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  • Atlanta Game Fest: Poor Moves, Avery Man-Lovin', and Sneaky Toasters

Atlanta Game Fest: Poor Moves, Avery Man-Lovin', and Sneaky Toasters

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There Will Be Games

burnatla.jpg


I know I promised a Year in Review for 2008, but I lied because it's not ready yet.  Instead, I present to you a SHOCKING~! "after action report" for Atlanta Game Fest.  Beware:  lots of game opinions, mindless prattle, and Steve Avery jokes are featured within, so enter at your own risk.


We left out on Saturday morning about 4am, ready to make the 4 hour trip in front of us.  Usually, these road stories are full of funny anecdotes, like driving around in circles, being accosted by truckers at the rest stop, or eating pickled quail eggs and drinking Schaefer beer and having gas so toxic that both of you have to pull over somewhere and abandon the car. 

clerks1-ead01.jpgUnfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who's talking) the trip to Atlanta was pretty uneventful.  I did download some episodes of the web show "Children of the Gods" as I'd heard about it and wanted to see if it was any good.  It's...uh...well, it's fan-made, with decent writing, but there is proof that voice acting is indeed an acquired skill.  Once my brother made the mental link that the Commanding Officer of the ship sounded like Randal from Clerks, it was all over for us as every time he'd speak, we'd crack ourselves up.  There's nothing like having a CO that sounds 25 and might make an anal joke at any moment.


"This is your captain speaking...just wanted to tell the crew that people say crazy shit during sex. One time I called this girl 'Mom.'"


The Game Fest was pretty much front and center as you walked into the hotel, and there were piles of games everywhere.  Lots of stuff I'd played before, lots of stuff I'd wanted to try out, and a lot of stuff I had no intention of touching with a ten foot pole (hello, seventeen copies of Le Havre.)  We quickly found someone who seemed to be in charge to pay our entrance fees, and took a few minutes to look around.  Didn't see Mike Barnes, Robert Martin, Steve Avery, or any of the other folks we were supposed to meet up with yet and having no idea what time those bastards might roll out of bed, we decided to sit down and find something to play.


There was another guy wandering around looking for a game, so we then began the agonizing process of finding something to play.  I think he shot down my first six suggestions so eventually I was like, "okay, you pick."  Another guy (I'm terrific with names) was similarly wandering around and suggested Tikal, and that he would teach it.  Tikal's a game that I've actually owned for awhile but never played.  It's a Euro game that literally was made during a different era--it's thematic (jungle explorers looking for temples and treasure), it's got screw you elements with placement of tiles and stealing of pyramids/treasure and hey, we just so happen to all play on the same board (BONUS~!) 

My impressions of Tikal were about what I expected.  It's got some good screwage and it does manage to do its theme well.  The game is definitely all about managing your explorers and using them to discover more of the temples and snatch treasure, while using the tiles you draw to block paths or open up fat n' juicy temples all for yourself.  Every so often the game does 'pause' and go full Euro as when a volcano tile is revealed everyone gets a once-around to take some actions and then score using an area control mechanic, but hey...it's a Euro.  What can you do, eh?


Unfortunately, while I did learn how to play or teacher decided that since it was everyone's first game it would be a stellar idea to offer negative reinforcement on our play ("Well, THAT's a poor move."  After that line I just sort of looked at him for a minute.) 


Right then, who should come strolling through the door but none other than "Poor 'ol" Steve Avery himself, setting himself apart from the other plebians by his choice of Punisher t-shirt.  I was quick to flag him down and also eager to end THE CONDESCENDING TIKAL GAME FROM HELL where the third guy--who was also playing for his first time--managed to win and then start off on some spiel about his brilliant play and how awesome his victory was.  Not terribly eager to stick around for that, my brother and I bailed.  Right then Robert Martin came strolling through the doors as well (HE'S ALIVE~!), so Jeremy, Steve, Robert and I decided it would be fun to restart the whole "What do you want to play?"  "I dunno, what do you want to play?"


lordhumgousrwarrior.jpgLucky for us Steve "Decisive as a Honk Mofo" Avery picked Thunder Road as our next game.  Thunder Road is a kids' game from the 80s that is pretty much Mad Max: The Boardgame.  Players each have three armored, weapon-laden cars and they're trying to either blow up all the other cars or leave them in the dust, eliminating them.  The board is a two-part puzzle board, laid out end to end.  When a car moves off the 'front' board, the back board is picked up, all cars ceremoniously dumped off and elminated, and the previous board is then laid in front of the current one--providing an endless road.  Players take turns speeding down the road, ramming each other or taking shots with their car mounted guns or with helicopters that can fly overhead and take shots at the opposing cars.  It's actually a pretty bitchin' little game that I'd always wanted to play.  I might just have to hunt down a copy of it just to keep it handy...it's definitely not a game where people will scratch their beards and go, "You know, that could be a hybrid...games are so difficult to classify quantitatively, you see..."

(It's also a game that Steve Avery stumbled through the rules on.  I thought maybe what is now known as the "Circus Imperium Debacle" was a fluke due to the complexity of that game, but it's time to face facts, Steve-o.)

Halfway through the game Mike Barnes decides to make his own grand entrance, complaining that we started without him.  He also spent several minutes ridiculing Robert Martin because Rob had never seen any of the Mad Max movies.  Our game was especially lethal as all we did was ram cars and blast the crap out of each other.  The game ended when my brother's speedy car pulled away from the carnage and dumped mine and Avery's smoking wrecks off the back board.  But hey, I didn't come in last--IN YER FACE, ROB "I DON'T KNOW WHO LORD HUMONGOUS IS" MARTIN~!

The main gaming room was filling up with people everywhere, but there were a few extra rooms they'd reserved for gaming.  Because of the impending flea market taking place in the area where we were gaming, we moved to one of those side rooms and Barnes being the champ he is brought out DUNGEONQUEST.  (He's such a sweetie, I was just talking a week ago about how I wanted to play it.) 

You want to talk about a mean game...I mean, I'm sure you checked out Matt's excellent tale about Sir Roland.  Dungeonquest is a grinder.  It exists simply to kill adventurers.  Each player has a character with different stats and powers, and you pull dungeon tiles as you explore trying to find your way to the center where the dragon is so you can rob his hoard and bail on the dungeon before the sun sets and all the REALLY nasty monsters come out and eat all of you.


Because of the game's legendary difficulty, I had a very simple plan--I was going to find a single piece of decent treasure and then march my ass meat_grinder.jpgright out of there.  Brand me a coward, but I planned on being the only one counting some gold while everyone else died hideous deaths.

Turns out that Dungeonquest was wise to my tricks.  Not long after going in, my way out was blocked first by a rotating room, then by another tile which spun all the corridors and completely shut me out from going back out the way I came.  Then my brother goes all Tron on my ass with his tiles, making it impossible for me to even get to the Dragon's horde.  Still, I'm feeling pretty good as I've got a handful of treasure, plenty of health, and what the hell, I'll make a break for the door on the opposite side.  I was even feeling pretty cocky because I'd successfully dealt with bottomless pits, Goblins, and spiders without batting an eye, even ripping open Portcullus when they blocked my path.

I could have never anticpated what happened next--with enough time to make my way out still, first I hit a rotating room that led...directly into a dead end.  I was completely trapped between two tiles.  I searched the room frantically hoping to pull a "Secret Passage" card, but no luck. 

The sun was setting fast, and by that time we all were dropping, one by one.  Barnes got flame broiled by the dragon.  Rob Martin turned the game over to Steve Avery so he could make a phone call and Steve's very next tile was a Bottomless Pit that his character soon found himself on the (lack of) bottom of.  Jeremy looked like he had a shot at making it back to the entrance before sundown but the tiles refused to cooperate, sending him off in directions he had no intentions on going in.  Soon enough, the sun set, and the monsters feasted on his bones... Dungeonquest had happily claimed another batch of adventurers.

Dungeonquest was pretty awesome--hilarious just to play through and see what bad stuff will happen to your guy.  Too bad it's hideously out of print and hard to come by (but you can buy Alhambra pretty much everywhere..WHERE'S THE JUSTICE?!?), that's a game that an AT fan needs to keep around just to generate some laughs.


Jeremy and I had to take a break then as the flea market was starting and we also had to check in to our rooms soon.  Originally I'd planned on bringing a stack of stuff to sell but not knowing how their flea market worked--plus wanting to shop myself--I decided that the flea market is something I would take advantage of the next time.


The flea market was absolute madness.  They had this one tiny room and a teeming mass of people both wanting to buy and sell.  Bob Solow of CLS games was there with a cart full of shiny new games, and he ended up having to go out into the lobby (along with several other sellers) just so there would be enough room for everybody.

There were some pretty good deals out there, and some folks who were obviously a tad optimistic (I think I saw a used copy of Shadows Over Camelot for $60.)  I happened upon a table where a taller bearded guy had some great prices... Tomb for $20, Senji for $25, and several others.  Clearly, this guy had the right idea.  I already had those two games, but someone walked up and asked the bearded guy about Senji, about how many it played, etc.  I piped in and said "3-6", and the bearded guy turned, looked at my name tag and said, "Oh, I'd trust Ken." 

I ended up debating buying Garibaldi from the guy before finally I said, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name" and his eyes went wide and said, "Oh, I'm Frank Branham."  I laughed because I'd been talking to him for ten minutes and had no idea.

Richard Lanius was there hawking some games, and another guy who had bought Steve Avery's $20 Arkham Horror popped by and had Richard autograph it.  That was pretty cool.  Dan Baden (The Great Chili Cook-Off) was also there selling his game.

Barnes had some pretty good luck selling...he managed to sell his Samurai Swords for $45 (that's one I was going to bring to sell originally) and I bought his X-Men: Under Siege for like $8.  Dan had copies of Murder City so my brother bought one of those.  I ended up picking up Dominion from Bob Solow.  I could've gotten Galaxy Trucker but I wasn't sure if I'd want to buy more stuff later and I didn't want to tap out on trip funds.  I had Ghost Stories in my hand for several agonizing minutes, but decided we'd overloaded on co-op games already (between my friends and I we've got Pandemic, Lord of the Rings + expansions, Shadows Over Camelot + expansion, Battlestar Galactica, Red November, Arkham Horror, and Touch of Evil with its co-op variant.)  I went with the game that might scratch the CCG power-combo itch in me, figuring if nothing else I'd get a review out of it and would have no trouble trading it if I hated it.  Verdict's still out as I haven't played it yet.


We got checked in after the flea market and went back downstairs to join in on the big War on Terror game.  That's another game I'd been wanting to play for awhile.  Robert, Barnes, Steve, Jeremy and I were joined by Eddie for a 6p game.  Eddie was a cool guy who had copious amounts of beer--that's always a win in my book.


War on Terror is like a cross between something like Risk mixed with 'take that' cardplay and oddly enough a Settlers-style production roll each turn.  You buy your guys, you take territories.  The catch is that you can cheaply and easily mess with your opponents by funding terrorism...but since players can go "full terrorist" during the game, you end up just making it worse on yourself as they get all the terrorist resources.  Of course, countries can become Evil Empires and the game comes with a Balacava for the Evil Empire player to wear.  Barnes warned everyone that the headgear "had the stench of Jeff Jarvis" and therefore advised anyone from putting the balacava full on.

Anyway, this is all a giant digression because this was probably the funniest game I'd ever played.  You see, the game comes with a notepad for sending Secret Messages to other players--allegedly to forge alliances with other players or something, who knows.  Anyway, we had other ideas as some CRUCIAL INTELLIGENCE was placed in enemy hands during an early portion of the game:



secretmessage.jpg


Steve Avery's PR spokesman could neither confirm nor deny this allegation.




By the time the game finished, we were all in tears.  Barnes, Martin, Jeremy, and Steve "Smokes the Pole" Avery were all terrorists against Eddie and I.  There were a sea of terrorists on the board and no hope left.  Rather than join them, I allowed myself to die a noble death, shouting "FREEDOM~!" the entire time.  Yes, I likely died to the very terrorist forces I'd help fund, but I was too busy dying to appreciate the rich, rich irony.


As a game, I think War on Terror is pretty fair to middlin'...but MAN did we manage to make that session a real piece of work.  As biting satire, it works pretty damned well because like I said, you're funding these terrorist cells in the beginning to work against your enemies, but by the time other empires start going terrorist, you end up covered up with them everywhere.  But I'm hard pressed to name a game all weekend that we laughed so hard at.


After that, Eddie went to do a food and beer run and we had a straggler join us so Barnes brought out Cosmic Encounter.  That's another classic that I had to shamefully admit I'd never had the chance to play.  All I can say is after trying it out I definitely need to pick up a copy at some point...the game is flat out brilliant.  I would give a play by play but I think everyone on the planet knows how Cosmic plays out so I won't bother.

My race was the one with The Hoard, who could keep an extra hand of cards.  Barnes was the Void, Steve Avery was the race that wanted to lose all of their ships, our late joiner had the race with Hate, and I can't remember what my brother had.

In our short game--couldn't have run more than an hour--we had as much screwage, shouting, and double-dealing as I'd seen in games that ran twice as long.  At one point, Steve "MENS" Avery and Barnes were shouting at each other and Jeremy, trying to sway his allegiance...I think Barnes pulled a knife on Steve at some point, it's all a blur now.  I slipped in on almost every offensive alliance, creeping up on systems quickly.  Steve Avery and I were both at 4 and had a chance to ally together for a shared victory.  He then decided to screw me over by Negotiating, leaving me out to dry.  That's okay though as not long after that I went 'all in' on an invasion, invited allies, sent everyone home with a card, zapped a counter, and took the victory all to myself.  IN YER FACE, STEPHEN AVERY~!

Cosmic Encounter--thumbs up.  The FFG treatment is pretty lavish with lots of cards and cardboard, lots of little plastic ships, and tons of races to play as.  This one's a classic for a reason and I look forward to playing it again when I get the chance.


About this time Eddie had returned with the freakin' MOTHERLODE of food...tacos, burritos, chips and salsa...I had only tossed the man five bucks but he'd brought in tons of food and beer.  It was almost like a loaves and fishes moment, Eddie is the master of food procurement and I want this man in charge of all future gaming food gathering, pronto.

We stuffed our faces and Barnes took out The World Cup Game, another game he'd reviewed favoribly for the site.  We thought we had eight but Steve "Has Sex With Caylus" Avery bailed on us, so we only had seven.  By this time Aarontu, Jeff Jarvis, and Bob Solow had joined us so we had a pretty large group for this.

kenb_plays_world_cup.jpgWorld Cup game gives each players a certain number of teams and from there, you take a hand of three cards and do the play one, draw one bit when it's your turn.  Each card allows you to place a certain chit on one of the games on the board.  The chits do things like place goals for a game, goals for multiple games, or Defense to protect chits or fill up an opponent's side of the game with stuff that doesn't score.  You can also use Foul cards to take away goals that an opponent has already scored.  When the deck runs out, the scores are tallied and the leaders in each bracket advance from the pods into the round of 16, then 8, then so on until a World Cup winner is crowned.

I managed to take England and Italy both into the round of 16, both teams dominating their respective pods.  My luck ran out though as both fell to last-minute scores in their elimination games and so I was out.  Jeremy managed to take Brazil to the final before getting upset by the Cinderella Spain team.

World Cup is pretty awesome.  It's $60 online but as much as I like sports games I might have to hunt down a copy of that.  I'm surprised the creator of the game didn't send Barnes like a Christmas ham or something for all the promotion he's given it, but it's worth promoting.  (I know Barnes is a vegetarian.  He could've given it to his cat or something.)

Last of the night was The Really Nasty Horseracing Game.  It's a game that's all about betting on the horses over several races depending on the speed of the horses that you put in to each race.  Then it's a roll and move deal, but it's broken up by the fact that everyone has a hand of cards that they can use to screw each other over--knock down their horses, cheat them out of victory, cause a riderless horse to run around generating chaos on the track.  Pretty funny stuff.  I ended up running terribly in every race and betting even worse and ended the game flat broke.  Aaron managed to hit the longhshot bet at the end due to hideous amounts of nasty stuff happening to everyone else and had a few BILLION dollars to show for it, completely blowing everyone out of the water.  Barnes said it was the highest score he'd ever seen...good job, Aaron.


By that time it was getting late Saturday and most everyone needed to go.  I rounded up Steve "Low Price Whore" Avery's Star Wars: Jar Jar's 3-D Adventure Game that he'd bought from the flea market.  Yeah, that's right, the one with the catapult and plastic ball.  Funny enough, I always thought the game had Queen's Gambit-sized miniatures but I opened the box and they're these freaking huge figures instead.  I guess if you're trying to bowl over plastic Gungans they need to be big enough to hit.

My brother and I were burned out but when we got to the main game room to find Steve, he was sitting down playing something called Goldener Drache, a dragon racing game that didn't feature dragons with bloody talons and gore between its craw but instead little cutesy dragons that smiled at you (and I think mine even winked at me...)  Jeremy and I were too tired to give the game a fair shake, but the two people also playing with us were pretty nice.  You move dragons around by placing directional tiles, sort of like Roborally I guess.  It was okay, I guess, but not really my sort of thing. The older gentleman opposite me won the game, probably because I spent most of the game screwing Steve Avery over by moving his dragon entirely in the wrong direction.  That's what you get for sneaking off and playing girly Euros, Steve-o.

It was about 1:30 am and I'd been up since 3 am the day before, so it was time to call it a night.  Especially if I was going to make Will Kenyon's War of the Ring game the next day.  Naturally, they were showing Richard Pryor on the Comedy Central Vault so I get sucked in to watching that for a bit but finally force myself to go to sleep.



We got up the next morning and grabbed breakfast at the local Burger King.  Jeremy decided to go exercise while we played War of the Ring.  Will was running behind so I sat in and watched some Friedrich being played.  It was hard to tell but that game looked a bit too abstract for my liking.  It's a game that I was pretty hot about picking up at one time but don't know that I've got the group to give that a chance, really.


Will showed up and we started setting things up.  He doesn't have his armies bagged so I'm staggering through set-up but he's done it so many times that he's able to wrap it up pretty quickly.  We were trying the four-player variant, with Will's partner never having played and mine had only played once.  We ended up with the Shadow while Will and his partner got the Freeps.

The early war effort went pretty well for the Shadow.  We were finding them on hunt rolls and pulling low, which was good because you want them to waste Gandalf without soaking the full three.  Helm's Deep fell fast and I was marching north when Will busted out the Eomer card.  Suddenly, Helm's Deep had relief as Eomer's forces also moved around and bypassed them to threaten Saruman in his tower.  A disastrous battle later, and the Freeps had retaken Helm's Deep...that was horrible and it was likely the breaking point for the game.

Meanwhile my own war efforts up north stalled hard as my dice went cold.  Even summoning the Witch King didn't help.  We shifted to a pure corruption strategy too late and Frodo and Sam dunked the ring with 11 corruption.  The Freeps had managed to sneak in their healing tiles and pulled them both during the trek, so that saved their bacon for sure.  I didn't pull Shelob for putting in to the cup until WAY late so the tile cup was pretty tame all in all.  Will's a great player and strategist, my hat's off to him.

The 4-player variant wasn't as bad as I thought it was.  It's frustrating for sure because you have to alternate actions and each player is limited to what nations he can activate.  It makes coordinating very tough.  Still, it was a lot of fun and War of the Ring remains one of the great thematic designs, bar none.  I don't think I'd ever tire of this game and from the looks of Will's well-worn copy, he's gotten many miles out of his and hadn't tired of it yet at all, if he ever will. 

Thanks to Will's and my experience we wrapped up the four-player gmae in just over three hours, which is pretty amazing in my book.  We then hemmed and hawed about what to play before settling on Battlestar Galactica, another game destined to be considered one of the 'all-time greats.'


Jeff Jarvis joined up with us along with Eddie, and my brother wanted to play as well so we ended up with seven.  We used a "Baltar Split Personality" variant where Eddie and Jeff shared Baltar, alternating turns and cards and splitting the initial loyalty deal, which is awesome because Baltar can't be sure if he's actually a Cylon or not.

I think this was the breakdown:


Eddie and Jeff--Gaius Baltar
My previous War of the Ring partner (yeah, I suck with names)--Admiral Adama
Another player whose name eludes me for the moment--Starbuck
Jeremy--Col. Tigh
Me--President Roslin
Will--The Chief


gaius_you_lucky_dog.jpgWill mentioned he was getting discouraged with the game after seeing 11 straight Cylon wins.  We started with all resources at +2 and seeded the deck as a six-player game, meaning we'd have a Sympathizer during the Sleeper phase.  I checked my loyalty card and I was flesh and blood.  Will focused on trying to pull down one of our resources just enough to trigger the Sympathizer for the human side.  That might have seemed Cylon-ish but his logic made sense.

It wasn't long until we started suspecting my WOTR buddy.  Adama fired a nuke pretty wastefully and after our first jump, we only went one parsec.  Baltar fired up the Cylon detector and yep, Adama was a toaster, says he.  Luckily, though Martial Law had been declared and Adama held both titles, I was able to take it back but this hurt me for a time as there wasn't much for me to do without the Presidency from Colonial One.  Anyway, we brigged the Admiral and just as quickly he whisked himself off to the Resurrection Ship.  Goodbye Old Man, we hardly knew ye.


The rest of the time was too smooth a sailin', so we all figured our second Cylon had not joined us yet.  Everyone was acting efficiently, just trying to squeak down our morale enough to move the Sympathizer our way. 

We wanted an extra jump to manipulate things more, but when Tigh pulled for our next jump both of them forced us into the Sleeper phase.


The sequence that happened next...well, that's why this game is so freakin' great, man.


First off, I get my card.  Now, odds are that I can't possibly be the Cylon in yet another game.  My brother even says the same thing.  Yet I look down and see The Mad Bomber himself staring back at me.  I'm a Cylon.

Simultaneously, my brother reveals his Sympathizer card.  Since humanity's dials are still all blue, he goes off to be Jr. Cylon.


This is where it gets really good.



So my brother's next play, he goes and passes his unrevealed loyalty card to Starbuck.  The whole table flips out.  I'm the only one (well, exceptshinycylon.jpg Jeremy) that KNOWS that what he's handed Starbuck is a Human card.  Everyone else assumes that Jeremy sat on his Cylon card too long and is now handing it off.  Starbuck doesn't help the cause because he looks at his card, starts laughing, and turns beet red, completely acting like a Cylon card has just been handed to him.  If I hadn't known better, I would've thought so too.  I play it up--"look at him!"  Will is sitting to my left.  I take my turn as normal, Consolidating Power but being a little quiet about it as I take a Piloting.  The next crisis I choose forces a discard, so I whittle my hand down and play up that fact.  Will is next and wants me to do some Quorum to get our Morale back up, so he Executive Orders me.  I say that I have nothing (I do have 2x Morale boosters at this point) and draw for my first action.


Man, this is too sweet.  I draw an Arrest Order.  Leaping on their paranoia about Starbuck, BOOM!  I toss her in the brig.  Everyone cheers.  I'm thinking I'm going to stay hidden and screw them over with Crisis thanks to my ability.  The best part of all is that my brother and I didn't collude on this, no secret communication or anything...he just made a smooth move and I was able to capitalize.

Then, on Baltar's turn I make an error.  I don't notice that Starbuck adds no card to a Crisis check.  I'd added in three--two good ones, and a Red.  My additions were a net help but the Red was meant to keep the heat on Starbuck.

Except the Destiny deck coupled with Starbuck's lack of play bit me.  There were too many reds and blues in the check.  Since Starbuck hadn't played a card, suddenly the whole table went silent.


I would have been screwed here, but I kept my poker face.  I looked over every player's card asking them *how many blue* they drew.  Roslin doesn't draw blue and I hadn't consolidated into Blue.  There were only enough red there that they could have come from the destiny deck.


The end result of all of this is...it actually came down to them suspecting Will and myself.  Yet when the time came to choose who to Brig, they chose...Will.  Will's reaction told them that they'd chosen poorly, and I knew that I was likely next but I'd fooled them long enough.  On my next turn I mulled it over for a bit before revealing my Mad Bomber self, damaging Galactica and skipping off to join my toaster brethren.


Humanity wasn't long after that.  Between our Super Crisis cards (we actually blew up Colonial One!), Jeremy cherry picking skill cards, and the Cylon fleet moving in, things looked grim.  I was actually cheering for the humans as they did make it to 8, but with three dials in the red and surrounded by Cylon ships they just couldn't make the final jump in time.  All three Cylon players wailed on the Crisis deck and soon Population was depleted.  GAME OVER, MAN~!



This did little to help Will's mood regarding the game...he stated it's a solid design and wonderful game, but the humans just can't win.  I don't know that I totally agree yet as I've seen two games now where the humans are *close* to winning.  The boost to the dials at the start to make things easier did the humans no service, as they almost ensured the sypmathizer would be a Cylon.


Time had been moving on as we had been having so much fun with BSG that it ran over 3 hours.  Our time was done as we still had a four-hour trip ahead of us, so we bid everyone farewell and hit the road.  The trip back was a little hairier as my brother nearly drove up the ass of some guy doing 35 on the interstate and then we almost plowed through a group of frakking ROAD DEER~! on the way home.  Last time yer night drivin', bro.




Anyway, a quick summary for those of you still with us:


I PLAYED:

Tikal  (3rd place)
Thunder Road  (tied for DEAD)
Dungeonquest (ditto)
War on Terror (lost, 2 remaining Empires overwhelmed by 4 Terrorist foes)
Cosmic Encounter (won)
The World Cup Game (Got two teams to round of 16, both eliminated there)
The Really Nasty Horseracing Game  (Dead last, dead broke, my horses are glue now)
War of the Ring  (Lost, ring dunk w/ 11 corruption)
Battlestar Galactica  (won, Cylon)


WE BOUGHT:

Murder City (looks great)
Dominion
X-Men: Under Siege



Some games that I saw played:  Battlestar Galactica, Friedrich, Tikal, Power Grid, Winner's Circle, Le Havre, Wasabi, Galaxy Trucker, Senji
Games I meant to play and ran out of time:  Ghost Stories, Dominion,  Galaxy Trucker, Escape From Colditz


PROPS:

All the guys I gamed with (even you, Steve Avery)
The Mexican food Eddie brought back
Good beer
Getting to play my favorite game of all time (WotR)
Snowing an entire table with my Cylon nature
Almost every game played was a winner, a great time
Meeting Richard Lanius, Frank Branham, and Bob Solow, none of whom I'd ever met in person


SLOPS:

The dude teaching Tikal (THAT'S A POOR MOVE)
The Flea Market needed about three times the amount of space
No High Speed Internet at the hotel
Jeremy nearly killing us twice on the way home
The XO from "Children of the Gods"
The fan-produced Indiana Jones podcast that had the worse Sean Connery impersonation you'll ever hear
Steve Avery's luv of teh cock

There Will Be Games
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