Another Game Night

Went over to David’s house yesterday (friends with Brian and Jeff). He had about 10 people over and I got some fun gaming in with this group. We played a game first called Intrigue, which is a bribing, screw your opponent type game. I was not a big fan of that one. Jeff had brought over Dune, which interested me greatly. I read over the short rules while a game of Ra was played between Brian, Jeff, Jessie (Jeff’s girlfriend), and two others. We then began a long game of Dune between Brian (later replaced by David), Paul, Dan, Tomas, Jeff, and myself. I played the spice guild and was a shield card pick away from winning the game on turn 4, but missed the fight. We played until turn 4 when Tomas won. The game is absolutely fabulous, I will probably look to buy a copy or perhaps print up my own as it was published in 1979 and is 1) out of print, and 2) not the best quality. We chatted for awhile after that game and then finished the night with a game of Last Night on Earth followed by a game of Midgard. I left about 4am I believe, good fun!

A gun. A fight. Some games in between

The AZ Board Gamers meetup at Gamer's Inn provided a wide variety of entertainment tonight, both on and off the tables. I arrive around 5:15pm and chatted with Jerry for a bit before Steve showed up. We decided on playing a game of The Last Night on Earth. About a turn in, Emilia joined in to make it 2 vs. 2. This game scales very nicely for 2-6 players. Steve and Jerry were the brains behind the zombies, while Emilia and I command a group of 3 students with a priest. We had to kill 15 zombies before sundown in order to win, and once Emilia got the chain saw and started laying waste, I thought we were going to pull out the win. However, with 11 of 15 zombie carcasses, Jerry and Steve were able to get the 2 hero kills needed for their victory.

While we were playing our game, some others showed up (Dan, Miles, Matt, and Tom a bit later). Someone had mentioned Twilight Imperium and even went so far as to pull it off the shelf to setup. My initial reaction of "tempting" was quickly reigned in when I remembered with would be a minimum 6 hour affair. I had thought others came to the same conclusion when I saw it going back on the shelf, but then it was replaced with Axis and Allies. A great game, but I've never had it go less than 10-12 hours myself. Tom, Matt, and Emilia formed the Allies while Dan and Steve played as the evil Axis.

The next game matched Taylor and myself as the zombies against against Jake and Jerry as the heros. This mission required Jake and Jerry find gasoline and keys to start a truck in the middle in order to escape (with only 2 of 4 heros required, I guess the other would be zombie food). They got a very unlucky start in that all 4 of their hero's did not have the building they were supposed to start in on the map, so they all had to begin in the middle of the map. They did manage to find the keys, and the gasoline was a quick search away for them. However, the sun set before they were able to reach the car and their tasty flesh was consumed happily by the zombies.

Erik had arrived during this game and had to wait for it to end so he could join us for the next game, which pitted Jerry, Taylor, and Erik as a group of sheriff deputies against Jake and myself as Sam Bass's outlaw gang in Cowboys:The Way of the Gun. We had to get at least one of the gang across the map and off the side before time ran out. The first deputy found himself face-to-face with our gunman and was quickly mowed down on the first turn. The second one tried to return fire, but being alone was quickly dispatched by the ruthless killers. As the remaining 3 deputies came down the main street, some town folks joined the outlaw cause and moved in from behind. The gang headed out the back ally of the general store. The deputies tried to cut them off, but one was able to slip past and had a clear path to escape town with the town folk covering him. I find Cowboys to be a great little game for what it is. A really quick, light tactical shooter. Gives the feel of a squad-level miniature game, but plays in about 10-60 minutes, depending on the size of the scenario.

Jake and Jerry had to leave due to early work hours the next day, so Taylor, Erik, and I played another game of Last Night on Earth. This time I was the zombies and they played the 4 heros. The scenario involved them finding explosive weapons in order to blow up 3 zombie spawn points before sundown. This game was extremely close, at least twice I managed to just barely kill a hero as he was attempting to blow up my explosives. Several times I was able to kill them as they were on the way, and once they succeeded in blowing up one of the zombie spawn points. Alas, as the sun faded from the sky, the hero's were in a corner with no explosives and no hope.

Sometime during this game we had several interesting events at the old Gamer's Inn. First, the employees put the place on "lock down", as the police had shut down the street outside to search for a "gunman on the loose in the area". Given the surrounding area, I'm sure this event shouldn't really shock anyone. Then a bit later, some computer gamers got into it. Someone called someone else a ***king dumb*** or some crap. That was great, as the entire Inn (except the 2 groups of board gamers) cleared out to watch the expected combatants as they moved out into the parking lot to settle it. Not much happened in the end from what I gathered, someone got shoved, some punch was thrown maybe and some people got sent home early.

After those adrenaline pumping events, we of course had to break out Cowboys again. I played an overmatched group of 4 cattle rustles trying to out pace a 6-man posse. I put up a good fight, but in the end the final 3 deputies were able to drop my men dead. This was the final game of the night for us, and we checked in on the Axis and Allies group before we left. At a glance of the board, I did not see any significant gains from the Axis players, and considering how long the game had been going, I have a feeling that it was perhaps a matter of time before the end for them. Of course, there is a good chance I'll be able to catch the ending next friday, as they may still be playing. :)

Thats about it for another Friday at the Inn.

Trip to South Carolina

Got a last minute deal on a flight back to South Carolina this weekend to visit my mom. I had been trying to get a flight out there for awhile and something finally came up. Layover was in Chicago and the flights were all on time. Coming into the Greenville, SC airport I got a bit sick feeling, but once we landed everything was fine. Saturday and Sunday I worked on a number of small maintenance items around the house for my mom. We also went to Reedy River Falls Park in downtown Greenville. The downtown area changed greatly from when I grew up here, as they have more down there now than Phoenix, AZ has. Seeing the park got me into the mood to hike Table Rock State Park, SC. I had planned on just skipping it for this trip, as I was only out here Saturday through Tuesday. I picked up some shorts and hiking socks from a sporting goods store and headed up there the next morning. I got a slight delay in starting, as my mom’s computer had some problems with the hard drive. I am currently reinstalling everything on a new drive that we bought today. I believe that for the first time I realize what an extremely difficult hike Table Rock is. This was my first hike that I ever did, back in Junior or Senior year of high school. It goes up about 2000 feet in the first 3.2 miles. I got up it today without much issue, although my idea to freeze the water bottles did not work so well, as they were still half ice bricks even by the time I got back to the parking lot. Also, I discovered that I had never actually gone fully to the end of the hike before, which was only a few hundred feet past my normal stopping point. I am glad that I did not miss out on a hike in such lush vegetation, as I do not see many places like this out west. I am heading back to Phoenix, AZ tomorrow morning and have some games scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday already. Should be a fun and busy week.

Friday Game Night and Gamer’s Inn

Had a great time with the AZ Board Gamer's gang Friday night. Got there kind of early (about 5pm) and chatted with Jason and Dan for awhile, before Rich and Rob showed up. They taught me San Juan and Ingenious. Yes, I am still pretty new to a lot of the popular board games. Jake and Taylor showed up around 6:45pm I believe, and we were just waiting for Erik to arrive with sweet, sweet Descent:Journeys in the Dark to begin our epic dungeon crawl! I believe we probably started playing around 8pm by the time everything was setup. We had a good party, Taylor drew a melee guy, while Jake got a Magic user. I rounded things out with a ranged hero. Erik played the evil overlord .. perhaps a little too well. :) We ran Quest 4 from the main book. The heros started fairly well early, clearing out the first area we moved into. The first room we went to contained a gold chest and some formidable foes (Master Ogre, Skeletons, and Sorcerers). Once we managed to secure the room and the gold treasure chest, things were looking great for us. Jake had a magic rune with a blast effect that completely cleared out the next room we went into. We then went to the other side of the map and cleared out the hallway and were feeling very confident. A little too confident we would find out a few turns later. Overlord Erik managed to kill Jake for about the 20th time (poor wizards), and was 4 conquest tokens away from victory. He had only to kill Taylor's hero. He managed to get the hero surround by 2 master sorcerers, 2 master beastman, and 1 normal beastman. He took taylor down to 3 life. The next turn we decided to have taylor make a run for the next portal and 3 conquest tokens. The ceiling came crashing down upon his head, and he just escaped doom with a single life left! However, he was now trapped, surrounded by monsters. I attempted to clear out a skeleton and sorcerer so that Jake could run his hero to the portal. I killed the skeleton and the sorcerer, however the sorcerer came back to life and had 1 life left. Jake came in and killed a number of evil creatures with his flame blast, but a master sorcerer again lived through it. Jake's Familiar healed Taylor for 2 health, so now he was up to 3. I managed to kill of a master beastman while in guard mode. So now the next turn has Taylor with 1 master beastman and 2 sorcerers attacking him. The sorcerers manage to score a hit or 2 through his 6 armor rating. The final roll comes down to the master beastman. He proves to be a very angry beastman and we did not see yet another X rolled from our Overlord. Taylor went down and we lost the quest. Overall, a great game, very even throughout I felt. We finished up around 12:30am I believe. Not too long really for the size of the scenario.

Hiking at Brown’s Trail 133

Brown’s Trail 133. This trail leads to the summit of Brown’s Peak, the tallest and northernmost of the Four Peaks, visible from Phoenix. Twice before I drove the 1 hour trip along 20 miles of rough dirts roads to this trailhead. Twice before I had to turn back due to snow and ice. Today was the day for success! The road seems to get easier each time I drive it, not sure if there are improvements being done or I am just getting used to it. The trail is fairly steep, about 700ft/mile supposedly. After about the first 2 miles, the real ascent begins (800 ft in 1/2 a mile). I scrambled over rocks and up to a dead end on the first attempt, then back tracked and found another way. A long, steep path up a water runoff filled with loose rocks hidden as stable foot and hand holds. I dared more of this than I thought that I would, including some sections that were more climbing than scrambling. I finally gave our near the end, as the incline seemed to increase. My journey back down proved less difficult than I had anticipated, however my legs were getting quite tired, so heading back when I did was probably best. I don’t know that I would go back to this hike again, as the difficulty in getting there combined with the dangerous nature of getting to the top do not appeal to me greatly.

Game Days

Went to the Gamer’s Inn in Mesa on Friday night for the first time. Played some games with Jake, Erik (Likes Descent, Heroscape, Memoir 44, BattleLore. Is a school teacher. Lives in east Mesa), Emilia (School Teacher moved from Maryland), and Tom. We played a game of Tannhauser first. That was not too bad, although with 3v2 players its not as good as 1v1. We then played Fortress America, and old Avalon Hill game. It was a fairly neat game, with one player being America and 3 others playing the invading armies. I stayed until about 11am and had to leave before the end. Lea had gone to a wine party with Kim for the night. She got home about an hour before I did. She was really upset with me about some things and got mad and left the house. I don’t think things are going to work out between us. Today I went over to the meetup games group over at Sub Culture in Tempe. This was a really good meetup actually. Played a game of Power Grid for the first time with Jake, Scott (works in semiconducter design for Motorola), Heather (in Air Force as computer tech), and Tyler (her BF also in Air Force as computer tech). Heather and Tyler were both really cool people to talk with and we chatted a bit about the computer industry and jobs. They had both just moved down from Alaska, although Heather grew up in Las Vegas, so the heat was not completely new to her. I had wanted to play the Zombies game that they brought with them, but we did not have time before they had to leave. They live out in Avondale, so its probably a bit of a drive to get back there anyway. After that game, Jake, Jerry, Taylor, me, and Amanda (another new person to the group, who is a pharmacist) played a quick game of Saboteur and then Ticket to Ride. Amanda had never heard of any of these games, so they were all new to her. I then went over to Game Depot in Tempe for their game night. I played a game of Carcassonne - The Discovery with Jake, Taylor, and a new person to me, Dion. This game was ok, must like Carcassonne with slight rule changes. We then played another game called The Downfall of Pompeii. This game was great. Quick play time and fun theme. You basically try to get your guys into town as fast as you can, and then once the volcano erupts, you have to move them out before the lava gets them. Good fun time. I also saw David there, who was the person that brought over Twilight Imperium when I played Brian Con this year.

Car broken into

Last night my car was broken into while at Lea’s place. I went out this morning and the window was busted, the car stereo was stolen, as well as my iPod, GSP, some small cash amount, and some random cards (blockbuster, REI, etc) that I had in there. I spent the entire morning on the phone trying to get it taken care of. I got the window replaced by about 4:30pm. I just faxed a list of stuff that was stolen over to my insurance company. I have a $500 deductible, so I won’t get much for it all. I also put a fraud alert on all 3 of my credit accounts as well as a credit watch. Sucks.

Playing some Descent

I was on call last week, but Lea and I went to Max’s birthday party on Friday for awhile. Saturday I had a game of Descent with Pat, Kim, and Mike. It was a good game, with the hero’s dying near the end. Yesterday Brian and I got together and played a game of Tannhauser. I enjoyed the game, but it took us about 2 hours to get started because he had to reread the rules for a bit. Today we played another game with me, Mike, Max, and Eddie. It was amazing game, here is a session report I put on boardgamegeek.com:

The Hero's
Just got done with an amazing session of Descent. We played Quest 3: Problems of Life and Death. I was the overlord and we had 3 heros: Battlemage Jaes, One Fist, and Vyrah the Falconer

Start Area
The heros began by quickly dispatching the two beastman, spider, and skeleton in the starting area. After lining up in front of the door, the opened it to reveal ...

Area 1
The heros moved in and killed off 3 of the beastman immediately. I was able to move enough forces in to kill off Vyrah. (2 conquest tokens left) The hero's then eliminated the rest of the monsters in the area and activated the portal (now 5 conquest tokens left). They got the chest goodies and proceeded to move on to the next area.

Area 2
My ogre was killed before he got a turn to take any actions. I managed to pull a trap on Battlemage Jaes as he moved into the room to try and kill my Hellhounds. After pulling himself out of the pit, he had just enough movement left to shoot and kill one of my hellhounds. I did minimal damage with my remaining hell hounds, but did manage to Stun both Jaes and One fist with my razorwings. One fist had been putting a hurting on me throughout the match with his extra attack. I spawned some beastman and killed off Vyrah again (2 conquest tokens left) the heros quickly dispatched my remaining monsters and activate the portals (8 conquest tokens left). With only Vyrah left at the middle door, the other hero's went back to town to shop. I spawned some Spiders, but realized that I had foolishly put them on the sides with an obstacle preventing them from moving in on Vyrah. The next turn they opened the door to ...

Area 3
The group of heros found the group of stone Nagas and some socerers waiting for them. After killing the sorcerers first, I spawned another group of beastman and again managed to kill Vyrah (5 conquest tokens left). I also got out the overlord card when allows me to draw 3 cards at per turn. At this point, One First opened the chest and the heros found all the Naga statues came to life! Unfortunately for the overlord, Battlemage Jaes descended upon the Master Naga and killed him with one magical blast. The beastman and remaining Naga were quickly killed, with One fist dealing the killing blow to the final Naga to open the door to ...

Area 4
One fist had enough move and another attack remaining after barely killing the final Naga to move towards the Giant in area 4 and putting a 6 wounds on him. His skill allowed him this extra attack during a ready action. He went into guard mode and killed my giant on his next attack. Vyrah was also waiting in ready and killed a Manticore before it could attack. My final Manticore did negligible damage before dying. I spawned some more razorwings, but they could do little against the armor of the heros. At this point the heros activated the portal (8 conquest tokens) and opened a silver chest. However the chest turned into a mimic and hit One fist and ran. Next turn a new spawn of beastman managed to kill Jaes (4 conquest tokens). He came back the next turn and killed them all and they finally got the contents of the silver chest. (5 conquest tokens total now. I spawned some spiders and managed to web One fist. He ran for the door after getting free and some hell hounds brought him to 1 health left. These events managed to slow the heros down for several turns. After much consideration, Vyrah decided to hand One First a healing item and then open the door to Area 5. It exploded, killed One Fist (1 conquest tokens left) and wounded Vyrah for 2.

Area 5
I was getting down to the bottom of my overlord cards at this point. Vyrah shot at the master Naga only to learn he could not be damaged. Next turn, I moved my Naga over the gold chest and the final portal. Jaes moved forward to kill the Naga on the portal. I also spawned a group of skeletons. The heros then took their turn. Vyrah ran towards the portal. I layed a series of spiked pits (2) and falling rumbling. Slowing him and bringing him to only 2 health. He managed to get to the portal by drinking a vitality potion and exhausting all but 2 of his stamina. (4 conquest tokens left). He then escaped to town. One Fist moved in from town next. He killed the Naga over the gold chest and my skeleton, using the last of his stamina, he greedily went for the gold chest. The heros received 3 conquest tokens on the chest and an item, however One Fist was turned into a monkey! (7 conquest tokens left). The heros turn ended, and drew 3 of my last 4 cards in the deck, leaving only 1 card left. I moved my spider and Kisst-Haa over to finish off One Fist. I played rage to make sure of it, but One First died on the first attack. (3 conquest tokens left). I ended my turn and the heros now had 1 final turn to figure out the way to defeat Kisst-Haa. One Fist ran in from town and ended his movement on the back bell and used it. Battlemage Jaes out of desperation agained tried to shoot at Kisst-Haa, however no damage was again done. At this point the hero's knew they had no chance, as only Vyrah was left to move and I had spiders guarding each of the remaining bells. I drew the final card from the deck, thus removing the final 3 conquest tokens and defeating the heros.

Conclusion
An absolutely amazing game, with close action throughout. The final game came down to me winning by basically 1 turn, as the hero's would have surely ruined me next. If only they had not gone for the final chest and instead proceeded to defeat Kisst-Haa, they would have had a victory. The entire session took about 4-5 hours of play time, and we had 2 people who were both new to the game.

Golfing, Gaming, and Hiking in the Rain

So the Saturday trip to Flagstaff got cancelled due to Jade having to work. We ended up going to Crackerjax in Scottsdale, AZ instead. That place has a lot of fun things to do and both Lea and I had a surprisingly good time. We played some mini-golf and managed to just finish as the rain started. We then got some tokens and played some team arcade games, air hockey, basketball, and dance dance revolution. We’ll have to go back there, as it was a good time. Yesterday I had Max, his friend Jason, and Taylor over for the first games of Descent:Journeys in the Dark. The first game I was the overlord and got lucky and killed off the heros in about the 2nd or 3rd turn. We reset that game and tried it again. It was actually very close and I lost mainly due to 3 of my traps failing the d6 roll right in a row. But it was a fun, close game. We then played the second quest with Max as the overlord. This one took awhile to play and many times it seemed as though we would not have a chance, but we managed to pull off a win, but it was very close in the early going to us losing. Today Lea and I got up early and left for Flagstaff at 7am. We went to Cafe Express in downtown Flagstaff to have their jumbo pancakes. They seemed smaller than when we had them in the past. The weather was sunny and warm, so I decided against spending $32 a piece for some rain jackets. We got to Sunset Trail #23 at about 10:20am. The hike went through one of the most dense areas of forest that I’ve hiked in Arizona. The climb was somewhat steep, but not too bad. We turned back after about 3 miles in as the sky threatened rain. With about 2 miles left, the rain and thunder began. We also had some small hail for about 5-10 minutes. Several of the lightning strikes were quite close, which concerned me. Fortunately the lightning moved a bit after about 25 minutes. We did continue to get rained on for the remainder of the hike back, however. The car warmed us up quickly and some Wendy’s chili helped as well. I am going to order some packable jackets online today. Tomorrow I have another game of Descent schedule with Pat and Max hopefully after work.