detectives are in. The trick is that you can move any detective, not just the one that was assigned to you in secret at the beginning of the game. Halfway through the game, then, everyone writes down their guesses as to who the players detectives are (by color). You get 5 points for every one that you guess correctly.

Like most new games, the play seemed very random at the start, with everyone just moving different pieces without any rhyme or reason. Nevertheless, things began to get clearer as play progressed. When the game was over (once somebody reaches 50 points) we all revealed our guesses and our secret detective cards. Just when we thought Matt would hold onto the "Bonehead Play" award for the evening (for illegally snatching a dead card in "Titan: the Arena"), John managed to clinch it. When we all revealed our guesses, everyone of us guessed that John was the blue detective. As it turns out, John thought so too, but when he revealed his secret detective card…he was the purple detective!! Matt was blue and ended up winning the game with 65 points (thanks to John's help!) Mike came is second with 57, Dave with 50 and John really had 43. I came in last with 29 points. I just couldn't seem to get my detective to score.

The last game of the evening was "Mississippi Queen". We've never played it with the "Black Rose" expansion, so that hit the table too. The game was much more enjoyable with "Black Rose". It is more cut-throat and has more player interaction. John controlled the "Black Rose" at the beginning of the game (since he was in last place) but control soon reverted to me. I took the pirate ship up to the front of the pack and just made a general nuisance of myself. For about half the game, Matt and Dave were running around with no coal, which ended up being Dave's undoing. He was unable to negotiate a corner as a new piece of the river was laid and ended up running aground. As the game was winding down, John had put himself in first place and was closing in on the docks. Along came the "Black Rose" (me) to foil his plans. I ended up chasing him around an island that lay before the docks. Matt and Mike came in before him (I wasn't able to get to them in time to stop them.) With John and I the only ones left in the race, I had no choice but to ram his paddle wheeler allowing myself to come in third. Effectively, the "Black Rose" took John from first place to last.

So, another Game Night comes to an end. "Take 6" is still a great filler, "Titan: the Arena" just gets better and better; I'm sure we will play "Heimlich & Co." again (next time we'll give John an easier color to remember!) and I don't know if we'll ever play "Mississippi Queen" without the "Black Rose" expansion again.

Looks like its going to be a small group tonight. Several people called to say they couldn't make it, so its just going to be me, John, and Josh. Well, this may give us the opportunity to play some of our 4 player games, albeit with only 3 players.

Josh called to say he was running late, so John and I looked around for a game that the two of us could play. It occurred to me that we really don't have any two player games (I'll have to rectify that) so we settled on Alan Moon's "Freight Train".

John had never played it so I explained the rules as best I could and off we went. It really was a pretty uneventful game; I think it tends to be that way with only two players. With 11 different types of trains to build its too easy to build a train type that your opponent is not building. This reduces the problem of attempting to get the longest train of a certain type because, more often than not, you are the only one building that type. In spite of this, it is still a very good game with a strong economic feel to it. John and I both enjoyed it thoroughly. One thing that amazes me about this game is the amount of table space required to play it. Despite having tiny cards, the game took up the entire table…and this with only two of us playing! I can't imagine the size of table required for the full complement of 5 players, you would need a banquet table! At any rate, Josh showed up halfway through our second "day", so John and I agreed to end the game after two days instead of the normal three. John won handily with a score of 56 to 46.

Next, we thought we'd bring out "Settlers of Catan". We haven't played this in quite a while and this seemed like a good time. The board was laid out in such a way that all of the wheat was concentrated in one area as were the pastures (sheep). I was quick to place a settlement on the wheat fields thereby attempting to keep the demand high. My strategy might have worked if John hadn't blocked me out of the wheat port. Since he did, I had to trade my wheat to John and Josh just to get my sorely needed bricks. The end result was that both Josh and John managed to get enough wheat to sustain them. John and I did have a bit of a war going on with the robber throughout the game. Every time he rolled a 7, the robber would go on my "8" wheat field. When I rolled 7, the robber ended up on John's "8" mountain (stone). When all was said and done, however, John prevailed by being the first to acquire 10 points, I came in second with 7, followed closely by Josh with 6.

It looked like we had time for one more medium length game, so I decided on "Hase und Igel". John reluctantly agreed, not having cared for it the first time he played it, and Josh, having never played it, was anxious to give it a try. One thing we found was that the game plays very well with 3 players. You feel like you are more in control of your destiny rather than just reacting to how other players have screwed you. John was able to bring his "Hare" (Igel?) to the finish line first with a mere 3 carrots to spare. That left Josh and I vying for second place. Josh was ahead of me and looked like a sure win when he spent 45 carrots to move to a "Hare" space. The card drawn instructed him that his last move cost him nothing and he could have all 45 carrots back thus giving him too many carrots to cross the finish line. This allowed me to pull ahead of him. Much to my chagrin, I found that I was 2 carrots shy of making it to the finish line, so I had to do a little forward and backward moving in order to get enough carrots to make it in without having too large of a surplus. I thought for sure that Josh would end up beating me because of this. However, when I did finally make it across the finish line, Josh was still sitting on a carrot space with a 32 carrot surplus.

Game play of "Hase und Igel" was much smoother this time around. We agreed that the game should probably not be played by more than four players. The board even looks like it was originally designed for four, with the fifth and sixth players being added as an afterthought. Witness the "Position Space" where you can attempt to gain carrots for sitting on a space that has a number equal to your current position in the race. There is a space for 2nd place, 3rd place and 4th place. However, 1st place has 5th and 6th place tacked onto the same space.

So the night came to an end. I'm glad we played "Settlers of Catan" again. I was growing a little tired of it before, but this night rekindled my interest in the game; I am anxious to play it again. John has upgraded his opinion of "Hase und Igel" also. I think we will stick to 4 or less players. Now all I have to do is find a table big enough for "Freight Train"…

Another three-week drought, but we finally got back together.

Another night with six gamers (Chris, Dave, John, Josh, Matt, and me), you just gotta love it! Josh was a little late showing up, so we thought the rest of us could fit in a quick game. I have been talking quite a bit about "Family Business" because I've been playing it everyday at work (we can usually fit in 3 or 4 hands at lunchtime), so that's what was chosen. Matt wasn't overly fond of this game the first time he played because he only got one turn before he was out of the game. This time it was different. Matt recognized right away that he could play a red card to save another person's mobsters just so he could get a turn. He didn't win, but he did last longer and got quite a few turns. I was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to play the "Vendetta" card TWICE during the game (much to everyone else's chagrin and my early demise.) It caught up with me, however, as I was the first one out of the game. Chris, at one time, had 6 mobsters up against the wall. We were all waiting to see the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" card come out, but Chris got his turn first and saved all 6 by "Paying Off" the police. In the end Dave managed to survive all the bullets and bloodshed and bring home the win.

Josh had shown up by now, so we were ready to go full tilt. There was an overwhelming cry for "Liar's Dice". Everyone seems to love this game. It is fun to watch everyone at the table laughing and carrying on with Oohs and Ahs while the bets are being made, but when its their turn to make the bet they attempt to show their best poker face. Its a good thing we waited for Josh to show up, because he was the first one out. He just doesn't have that ability to determine when someone else is lying. Matt was the second one to go out, although he did manage to survive quite a while with just one die. Then down went Chris and then Dave. John and I were the last two left. I was able to hang on to the win with 4 dice remaining. In fact, the only die I lost was when John had made a challenge and the bid was exactly right.

What next? Another round of "Liar's Dice" (I told you they love this game!) Once again, Josh was the first to go out. He even lost 3 dice in one challenge. John again challenged a bid that was exactly right and forced everyone to lose a die (more than one person would groan whenever John would announce a challenge.) I went out next followed by John and then Dave. It came down to Chris and Matt. They each only had 2 dice left in their cups. They rolled, and Chris challenged Matt's bid. Matt had rolled doubles and forced Chris to lose a die. The next roll, Chris again challenged Matt's bid. Matt had again rolled doubles ("Natural doubles!!", Matt was quick to point out.) Matt came away with the win.

Now it was time for a new game. John had just bought "Elfenland" and we were all anxious to try it. Well, at least I was. This was the first time I was not the person explaining the rules to everyone else at the table and apparently I was asking a lot of questions. I hadn't noticed it, but everyone else got quite a kick out of it. Anyway, once the rules were fairly well understood, the game got underway. We all chose our transportation chits and played them on the paths. I was feeling pretty good about my strategy until Josh took his turn. He managed to collect 8 tokens as he went from city to city. Then came my turn and I collected 4 tokens. Everyone else got at least 6 tokens. The rest of the game went similarly as people were amassing tokens turn after turn and I was lucky to get 3 or 4. In the end we had a tie between Matt and Dave, both had 18 tokens and 5 cards in their hand. I felt that the tiebreaker should be arm wrestling, but they didn't go for it. Next was John with 18 tokens and 4 cards, Josh with 17 tokens and 2 cards. Chris also had 17 tokens, but no cards. Last, and least, I might add, I had 14 tokens. The breaks just never seemed to go my way.

So, another Game Night comes to an end. Chris got to play the "Moron Gang" in "Family Business", Josh proves he's not a very good Liar, and I can't seem to get my "Elvenbike" started. I am anxious to play "Elfenland" again (hopefully next time we get together) to see if I can get the hang of it with another playing. In spite of how I did, I enjoyed the game very much.

It's been three weeks since the last time we got together and everyone was ready for a great night of gaming. In fact, everyone enjoyed our last meeting so much that this week's meeting looked almost like a repeat, playing two of the same games as last time. Josh was going to be a little late, so initially 5 of us started to play: Dave, John, Matt, Mike, and me.

We started off with "Fossil". I'm glad we played this one again, because the strategy that didn't strike us until the end of our first playing was more apparent from the start this time. We were all being a little more careful about which fossils we would collect. We also seemed to be more aware of trying not to set up the next move for our opponents. Several different strategies showed up this time around also. Dave decided to collect a little bit of a lot of fossils, while Matt seemed to focus more on just a few fossils with big points (2 and 3 symbol pieces). In the end it seemed that Dave's method was flawed because the optional trading step ended up shutting him out a few times when his only piece of a closed out fossil was taken from him. Matt, however, cleaned up when he collected 66 points for a single fossil that everyone seemed to overlook! (Matt also had this nerve-wracking method of keeping his fossils in a jumble in front of him and frequently shuffling them around so no one could tell exactly what he had!!) The final scores were: Matt 118, John 79, Dave 77, Craig 61 and Mike 60 (I guess Mike's and my method was more flawed than Dave's was).

By now Josh showed up, which gave us 6 players. It seemed like a good time to pull out "Medici" (again). Our group really seems to be enamored with this game. This game, like "Fossil", definitely showed more strategy this time around. Two rounds had so many cards dumped in the harbor that not all ships were able to fill their holds. This time it was Josh's turn to experiment with strategy. In the last round he decided not to pay anything (or at least very little) to fill his holds. That strategy seems to leave a lot to chance and the luck of the draw. He did OK, though, coming in second place. One of the funniest moments of this game was when Dave turned over two cards that were a perfect fit to fill up his hold. He proudly announce "Oh, yeah! These are mine!" John, the only other person able to bid, promptly offered 15 for them. John didn't really want them, he just wanted Dave to pay through the nose for them. It worked, as Dave reluctantly paid 16 for the cards. At this point, Matt offered Dave a little piece of advice: "Don't ever play Poker." Matt won this game also, with 103 points, Josh in second with 85, Mike and I tied for third with 81, followed by John with 73 and Dave with 65.

Lastly, I brought out a game that I have been begging everyone to try again, "The Really Nasty Horse Racing Game" (TRNHRG). The last time we played this game we only had 5 players. I can definitely say that it plays MUCH better with 6. This game is very heavily luck related, basically rolling your die and moving your horse that number of spaces, but it is a lot of fun. It is very appropriately named and some of the races can get rather intense. It started out nasty enough when I knocked Dave's horse out of the first race after his very first roll of the die. He promised revenge, at which point Matt announced that he would never place a wager on my horse (he did, however, bet on my horse in one race...I ended up finishing dead last.) When all was said and done, I won with £715,000, largely due to an 18:1 shot with £20,000 wagered. Matt came in second with £320,000, then Mike with £210,000 (all of which he won on the last race), followed by John with £50,000, Dave with £20,000 and Josh with £0 (all of which he lost on the last race).

It was time to call it a night, as it was now after 1:00am. The night belonged to Matt, who won both "Fossil" and "Medici" and came in second in TRNHRG. I think we will be seeing more of "Medici" and I hope to see TRNHRG more often also.

A few of the regulars couldn't make it tonight, so we started off the night with just four, John, Dave, Mike and me.

Mike was a little late so we thought we could fit in a quick game. I just got the game "Fossil" and the instructions made it sound like a relatively short game, so that was our starter. We no sooner put the board together and Mike showed up; perfect timing. The strategy of this game is not readily apparent from the start, so a lot of our beginning moves seemed pretty random. It wasn't until we had been around the table 3 or 4 times that we started to see a purpose to moving the stones. By the end of the game each player's turn was taking quite a bit longer as he searched for a move that would benefit only him. We finally ended the game with 3 fossils unable to be completed. John won the initial outing with 126 points followed by Dave with 111. I came in third with 100 and Mike was last with 84.

This was a very interesting game, quite unlike any other we own. I'm anxious to play it again, although I think the overall reaction to the game was just slightly above lukewarm. One thing that caused us endless problems during play: the snaking score board. Whatever you do, don't play "Fossil" and "Manhattan" during the same gaming session. You could wind up with a nervous breakdown.

We had just finished "Fossil" when Josh showed up. This was a pleasant surprise because we weren't expecting him tonight. He had been in Baltimore on business all day and he just flew back into town this evening (and, boy, were his arms....oh, nevermind).

Next up was another new game, "Medici". This game has been compared to "Modern Art", and although it does have a similar feel, the play is different enough to make it stand on it's own as an excellent game. One problem with games like this that involve bidding: the first time you play it you are never sure if your initial bids are too high and they may come back to haunt you in the endgame. At least this is the reason I'm giving for bidding 15 florins for a group in the first round and 19 florins for another in the second round. I don't know if I would have won or not but I think the game would have been closer. As it was, John won with 130 florins. I came in second with 100, Mike had 79, Dave 69 and Josh had 65.

At this point a universal cry went up for "Liar's Dice". Mike was the first one knocked out when Josh called him up on a bid of 4 stars when there were still 20 dice under the cups. We all revealed our dice and there wasn't a star to be found! What a way to go. At one point during this game the bid got up to 11 stars before a call was made. The dice were shown and there were actually 12 stars on the table! After John won this game too, everyone wanted to play again just to make sure he didn't go home undefeated. He did lose the second game (barely). The last 2 people in were John and Dave. We were all rooting for Dave, and he pulled through. I had no idea "Liar's Dice" could be such an intense game.

With time for only one more game, we decided on "Bohnanza". It became apparent fairly early on that, once again, John was going to be the one to beat. He sat there with a pile of gold coins next to him that was rivaled only by the draw deck. After it was all said and done, John won with 16 coins. Dave was second with 12, Josh had 11, Mike 10 and in last place, yours truly, with a mere 9. I still love this game though.

Another great game night (aren't they all!!), especially for John. The only other person to win tonight was Dave. I'm anxious to play "Fossil" again to see if everyone's opinions change. I also can't wait to play "Medici" again, just because it is such a great game. Then again, I'm anxious to play just about any game again!

Five people again tonight, so we thought we'd look for some good five player games.

We started off the night with "Mississippi Queen". Its a good "warm up" game, and since Chris had never played it and its made for five people, it seemed like a good choice. After a lengthy discussion about the method we would use to figure turn order in case of ties, we decided to give the measuring stick to John and make his decree absolute (does anybody else have a problem with the way this is explained in the rules?) We were pretty spread out right from the start, with a few of us opting to burn some coal out of the starting gate to bypass the first few islands. There was some bumping going on near the second island with Mike being the one that seemed to be taking the brunt. Dave was the first to pick up two belles and just headed for the finish line. I was further ahead than everyone else, but something happened. I can't really explain what it was, no one bumped me, I had plenty of coal, I had a good track to the finish line, but somehow I started getting passed up. Dave timed his ending perfectly and coasted into first place. Chris snuck ahead of the pack and landed in second. As I was about to finish up, still gaping in disbelief, John managed to land one space ahead of me and finished third. I ended up in fourth place and Mike, who was about three tiles behind the rest of us, decided to abandon ship.

Now that we were warmed up, we brought out another 5 player game, "Modern Art". For some reason, the cards were not favoring me tonight. I became too bent on playing a single "double auction" card in order to force Chris (who was sitting to my immediate left) to either skip a turn or play a card I wanted him to play. While this can be a good strategy, it isn't something that should be pursued to the exclusion of all else. I ended up in last place with only $251,000. I think Dave made more than that in the last turn alone. He took first place (again!!) with $498,000, John was in second with $431,000, then Chris with $388,000 and Mike with $352,000. I'm going to need to take another look at my strategy.

Next, Mike suggested "Formula Dé". Its been a while since we've played it and Mike has since purchased a new track. So, we got our starting positions and we started a two lap race around Belgique. I managed to jump out to an early lead and was well ahead of everyone. All the while, though, John kept reminding me that he has never seen anyone take an early lead and maintain it throughout the race. In trying to maintain that lead, however, I managed to burn up my tires and was forced to make a pitstop. I was still able to come out ahead of most people, but John, who had been keeping up with the back of the pack, was able to pass me. I don't think he had any wear on his car at all at the end of the first lap. Mike also started making a bid for the front of the pack. Coming around the first corner Mike took a gamble and went into it in high gear. While he did improve his standing it cost him dearly in tire wear and brake wear. About the last quarter lap it was still anybody's race. John and I switched leads two or three times before we hit the home stretch. He finally took it from me when I had a fifth gear roll come up two spaces short. Mike ended up burning up the last of his tires with two corners left and spun out. This gave Dave and Chris a chance to pass him as he started out in first gear again. In a last ditch effort for third place, Chris also spun out which allowed Dave to sneak in ahead of him. Chris came in fourth and Mike a distant, distant fifth place.

The night was now officially over. "Formula Dé" went on a lot longer than we anticipated, it was 1:30 am and we all had to get up for work the next morning. We played three fairly big games and had a lot of fun. Next time we will just have to start earlier.

We had five players tonight, Me, Dave, Chris, John M. and John G.

We started off this week's Game Night with a new game that I picked up the other day, "Fluxx". A pretty interesting game. Definitely a "filler" type of game because it tends to be short. We played two games in about a half an hour. John M. won both of them. He won the first one with a two card play. He already had "The Sun" keeper showing, then he played "The Moon" and the Goal card "The Sun and Moon". Nice play. He won the second game with one of those single keeper goals "Peace, No War" when he played the Goal card.

Next we thought we would warm up a bit more with another card game that we haven't played in a while, "Family Business". This game has always been fun when we've played it in the past, but this time everyone must have really been in the mood for it. It was quite a rowdy session. Right out of the gate, everyone was after me. I have no idea why, other than the "kick him when he's down" mentality. I was destined to be the first gang out of the game (and I was). We did have a lot of fun with Chris' gang. He had the "Moran Gang". We liked it better as the "Moron Gang". All through the game, Contracts were met with threats of retaliation and cards were being slapped down on the table accompanied by evil laughter. Throw in a couple of bad Marlon Brando imitations and we had ourselves a ball. Once again John M. won. Somehow he was able to hang on to 6 mobsters at the end of the game. He must have had the best threats.

By now everyone was ready for a big game. Out came "Air Baron". It's been a while since we played it, so I had to explain the rules to everyone. As usual, there was a lot of groaning and "This seems kinda hard." talk going on. And, as usual, by the end of the game everyone was saying "Boy, those rules are pretty simple." You'd think they'd learn by now. Anyway, we decided to use only the basic rules because it had been so long since we played it last. Chris was designated as the one to pull the player chits from the cup to determine turn order and he seemed to always pull his first. We quickly found out, however, that in this game that isn't always a good thing. Things were moving along in the usual manner with everyone just buying up whatever spokes they could get. Chris was the first to lock up a whole Hub (Detroit) and it looked like he was going to be the one to beat. When, suddenly, Dave started taking over the whole West Coast. He locked up LAX and from there started his takeover bids. He took the West Coast away from John M. (who only had a few spokes out there anyway) and started moving into Denver. Once he took that out he was stopped just shy of his goal of winning by a bad roll. We all agreed that we needed to concentrate on taking him out. Chris drew the player turn chits out of the cup and, lo and behold, Dave goes first in what would shortly end up being the last turn of the game.

It was now nearly Midnight and John G. had to leave. We looked for a good, short, four player game and, once again, decided on "Take 6". Chris managed to avoid taking any points in the first two rounds. This helped him on his way to achieving the winning score of 26. I finished with 41, Dave with 71 and lastly, John M. with 74. So, Dave was happy that he "didn't lose".

Our conclusions for the evening? "Fluxx" is a decent filler game, although it may need some House Rules to help with the single keeper goal cards, "Family Business" proves that it has staying power (I want to play it again to get even with those bastards!), we need to play "Air Baron" more often so we can incorporate the advanced rules, Chris likes to play "Take 6" because he always wins at it, Dave can't tell a joke and Chris can tell a joke, they just aren't very funny.

Once again vacations and work take their toll. We only have 4 people tonight. Actually, it's not that bad of a problem because it gives us a chance to play some of those games that we haven't played in a while.

While we were waiting for Josh to show up, Dave, John and I were trying to pick a quick game that we could play just to kill time. We decided on Liar's Dice. It's quick, fun and noisy! Luck wasn't with me, however, because I went out quickly. It was kind of a tough loss because Dave, who was sitting on my right, challenged me when I only had three dice left. He had forgotten that you can only challenge on your own turn. At that point, in my best Pavlovian response, I revealed my dice. I had missed the wager by three and lost my remaining dice. It was then that we realized that Dave didn't have the right to challenge me and I shouldn't have responded. Oh well, live and learn. Dave justified his action with the omnipotent phrase, "Well, that's a stupid rule anyway." I had some consolation when John won the game.

Josh still hadn't showed up yet, so we decided to have a rematch. Only this time we would play with the correct rules. Once again, I went out rather quickly (I guess I'm just not a good bluffer). The game came down to John and Dave each having only one die. Dave pulled off the bluff and won.

We had no sooner finished Liar's Dice when Josh showed up. At this point we broke out Titan: the Arena. There is something about this game; it keeps getting better with every playing. Tonight was no exception. Wagers were flying, creatures were dying...what great fun! My Unicorn died in the first round, Dave was obviously backing the Ranger and yet no one could kill him, John and Josh managed to keep their plans a mystery. The final round ended and I thought I had it in the bag. I had the most ducats on the Hydra and was sure nobody could touch my score. It turns out I was in for a shock, however. I'm not sure how I misinterpreted this rule, but it never occurred to me that you could add up all of your ducats on all of the surviving creatures!! So, even though I had all of those ducats on the Hydra, Josh had a larger total of ducats on two different survivors and snatched victory from my very jaws!

So, I put that game away and brought out one that I was sure of the rules: Adel Verpflichtet. I knew the rules alright, I just couldn't put them to good use. Dave and I were lagging way behind through the better portion of this whole game. At one point John was half a board ahead of both of us. That's about the time we decided we had better start exhibiting our meager collections. It was too little, too late, however. John managed to cross the finish line way ahead of us. Josh had a better collection, but John's was the second best collection, which allowed him to move just enough to beat Josh by a mere three spaces. Dave and I were nowhere to be found.

It was now about 11:45, so in our quest for a medium length game we settled on Mississippi Queen. John jumped out to an early lead but got tangled up around some island while he was trying to pick up a belle. That allowed Josh and I to jump ahead (Dave was caught in traffic with John). It was a fairly close race for the most part... well at least for Josh, Dave and I. John never did managed to regain his lead. Josh docked at the finish line just ahead of me. Dave would have come in third except for the fact that he burned the last of his coal two turns previous and couldn't negotiate the final turn. He ended up taking out a slew of innocent bystanders as he rammed the shore. John didn't even bother bringing his boat into the docks, but we awarded him third place by way of Dave's DNF.

All in all, another good night of gaming. Even if Josh and John were victory hogs (OK, OK, Dave won a game of Liar's Dice), but I think the important thing to remember is "winning isn't everything". I know, you're thinking I'm only saying that because I didn't win a single game tonight. Well....you're right! But watch out for next time! I'm going to be studying up on those rules!

We had yet another guest tonight, John G. (not the same John from before). It's a good thing he showed up too, because with John we only had four players.

Chris is still in his "get back to our roots" mode, so what better game to play with 4 players than "Manhattan". We played without the monster, so it was just build, build, build. Dave jumped out to a huge lead in the first round and managed to maintain it throughout the game. We tried to bring him down, but he just proved too tough. He ended up winning with 57 points, followed by John with 44, me with 40 and lastly Chris at 35. One interesting item was the "Downtown" area had all nine squares filled by just two colors, Chris' and mine (well, Dave had a one story piece stuck in the middle of one of the buildings, but it hardly seems worth mentioning). I guess all of our in-fighting didn't help us to keep Dave from winning.

Next, we decided on a game that we haven't played in quite a while, "Adel Verpflichtet". In spite of it being a glorified version of "Paper, Scissors, Rock", it is still a lot of fun. I won this one by having a collection of 13 items, even though thieves stole two items from me in the second to last turn. Chris was only two spaces behind me, then Dave a half a dozen more. John ended up a distant fourth.

Then we thought we'd bring out another Mayfair favorite, "Modern Art". Everytime we play this game Chris seems to redefine the strategy it takes to win. This time he made a move that I've never encountered before. He had two Karl Gitters showing and I (sitting to his immediate left) had one Krypto on the table. Now I had a handful of Krypto that I was itching to play (including two 'doubles'). Chris, anticipating my Kryptos, played a single Karl Gitter...DOUBLE AUCTION!!! My choice was to either bring out the fourth Gitter, which would put Krypto in second place or refuse and lose my turn. I opted for refusal hoping beyond hope that it would make it all the way around the table and Chris would merely get the painting for free. No great choices. Needless to say Chris won the game setting a new record in the process with $768,000!! In the last round alone he managed to collect $210,000 for a set of paintings that he somehow managed to get for less than $30,000. I somehow squeaked out a second place win over John by a mere $1,000 and Dave finished last.

With the night almost over, we figured we could fit in a quick game of "Take 6". It was a pretty typical game (only not so quick). John broke the magic 66 number, sparing me the embarrassment (when the game was over I had 65 points...whew!!) Chris won with only 28 points followed by Dave with 48.

It was now 1:30 AM and time, once again, to call it a night. I have to agree with Chris that it has been a lot of fun to get back to the games that we used to play when we first started getting together. In fact, I'm ready to defend my "Adel Verpflichtet" title and get a rematch in "Modern Art". Next time, though, I'm planning on sitting to Chris' right.

We had two guests tonight: Mike's brother Tim came back for more abuse and John, someone we met through our Web Site

Chris has been wanting to get back to our "roots" so the first game of the night was "Acquire". It was a pretty standard game except that Luxor actually did rather well and ended up getting founded three times. So I guess the "Curse of Luxor" has worn off...at least for now. Chris ended up winning with $35,700. John and Mike came in second and third. Then me, Matt, and finally Tim. We are thinking of some way to help out Matt when it comes to these kind of games. See, he doesn't really care for economic games. Maybe we can come up with a house rule that allows players to assassinate one another to give Matt a fighting chance. We did start calling Matt "Rainman" however, because he was always aware of how many hotels were in every chain.

Then, after some convincing (read whining) on my part, I managed to get everyone to agree to play "Hase und Igel". You can imagine the looks I was getting as I told everyone that this game was a race with rabbits and hedgehogs. After the rules were explained and the game got going, everyone began to enjoy it though. Since no one in our group reads German we had to consult a translation table for the Hare cards. Matt got the hang of the cards and picked one up and read "Ich bin ein Berliner." On another turn, Tim picked a Hare card and read the German phrase at which point Matt jumped in with the translation "Your rabbit has been caught in a beartrap." One of Matt's funniest moments was when he was looking at my playing piece on the board and, in all seriousness, announced "There's a hair on your rabbit." At any rate, the game went over rather well, with Mike taking first place. John came in last place, but at one point in the game seemed to have somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand carrots saved up.

With the evening winding down, we thought we would play something a little quicker and decided on "Take 6". Tim excelled at collecting all of the colorful cards (high points) and actually reached a score of 91. Personally, I didn't think that was possible. Mike set a new record for most points in one hand with 38, another stellar achievement. By the way, for those of you that don't know the game, the winner is the person with the lowest score. In this case it was Chris with 31 points, half of those taken in the last hand.

So the evening came to a close, Chris winning twice and Mike once. Since they were both sitting next to each other, the rest of us got to hear about how that side of the table did so well. I think next time I just won't put any chairs over there. Let's see how well they do standing up.

We had a guest tonight. Mike brought his brother Tim along to play games and to witness first hand some of the antics I'm sure he has heard about.

We started off the night with a new game that I got for my birthday, "Give Me the Brain". Everyone grasped the rules right away (it's not a very hard game, after all) and the game went along pretty much without a hitch. Occasionally someone would complain that it doesn't seem like you can ever get rid of all of your cards because you are constantly being instructed to pick some up. But eventually the game did finish up when Mike dumped the last card from his hand. Dave kept commenting about how much he liked the game, so I'm sure we will be playing it again.

Next out came my personal favorite, "Modern Art". Tim and Josh had never played it so I obliged them with my 30 second rules synopsis. Tonight the galleries seemed to be owned by Krypto and Karl Gitter. Once in a while Yoko would rear his head, but never with the same impact of the other two. Lite Metal made a late showing and, surprisingly , Christin P. only had one painting displayed all night. After all was said and done, Krypto and Karl Gitter placed in every round. Josh, one of the neophytes, walked away with $397,000 and the game.

Time for another of my birthday games; "Spammers". This is a new game and I haven't seen many reviews on it. In spite of numerous complaints about how many rules there are (there really aren't that many), the game was afoot. I'm not sure if it was because it was the first time for all of us playing this game, but this game really seemed to drag on. There were six of us playing and that meant a very long time between turns. There also seem to be an overabundance of powerful cards in this game. Anyway, a couple hours later, Mike nearly won by using another one of those powerful cards that allowed him to rearrange his points and placing them all on one "scam". However, Chris played a powerful card that forced Mike to discard his powerful card. Then Josh played a powerful card that allowed him to go through the discard pile and pull out Mike's former powerful card and play it, thus ending the game in a power play (you get the idea). A perfectly legal move, that made the game feel rather anti-climatic. Chris, however, felt that there was some merit in the mechanics and expressed a desire to play it again at a future gaming session.

Finally, my son came home from work and joined us in a game of "Lunch Money". It's always fun to play the game with him because his table banter can be quite colorful. In fact, he managed to get everyone into the act. Before you knew it nobody was playing a simple "Big Combo". They were biting off ears, kneeing noses, and punching Adam's apples. One of the funniest things to happen during the course of the game was when Chris put my son in a headlock (in the game, of course). This made him defenseless against attacks by other players. But, for some reason, everyone felt it was more sporting to go after Chris. My son never did come up with the cards to get out of the headlock, but Chris died first effectively releasing him. At the end of all the brawling, Mike was the last one standing when he finally took his brother out.

It was now nearly 2:00am and time to call it a night. I agree with Chris that we should probably try "Spammers" again. Maybe with less people it will move along better. "Give Me the Brain" makes a great filler game and "Lunch Money" is rapidly becoming a group favorite. I'm sure it will be played a lot more. I highly recommend it.

What a strange night...

Five of us showed up for the evening's festivities. We started off with a new game that Mike bought, "Lunch Money". What a great way to set the mood for the rest of the evening. This game definitely lends itself to the "you hit me, so I'll hit you back" grudge match attitude. We played two games of this gem back to back. There was so much fist swinging going on that it would be difficult to describe all the action, lots of headbutting, kicking and "Big Combos". Suffice it to say that Mike won the first game because no one was able to touch him (he always seemed to have a hand full of defensive cards), and Matt won the second game with only 3 life points left. One thing I do remember, though, is that Dave kept whining about being picked on (of course, he was being picked on, but that's beside the point...)

Now comes the weird part...

We started up a game of "Roborally". We put the boards out, set the flags up and dealt out the cards. Half an hour later we actually got through our first move. We attempted a few more moves and just hung it up. The mood just didn't seem to be right. Matt was the only one who was enjoying it and didn't really want to quit. The rest of us, however, chose to ignore his objections and quit anyway (sorry, Matt). This is the first time we have ever stopped a game because of lack of interest. It was a very weird feeling.

By now it was fairly late and we didn't really want to start anything too deep, so Chris suggested "The Great Dalmuti". It had been quite a while since we played this game and it seemed to be a good choice. There was a lot of movement around the table for the rest of the night, with the Dalmuti and Peon positions changing fairly frequently. In fact, I believe everyone got to sit in the Dalmuti chair as well as the Peon chair at some point during the game. Another thing that happened that I thought was strange was a "Great Revolution". This occurs when the "Great Peon" gets both Jesters. When this happens everyone must switch places with their opposite. I have never seen this happen before in all the times that I have played "The Great Dalmuti". Last night it happened twice.

As I've said, it was just a very strange night.

How 'bout that! We didn't play Roborally this time!

Actually, Chris had game suggestions this time. He thought we could start off by playing Formula De and then play a game of Roborally. However, the Formula De race took so long that we didn't have time for Roborally.

Anyway, Formula De started off well enough. We settled on a 2 lap race at Monaco when everybody decided they didn't want to learn any new rules for a 3 lap race. Dave took an early lead and I was following close behind. Matt and Chris fought for 3rd and 4th place while Mike was bringing up the rear. Mike was actually pretty far back at one point and was the subject of much ridicule. However, at some point things turned around, because by the time the second lap was beginning Mike was in the lead and Chris had fallen to the back of the pack. In fact, at one point Mike was nearly a half a lap ahead of Chris. Matt and Dave needed to take pitstops while the rest of us continued on. This put me in second place behind Mike. Chris was so far behind that when Matt and Dave came out of the pits and were still ahead of him. The reason I mention this is because something happened during the second lap. I'm not quite sure what it was, but somewhere down the back stretch Chris started passing people. During that same time I began to slip to the back of the pack. Finally, coming into the last two turns Chris was challenging Mike for first place. Chris burned up the last of his brakes and tires going through the last turn and punched it into sixth gear (his goal in any race we run). He ended up winning by a dozen spaces or so. Mike came in second, Dave third and Matt and I battled for last place. Matt pulled ahead of me at the last moment and I was relegated to last place (and I was doing so well for most of the race, too!!) Oh, well...

Formula De had taken so long that we felt we didn't have time for Roborally. So, instead, I brought out Bohnanza. Now, this is usually a relatively quick game. However, it seemed that, on this particular evening, Chris decided he wanted to squeeze every last penny (or bean, as it were) out of everyone else. Matt and Mike and I would take our turns relatively quickly and then it would be Chris' turn. He would dicker and barter and wager until someone finally gave in out of sheer exhaustion. Then it would be Dave's turn and he would also barter and trade endlessly until a deal was struck. It seemed an eternity to get through the two of them. Now the funny thing is most of their arguing and wagering was with each other, yet they wouldn't trade with each other! I think throughout the whole game the two of them only traded cards with each other one time. Mike ended up taking aspirin because of a headache he developed (seriously). I don't think it was because of Chris and Dave, but it sure is fun to say that they are the reason. The whole time this was going on Dave kept saying "I LOVE this game!" I suppose I shouldn't criticize their methods because Chris ended up winning this game also (with 13 coins) and Dave tied with me for second place (11 coins). Mike had 10 coins and Matt finished last with 9 coins (well, of course he did. There's no killing or maiming in this game, an area in which Matt excels.)

So, at the end of the evening we all reconfirmed our belief that Formula De is a GREAT game, and it looks like we will be playing Bohnanza quite a bit more (much to Mike's chagrin).

Only three of us again. That vacation and work stuff keeps getting in the way!

Anyway, Josh called and said he was running late but was on his way. So, when Chris arrived I thought we could play something short until Josh got there. I had been wanting to show him Avalon Hill's B-17 (to possibly turn it into a computer game) and this seemed like a good opportunity. After a very brief explanation of the rules (it's the kind of game you can explain as you go) he filled out the Crew Status Sheet. He used names of people at work as his crew. I guess his reasoning was that it would be fun to see some of them dead. On his first mission Chris, being the lucky one on dice in our group, managed to avoid fighters all the way out and most of the way back. Even then the fighters that did hit him seemed to do a lot of superficial damage. It's just not right that one person should be that lucky all the time! His second mission was a little harder, but not much. He at least ran into some fighter opposition this time. His biggest obstacle this time was bad weather over the target. Of course he still managed to get his bombs on target anyway. By now Josh had shown up. He watched as Chris made his way back to England and got his Navigator killed in the process. Josh took over and flew the next mission, replacing the dead Navigator with his own name. Just to underscore how lucky Chris is, Josh, with good weather over the target, was off target on his bomb run. He scored 0%. We flew one more mission and decided to play something that we could all play at once. This would be a fun game to play as a "squadron". We'll have to try that some night.

What game could three of us play? Why, Roborally, of course! This is the fourth game night in a row that we have played Roborally. I'm not complaining though. I LOVE this game. It was Chris' first time playing it, so we opted not to use the "Armed and Dangerous" supplement. We did our standard 4 board/2 flag setup and off we went. We started moving our robots according to our programs and Chris promptly marched into a pit, killing his robot. "Ummm...can we start over? I didn't quite understand how this start would work..."

OK. New boards (why not?), new flags and off we go. We started moving our robots according to our programs and Chris promptly marched off the board, killing his robot. "Ummm...can we start over? I think I understand it now..."

OK. New boards (again), new flags and off we go. This time we really did start moving our robots. Chris seemed to grasp the game much better this time. In fact a little too well. He started loading up with options right off the bat. I didn't know a robot was capable of carrying that many options! I managed to get a head start on Josh and Chris and was well on my way to the first flag. Then a couple of lousy hands and I ended up just sitting still and spinning around. Josh passed me and was very close to the flag. It was placed in a devilishly difficult place, so he had some trouble maneuvering close to it. This allowed Chris and I to catch up. Josh did manage to touch it first anyway. I touched it second, but took a ton of damage from Josh in the process. Chris, meanwhile, touched the flag and took off toward the second flag without a hitch. Needless to say, Chris (toting all his options along) touched the second flag and won.

Yes, he did win, but he didn't rub our noses in it too much. After all, all we would have to do is bring up our first two attempts at starting the game ("You mean I DIE if I fall into a pit??")

Once again, another fun evening. I have a feeling that Roborally will become a pretty common occurrence on gaming night. Everybody seems to enjoy it and it's one of those games that allows a lot of socializing, a staple of our gaming nights.

Choosing a game to play on game night always seems to be a major ordeal ("I don't care, what do you want to play", "Doesn't matter to me, whatever you want to play.", etc.) So, this week I was pleasantly surprised when Matt actually had a game suggestion. Given his fondness for killing and maiming, he chose "Roborally". We chose four boards at random and added two flags. I don't think we could have come up with a more devious configuration if we tried. We had boards with flamers, boards with crushers and boards with chasms. We each picked an option and went at it.

For the most part, Matt managed to stay out of the fray as Josh and I pummeled away at each other. Josh had "Fire Control" and managed to lock a couple of my registers forcing me to shut down. Josh also managed to beat himself up pretty badly by running his program backwards and walking through a couple flamers (while it was running backwards I thought I heard his robot say "Paul is dead.") While all of this violence was going on, Matt was able to touch the flags and win. For someone who likes violent games, he sure stayed out of harm's way this time around. We need to beat him up a little more.

So, what better to do than play another game of "Roborally". This time with the "Armed and Dangerous" options. Another equally nasty configuration was chosen at random and the game began. We only got a few turns into it, however, when a friend of Josh's, Bill, and his wife Chris showed up. Fresh blood!!

So, we stop the "Roborally" game and the ultra-violence that was sure to follow (sorry, Matt) and decided to play something shorter. I bought "Mississippi Queen" while I was on vacation and it seemed like a good choice.

We picked our boats, I explained the rules, and the race began. It would be difficult for me to give a blow by blow description of this game because the lead changed hands so many times. One thing I will note, though, is how everyone seemed to be drawing on their racing game experience. Everytime someone would adjust their speed, say from speed 3 to speed 2, they would say something like "I'm going to downshift into second gear". Josh carried the analogy a little too far one time, after observing how much coal reserves he had, by declaring that he was "only in third coal."

After Matt managed to get me stuck in a couple of tight spots and pushed me to the back of the pack, he went on to pick up his two passengers and finish in first place. Josh made a mad dash at the end to catch up to him but misjudged the ending dock placement. Out of coal and no hope of winning, Josh pushed his paddle wheeler to speed 6 (sixth gear) and intentionally ran aground into the crowd of spectators at the dock. It was a scene right out of "Speed 2". The rest of us managed to avoid the debris and carnage and finish the game. Not a bad game, all in all. I would like to play it a few more times to see how well it holds replay value.

Finally, with the clock threatening Midnight, we decided to play a quick game of "Bohnanza". I had misjudged how long the game would take, forgetting that everyone, except me, had never played it. We ended up finishing the game around 1:00am. A little later than our usual gaming night. This time Josh and Bill tied for first with 12 coins. This in spite of the fact that Josh only seemed interested in trading away blue beans throughout the game. Usually to people that had no interest in blue beans. I really like this game, although I need to find out what Matt's opinion is, being that he doesn't really care for games that have a lot of bidding and trading.

That was about it. I felt bad that we didn't get around to "Formula De" because Bill brought several tracks with him. We just ran out of time. In retrospect, we probably DID have the time considering how long "Bohnanza" took. Oh well, maybe another time...

Three people. Looks like another night of Roborally. We randomly pick four boards, put two flags up, picked an option card for each robot and the game is afoot. Dave and Mike start off in the same direction and shoot each other in the first couple turns. I, meanwhile, take the low road and avoid the confusion (and the lasers). Initially it appeared that I would be a runaway to the flag. While I was the first to touch the first flag, I took so much damage from Mike and Dave (including one turn when they both hit me at once) that I was forced to shutdown. This allowed them to catch up. Again, though, by avoiding the melee that ensued between them I took off and had a strong lead. I was within a few squares of the second (and final) flag when, from a whole board away, Mike shot me with his tractor beam. This forced me to run into walls and generally go nowhere. For the next few turns I tried to escape his tractor beam as he and Dave drew closer to no avail. I was constantly running into walls and conveyor belts going the wrong way. This brought Mike to within striking distance of the final flag when he pushed me off the board (killing my robot). Then, in a stroke of irony, a misplaced card in his program forced him to quietly follow me off the board (it's amazing what a missing semicolon will do to a program!) This set us both back a whole board and allowed Dave to leisurely touch the flag.

Since Roborally had taken up a good portion of the night, we decided to try something a little shorter for our next game. Out came Titan: The Arena. This is the second time our group has played this game and I have to say that it certainly made more sense (at least to me) the second time around. After some initial confusion about the rules we got everything straightened out and made it through the first round. This first round lasted a lot longer than the first time we played. I attribute this to familiarity with the rules which allowed us to concentrate on strategy. Although I enjoyed the game a lot more this time, I apparently still don't have the strategy down because the character I had my secret bet on didn't last through the third round. It was clear that Mike was backing the Cyclops and kept using its power to force Dave to use only half his cards. Even when it was this obvious we couldn't kill it. The last round came down to a well timed card on my part to insure that the Titan would die and make Dave the winner. I am anxious to play this game again. Hopefully I will be able to last into the fourth round.

So...two games, one winner: Dave. Once again, I think Roborally shows itself as being a good three player game. This time the robots were painted to help give the appearance of a quality game (not that it isn't a quality game with unpainted robots). I don't know everyone else's opinion yet, but I LOVE that game.

It must be the chair. Chris couldn't make it last night, so Josh sat in the chair that Chris normally sits in and became unbeatable.

We started off the night with another new game, "Roborally". Since it was our first time playing, we chose one of the easy board configurations from the back of the instruction manual. Everything went pretty well. Josh and I were both close to the last flag when he finally touched it to end the game. (He actually should have won sooner, except he did a "rotate right" instead of a "rotate left".) Mike had a little bit of a problem getting the hang of how the conveyor belts moved his robot around the board, but overall didn't do to badly.

We then got out "Formula De". It was Josh' first time playing it, so after the obligatory rules explanation, we got underway. Josh won the Pole Position (of course) and never gave up the lead. He seemed to be able to hit the corners perfectly and Mike was chasing him the whole time. I, on the other hand, kept whipping through the corners burning up tires and brakes. I burned up so many, in fact, that I was the only one of the three of us that required a pit stop. Again, Josh hit the corners exactly the way he needed to on the second and final lap. Mike was starting to lose a little ground and I had a snowball's chance in Hell of catching either one of them. I pushed my car to the limit in an attempt to catch up and burned up my tires again. With two corners left, I overshot a corner by 5 spaces, burned the last of my brakes and tires and spun out. As Josh finally crossed the finish line he rolled a "30" in sixth gear. This caused him and Mike (who was in fifth gear) to make an engine check. Josh passed it, Mike didn't and his engine exploded in the last corner of the track. Meanwhile, two corners back, I shifted into first gear, eventually driving at a leisurely pace past Mike's smoking hulk to come in second place.

At this point we thought we would try another game of "Roborally". We thought it would be fun to design our own board, so I shuffled them upside down and Mike picked four of them and laid them on the table. I placed the flags so they created a crossing pattern to insure a lot of interaction between our robots. Well, about an hour later as we were just beginning to approach our first flag (after each of us shutdown to repair damage several times) we decided to remove the fourth board and the third flag. Josh, of course, was the first person to touch the first flag and took off in a beeline to the second flag. Again, Mike had a tough time with the program cards and walked off the edge of the board killing his robot. He brought out an archived copy back on the first board and could never again get near the first flag. He did, however, manage to fall into a pit killing his final robot. (I told you he was having a problem with the cards!) I managed to touch the first flag one turn before Josh touched the second flag, winning the game.

All in all, a fun night. Roborally makes a pretty good three player game (although it would be more fun with more people) which is great, because it's difficult to find a game that works well with three. We WILL be playing this one again and I WILL be buying more expansion boards for it.

Well, this was definitely "A Day at the Races" ("A Night at the Races"??)

Just to get everybody in a betting mood, we started out with "Titan: The Arena". After the usual groaning and bellyaching about the rules being to hard to follow, the game got underway. Everybody made a secret bet in the first round (I was shamed into it when Matt called me a wimp). I should know better than to listen to my fellow gamers. My secret bet was on the Troll who promptly died in the first round. This game saw Chris display an uncharacteristic moment of compassion when he put a bet on the Cyclops in the third round right before he killed it. He claimed he didn't want Dave to be mad at him (Dave was the current "backer" of the Cyclops with the most ducats displayed), so he put the bet down to demonstrate that he also would lose money. After a couple of last minute saves of various creatures, Dave came out the winner by having the most ducats on the Titan. While Matt didn't win, he certainly was grinning whenever he got to kill something.

Next came "The Really Nasty Horse Racing Game". There were only 4 of us, so I think the game lost some of its "flavor". Several of the races were very close, at least for some of the horses. Of course, I couldn't seem to roll anything higher than a 3 all night. Although Dave never really had much money during this game, he did try to pay Matt to play one of his "Objection" cards against Chris. Another interesting point: although the cards that get played are called "Faller" cards, I think we need to rename them for our group. All throughout the game they were being played more like "Assassinate" cards. We never said a horse got tripped. It was always "HA!! I'm going to kill your horse!" at which point a card would hit the table. Anyway, although I only ended up in the winner's circle once, I managed to win by placing really large bets on several other winning horses. We need to play this game again with 6 people.

Finally, to end the night, we played "Formula De". We decided on the Monaco track and off we went. While most of realized that it was a racing game, Dave thought it was "Sunday Driver De" as his dice hand was very cold. Chris, on the other hand, could do no wrong. It seemed like every time he threw the dice, he ended up exactly where he needed to be. He even managed to put his car in sixth gear between the first and second turns. In fact he threw a "30" (which he claims was his downfall). As our 2 lap race was coming to a close, Matt and Chris were neck and neck in the final two turns. Chris decided he needed to push his car just a little more to beat Matt. The gamble did not pay off. Coming out of the last turn Chris spun off. Matt passed him and took the checkered flag. In fact, I very nearly caught up to Chris at the very end (I was quite a ways back), but he beat me by a handful of spaces. Oh yeah, then there's Dave. I think we may have even been putting the game away when he finally crossed the finish line. In his defense, however, he did shorten up the distance between us quite a bit in the backstretch. Nevertheless, his dice turned cold again in the last 2 turns and he was unable to catch up. I think we all enjoyed this game (yes, even Dave) and are looking forward to playing it again.

Card Night!!

Only three of us showed up this week and since nobody was in the mood for anything too heavy, we thought we'd try a couple card games I got for Christmas.

First was "Take 6". I'm still not sure how much strategy is in this game, but it sure is a lot of fun! Dave lost the first game in only three hands. He actually got 27 points in one hand. He had 67 points when it was all over. Chris noted that that's an average of just over 22 points a hand. We played this game a second time later in the evening and this time I lost. I did a little better than Dave and lasted 4 hands. Of course, I scored 87 points and Chris pointed out that that was just under 22 points a hand. Jeez, I hate that!

Next, I thought I'd teach the two of them how to play "Mancala". In retrospect, I should have picked something else. Dave and Chris played the first game while I watched and enforced the rules. During the whole game I had to listen to Dave talk about how much it reminded him of Backgammon and he HATES backgammon. Then I had to listen to Chris talk about how he saw some tribe playing this game on "National Geographic" on PBS. The difference was that the cups were holes dug out of the ground and the playing pieces were camel dung. You can imagine how most of the conversation went from then.

Finally, another Christmas card game came out. "Phantoms of the Ice". This is basically a showdown type card game disguised as a hockey game. Each person holds a team of six players and on their turn you can play a game against another person, trade with another person or draft a replacement player from the unused cards. Our first game consisted of a lot of drafting as everyone attempted to get an "ideal" team before trying to play someone else. Dave was the first person to accumulate 9 wins, so he played Chris in the playoffs (best of 7). There were no "bruiser" cards in either one of their hands, which means no chance of anyone getting injured. Since trades and drafts are not allowed in the playoffs, it meant that Dave and Chris had to play with the cards they had going into the playoffs. After a strong start by Dave, Chris ended up winning 4 games to 2. The second time we played, we were all more willing to play a game without having built our teams up as much as the first time around. There was also a lot more trading going on, with "Superstar 10" changing hands several times. This time Chris was the first to get to 9 wins. I made it to the playoffs, so it was my turn to get trashed. Chris had a "bruiser" that kept injuring my players and forced me to draw from the deck. Out of three players injured, I replaced them with players with strengths of 1, 1, and 2. Needless to say, Chris won, 4 games to 1.

Overall, playing these "lighter" games made for a very fun evening. We definitely want to try "Phantoms of the Ice" with more people. 6 would be a great number.