Wednesday, January 25, 2012

A Game of Pwns

It was nice to have Carlo and Kristin come back to BBG, even if it was only to disappear into the hate-filled turmoil of Westeros for the evening.  Beth, Homer, Carlo and Kristin duked it out in a four player death match in A Game of Thrones.  Despite Homer's mocking jab at Carlo and his tented board, it appears Homer's may also be heading the same way.  In the first of the two games Carlo emerged victorious leading House Greyjoy to victory.  He semi-repeated the feat in the second game as he led the incestuous Lannisters to victory.  Apparently promises to wipe him out (even if it wasn't strategically necessary) failed to materialize.  As Homer remarked later "I tried to get to him but ran out of time."

Meanwhile, the Mikes, Dennis and I cracked open Thurn & Taxis to enjoy a little mail delivery mayhem.  Though it was the first time for everyone else, they caught on quickly and soon we had a heated race to capture victory points.  Inexplicably, the city of Lodz materialized far more often than it seemed it should despite the fact that St. Jay Mike was the only one to ever place a post office there.  Mike O had what would have been a first for T&T, if only he'd had the time to play it.  he was poised to land a massive suite that would have enabled him to place post offices in EVERY province in a SINGLE round.  In hindsight, on the heels of St. Jay Mike's rush to the seven carriage, splitting up that route might have been more prudent.

Next we decided to head across the ocean and plunder a bit of the Caribbean in Merchants & Marauders.  Apparently it was an ampersand sorta weekend.  For all of us it amounted to our second or third play ever so, in many respects, we were quite evenly balanced.  Mike O was the only one to pursue a pirate role but, at game's end, wondered if perhaps starting with a bigger merchant ship may have proven more advantageous.  Oddly enough, Dennis, SJ Mike and I all drew Dutch captains.

It was a bad season to be anything but Cap'n Dennis.  An incessant series of storms coupled with a baggage train of pirates kept most of us from making effective use of our time.  Dennis, however, enjoyed plenty of good fortune as he consistently drew three card sets of in-demand goods destined for nearby ports.  The rest of us hauled ass halfway around the world to sell two of something for next to nothing.  On a positive note, however, we were able to enjoy upgraded ships and avoided being hung as pirates or taken by same even as Dennis cruised easily to victory.

The next edition of BBG will be hosted at The Lair on February 18th due to a booking at the Derby Line Village Hall.  Earlier than usual gaming is liable to occur so please stay tuned.