May 28, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Bill, Gili, Binyamin, Max, Sergei, David K, Yitzchak, Dylan, Rachel A

A bustling game night. We discovered that you can't do role playing in the same room as board gaming.

It's Alive

Bill 55, Gili 47, Jon 33

First play for Bill, so he was happy to win. He ended up flipping four of the six coffins and no villagers, while I flipped four of the six villages. With brutally unfair luck as that, it's hard to compete.

Notre Dame

Binyamin 64, Nadine 47, Yitzchak 45

They played this as an opener, although it's kind of long as an opener.

Zertz

Binyamin+, Sergei

First play for Sergei.

Dungeon Twister

Binyamin, David

Binyamin introduced this game to David, who decided to forfeit mid-game, as he really doesn't care for the combat mechanic of blind bidding.

Geschenkt

Max 22, Jon 30, Gili 35, Bill, Sergei

First plays for all but myself and Gili. Gili pulled an inside straight. The second time she needed an inside straight, Sergei was forced to ruin her (and his) plans as he had no cash to push off the card. Max enjoyed the game and plans to make a copy to play at his own group.

Universalis / Children of Fire

Bill (GM), Jon, Dylan, Max, Gili

Nadine opted not continue last time, and we thought rightly that Gili would join. She did, but the setup took too long for her, or she was just too tired, and she left before ever really doing anything. Max stuck around for longer, but it appeared that he was not really into combat-less role playing, as he kept trying to kidnap or cast spells on humans, which is not the point of the CoF theme. He also bowed out mid-game.

Dylan and I meanwhile had a good time, and owing it to just being the two of us and our previous first experience, we made some story progress. Cthulhu or space aliens or some combination are sexually attacking the teenagers of Wichita trying to get them, or to get, pregnant, for some reason.

Princes of Florence

Yitzchak 76, Nadine 69, Sergei 65

I think this was Sergei's first play.

Race for the Galaxy

David 43, Binyamin 42, Jon 30

I don't seem to have a handle on this game yet, as not only do I keep losing, I lose soundly. We were originally going to play a longer game with more VPs and building capacity, but I could already tell mid-game that the end result wasn't going to change significantly so there wasn't much point. I may have been wrong, but I think that extending the game essentially swings the game to the VP producers.

Magic: the Gathering

David+, Jon

I dealt each of us 60 random cards and we built decks without knowing if we would play. In the end, we squeaked in a game.

The game was kind of a slog. Both of us has unblockables, and each was able to do roughly two points of damage per turn. Unfortunately for me, David started his damage earlier. Near the end, when I could finally take out his attacker, he was able to counter my spell. And that was pretty much that.

Puerto Rico

Sergei/Jon 61, Nadine 59, Max/Jon 53, Rachel 44

This was first plays for both Max and Sergei, but they had to leave near the end of the game to catch a ride with David. I took a basic look at their boards to help finish the game, and I mostly crafted and shipped them to victory.

May 21, 2008

Participants: Jon, Bill, Nadine, Jonathan, Sergei, Daniel, Max, Binyamin, Ari

Bill came back even though we didn't have a quorum for role playing again. Luckily, he plays board games, too. Max came a few times before with Jack (who only came a few times). Max and Jack were running a Russian-speaking game group in downtown Jerusalem for a while, but it petered out. Max brought with him Daniel and Sergei.

Robo Rally

Ari+, Jon, Binyamin, Jonathan, Max

This was a first game for Max and Binyamin. I picked a single board and a single flag. But it was the Maelstrom board, nearly entirely covered with concentric circles of walkways moving at different speed and depositing into a central pit. And the flag started out on one of these walkways, so moved one space each phase, too.

Needless to say, it looked like it was going to be wild and fun. For some reason, I calculated that the best way to get to the flag was to skirt the opposite direction to the walkway's movement around the edge of the board and then try to rush in. Ari, instead, jumped onto the faster moving walkway which took him right opposite the slower moving flag in one turn. He won on turn two.

Jon+, Nadine, Sergei, Bill

Later in the evening we played again. This was the first play for Sergei, and second (?) for Bill.

We also used a single board and flag, but a simpler one, and the flag was stationary at the far corner. This time I won in two turns, by virtue of having hands full of Move 2 and Move 3 cards in both turns.

El Grande

Nadine 122, Daniel/Jon 104, Sergei 103, Bill 98

This was the first game for Sergei and Daniel, I believe. Daniel unfortunately had to leave after the second scoring round, so I took over while also playing Santiago.

When I took over, Nadine was well ahead of every other player, so she obviously neglected to inform them that she usually wins big time and they should all gang up on her. By the time I got there, it was too late. On round 8 she took an interim scoring opportunity which essentially sealed the game.

Round 3 scores: Nadine 37, Bill 37, Sergei 41, Daniel 35
Round 6 scores: Nadine 89, Bill 73, Sergei 74, Daniel 77

Saikoro

Jon+, Ari

After Ari won the first game of Robo Rally, we played two more rounds to see who would come in second. To keep Ari occupied, I played Saikoro with him.

It's still a lovely game. I had no trouble cornering Ari for the win, as it was his first game.

Santiago

Binyamin 72, Jon 62, Ari 45, Jonathan 43, Max 43

I love this game and have wanted to get it out for a long time, but I haven't had the opportunity since some of the other club players don't like it. But, with a new audience, I was finally able to do it. This was the first play for Max, and second plays for Ari and Jonathan.

Both Binyamin and I got in on an early potato field, while I also got an early sugar field, and he got a later pepper field. He had one more guy on the potato field, however, and managed his cash just a bit better, so as to earn a victory.

Race for the Galaxy

Binyamin 23, Jon 18, Nadine 18

Yes, very low scores, entirely because Nadine built low cost buildings on every single building phase, ending the game in some eight or nine rounds. Nadine knows the brown building strategy and isn't happy when she doesn't get those buildings. Binyamin says that he has tried the game with variants where you build up to twenty buildings (instead of twelve) and increase the vp chips, which he likes better than the standard game, as it ends too quickly.

It's Alive

Sergei+++, Jonathan+, Max+

When they finished playing this, I thought they had played only one game and I asked their score. When they said that Sergei won with three, and Jonathan had one, and Max had one, I was confused, until I discovered that that was the number of games they had played, not the point counts. They played five games back to back in the time it took us to play Race for the Galaxy.

And after all that, Max said that he found the game somewhat repetitive. I'm guessing they liked it enough to play it five times, however.

Bridge

Jon/Max, Binyamin/Nadine

We got in two hand of Bridge at the end of game night. This was Max's first plays, and he kept comparing it to games he was familiar with.

May 14, 2008

Participants: Jon, Jonathan, Nadine, Yitzchak, Dylan, Ari, Bill

We're back to a weekly Wed schedule after the various hagim. Also, Bill returns from the U.S. for a few weeks, to try once again to introduce us to the joys of roleplaying outside of D&D. Ari has been with us before, but not for a long time.

It's Alive

Jonathan 60, Jon 52, Nadine 49

I introduced Jonathan to the game, and we played the advanced version. Nadine got all the Villagers, while Jonathan seemed to get all the coffins. Nadine still completed her board first. But in the end, Nadine only scored 49, even with the 5 point bonus, while Jonathan scored a hefty 60: 44 on his board, and 16 coins.

Robo Rally

Jon+, Jonathan, Nadine, Yitzchak, Dylan, Ari

We weren't sure how long we wanted to play this, since we were waiting for Bill to come and start a roleplaying session. So we chose a single board and a single flag. And each robot had an option, two of which were very painful (if they shoot you, they switch your program for theirs/they push you instead of damaging you). What could go wrong?

Turns out nothing, for me. I saw that the game could be won in three turns with perfect cards and play and no interference. Somehow or another, I actually did it. The whole game went three turns, which was an hour.

On the very first turn, my cards were Move 2, Move 2, Move 1, Turn, Turn. I almost left them like this, when suddenly I realized that it would be safer to start with a Move 1 rather than a Move 2, so I switched cards 1 and 3. That was the key to winning. Everyone else went in front of me and I just shot them or pushed them. If I had done it as I had originally planned, someone would have fallen behind me and eventually shot or bumped me.

R-Eco

Dylan 17, Nadine 16, Jon 5

I'm amazed I got a score above negative, actually. It didn't seem like it for a while.

I came up with a variant for the game right before playing. I mixed up all the chips upside down, stacked them into four stacks of seven, and then flipped them right side up onto the four cards. We knew what the top chip of a pile was, but not what the next one was going to be. Colors and numbers were completely randomly ordered.

Turns out to be a blast. The scores are higher, since more people can acquire 5's, which makes the game more interesting, and not simply who takes the last chip, which is often what happens. Give it a try.

Caylus

Ari 103, Yitzchak 92, Jonathan 71

Jonathan's first game. I didn't see what happened.

Universalis / Children of Fire

Bill (GM), Jon, Dylan, Nadine

CoF is a light roleplaying system based on angels which you can download for free. Dylan and I had pre-made characters. Nadine claims that she had made one once when Adam had been planning to run a session, but either she never gave it to me or I couldn't find it. So she had to come up with a character as we played.

Universalis is a points base storytelling experience where it costs you points to introduce items or events that change the story, or to interrupt. The point was to create the setting for the CoF game. The whole things took about twenty minutes, during which I was trying to wrap my head around my first non-D&D RPG experience. In the end, the story setting was pretty much what Bill assumed it would be.

In, CoF, the three of us angels were sent down to Wichita to examine why a lot of prayers have been coming up to heaven, as well as complaints about strange abuse cases, crop circles, and loss of memory. I think we're supposed to think it's aliens, but obviously it's some sort of demon activity.

My character looks a bit like Dream from Sandman, but with a wolf motif and always has a wolf with him and a rod that can glow. I am distracted by the suffering of animals over humans, which I hammed up a lot. Dylan's character is a short portly guy with a glass eye. And Nadine's character looks like a 17 year old girl with blue hair and weird colors (think Delirium from Sandman). We made an impressive looking group. Wherever townsfolk ask what we're doing in town, I just say that we're here for the sci-fi convention.

So far, we're hitched a ride to a motel, heard some complaints from the townsfolk. Then we scouted out at night and I rescued a 16 year old boy from a crazed dog (or vice versa, depending on who you ask). That's it for two an a half hours. We got interrupted a lot and had fun.

April 29, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Dylan, Genia, Gili, David K

Game night was moved to Tuesday owing to Holocaust Remembrance day being Wed night / Thursday.

Solomon's Stones

Nadine+, Jon

Jon, David

Solomon's Stones is a game sent to me by a new publisher Solbenk. It has simple rules: each person takes one or more stones from any single column or row. The last person to take a stone loses.

For a full review, see my blog.

None of us really wanted to play this simple and elegant abstract game, as it was far more interesting to sit down and consider the game as a kind of puzzle. Working our way up from the most simple positions, we tried to determine how the game could be solved.

I was convinced that it would not be too difficult to solve. David considered that it might be more challenging to solve than it seems, and may even be NP complete. I will do a deeper analysis on some other night.

Saikoro

Dylan, Genia

Jon+, Dylan

Jon+, David

Saikoro is the second game sent to us by Solbenk. For a full review, see my blog.

In short, the game is a really good game, much better than I expected. I expected it to be depressingly simple or repetitive. But, in fact, the game provides an interesting set of patterns, a tight game play, and a story arc as the board changes and mobility becomes difficult.

We were still learning the patterns in my first games. David probably only lost to me because I didn't fully explain all the rules before we started playing.

I expect that the game will come out again many times as a quick and interesting filler game for two people.

Notre Dame

Jon 73, Gili 67, Nadine 58, Dylan 47, Genia 44

This was Genia's first game, and she was interrupted by a few phone calls during the game. She believe that she may have lost a few points she was supposed to get from her Park, though everyone else at the table claims to have given her the correct amount.

I played a very even game at the beginning, nearly completely ignoring victory points in favor of cubes, gold, Park and Hospital, with one cube in Notre Dame as an exception. As a result, I had only 5 VPs at the end of the first triad, while others had 15 or more. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to win.

Eventually, I took the favor that let me move three cubes over to the Park, allowing me to net +2 VP for each VP gain. As a result of this, moving my carriage, and a few other favors, I made a bunch of 10 point gains which put me tied for first place with Gili who was doing the VP track.

On the last round, Gili and I tied for points, but I had a cube in Notre Dame and she got hit with rats. The rats took Gili down a number of times during the game.

I can't remember what everyone else was doing, but most people had a few cubes in Hospital and 2 in Park. I think this was my first victory.

Power Grid - Central Europe

Nadine 16, Jon 14, Gili 14, David 10*

In the last third of the game, we were all convinced that David was going to win this, hands down. In fact, it didn't look like anyone else had a chance. David could power 13 while the rest of us could only power 9, and he had the money and cities, too.

However, in phase 2, he was stymied from building to 17 cities by the simple fact that every single city already had two plants in it. And on the last round, Nadine acquired a plant that allowed her to run out the fuel from under him. It's amazing how often the game turns on what happens on the last round (and therefore, the penultimate round as well).

We played on the Central Europe board for the first time. Nadine found the nuclear building provinces silly; I rather liked them, although I wasn't affected by them. In fact, I rather liked the board altogether.

Games Day: April 24, 2008

Participants: Jon, Saarya, Nadine, Adam, Binyamin, Tikva Shira, Zvi Yehuda, David Klein, Avi Klein, Yarom, Maayan, Maya, Yardena, Yedidya, Yitzchak, Jonathan, Roie, Omri, Rachel A, Yosef, Dylan, Ben, Gili, Dvir, Shimon, Ari, David B, Pini, Yosef B, Richard, Vera, Raphaela

I'm Jon and Saarya is my son. Nadine, Adam, and Binyamin are group regulars. T"S and Z"Y are Binyamin's kids. David is a group regular. Avi is David's kid. Yaron has been playing games in other parts of Israel for many years, but rarely gets out to my group. Maayan and Maya were his guests. Yedidya and Yitzchak are Yardena's kids. Jonathan is a new group regular. Roie and Omri saw the ad on Tapuz. Rachel A is my wife. Yosef saw the ad on Janglo or my blog, I think. Dylan is a group regular, Ben is my brother and a group regular, Gili is a group regular. Dvir, Shimon, and Ari saw the ad on Tapuz. David B is my other brother and Pini and Yosef B are his kids. Richard, Vera saw the ad on Janglo, and Raphaela is their daughter.

32 people is record attendance. In fact, if we get this many or more in the future, we need a bigger place.

Amun-Re

Binyamin 51, Roie 42, Ben 38, Omri 31, Zvi Yehuda 531

Ben doesn't get to play this game in his community because his gamers object to the other deities and sacrifice.

Nadine 54, David B 39, Yosef 38, Ben 34

This was first game for David and Yosef. David thought it was a good game but the -3 card (stealing 3 gold) wasn't strong enough to overcome the loss of a free item.

Anagrams

Jon, Yardena

I went easy on Yardena at the start of this game under the assumption that I would be much better than she was, since she had Scrabble experience but not Anagrams experience. After a few words, however, it turned out that she was excellent. After that I played as well as I could and we both ended up with about the same number of words.

Bridge

Nadine, Ben, Binyamin, Zvi Yehuda

They played a few hands toward the end of the day.

Cities and Knights of Catan

Yitzchak, Yosef

Played a two-player game to learn the rules, I believe.

Yosef 13, Jon, Jonathan

I started off pretty well, but Yosef relentlessly hit me during the game and rose over my back. He got a quick early metropolis, and another one soon thereafter. He won the game with Longest Road.

Colosseum

Zvi Yehuda 83, Gili 80, Tikva Shira 65

This is a big sprawling game with busy graphics. I played it once and thought it was a typical Euro.

Cosmic Encounter

Binyamin, Pini, Yosef, Zvi Yehuda

I think I have the wrong people written here, except I know that Binyamin got bored by the game since he didn't think the aliens were interesting enough (he had Void/Zombie).

Go

Adam+, Jon

Adam slaughtered me by capturing a large central area on an 11x11 board. I still love the game, but I really really suck at it. I started with two stones.

Jon+, Yardena

I taught Yardena how to play on a 9x9 board. Even by the end of the game, she wasn't quite sure she had grasped the rules of capturing groups. She started with a two stone advantage.

Imperial

Binyamin brought this and taught it to several groups of people, but no one took him up on the offer to actually play it.

Magic: the Gathering

Jon++, David++

David and I did our usual Rochester draft. Both of us ended with serious difficulties in cutting down colors for our deck. I had more Red, but I settled on Blue as my third color. There was no way to cut it down to two colors. I did BGU while David did BRU.

I lost the first game. The second game, I was distracted by some other events around me and forgot to say I was casting a blocker from my hand, so I lost, but David said I should have won (I recorded it as his win). In the third game my deck worked and his didn't. In the fourth, we were well on a repeat of the third so he resigned.

David+, Pini

Pini used my deck to play David while I was eating dinner and lost.

Pirate's Cove

Tikva Shira, Zvi Yehuda

I saw them playing this two player. Binyamin heard the rules and wasn't interested because of the excessive dice rolling. I sympathize, but I like the game anyway, for some reason.

Power Grid

Dylan+, Dvir, Shimon, Ari

I taught the latter three this game and then stepped out for Dylan to play. I forgot that Dylan's grasp of the rules wasn't perfect. As a result, they forgot that you couldn't have more than three power plants. I'm sure they got some of the power plant rotation rules wrong, too. Dylan won on the tie breaker.

Puerto Rico

Rachel+, Roie, Omri

Omri and Roie brought two games, PR and Princes of Florence, both of which I have. They sat down to play with Rachel. I was thinking of warning them that they don't know what they're up against, as she is a killer.

She ended up winning, but not as badly as I won against inexperienced players the day before at the Beit Shemesh club - something like a 10 point spread. She said it was fun, especially when she had no idea what her opponents were going to do, unlike when she played with us regulars.

Race for the Galaxy

Yaron, Maayan, Maya, Jonathan

This was the first time for all of them (2nd for Jonathan?). It took them quite some time, as first game are want to do.

David B 29, Pini 25, Yosef B 15

I taught all of them how to play and then left them to it. As a result, they were often confused. David realized that their was a lot to the game, but the other two were somewhat frustrated. They all would have enjoyed it more if I had played with them as well; I'm sorry I didn't.

Nadine 42, David 32, Jon 29

We three wanted to play this at the end of the evening. Nadine won using her usual brown world strategy. I started with the military world, which I think is a poor strategy in comparison.

David 64, Jon 45, Nadine 41

I tried a brown world strategy, but David took it from me and did it better. He also had yellow worlds going. it was obvious a third of the way into the game that he was going to slaughter us. Which began to make me resent the game. Once I was losing and my initial worlds turned out to have been the wrong ones, there was no hope of catching up and a whole game to know that.

RftG is therefor a fascinating puzzle, but somewhat frustrating as a game.

R-Eco

David 17, Jon 3, Nadine 2, Avi 0, Adam 0

My only points were from not dumping. David pulled the 4 and 5 of red in his last two moves.

Avi 16, Nadine 8, Yardena 6, David 5

Yardena liked the game because the rule set was simple and she didn't have to think too much (she thinks a lot during work, generally).

David B, Pini, Yosef B

I taught them this and they all liked it for what it was.

Yosef, Gili, Binyamin

Played near the end of the day.

Robo Rally

Jon+, Nadine, David, Avi, Adam

This was our opening game and it was fun. We played on one board with two flags at opposite corners. David, Nadine, and I were all close, with Adam right behind. This despite my opening turn as nothing but left and right turns. As usual, chance played heavily in who was able to get the second flag in the final stretch.

Yaron, Maayan, Maya, Dylan, Jonathan

I taught them all how to play, and warned them that a typical game, even on a short board with one flag, takes a good hour and a half. Dylan then won on his second play.

Santiago

Maayan+, Yaron, Maya, Jonathan

This was another new game for all the players.

Settlers of Catan

Roie, Omri, Yosef, Yedidya/Yitzchak

Y and Y really wanted to play but there wasn't enough room so they shared a position.

Shadows Over Camelot

Gili, Tikva Shira, Saarya, Richard, Vera, Raphaela, Jonathan

I taught some, and some had played once or twice. Richard, Vera, and Raphaela came in just as we were about to start and I included them. This was their first game, and they didn't make it through to the end, even though Vera told me that it was much better than Monopoly. Still, it's a fairly complicated game for your first game, though the mechanics themselves are pretty easy.

When they left, three players finished the game three player, each with two roles. Gili inherited the traitor (or started as the traitor). he game ended with seven white swords, but then two flipped because the traitor was still in the game, so the company lost (and Gili won).

Winner's Circle

Binyamin, Zvi Yehuda, Tikva Shira

The opening game for them.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 104, David 84, Gili 77, Tikva Shira 58

David and Nadine had both played Year of the Dragon once, and David had won that time. Tikva Shira knew the basics, and it was Gili's first time. This game is played in preference to Notre Dame, being considered nearly the same game but better (though ND is a fine game).

April 09, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Yitzchak, Jonathan, Saarya, Tal, Dylan, Binyamin

I was late getting home, so a few patient participants had to wait on the steps outside my house for 45 minutes. Sorry! This is the first group in a long time in which my kids Saarya and Tal joined us; briefly, in Tal's case.

El Grande: King and Intriguant

Jon 137, Nadine 133, Dylan 106, Saarya 103

Saarya chose El Grande, and I decided to try the expansion one more time. The last time we played, we found a number of things rather frustrating. This time we implemented a few house rules in an attempt to fix these irritations, but they ended up causing nearly s many irritations.

The first was to eliminate all cards that can send caballeros back to the provinces, namely cads 30, 50, and 70. It's not a problem when such an event happens once or twice a game, as it does when we play the regular game. It's that it happens in every single round when we play the expansion, which limits the available strategic options for most players. The end result of the variant is that players ran out of caballeros on the last round of play; this happens in regular El Grande sometimes, but not too often.

The second was that we allowed the first player to choose whether or not to do the King power or the card power, and the last player to choose whether or not to do the Intrigue power or the card power. In fact, that is the correct way to play for three players, but we were four players. The reason we did that is that last time it was too unpredictable what you would be able to do when it was your turn, which again lead to a loss in strategic options. The end result of the variant, however, meant that the king didn't move an awful lot during the game. Which wasn't really so bad, come to think of it.

The expansion is far more chaotic than the regular game. Again, it's one thing for an effect to happen once or twice a game, and another for it to happen four or five turns in a row. It was a challenging game, but I'm not sure it was quite as good.

In our game, I started with a 17 point lead on the first round and kept it for the remainder of the game. Nadine was at my heels, while Dylan and Saarya remained neck and neck but well behind us. After the first scoring, I led 38 to 34, with Dylan and Saarya at 24 each. Nothing had changed by the second scoring: Jon 95, Nadine 89, Dylan 62 and Saarya 60.

Near the very end of the game is seemed that Nadine was finally going to catch and surpass me, but my little second and third place scoring in a few minor regions kept me ahead. Dylan and Saarya didn't think they could catch up, so they were just jockeying not to be last. However, Dylan actually had a pretty amazing comeback at one point and was only a few points behind Nadine for a round.

Taj Mahal

Gili 47, Jonathan 45, Binyamin 38, Yitzchak 36

Jonathan's first game, and I think possibly Gili's first win.

Race for the Galaxy

Yitzchak 36, Binyamin 35, Jonathan/Nadine 31

Jonathan's first game. Binyamin and Yitzchak both love the game. Nadine took over for Jonathan at the very end of the game when he had to go.

Jon 46, Nadine 32, Binyamin 29

We played a game of this after they finished theirs. Binyamin was convinced that you need to have three 6-point buildings to win. He ended up having 3 of them, but they were all pretty worthless buildings. Nadine had dozens of 6-pointers in her hand and built 4 of them, also all pretty much worthless. Meanwhile, I couldn't find one to save my butt, of course, so I had to go a different route.

I was essentially the only one able to consume goods for points, even by the end of the game. So I just kept doing that, netting 8 points every other turn and building whatever I had available while they were developing. I was able to build something because I was also pulling a few cards in for producing and consuming each. I ended up building a 6-pointer: the military power card which was worth the two points printed on it. I had 29 consuming points, which is what ended the game.

R-Eco

Dylan+, Nadine/Tal, Jon

Dylan's first game. Nadine started off playing while she was finishing off RftG, and Tal took over for her to finish the game. Neither Nadine nor Dylan dumped at all, while I dumped 9 cards. Ouch. Even so, and even with a -2 chip, I still ended up with 7 points at the end of the game, which I thought was pretty impressive.

It wasn't quite enough, however, as they ended up with 9 and 11 points, or something like that, which included their points for not dumping.

April 02, 2008

Participants: Jon, David K, Gili, Yitzchak, Jonathan, Eran

Jonathan is a first-timer from Jerusalem, first time to the club and first time gamer. Eran is a very experienced gamer I met in Dallas at the first BGG.con. He lived in Dallas for several years and is now back in Israel, but he lives in Carmiel so is unlikely to come often. He was in the Tel Aviv area, however, so he make the trip.

R-Eco

Jon 7, David, Jonathan, Eran

I don't remember the other player's results, but the highest was 3. This continues to be a nice little filler.

Jon 8, David 7, Yitzchak

So much so that we played it again later in the evening. Yitzchak managed to avoid dumping in the first half of the game, but then dumped tons and tons in the latter half, ending up negative something.

Robo Rally

Jonathan+, Eran, Jon

I thought this could make a nice second game for Jonathan after R-Eco, and I don't often get to play it. It's better with more players, but it was still fun with three.

We played with just two boards and two flags to touch. Each of us also had an option which didn't get lost when you died.

I had a stunning first two rounds and ended up on the first flag. Unfortunately, on my next round I received 8 points of damage. I crawled out of the laser turrets and shut down the next turn. Meanwhile, Eran was doing about average and managed to reach the first flag. then he sat on it while Jonathan tried to touch it. He couldn't, since the flag was sitting in a corner near two walls, making it impossible for Eran to be pushed off of it.

Somehow, Eran eventually moved and Jonathan fell into a pit and had to start over. It didn't look two difficult to get to the second flag, as there was a row of conveyors leading very close to it, so I told Jonathan to be happy if he even got to the first flag by the time the game was over.

Eran and I ended up conflicting, however. While we were running around in circles hoping for just the right thing, Jonathan got to the first flag and worked his way to the second. Eran managed to kill himself in the meantime, and in the end it was Jonathan and me in contention for the second flag. And Jonathan won. An amazing comeback.

Notre Dame

David+, Yitzchak, Gili

I don't know the exact scores, but David was at least ten points ahead of Nadine, who was well ahead of Gili. Gili, through too much concentration on Notre Dame, found herself at one point with no cubes on the board and no cubes in her provinces, so literally had nothing to do unless she acquired the trusted friend card. She didn't even have the cash to use on the personalities in order to get herself another cube.

Settlers of Catan

Eran+, Jonathan, Gili

In this game, Gili would have been doing fine but the robber blocked her 6 wood production for several turns, allowing Eran to move ahead. Jonathan started off slow, but made some gains by the time the game ended.

Race for the Galaxy

David 51, Yitzchak 47, Jon 46

Yitzchak's first game. He's a San Juan nut, so it is no surprise that this went over well with him.

I went pretty straight military. I don't think this is a great strategy, since it doesn't give you an engine for acquiring cards (excepting the occasional windfall world, making it hard to get the six point developments. Sure, I got a 7 point military world out and a few 5 pointers, but that doesn't compare to the three 10 point devels that the other players got out (I got out two).

Yitzchak did fairly well with both shipping and six point devels. In fact, the last one he dropped gave him 3 bonus points each for three specific cards in play, and he had every one of them; a total of 13 points for that devel.

David had not only shipping points, but a card drawing engine whenever he produced, eventually drawing six cards every time he produced. That made him happy regardless of what phase occurred.

Mr Jack

Jonathan (Detective), Eran (Criminal)

I don't know what happened with this game.