Written: May 08th (Tue) 2007 @ 06:47 PM
had quite the busy weekend… for those of you who attended the 1st official boardgame night, I hope you had a blast! Everyone I have talked to wants to do another one… so I will plan another one… but it won't be anytime soon… :P :)
A summary… there were 13 people playing. Due to last minute attendies and cancellations, we ended up playing 2 rounds of games. The games that ran include: Dutch Blitz, Ticket to Ride, Carcassone, Niagara and Winner's Circle. I will give a quick summary of the games ( although I wasn't playing all of them so some of it may be fictional ). haha…
Dutch Blitz - Geo, Jacklyn, Steve and Eve. Steve and Eve were new to the game so they had to be taught how to play. As soon as the game started, Geo had no mercy on the newbies and crushed them while bragging how good he was. With only 2000+ games under his belt, he was sure to win. All hail Geo, the Dutch Blitz grand master! :) Oddly enough, Jacklyn, with roughly 1000+ games under her belt gave little fight. Her excuse is that she was taking it easy on the newbies, but we all know she's too hard core to take it easy on newbies. Our sympathies to the newbies.
Ticket to Ride: Europe - Darrian, Betty, Andy, Andrew, Jackson. A new game to 2 Andrews and I but a very familiar game to Darrian and Betty. We took turns taking the lead initially but then as the game progressed, the field was stretched out a bit. Mr Shields fell to the back of the pack by this time and Jackson began randomly attacking/blocking other players… It then became very clear that Betty was not going to have mercy on us newbies as she pulled a significant lead halfway thought the game ( I think she was cheating though ) . In the end, the actuarial underdog came back from behind and stole the win by 2 points, a victory I cheered on!
Carcassonne - Jenny, Sam and Leo. This game played at the same time as Ticket to Ride. For just the three of them it sure was a rowdy game. Lots of yelling and accusing and name calling… it seems that the experienced Jenny had no mercy on the newbie Chan boys and attacked ruthlessly. They had no choice but to join forces and tag team. In the end, Jenny took the win which was enjoyed thoroughly, after losing hundreds of consecutive games of carc to Jackson in previous months. Clearly she had learned some of Jackson's tricks/strategy.
Niagara - Enoch, Darrian, Sam, Leo, Steve (and Geo). This game was set to be the most competitive with two hardcore gamers who enjoy long games like Settlers of Catan, the big E and the big S. They were a quiet bunch and it was obvious that the game had taken a turn for the serious. They decided to analyze the crap out of the game instead of just having fun. Just as someone seemed like they were about to win, boats fell off the waterfall. The tension was only to be broken by a 20 minute phone call, that “someone” had to take. If it was hockey, there would have been a “delay of game” call for sure. So they ate tosquitos and chatted instead. As patience wore thin, anti-fun herself tried to fill in for her bfop ( boyfriend on the phone )… in the end, Leo snuck out the win locking him second place in the night's festivities.
Winner's Circle - Jenny, Betty, Jacklyn, Andrew, Eve, Jackson. This was the game slated for the non-competitve types. It felt a little chaotic with Jackson running in and out of the game cooking snacks while playing. It seemed like he didn't need to pay much attention to accurately predict the winning horses in each race. Almost everyone made a good showing and in the end Jackson beat andrew by just $200. Jackson conceded the win to Andrew, since I can't win my own prizes. Eve had much trouble selecting horses and we recommend that she never go to the real track to gamble. :) Better luck next time! :)
The final winner was Andrew and second place was Leo. They both won a tub of homemade icecream and blog points. Andrew got first choice of choco-banana and leo took berry-banana. Oddly enough no one wanted the cinnamon after sampling it. I thought the cinnamon was the best flavour!??!? ( I actually heated the milk mixture over the oven before making it!! )
There was actually bigger prizes ( movie pass, zoo pass ) , but since we only played 2 rounds I didn't want to award the big prizes… We cancelled one round because everyone showed up really late and/or with food for dinner, so some had to eat dinner first. :P :) But it all turned out grrreaat! We even had a rep from old dutch drop by and give us alll free chips… :)
Next time I will try to set the schedule before hand and see if we can sign up on a web-schedule instead of me making the schedule manually. Hopefully people will still interact and sign up to play with people they don't know…. hmmm… we'll see how that works out…
oh and Sam also suggested that there should be a blog link icon… and I thought about it… and I think there will be one. It will be the current reigning gameboard night champion and get passed on to the next winner after each event…. now I just have to draw something cool… later peeps!
BTW, the title ( meatballs and oysters ) refers to meeples and Cloisters for carcassonne. This is a common mistake for people from China, or people who have excess earwax. :)
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