February 07, 2007

Participants: Nadine, Zack, Elijah, Binyamin, David R, David K, Ben, Jon, Adam, Gili, Rachel A

Tonight's most unusual feature was that I was unable to make it home until 8 or so, and no one else was home either, so I left the door open and asked Nadine to be in charge until I got there. When I got back, everyone was happily playing and had even managed to order food without my assistance, which only goes to prove that they can do these things without my help.

As it happens, after I got home I was unable to join a game for over an hour. But I was kept busy answering both rules questions and strategy tips for the entire hour. Well, it's nice to be needed for some thing, I guess.

Tonight was David R's second visit, but he now returns to the U.S. Thanks for joining us, David.

Saboteur

Dwarves: Nadine, Zack, Binyamin+, Saboteurs: David R, Elijah

I'm impressed that the dwarves were able to overcome the 3 to 2 odds to win.

Magic: The Gathering

Binyamin(B)+, David R(R), David K(G), Ben(W), Adam(U)

This game of rainbow magic took some time to play. Binyamin and Adam are still newbies to the game, and there was some intense negotiation going on. Adam started off the game with an enchantment that caused all players to play with revealed hands. And Binyamin kept throwing out things like Pestilence and destroying every creature in play.

Cities and Knights of Catan

Nadine+, Zack, Gili, Elijah/Rachel A

The consensus is that this is really too long and boring compared to other games that can be played in a similar amount of time. While no longer my favorite, I disagree, and think it is still a good four player game, at least for a hundred plays or so.

Rachel had to take over when Elijah had to leave.

Netrunner

David K(Corp)+, Jon(Runner)

Not the number of games played with unequal forces tonight. First Saboteur, then Magic, now Netrunner. There's certainly something appealing about these when they are done well.

This is David and my third play at the game, and the first time that we actually made it through the game to its finish. Even so, we are still very unclear on many of the rules, such as rezzing Nodes and advancing Agendas and so on.

David loves the game, and says that it may have even more room for depth than Magic, although he has played Magic so often that it may simply be that he's too familiar with it. I think it's about the same level, probably. It's truly a very neat game. It appears to be overly restrictive in how the points work, being solely based around agenda cards. And the game appears to end rather early at only 7 points.

So far, all of our plays have been with untuned decks, straight out of the starter boxes playing sixty cards each. At the end of the evening, I sent David home with the Runner deck, and we're both going to try to come to the next game with at least semi-tuned decks.

We're on the lookout to buy a few more starter boxes, if you know where we can find some at a good price.

Zertz

Jon+, Ben

I wanted to play this one more time, and I introduced it to Ben. He didn't get the tactics down on his first play, which gave me an easy win. A series of forced exchanges gave me four white balls.

I liked the game even more than last time. I hope it holds up.

Princes of Florence

Ben 61, David R 55, Adam 50, Binyamin 50

Another play for this classic. This was the first play for David R, and he appears to have played well enough.

Tichu

Jon-David K 590, Zack-Nadine/Adam 210

Technically, this is another game of which we have never actually finished an entire game. We simply play a few hands at the end of the evening when we have four players.

In this game, we played four hands. I called Tichu three times and made them all. Zack called on the last round and made his. As Adam pointed out, it's a curious fact that it makes no difference whether you or one of your opponent's calls Tichu, as the rewards and losses are the same either way; so long as someone calls it.

Nadine wasn't sure that she liked the game any more, claiming that it was too random.