Treachery and Betrayal makes this a Black Christmas

"That's not natural" my nephew was once heard to declare after seeing promos for the holiday horror flick Black Christmas. Ever since then Beth and I have referred to any holiday mishaps as contributing to a Black Christmas. Border Board Games' last game night of 2010 also marked the holiday extravaganza of treachery and betrayal.

As I arrived at the hall I was pleased to see a new/old face in Bill Parker. Bill had made the trip up from Bethel to join us on an evening of misery and dismay. Bill, Carlo, Josh (OJ), Homer and Beth were involved in a game of Cockroach Poker as Shannon and I arrived. While I'm still a little fuzzy on the details, the game appears to involve considerable amounts of dishonesty as players pass around vermin and insects making spurious claims as to their actual nature. "It's a bat" "It's a rat" "It's a bat" "It's a rat" and back and forth until someone finally calls the bluff and gets stuck with whatever wicked beasty is printed on the card. As Beth explained it the game plays until one player no longer can pass out cards or acquires a verminous four of a kind and therefore becomes the game's lone loser.

Hoping to get in on a game later Shannon and I broke out Race for the Galaxy. Though the two player experienced rules were available, this being Shannon's first game we stuck to the standard rule set and also tactfully ignored the Rebel vs. Imperium takeover rules. For his first game Shannon managed quite well quickly getting his economic engine rolling. Indeed, I don't think i have ever seen anyone produce as often as he did and to good result. he made efficient use of the Consume: Trade and Consume: 2x VP powers to get off to an early lead. meanwhile I chugged along exploring a lot trying to get some of my alien planets and tech into play. Eventually that patience won out as my alien tech 6 point development card pushed me over the top. I had pitifully few chips on my side, owing to a lacklustre production scheme) but most of my points ended up on the board.

As we finished up RftG the others started a game of Citadels. Though not a new game by any means, Homer's latest pick-up has proven popular as a fill-in game. It plays quickly enough that it can bridge a group between turns but has sufficient strategy and backstabbing potential to keep gamers interested in the outcome. It would actually prove to be the first of two rounds of Citadels we would play that night. What I have found is that, in a 6 or 7 player game, there does appear to be one player who simply never gets off the ground. In each game we played there was always one person who lagged so far behind that random deathblows from the Assassin were almost assured. I don't know how that came to pass as I haven't bothered to study if player start position has any influence in the matter or not but it might be something worth keeping an eye on.

We also laid down the law with a 7-player shoot-out game of Bang with the Dodge City expansion. Sheriff Josh and his trusty deputy Homer efficiently gunned down the outlaws (with help from one other outlaw at least) even though Deputy Beth was the second to bow out of the game. I held on as best I could as the Renegade but the Sheriff was surrounded by so many cards and the Deputy healed like a troll and I simply could never take out the lawmen. Sadly the dynamite, though appearing twice in the game, only moved along once before being Cat Ballou-ed into the dustbin of history.

Next up we embarked on a quest to save Camelot from itself. King Homer and his brave knights tackled many of the grim problems besetting Camelot and, while some quests quickly went south, we succeeded at enough of them to eventually prevail despite Shannon's devious machinations. At first we had questioned his attempt at Lancelot's Armor when he declared himself unable to finish the quest despite having spent two turns playing Special White cards while on the quest. I had written it off as his inexperience with the game and only later came to suspect him as the traitor. Evidently I was the last one to do so in spite of having held the Fate card since the opening round of the game. The Picts and Saxons stormed ashore, Lancelot's Armor was lost in the mists of time but we managed to defeat the Saxons once while Heroism was in play (the only good move my Sir Kay was apparently able to manufacture), recovered the Grail (with alarming ease) and plucked Excalibur from the depths as well as kill some catapults along the way.

One thing that emerged was the acknowledgement that Sir Kay is perhaps the least competent of the Knights of the Round Table. Based upon how his power reads, his ability to lay an additional White Card ONLY applies to quests where Black Cards are revealed, hence he really is only good at the two solo quests (the jousting lists and Lancelot's Armor) as well as the Dragon fight. It's a pretty weak power considering how many other quests there are. The knights can only hope that Sir Kay is the traitor in their midst for his wrath would be a pitiful thing to behold.