What You Missed Last Night

Last night was Tuesday night and that means it was game night! Here's what you missed.

Well first off, I'd like to welcome yet another Michael to our group. Michael K. joined us for the first time. (I'll call him Michael to avoid confusion with long timer Mike K.) He brought a couple of games and I managed to get in one game with him. It was a pleasure. I'm looking forward to many more.

These days it wouldn't be game night if someone didn't break out Descent. It may not be my favorite game (too long for my tastes), but clearly it's a hit with a large portion of our group. This time we had Darryl acting as overlord against Christopher, Jose, Birch, and Adam. (Did I miss anyone?) Apparently the heroes lost this time. They were too wimpy to pierce the final monster's defenses and he mopped the floor with them (or so I hear).

I got in a few rounds of Bluff (AKA Liar's Dice) while people gathered then I moved on to something more substantial:

Oren, Mike M., Tejas and I played a nice game of Ys. I tried something new this time: I decided to completely ignore black cubes and try to get all my points elsewhere. By the end of the third turn that looked rather promising. I had a pretty commanding lead and I looked poised to corner the better colored gems. But when the dust cleared, my commanding lead just couldn't withstand the twenty-something points Mike and Oren got from their black gems. I ended up finishing a close third. Well, sometimes a strategy works; sometimes it doesn't. This one didn't. Fun game though.

I wrapped up my evening of gaming with a game of Il Principe. Michael, Oren, and Wade joined me. I was the only one at the table who had played before and while I scored close to all but the winner, I came in last. Clearly this game takes more than one playing to grok its strategy. I'm really not quite sure what it takes to win this one. I'll have to think about it some more. Wade won the game with a decent lead over the rest of us but I don't think that he could tell you why. We all had a good time though.

And from there it was back to the salt mines. I'll be glad when things slow down a bit and I can actually go home after game night.

Other games that were played tonight include Diamant, Euphrates & Tigris: contest of kings (the E&T card game), and Oltre Mare - the new Rio Grande version which still hasn't arrived at the store yet. Grr! Should be in very soon. Really! I swear! If not I'm going to have to lynch my distributor. (Probably my fault for choosing last week to be on vacation.)