A small group of hard-core gamers tonight with a modest sample of games to try from Pat’s shelves. Dragon Delta close-up is the nicest pic of the night.

Dragon Delta: Brian’s choice, this one.
Hop from rock to rock with the help of stones and planks, and judiciously timed playing of cards. Classic for explorations in groupthink and for game theory.
11 mins rules and setup; about 55 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue) wins. Brian (red) very close. Alex (yellow), Jeff (green) and Paul (black) in there running interference.

Chronology: Build a set of cards, each marked with a unique year (actually some years have multiple cards) and a trivia question pertaining to that year. You don’t have to get the year correct, just the correct order in your chronology. Although Pat did make up the instant house rule that getting the correct year provided a bonus card…
This was the best game of the night requiring the most actual skill and talent.
About 1 min rules and setup; 30 mins game time.
Results: Paul: 10 (11 if you apply the house rule of +1 bonus for picking the exact year of an event - in this case it was 1933, the date of the 21st amendment to the US constitution, repealing prohibition!). Pat: 9. Brian, Jeff: 8. Alex: 7.

Luna Llena: Four humans explore a forest from a camp site, attempting to find the trail of pesky werewolves that have kidnapped two non-player characters. Avoid werewolf encounters (coz they tend to tear you apart), find helpful stuff in the forest, and try to uncover the trail of the werewolves in order to uncover their lair. The goal is to do this in order to free the human hostages and find the map to lead you out of the forest.
Is it any coincidence that the words luna, lupus, and ludo all start with “lu-”?
28 mins rules and setup; 176 mins game time.
Results: Pat, Jeff, Brian and Paul, normal humans, beat Alex, three werewolves. In the process both Jeff and Brian were werewolved to death towards the end of the game. Paul managed to retrieve a hostage from the werewolf lair, as well as the all-important map to safety, which allowed Pat (playing tiny Asian girl Ruka) to make it out of the forest and thus satisfy our collective victory condition.

In my rush to get here tonight I couldn’t find the camera, so I had to use the Nokia. Sorry: Quality down as a result.

Roborally: Just underway when I arrived at Brian’s.
Results: Pat: 1st. Brad: 2nd. Alex: 3rd.

Scottish Highland Whisky Race: Simultaneous bidding of “malt points” to move along the track, picking up whisky bottles along the way. Second-guess opponent moves, because each space co-occupied costs +1 malt point per co-occupying opponent to leave.
Collected whisky bottles score points, even more if you land on a ’selling’ space. Cross the finish line first and collect bonus points, but this is not necessarily what will give you the win.
So, a race game, with a twist. I like the theme, but there’s nothing particularly remarkable about the game play (for me, at least).
40 mins game time; rules and setup not recorded.
Results: Jeff (green): 15. Brian (red): 14. Don (yellow), Paul (orange): 12. Richard (purple): 11.

Genesis: Played by the Roborallians.
Results: Alex, Pat: 47 (equal first). Brad: 44.
Comment in my notebook: “Dinosaur genocide needs a Tyrannosaurus Rex”. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds pretty relevant.

Rum & Pirates: With a 2006 publication date it seems this one has a few years on it. But the first time I saw this was in Don’s game bag maybe a week or a few ago. And an airing tonight at last. Each player has a limited number of movement space points per round, indicated nicely by little coloured pirate figures, that are used to indicate on the board which tracks have been used (and therefore unusable for the rest of the round), to trace a path around the board and collect points tokens (or potential points tokens) along the way. Other benefits are available too, for example the spaces that provide extra pirate figures, a feature I was able to use to good effect throughout the game.
But you need coins to grant yourself extra moves in a given turn and to use the board wrap-around moves. Unfortunately for me, and as experienced occasionally by others, running out of coins is a Bad Thing. Two turns in a row I was hosed by Don who, intentionally or not (I’m still not sure!), as the player to my right, successfully stranded me in a corner from which I could not escape (having no money)! For these two turns I managed to win the higher bonus points, since left-over pirates do die-based wrangling for bonuses. However, in my estimation I could have picked up maybe another 3-6 points per turn. This would have put me in contention for second spot, had I not been hosed. However, I doubt that I could have challenged Don for first place - he just picked up too too many points from pub gambling!
Nice game this one. My advice for the uninitiated: Don’t leave yourself short of money, especially early in each given round.
20 mins rules and setup; 95 mins game time.
Results: Don (blue): 93. Brian (red): 63. Jeff (black): 59. Paul (gold): 58. Richard (silver): 40.

Assyria:
Results: Alex: 120. Brad: 107. Pat: 98.

Fairy Tale:
Results: Pat: 35. Alex: 34. Brad: 33.

Geschenkt:
Results (less negative is better): Pat: -60. Brad: -66. Al: -73.

Boomtown: I’ve seen this game around for ages, but tonight was the first playing of this for me. Bid for the right to choose cards that generate mining income each turn from a 2d6 dice roll (a la Settlers). Improve your lot and impact other players with special cards.
I did get a little lucky early in the game with a “6” card that paid off about three times within five rolls, and this gave me slightly better bidding power in some early turns. But I reckon I used this to time my bids more easily, rather than trying too hard to over-bid other players.
Clearly a game requiring great skill.
7 mins rules explan and setup; 49 mins game time.
Results: Paul: 116. Alex: 105. Richard: 95. Pat: 67.

Ticket to Ride Switzerland:
About 8 mins rules and setup; 57 mins game time.
Results: Don won with a huge score and an asterisk, against Brian, Jeff, and Brad.
The most observant will notice the anomaly already and therefore the reason for the asterisk…
Yes - TtRS is intended for 2-3 players only, but these guys pushed over that limit, and acknowledge that normal game play probably broke as a result.

King Lui: Regal cuisine-flavoured set collecting to get the evening under way.
2 mins rules and setup; 12 mins game time.
Results: Richard: 55. Jeff: 48. Paul: 46. Pat: 44. Don: 17.

Yspahan: Markets and camels. But mostly camels.
About 40 mins.
Results: Brad: 76. Alex: 74. Jeff: 61. Matt: 60.

Manila: This one appeared in Don’s game bag tonight, and I vaguely recalled enjoying it when played before, courtesy of Pat. Pat was prepared to play it again, but told us that he wasn’t rapt and had in fact traded his copy away!
This game is essentially gambling on outcomes and derivatives thereof, spiced up with a hint of share collecting, and the theme of commodity boats making it into port for pay-offs.
Yeah, this was not quite as much fun as I remember it being…
About 30 mins setup and rules refresh, 54 mins game time.
Results: Richard (orange): 174. Paul (red): 83. Pat (blue): 78. Don (black): -16.

Chaos in the Old World:
Virgin playing for Brad’s copy.
No details here about who played which race. No further comments but this was a very loud game!
About 125 mins.
Results: Alex: 1st. Matt: 2nd. Jeff: 3rd. Brad: 4th.

Cartagena: Filler for the Chaosians.
About 15 mins.
Results: Brad: 1st. Alex, Jeff: Equal second, “back with the cab catchers” (according to my notes).

At the Gates of Loyang: More Uwe Rosenberg economic development goodness, in the wake of Agricola and Le Havre. In this case our theme is vegetable farming and trading in rural China.
I was really liking this, all the way up to the end, despite it being a largely solo game. But then the final scores reveal how close we all were, and I started to have some doubts about variability and replayability. Certainly I’d like to give it another go to observe this, ie., whether there are significantly different strategies that can be tried, or whether the differences are only tactical and opportunistic?
Oh, and I am rather annoyed that my close-up pic came out all blurry, so I didn’t bother to expand it to 800×600 (only half of that here).
30 mins rules and setup; 137 mins game time.
Results: Richard: 19 (+$1). Pat: 18 (+$3). Don: 17 (+$18). Paul: 17 (+$16).

Quixo: Wooden dice cube abstracto, a present for the 8yr old from his Grandma, played by Alex and Jeff to end the night for them.
Alex wins 2 games to 0 against Jeff.

Check out close-ups for Endeavor and Ad Astra…

Make ‘n’ Break Würfelspiel: Brian brought this as the light ice-breaker for the evening. Two rounds played only. Neil and I had points surges courtesy of special build cards.
13 minutes.
Results: Neil: 15. Paul: 13. Alex: 11. Jeff: 8. Brian: 7.

Uptown: There may have been some spontaneous Billy Joel-ing at the mention of this one.
5 mins rules and setup; 24 mins game time.
Results: Pat: 1st. Brad: 2nd. Neil F: 3rd. Richard: 4th.

Endeavor: This is a very cool game, and the first time I’ve got to play it after it having done the rounds for a few months within the group. A little bit of Puerto Rico-ness with choosing buildings, some Caylus-ness, or maybe Goa-ness with the management and driving up of different activity tracks (being buildings, population, labour, and card management), and a little bit of area majority-ness with on-board tokens. And, a touch of pussing with cannons, just to nudge up the insecurity and angst and sense of a war machine gap, which is quite nice but not an overwhelming element to the game.
A fascinatingly-close score for this game, and I’ve got no doubt that with another playing of this my relative score would go down. But heck, I’d love to give this another go sometime soon.
20 mins rules and setup; 95 mins game time.
Results: Alex (white): 55. Jeff (green), Brian (red), Paul (black): all 53 each. Yes, really.

Masquerade: Apparently some kind of role-playing aspect to this, but I can’t say any more. I assume Pat got some kind of ‘power’ that allowed him to turn over points on a turn-by-turn basis, and everyone else decided they couldn’t reel him in and therefore didn’t bother and just played for place. Sounds miserable.
Update: In my original score record, I had Pat: 45. I’m sure I asked for confirmation at the time and was assured this was true! Apparently it was a joke, and Pat’s actual score was more like 9. Or maybe 11. But it felt like it was 45, according to the others that played against Pat, “the zephyr in the dark pale of night” (even if he does say so himself).
83 mins incl. rules.
Results: Pat: 11 (or maybe 9). Brad: 7. Richard: 6. Neil: 3.

Alea Iacta Est:
Romanes eunt dice - “People called Romans they go the dice…?”
10 mins rules and setup; 35 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): 45. Richard (orange): 44. Brian (green): 38. Neil F. (grey): 37.

Ad Astra:
Exploration, discovery, resource management, and scoring it big - in space this time.
Check out the close-up on those terraformers.
18 mins rules and setup; 64 mins game time.
Results: Alex (yellow): 80. Paul (green): 71. Jeff (blue): 54. Brad (grey): 46.

Roma:
Night closer for Brian and Richard. We left them to it, so no game data at the time of writing…
Results: Richard: (insert score here). Brian: (insert score here).

Cosy gaming on a Sydney Winter’s night at Pat’s place.
There may have been a bunch of games already played before I got there.
My pics tonight were taken with the Nokia and have come out so crap that I almost didn’t bother to add them. I have included them here for the purposes of historical record only!

Genesis: This was was just underway when I turned up.
Final results show it close: Alex: 29. Richard: 28. Pat: 27. Brian: 25.

Le Havre: This was just being considered when I arrived, so I was happy to join in. We played the short game (12 turns), and apparently the first ever for Brad. So Brad was up against it from the start. For me, it was the usual struggle to keep a sustainable food stockpile while taking and making opportunistic build moves. I didn’t get a Wooden ship until a few turns before the end, and Lindsay didn’t get one at all (neither did Brad, I think).
Jeff’s game, once again.
15 mins rules and setup; 77 mins game time.
Results: Jeff (green): 88. Paul (timber), Lindsay (red): 79. Brad (purple): 54.

Scripts and Scribes:
Played by the Genesians on the other table.
Dunno what this was all about. Alchemy, maybe…?
BGG has the same game listed as Biblios, which is presumably a different edition of the same game.
Results: Alex: 5. Pat: 4 (probably 2nd on tie break). Brian: 4. Richard: 3.

Macao: Second playing for me (and maybe Jeff, not sure about Lindsay), but first time for Brad, who just got crushed on the penalties for building up cards. In this game I managed to plan for card requirements to build them out of my ‘penalty box’. But, I rarely bothered to look at their benefits and position for them – I was just more concerned with churning them out! And that’s one of the reasons for my mediocre score!
21 mins rules and setup; 82 mins game time.
Results: Lindsay (orange): 77. Jeff (brown): 59. Paul (white): 56. Brad (yellow): 26.

Kanaloa:
South Pacific island hopping. Cool volcano piece.
Results: Alex: 42. Pat: 40. Richard: 32. Brian: 30.

Ra the Dice Game:
Something light to end the night. I was doing OK until the Ra indicator just raced up the track too quickly. And a flood would have put me in touch, but it was not to be.
23 mins game time.
Results: Jeff (green): 31. Lindsay (yellow): 18. Paul (red): 10.

Uruk:
My pic here is very ordinary (apologies again) and I assume I’ve got it right - this is Uruk in the picture…? Or is it Scripts and Scribes?
Results: Alex: 21 (1st on tie break). Pat: 21. Richard: 19. Brian: 17.

In my little game record book this is the first game session I have recorded since the ConTrail weekend, so for me at least, this was a return to the usual Sunday night routine…!

Cave Troll: Spotted again by Alex in the corner (the game, not Alex), so it came into play.
3 mins rules and setup; about 72 mins game play.
Results: Paul (blue): 81. Jeff (green): 71. Alex (yellow): 70. Brad (red): 63.

Golden 7: This is the 3d6 game. Max three rolls. Try to get a natural 7 (eg., 4,2,1). If you miss, your score goes up by the value of your dice roll. When you get to 21 you are eliminated.
First game: 12 minutes. Brad eliminated, then Paul, then Alex, leaving Jeff the winner.
2nd game: 10 minutes. Alex out, then Paul, then Jeff. Brad wins.
A cheap thrill filler.

Star Wars Press-O-Matic Trouble: Presumably Matt and Pat were just bored when they first turned up and saw the rest of us committed to Cave Troll. Pat spotted this one in the corner and I guess it just had to be done.
7 mins. Matt wins.

Cathedral: The third game spotted in our corner pile. Pat continues to rack up his count of unique games played for the year.
Note: This was was another bargain purchase from somewhere - might have $5 or $10 for this plus the Trumpet game, coming up below…
10 mins total. Stalemate! One piece each, same size, left remaining.

Ubongo: Slightly more serious games now coming into play, with the arrival of Richard and Neil F.
Wouldn’t mind having a go at this one again myself one day. I recall playing this years ago and liking it…
7 mins rules and setup; 15 mins game time.
Results: Pat: 5/5 (winner). Neil F: 5/3 (2nd). Richard: 4/3/3/2 (3rd). Mat: 4/3/3/1 (4th).

Trumpet: Fourth game from our corner pile! This one is another one of those school fete/thrift shop finds for $5 or less (see Cathedral entry above). It’s a trick-taking game, with ranked trump suits that change throughout the game. It’s pretty simple, but we’ve found that it works as a way to introduce kids to the concept of trick-taking games.
About 38 mins game time.
Results: Matt first, Pat second, Neil F. and Richard: Losers.

Chicago Express: Although Alex and I had played before (Brad and Matt had not), we still had to spend half an hour re-considering and explaining the rules. funky features in this game, where you have to not only expand the line that you invest in, but also look at investing in the lines that others expand on! Classic speculation/influence stuff. My success in this session came from driving the yellow line hard towards Chicago (before anyone else) and having most of its ownership, then taking a stake in the black line alongside Brad.
30 mins rules and setup; 60 mins game play.
Results: Paul: 99. Brad: 81. Alex: 80. Matt: 79.

Merchants of Venus: “Oh boy, you should have seen us…”
17 mins rules and setup; 102 mins game time.
Results: Richard (red): 2004. Neil F. (black): 1086. Pat (blue): 1047. Jeff (green): 990.

Midgard: I like the idea of pronouncing this title as “Mijard”.
Been ages since I’ve played this area majorities - card-passing jaunt. Clearly I don’t do enough Fairy Tale like you other fairies. That’s OK. Defeated but not disgraced.
10 mins rules and setup; 38 mins game time.
Results: Brad (black): 100. Alex (yellow): 94. Paul (green): 87.

Star Wars Press-O-Matic Trouble (again): What I really don’t get about this was the need for it to be played twice tonight. By Pat.
Results: Jeff: 4. Pat: 2.

Ben 10 Uno: What?? That makes the sixth game from our corner (counting Star Wars Trouble twice).
Pat and Jeff again. Pat creamed it by 63 to 68.
Which I don’t really get, since I thought the winner in Uno was the player who depleted their cards first…? Maybe this was a cut-down game.

Too Many Cooks: A soup-spoiling way to end the evening.
6 mins rules and setup; 40 mins game time.
Results: Alex, Brad: 19. Paul: 18. Pat: 14. Jeff: 11.

I’m not sure when this second one was taken, or for that matter, who took it! Paul M. and Neil, soaking in the Sunday ConTraily goodness.

And here, the morning sun streams into the lodge and catches the rugged, rustic handsome-ness of Alex, Jeff, and Brad’s back. Look carefully, and you can see Alex telling it like it is. If we could see Brad’s face, it would reveal incredulity. Jeff is simply trying not to laugh, as he has a mouth full of cornflakes.

And again, looking east-wards, perhaps that’s Paul and Neil only peripherally in shot, top left of the table, with Steve and Richard looking and pondering yonder, while Ed is focussed on breakfast. (Eggs Benedict, courtesy, once again, of Brian.)
Yeah.

Then I took a little wander down over the “wallaby field”, for a little backward glance west-wards to the lodge. Green grass, blue sky, and gaming.

Plenty of gaming to report on, but I don’t have pictures of everything.
From my records then, the first game of the day is Auf de Reeperbahn nachts um halb Zwei, in which I see Alex with 2 wins, Brad with zero. No other details.

Then I have Dominon written here.
Results: Neil: 42. Craig: 34. Steve: 24. Jeff: 9.

Descent: Journeys in the Dark: This was the biggie for the day. Start time 11:30, finish time 4:15, making it 4 hrs and 45 mins (although presumably a lunch break is included within that time). I’d heard that this was like a somewhat more involved “version” of HeroQuest. In this case it was Richard and Brad vs. the evil (GM) Alex.
Result: “Good guys triumph!”

Das Zepter von Zavandor: I think this was a new game for Neil, and perhaps for Steve too…?
I thought I was doing quite well at this, although Jeff did start pulling away quite early. But the last few turns were horribly telling. I swear, get the bids wrong for one or two magic items or sentinels, and your game can be gone! Of course, it doesn’t help if your game play has been mediocre all along, and you’ve just lulled yourself into a false sense of cleverness.
25 mins rules and setup; 138 mins game time.
Results: Jeff (yellow): 71. Neil (black): 57. Steve (red): 55. Paul (green): 52.

1960: The Making of the President: Elephants vs. Donkeys. I imagine Brian being right in his element here, as an American ex-patriot, for whom no doubt Nixon would have been a boyhood hero.
And today he’s had his chance to successfully re-write history in his favour.
2 hours.
Results: Brian: 285 as Nixon. Pat: 213 as Kennedy.
(Curious how in this game the right wing party is red and the left wing blue…!)
(Recorded in my notes: “An election day swing in California swung the result from an otherwise Kennedy victory“)

Pick & Pack: This was played primarily to give Pat another game to mark off his annual register.
24 mins.
Results: Paul (red): 50. Pat (blue): 32. I rock!

Ghost Stories - White Moon: Some serious, lovely chromy collaborative gaming.
Recorded here: A collective victory at normal level; score 34.
Players not recorded in the book, but from the pic we see Alex, Brad, Brian and Pat.

Ra - the Dice Game: Filler fodder.
Curiously, I have the names and colours recorded here, but no results…!
Brian (red); Neil (green); Jeff (yellow).

Go Nuts: Dice and squirrels to fill in 5 minutes.
Results: Pat: 50. Paul: 23.

Betrayal at the House on the Hill: A little bit of mystery role-playingness (kinda) to end the weekend with.
Cast: Jenny Le Clerc: Pat. Professor Longfellow: Brian. Zoe Ingstrom: Neil. Darrin “Flash” Williams: Jeff. Madam Zostra: Paul.
The Professor triggered the ‘haunting’, and became the bad guy. We were to play against “Death” in a game of chess. Lose the game or leave the room, and we’d die! We could increase our chances at successful moves by discovering various artifacts through the house. Eventually: Success! We checkmated death.
I had taken a few cool pics of this game, but they seemed to be corrupted on the camera due to battery failure. Bummer.

Brad, Tue June 8:
Dune requires its own special write up.

Dune, the greatest game ever, apparently, according to some.

6 players were either dragooned or volunteered to play.

As Alex would only play the game under the basic rule set (no optional or advanced rules at all), Richard & Ed, in appeasing Al & wanting to get their Dune fix, agreed. This brought about their cries of anguish & disbelief every 5 minutes for the lost optional / advanced rules, to which Al stoicly replied, “is it in the basic rules? No, so we’re not playing it.”

Personally, I think Dune lacks spice so to speak without some of the optional rules, after all, who is the Kwisatz Haderach? In the basic rules, it would seem no one is.

Anyway, with the first Shai Hulud card, alliances were formed, Neil “Sugar Daddy Emperor” & Steve “Guild Rent Boy” kept wads of cash between them. The Vickary Bros created the unholy alliance between Richard Atreides & Ed Harkonen while the only natural alliance being Alex Fremen & myself BG.

The game trundled on, with no alliance being in a position to get & keep 4 red sites, because as soon as someone was, the other 2 alliances were always powerful enough to ensure that it never came off.

So that was then pretty much 7 turns of the same thing, over & over for 3 hours, ad nauseum, Alex & I beating our collective heads & looking longingly at other games, such as Samurai & other Knizia bastard children.

A Turn 8 Shai Hulud saw a change in the alliances with the Emperor divorcing his Guild Rent Boy & the sides were now evenly split down the middle. The new sides were the Emperor, Fremen & BG against the Atreides, Harkonen & Guild. The former alliance almost pulled off the victory on Turn 8 (which was the turn that the BG had predicted an Emperor victory).

It was then another 7 turns after that of inevitability, plodding to the Turn 15 auto win for the Guild. At Turn 9, Al & I were happily prepared to concede this. However Richard & Ed were convinced they could manufacture a win before then.

3 hours later & 7 turns later, it was proven they couldn’t.

Turn 15 came, the Guild won by default.

In essence then, Dune really does need the optional & advanced rules as the game is just too evenly balanced for 6 players with the basic rules only. And it took 6 hours of my life to prove that. The optional & advanced rules upset the balance of power allowing concentration of force at certain points so someone can actually force the win rather than put everyone through 6 hours of grinding out to Turn 15.

Because it’s Dune, because it’s one of the best themed games ever, I’d play again (after a period of therapy), but only with certain optional & advanced rules added but not all of them. Thus the debate begins as to which rules to include & which rules to exclude…..

Cheers
Brad
–
Don’t like my attitude? Call 1-800-Get-A-Dog
(Dream like you’ll live forever, live like you’ll die today)
—–

Pat, Tue June 8:
All I know is that everytime I looked over, the folded arms to unfolded arms ratio was way up there :-)
—–

Alex, Tue June 8:
lol,
well ‘Dune’ is like a lover you know is going to make you hurt (and not in a good way). I have to say I liked the basic game a lot more than the advanced, and most of the rules left out were just chrome (even if i missed some of it myself). If anything the kwizats haderach should be Freman… i mean, have you read the books ?;D. All in all advanced is just a hooker version of your little black dress number (too much make-up, keep the lights low and part with the readies). Probably as richard said it’s a better 4 player (but you only really wanted to ditch the bene and guild which were long play focused), which really means 2 player team. I’m not sure I can resist her allure again, but I’ll hate myself in the morning.

Alex.
—–

Andrew, Tue June 8:
Alex is clearly making a late play for Richard’s “most extended analogy” award!
—–

Richard, Wed June 9:

Alex Filewood wrote:
> I have to say I liked the basic game a lot more than the
> advanced, and most of the rules left out were just chrome

First let me correct Brad’s record. We played TWO games of Dune.
One won by the Atreides in turn 1 (modesty forbids me to mention…)

The other an interesting, but over-long, tactical grind to a Guild victory - precipitated by an unexpected nexus due to Alex’s mis-counting, leading to Steve “the Evil Bastard” back-stabbing his way to solo victory, based ultimately on the back of on an alliance set-up by Brad “the Puppet Master” seven turns earlier which forced Alex and Neil together so that Brad’s prediction could go off.

The basic game vs optional/advanced is fine, I’ll take my Dune in any position, but the problem is the game generally requires some house rules.
I play that the stronghold player limit is 3 rather than 2 for 5+ players. This would have prevented some dodgy blocking and surely seen an earlier win in game two.

I think a 4 player game is optimal and should run 1-3 hours. Leaving out the Bene Gesserit and Guild is easy because in the basic game, it is a long time before either faction becomes a major player.

But fellow sand-dwellers, remember what the Fremen say….
“al-raqs quddam alumi majhudan la yura amal-u”
- dancing in front of the blind is an effort that goes unseen
`r
—–

Brad, Wed June 9:
If it is 3 units allowed to biff it out for a Stronghold fight, then yes, we would have reached a decisive result long before I believe rather than the grind to default conclusion we all have to endure (which may not in itself necessarily be a strategically incorrect thing, a Guild player can legitimately say that that was what his goal was.)

The first “game” was surely a reminder of the rules & refresher for those who haven’t played in sometime? hehe
—–

Neil M, Thu June 10:
I enjoyed Dune (even if it did take a big chunk of game time, at least
one game I play at Contrail seems to).

Yep, if you play with 3 players allowed to contest a stronghold, then
the game probably won’t go to Turn 15 (is that an optional rule :)

Thanks to all for good gaming, Paul for organising venue, Brian for
Sunday breakfast and lunch, Euhan and Richard for transport.

Cheers
Neil Mack
—–

Alex, Thu June 10:
One last comment on that. Why have a limit at all? I mean if you are going to extending to three… to make it less pus-able, making 3 teams more likely… why not extend it to greater number and stop the pus-able option completely (after all it is only pus-able if non-allied allies work together to stop a mutual enemy winning, which is pretty daft “or a feature”) thus allowing even solitary players a chance to win (woo hoo). working on the “last word” award as well :)

Alex.
—–

Steve, Thu June 10:
Can’t we just wait for FFG to release the expansion for their upcoming re-themed Dune which fixes all the broken rules?
—–

Neil M, Thu June 10:
Could be waiting some time for FFG.

I guess the 3 allowed in a stronghold allows for some blocking but not to the extent we saw in Saturday’s game (trying to get the last word in :)
—–

Pat, Thu June 10:
> Could be waiting some time for FFG.
They’re still working out how to fit it into the Battlelore system.
—–

Neil M, Thu June 10:
Or Battle Star Galactica.
—–

Brad, Thu June 10:
I don’t think there was enough counters in the last FFG release, so they’ve gone back to the drawing board to try & complicate things with more counters.

Cheers
Brad
—–

Alex, Sun June 13:
*sigh
Alex.
—–

PM: Alex, I think neither a sigh, nor signing your name counts as the last word. Sorry.
—–

And the winners of these prestigious awards are…….

Worst Prediction: Don: “The no missing card variant of No Thanks! can’t possibly work” - before we played two hysterical games of it

Stealth Annihilation: Euhan: “Oh - I don’t know the game well, you’d better check the rules for me” - before destroying Brian and me in Samurai

Added by Andrew:
Fixed that for ya:
Stealth Annihilation: Euhan: “Oh - I don’t know the game well, you’d better check the rules for me” - before destroying Brian and Andrew in Brass
(unless he used the same tactic twice, hmmm)…
&roo

Added by Euhan:
Dang! My stealth annihilation strategy has been exposed.I will have to think of another strat for next contrail!

Gratuitous Swearing: Paul: “Because I f**&^ng can!”

Superlative Diplomacy: Pat: “I’m really sorry I can’t play Descent, but Brian asked me to bring 1960 and I’d feel bad if he missed out on the chance…”

Art Lover: Jeff: “I’m just going to keep all these Rembrandt guys chained to the easels making money for me” - Dutch Golden Age

Pessimist: Ed: “What’s the mercy rule again? I’m going to need it!” - Fresh Fish

Evil Bastard: Steve: “I guess that means maybe I should break our alliance; especially as you let me mind all your money!” - Dune

Weak Stomach: Brad: “No, I am good for Samurai. No, actually I am a bit queasy. But hang on, I might be alright. No, I think I’d better bail…”

Boomerang Bullet: Brian: - in dodging Descent winds up in a game of Betrayal at House on the Hill fighting evil and loathing… (of Hasbro’s semi-co-op)

Clark Kent: Craig: - never seen in the same game as me…

Hush Hush: Andrew: “If I was a table-talking guy, which I am not, I would tell you that there is a move that you could do that would really help your position. [silence] But as I am not, I can’t tell you…”

Golden Grumble: Al: “Ah good, you have brought the bin. Just throw in Dune for me will you” - shortly after crying over one missing Dune counter

Mr Nice Guy: Neil: “Why is everyone so evil?” - Dungeon Lords, as his nice guy dungeon with it’s impish Passion Pit fails to arouse much adventurous interest…

Optimist: me: - for bringing Beowulf

…Disclaimer: some words may have been altered by the effects of beer and sleep deprivation-induced memory loss or the desire for a cheap laugh..

Thanks everyone for the insanity, jocularity, and sportsmanship.
Thanks Paul for inspiration and Brian for perspiration.

ciao
Richard

Of course, games were well underway by the time I turned up, which was mid-morning.
As recorded by Alex, the first game of today was Adel Verpflichtet, with the following results:
Richard: 1st. Andrew: 2nd. Ed: 3rd. Don: 4th. Brian: 5th. Alex: 6th.

The first games that I witnessed upon arrival at the same time as Brad, were Merchants of Amsterdam and Steam (not that you can make either out from this first pic).

Merchants of Amsterdam: About 1 hr playing time according to my notes.
Results: Pat: 1470. Ed: 1420. Jeff: 1240. Richard: 1180.

Steam: What ConTrail would be complete without a little piece of Martin Wallace…?
Results: Don (black): 59. Andrew (orange): 53. Brian (brown) (snigger): 50. Alex (white): 41.

Pick & Pack: Little two-player game kindly donated by Neil F., and since Brad and I were on our ownsome on turning up, we gave this a little run after settling in.
Theme is a mechanical arm scooping up crates of apples to load into your conveyor belt. Most apples at the end wins. Wibbles include various action tiles that generally upset your opponent or give you little score boosts.
10 mins rules and setup; 30 mins game time.
Results: Paul (blue): 56. Brad (red): 50.

Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb Zwei: No pic of this one. Apparently it’s about the story in an old movie.
All over in about 5 mins. Richard vs. Ed; Richard wins. There are also handwritten notes here by Richard I think, that say, “Charlie x 2; Lil x 1″. No idea what that means!

Hive: 20 minutes.
“Pat wins over Jeff the rookie - learning game”.

Ra the Dice Game: Neil M. got thrown in the deep end with this one and had to learn fast how to play. The scores indicate that he managed this OK.
Or, that he just got lucky.
42 mins game time.
Results: Neil (blue), Euhan (yellow): 27, Brad (red): 26. Paul (green): 22.

The Dutch Golden Age: I see from the written record that this one has come in at a mere 45 mins, perhaps including rules.
Maybe I’m confusing this with a different game, but I had assumed this one to be a multi-hour epic.
Approriately won by Richard (red): 33. Then Ed (yellow): 29. Jeff (green): 28. Pat (blue): 19.

Set: Filling the space in between.
Results: Steve: 7. Craig: 6. Andrew: 5. Alex: 4. Don: 2* (entered late).

Endeavor: Nice-looking big game.
No results recorded.
Players: Euhan, Brad, Don, Alex.

Starfarers of Catan: Great when this game rolls around infrequently when Craig is around to bring it (or host it).
30 mins rules and setup; 112 mins game time.
Results: Alex (blue): 15. Craig (red): 12. Paul (green): 10. Steve (yellow): 9.

Conflict of Heroes - Storms of Steel! Kursk 1943: What ConTrail would be complete without a little wartime conflict?
Not quite sure how to interpret the results recorded here, so I will try to reproduce what I see in a 2 x 2 grid:

Then there’s a bracket underneath both columns apparently labelled ‘firefight no. 1′.
If I’m not mistaken, the “+” in the scores is actually the German military symbol, while “*” represents the allies…?

Tulipmania 1637: Brought along by Steve. Was this a purchase from CanCon back in January? I recall playing this with Gregor McNish, Steve and Richard way back then!
Results: Ed: 9950. Richard: 6400. Pat: 5475. Jeff: 5250.

Endeavor: A second game, apparently.
This one has some results recorded: Brian: 59. Brad: 58. Euhan: 41. Don: 36.

Fresh Fish: Yes, you know Andrew is in da house when there is a record of Fresh Fish.
Results (lower is better): Andrew (orange): 9. Richard (blue): 10. Ed (white): 18.

Puerto Rico: Ah, yes - what ConTrail would be complete without a run of good ol’ PR.
Results:

x	Buildings	Shipping	“Paper”*	Bonus	Total
Andrew	25	22	5	5,5	62
Craig	20	30	-	10	60
Ed	12	37	5	-	54
Brad	19	24	9	-	52
Steve	25	11	3	11	50

* Incidentally, I’m not completely sure that middle score column really says “Paper”.
And I’m sorry that the pic is apparently focussed on the side of Andrew’s head rather than the game!

Dungeon Lords: The lightness descends…
(Fitting, given that sundown would have overlapped with this game.)
Results: Richard: 30. Alex: 24. Euhan: 16. Neil M.: 13.

Nexus Ops: Now here is one game for which I have phtotgraphic proof, but for which there is no score entry in my notes.
I see that players include, at a minimum, Neil M. Jeff, and Pat. No other info.

Mystery Express: This one is a deduction game a la Mystery of the Abbey or Cluedo, but on a train! A fixed number of turns for everyone to guess who-what-where-when, and all five of us ended up with the same ‘master’ score of 4 out of 5 “circumstances”. The tie was broken by successful guesses made in the previous turn, which still left Jeff, Brian and Don on 4+4 points each. Pat came in 4th with 4+2, and my earlier guesses were least successful, leaving me on 4+1.
23 mins rules and setup. Playing time was maybe over an hour, but not known exactly since we broke for our dinner outing in the middle of the game!

And here is our customary dinner group shot, taken at the on-resort club. Clockwise from the top left then, Pat (leaning back), Craig, Brian, Andrew, Don, Steve, Richard, Neil M., Alex, Ed, Euhan, my empty chair, Brad, Jeff. Paul M. taking the pic.

Set: Between-games quick filler. I rule!
Paul: 11. Don: 8. Brian: 5.

Brass:
Results (canal phase, rail phase): Euhan: 55,204. Andrew: 38,190. Craig: 52,165.

Midgard:
Results: Ed: 92. Brad: 79. Craig: 71. Andrew: 65. Steve: 61.

Samurai:
Results: Euhan: 5 high hats (majority) + 7 others. Richard: 4 rice paddies (majority) + 5 others. Brian: No majority.

Last Chance: So Brian picked this up a garage sale or a Vinnies or a flea market or something, for cheap. Great value, since we had ridiculous fun with it. Try to roll a target set of dice faces (within 3 rolls) and win cash. Bid on the privilege to do so. Other players gamble on whether or not you’ll succeed. We messed up the rules on bid limits, so re-started. Jeff’s outrageous gambles won it for him!
Results: Jeff: 20100. Don: 14900. Pat: 10800. Paul: 8100. Brian (disq.): 6500.

Euphrat & Tigris: Haven’t played this one for ages. Epochs, even! I was never good at this game, and still am not. But this session with just three of us playing was brilliant - agonising choices and game play! E&T is a true classic. By the end I felt well and truly beaten, but not disgraced! This could be one of the game highlights of the weekend for me.
7 mins rules and setup; 78 mins game time.
Results: Pat: 18. Craig: 14. Paul: 13.

Stone Age:
Results: Andrew: 221. Jeff: 164. Brian: 152.

Cardcassonne:
11 mins rules and setup; 30 mins game time.
Results: Brian (red): 144. Craig (green): 129. Jeff (yellow): 126. Pat (blue): 125. Paul (black): 96.

Tichu: Started 1:28am; finished 2:40am, = 72 minutes.
Final scores: Pat + Jeff: 570. Paul + Craig: 330.
We were looking good at one point there, too. Then the bad guys won.

Dune:
From my notes:
6 hrs.
“Needs optional rules to end game quickly” - don’t know who wrote that.
Steve - Guild wins turn 15.. Alex - Fremen. Brad: Bene Gesserit. Ed: Harkonnen. Neil: Emperor. Richard: Atreides.
Also in my notes: “Hmmm. Sigh. Included 7 turns of torture playing out a pointless end game of inevitability”. Don’t know for sure who wrote this, but it was the same person who wrote the above comment too. Strongly suspect it was… Alex!

Nacht der Magier: Technically, this game ought to be recorded under the June 6 entry because it was played at 3am. But since this is a continuation of the night before, it can stay in this entry!
This was hilarious. Mainly because everyone else had gone to bed, and here we were whispering and playing this game of pushing glow-in-the-dark pieces around, straining to hear the plopping sounds they’d make as they fell off the elevated board! Note for future plays: Likely to work better without a tablecloth!
So to re-iterate, this was played in close to complete darkness, with just the faint glow coming from the pieces. When I took the picture the camera flash lit up the room brilliantly for a split second and produced this result, as well as a squeal from Alex who was blinded. Worth it, just for that reaction.
16 minutes of glow-in-the-dark fun!
Richard v Ed v Alex v Paul. Alex successfully gets his marker into the elusive centre chamber.