The Best of One World - "HAL-CON Game Day"

In 2011 HAL-CON burst back onto the scene as the perfect replacement for my late, lamented Fleet Con. Unfortunately (or most fortunately depending how you look at it), the amazing guests the organizers keep securing has me looking at HAL-CON as an amazing sci-fi / fantasy convention first and a gaming event second. Here were my thoughts at the end of last year's festivities:
 
"A part of me wishes that HAL-CON could be split into two separate events: one just for workshops, Q&A's, autograph signings and costume contests and another for merchandise, board games and pre-registered RPG's. Maybe then my loyalties wouldn't feel quite so conflicted.

"For the sake of full disclosure, the HAL-CON organizers do run a few separate, day-long table top gaming events during the year. Odin-willing, I hope to be in attendance for one or both of these things next year."  

I missed HAL-CON's dedicated gaming day in 2013 but I sure as hell wasn't going to miss it this year. Sooooo, way back on June 8'th I popped down to the Lord Nelson Hotel on the corner of Spring Garden and South Park in beautiful and historic downtown Halifax, dropped my ten bones and then proceeded to marinate in gamey goodness for about eight hours or so.

As soon as I walked into the convention hall I could see that the organizers had done things right. First off, the Board Room Game Cafe was on-hand to sell and demo games:

Next up the organizers had gone w-a-a-a-a-y above and beyond the call of duty by providing a massive library of free-to-check-out games:

Not too shabby, huh?

And then, to make the things absolutely perfect, there were plenty of fabric-cloaked gaming tables for folks to spread their gamey bitz out on.

The onset of Spring really puts a dent into the time I have available for my beloved hobby and it only gets worse during the Summer. Just look how long it took for me to write this friggin' entry!

So, prior to that morning, I'd been through a protracted and thoroughly lamentable dry spell for gaming. As a result, I got right down to brass tacks, challenging Andrew to a few games of Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs. X-Men.

GAME ONE

My Team:

Beast - Big Boy Blue

Colossus - Russian Bear

Cyclops - Slim

Gambit - Ace In The Hole

Professor X - Principal

Rogue - Anna Raven

Storm - 'Ro

Wolverine - Wildboy

Andrew's "Team":

Doctor Doom - Reed Richards' Rival

Doctor Octopus - Megalomaniac

Green Goblin - Goblin Lord

Loki - Trickster

Magneto - Former Comrade

Mystique - Unknown

Punisher - McRook

Venom - Eddie Brock

Basic Action Cards:

 

Power Bolt

Focus Power

Gearing Up

Smash!

This was pretty much a Davecon re-match with me fielding an all X-Men team versus Andrew's schizophrenic assortment of random nuts, Villains and weirdos.

Keen to get our heavy hitters out, we both invested heavily in Basic Action Dice. By the end, we'd snapped up all three of the "Gearing Up" Dice as well as two-thirds of the "Focus Power" dice.

Andrew soon parleyed these energy boosters into a pretty daunting army including three Doc Ocks, three Punishers, two Venoms, two Mystiques, two Dooms, two Loki's and one very pissed-off Magneto.

In stark contrast, I invested in low-cost characters early on including several Storms and Gambits. I used my initiative to chip away at Andrew's Life total while patiently waiting for my Basic Action Dice to provide the juice required to pick up a Wolverine, a Rogue and a Professor X.

On more then one occasion Andrew failed to roll a Character level or just couldn't muster the Energy required to Field all of his toughest dudes. On the last turn of the game he was faced with the unenviable choice of Fielding Doc Ock or the Punisher. In the end, Frank Castle was left to stir in Reserve limbo.

Just like our previous battles, the concept of "defense" was fleeting at best. In other words, we spent most of the game just whaling the crap outta one another. Even though Andrew was down to only a few Life points and, by all accounts, should have been on a purely defensive footing, he still attacked with Doc Ock and kept Magneto back as a lone blocker. I was forced to let Otto through, who knocked me down to four Life. 

On my turn I rolled an obscene amount of dice, including a Wolverine, Professor X, a Sidekick and a very timely Focus Power die. On my subsequent attack, Andrew used Magneto and a Sidekick to block Rogue and Storm but Wolverine got through for six points of damage, giving me the win!

GAME TWO

My Team:

Nick Fury - Mr. Anger

Captain America - Star-Spangled Avenger

Thor - Odinson

Iron Man - Playboy

Black Widow - Natural

Hulk - Anger Issues

Vibranium Shield - One Of A Kind

Andrew's Group of Misfits:

Gambit - Ace In The Hole
Doctor Doom - Reed Richards' Rival

Ghost Rider - Johnny Blaze
Doctor Strange - Sorcerer Supreme

Deadpool - Assassin

Colossus - Unstoppable

Wolverine - Wildboy

Thing - Ever Lovin' Blue-Eyed

Basic Action Cards:

 

Power Bolt

Focus Power

Gearing Up

Smash!

We went downright apeshit on the Basic Action Dice this time out, cleaning out all of the "Power Bolt" and "Gearing Up" dice while leaving only one "Smash!" and "Focus Power" remaining.

This generic energy boost gave Andrew the opportunity to snap up two of his three Colossus dice. Solid move, too, considering that this version of Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin receives a free Spin Up at the end of every freakin' turn! Needless to say, this guy was a real pain in my попка for most of the game, eventually pounding me down to seven Life.

But Andrew still had a hard time dicing up what he needed. Even though he used a Yellow "Focus Power" result to Spin Wolverine up a Level everything else was a complete bust. Even after a re-roll, his Blue "Gearing Up" die just produced more useless Energy and, more importantly, he failed to conjure up Dr. Strange as a potential blocker.

In stark contrast my Avengers worked together like a dream team, go figure. First off, my very own "Gearing Up" result provided two more valuable dice. The resulting "Power Bolt" allowed me to blast Andrew right in the mush for two points of direct damage. Then, bolstered by "Mr. Anger's" ability to field Avengers for free, I proceeded to flood the attack zone with the Hulk, Black Widow and Thor. Even though they were all Level-One Characters this was more then enough to overwhelm Andrew's beleaguered defenses.

I'm a huge fan of this game, to the point where I recently hosted a local tournament. Right now I'm anxiously waiting for the new X-men expansion to arrive! 
 
Just days prior I'd procured Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small so Andrew was kind enough to join me in an inaugural run-through. 

 
In this tandem game of animal husbandry, participants take turns placing one of three workers on the board during the course of eight rounds. At first, they'll be looking to gather up the construction material required to house a veritable menagerie of creatures. Victory Points are earned from total animals, by reaching certain population benchmarks as well as from upgrading your buildings and expanding your Farm.

There are four simple steps to a game round:

(1) Refill all of the Action Spaces (as indicated by the red arrows).
(2) Players alternate back-and forth placing three Workers apiece.
(3) All of your Workers come back home.
(4) If you have at least a pair of animals of the same type housed together they knock hooves and make a baby.

Wanna ready the full rules almanac? Then feel free to unclickify the link right hur.

***

Color Selection:

Me...Blue 

Andrew...Red

Andrew went nuts and immediately started partitioning off his entire Farm Board. He then invested in a single pet Cow which he insisted on keeping in the bedroom of his Cottage. Hey, I'm not one to judge someone's lifestyle choices. Next up he procured a small herd of Sheep which he promptly set loose in a fenced-off two-segment Farm space to the north. As these guys started breeding like larger, considerably-more-vocal rabbits he was forced to drop three more Fence segments right next to his Cottage in order to house all of these randy, fluffy bastards. Unfortunately, that pretty much tapped out his initial allotment of Fences.

After pointing out that Buildings came with pre-built Fences, Andrew took heed and constructed a Stall which he eventually upgraded to an Open Stables. He added a couple of Horses to this newly-minted structure and almost immediately they started gettin' it on. This was fine for a few rounds but pretty soon Andrew began to run out of space for his horny equine family.

Just in the nick of time he dropped a Worker on the Expand space and scored a small windfall of additional Fence pieces, two of which he immediately used to corral his overflow Sheep population up north. Coupled with the timely erection (?) of a nearly Stables, Andrew created an enclosed one-segment Farm space to house his latest foal. 

The Stables themselves became the default home for a pair of Pigs, but this was more of an eleventh hour afterthought. His addition of a single Trough was another example of too little too late. In a last ditch effort to wring a few more Victory Points out of the game, Andrew snagged a Storage Building for two Wood and a single Reed. Not only did this give him two Veeps for his four leftover Wood but it also filled out the last space of his Farm Expansion board.

As for me, I became totally obsessed with gaining the three Wood, two Stone and one Reed required to upgrade my Cottage to a Half-Timbered House. Even though gave me five Victory Points it did absolutely nothing to improve my ability to house animals. I then proceeded to ignore my own advice by propping up Fences to the north which I used to accommodate some early-game Sheep.

I also acquired some Piggies before properly thinking things through. In order to reconcile their incessant strumping, I was forced to take a quick Expand Action in order to acquire more Fence pieces. Oblivious to the potential power of the Troughs, I ended up taking this same action two more times, resulting in a conspicuously desolate-looking farm.

But at least I now had the Fences required to let my Piggies *ahem* make bacon. I placed a two-segment Fenced-off pasture to the West on my newly-acquired Expansion board. Just when I thought I'd gotten a handle on things my Sheep dropped their fleece and started going at it. Immediately I kicked myself for enclosing a single Farm space with three Fences since this prompted the hasty demarcation of a similarly-claustrophobic single space to the north. Mercifully I had the foresight to close this in with a Stall which only required the use of one additional Fence segment.

Time was running out and I was starting to panic. I didn't even have any Horses or Cows yet! I placed one Horse in the Stall and then added a freebie on my next turn by hastily hammering a Shelter together with two Wood and one Stone. I finally had a pair of Horses, who immediately started using the Stall as their own personal love nest, knockin' out a coupla kids before the end of the game. Unfortunately it wouldn't be enough to net me any positive Victory Points.

My end game was just a mad scramble to try and accommodate a bleating tsunami of newborn Sheep. I fenced off another one-space pasture, finally filling up one of my three Expansion boards. The freakin' wooly bastards kept a-comin', forcing me to use four Fence segments to block off two measly Farm spaces. The end of the game was almost a merciful relief to me.

FINAL SCORING

Total Animals

Me...20

Andrew...20

Sheep

Me...1

Andrew...0

Piggies

Me...0

Andrew...0

Cows 

Me...-3

Andrew...-3

Horses

Andrew...1

Me...0

FILLED-IN FARM EXPANSIONS

Me...4

Andrew...4

BUILDINGS

Andrew...8

Open Stables (2) Storage Building (2) Stables (4) 

Me...6 

Half-Timbered House (5) and Shelter (1)

FINAL SCORE

Andrew...30

Me...28

***

Some strategy tips to consider after that first game:

1. Cows are rare and Horses even more so. As such you may want to snag one early and then construct an Open Stables or a Shelter. This will pair two of them up early while improving your infrastructure at the same time.
2. Use the first few turns to collect all the resources needed to start accommodating critters A.S.A.P.
3. Troughs are ridiculously valuable. Put one in every one of your farm spaces of you can. Like, super-seriously. 
4. Try to avoid fencing off a single farm space since the max capacity for such a region (even with a Trough) is only four animals. 
5. If you can manage it, fence off larger pastures consisting of multiple Farm spaces and then seed each spot with a Trough. For example a Fenced-off, two Farm space pasture with one Trough per square doubles the capacity (2 x 2 = 4) and then doubles it again (4 x 2 = 8). In other words, if I'd placed Troughs in each space of my two-Farm segment pastures I could have housed sixteen freakin' animals in each enclosure. Gadzooks!    

I'm always on the hunt for a good two-player game and since I'm already a big fan of Agricola, buying this one was a no-brainer for me. Sometimes dismissively referred to as as "Baby Agricola", this one is perfectly engineered for two. Less punishing and easier to teach then its famous fore-bearer, Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small is a fantastic little worker placement game in its own right.

I loved it and so did Andrew. In fact, I think he rushed right out and bought it that same day or a coupla days later!

Next up Kris joined us for a quick hand of Dead Man's Draw.

 

Dead Man's Draw is a pirate-themed card game for two to four scurvy dogs. On their turn, players flip cards from the draw deck, hoping to chain together a variety of high-valued suits. In order to do this effectively, players need to leverage the card's special abilities in order to plunder the most booty.

Just like any other press-your-luck game you can keep flopping cards until you want to stop. However, as soon as you turn up a second card that matches a suit you've already drawn then you wash out and score no points. In the immortal words of Kenny Rog-ARRRRS a major part of the strategy is to "know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em". 

The game's enduring appeal comes from the myriad of different powers inherent in the cards. Successful players will be the ones who can chain these together to great effect.

Here's a breakdown of the different cards and their respective abilities: 

Anchor – Even if you bust you get to keep all the cards played prior to the Anchor.

Cannon – Blow the bejesus out of one of your opponent's saved cards.

Chest – Combined with the Key you can raid the Discard Pile for an equal amount of cards, effectively doubling your haul.

Hook – Play one of your saved cards. This is a great set-up for a cool combo.

Key – See the Chest card above.

Kraken – Forces you to draw two more cards.

Map – Draw the top three cards from the Discard Pile and play any one you like

Mermaid – These are just high valued cards, typically marked 4-9. Yowza!

Oracle – Peek at the top card in the Draw Pile then play it or fold.

Sword – Plunder one of your opponent's saved cards and then play it as your own!

The game ends when the deck runs out of cards. Players add up the top value in each suit stack and the highest score wins!

Lookin' to get the full scuttlebutt on this fine game o' chance? Then click on the followin' link to reveal the full treasure map o' knowledge!  

***

Never one to embody patience, Andrew kept pushing his luck to ridiculous extremes, attempting to collect five or six cards in one turn. Even when he had a string of decent luck he'd often come under fire from Kris and I, losing his top-valued cards at Sword-point or under Cannon-fire.

By game's end he'd managed to represent almost every suit but most of his runs failed to crack the five-point mark. Mercifully a few last-minute Mermaids did salvage his score somewhat.

For some reason this game clicked with me right away. At one point I managed to co-ordinate the all-powerful Key / Chest combo for a healthy little windfall. I also tried to avoid busting by drawing no more then three or four cards.  The only time I'd risk more is if I managed to weigh Anchor, which nicely insulated anything I'd played prior.

I also put Swords to good use, stealing what I needed from both Kris and Andrew while gleefully using Hooks to re-play Oracles for a risk-free peek at my next card. Unfortunately, I ran afoul of some mandatory Kraken draws which resulted in premature bustage. Man, I hate when then happens.

Bringing a practiced eye to the game, Kris used Hooks to play several cards in tandem. Also, unlike Andrew and I, he really exploited the power of the Map, which allowed him to pull pretty much what he needed right from the Discard Pile. As a result, the highly-lucrative Key / Chest lottery he hit not long after felt more like a mike-drop and less like a fluke of luck.

Although he also suffered a Kraken-fueled bust, he typically kept himself insulated with a few strategic Anchor plays. After using a slew of Cannons and Swords to batter both Andrew and I into submission he closed out a solid effort by reeling in some highly-prized Mermaids.

FINAL SCORES

Kris...49

Me...47

Andrew...31

Dead Man's Draw is a buy-on-sight game for me. Whatever retailer gets this on the shelf first is gonna have me shouting this in their faces. 

I loved, loved, loved this game.  From the whimsical art style to the Card Sharks-style game-play, this thing is easy to teach and compulsively playable. But what makes it truly remarkable is that you can use the card's special abilities to make your own luck.

Honestly, there's nothing more satisfying then using a Hook to drop one of your own Swords down to rob a Key from a rival and then use it crack open a Chest to double yer card take!  *Yarrrrr*, 'tis a fine play!

Until the game goes into wide distribution you can pick up a physical copy directly from Mayday Games or try out the fantastic iOS ap right here.   

Lastly we sank quite a bot of time into Café Melange.

 
Here's what Board Game Geek has to say about this obscure Euro-title:

"Café Melange takes players to Vienna in 1910, with prominent individuals such as Trotzky, Klimt and Freud meeting one another in the coffee bar "Central". The players work in the coffee bar and must use logic and deduction in order to place their guests next to these VIPs."

Confession time: sometimes a game's theme is so dry and dull that my attention span acts like a cross-armed neckless bouncer, refusing to unclip the velvet rope and allow the rules ingress to my oblivious brain. Such was the case with Café Melange.

We also borked up a couple of key rules so I'm not going to count this as an official play. That ain't such a bad thing since I came in dead last. What I will say is that the game's deduction mechanics felt rather unique and, as such, I'd actually be willing to try it again under better circumstances. Ideally while hooked up to a Redbull I.V. drip.

Clearly this was a sign that I was tapped out. I picked up a copy of Click Clack Lumberjack from The Board Room's vendor table and took my leave, feeling as if the day had been well-spent. 

***

HAL-CON Game Day is tailor-made for me. Granted the $10.00 entrance fee is a bit steep but I don't mind paying it since I know it's going towards a great local event. Once in, I've got plenty of table space, a vast library of games to test drive and a local retailer I patronize if I end up playing something that I really like. 

Honestly it's as if the organizers actually read my mind (or *GASP* my blogs?!?). No more divided loyalties: I'll spend HAL-CON proper checking out all of the panels and autograph session and get all of the card-floppin' and die-chuckin' outta my system on HAL-CON's dedicated Game Day. It's a win-win!

***

Wanna learn more about Marvel Dice Masters and / or Agricola: All Creatures Great and Small? Then click on the links below to get more info and help support this blog!

Additional photos courtesy of Kat Adams and Shawn Kehoe.

Davecon 2014

 
As soon as the holidays are over I'm usually inundated with emails and Bookface messages that look a lot like this:

"When is Davecon this year?"

"Have you nailed down a date for Davecon yet?"

"Can Davecon be on a Saturday in late April or early May? My parents will be in town and I wanna use 'em as babysitters!"

"Why have you not responded to my previous four emails RE: Davecon?"

But it's a damned good thing that this happens. Every year I vow to hold this annual gaming event dedicated to my own galloping ego at the end of Winter for two reasons:

1. The fact that it's Shpringtime and I'm as happy as a little gurl. 
2. I don't wanna be stuck indoors on a day when the weather might even vaguely be nice. Sorry, but after I've been cooped up indoors for the past five months I feel a compulsion to crawl, Gollum-like, out into the sun and languish there for as long as I can stand it.

But, you know how it is, I always get super-busy and let things slide. Thank Bahamut that I've got so many enthusiastic and, *um*... email-savvy friends to light a fire underneath my lazy ass.

Knowing that people do need plenty of advanced notice to plan for such things in this wacky work-a-day world, I began the oft-protracted process of organization back on March 21'st. I started by surveying the group for an optimal date and April 26'th turned out to be the only Saturday in the foreseeable future which everyone had available.

Since things had gone rather well last year at Monster Comic Lounge I sent off the following missive to the store's owner on March 24'th:

Hey, Mike.
 
With the (theoretical) approach of Spring my people are bugging me for yet another all-day gaming thang at Monster Comic Lounge. Apparently last year's event went over really, really well with the horde.
 
As a refresher, here's the plan:

1. It's usually held on a Saturday in the month of April from open 'til close. 
2. I charge $5.00 a head which goes directly into a gift certificate purchased from the store.  This is given away as a door prize. 
3. I also do an "MVP" draw for the person who was the most fun to game with. If you wanted to donate some cheesy throwaway thing for a prize, that would be cool.  If not, I can provide something.
4. Last year we had just over 14 people attend.    

Would the back room be available a month from now: I.E. April 26'th?  

Thanks!

-Dave

Optimistically, I teased the group with the following Facebook message: 

"Stayed tuned folks, hopefully an official announcement is coming soon."

But then I waited. And waited. And waited. Pretty soon I started to get heat from the masses so I bashed out a follow-up on March 30'th:

Hey, Mike.

Did you get a chance to ponder this? The natives are getting restless.

Thanks!

Mercifully his reply came back later that same day:

This should be no problem. I'll double check the calendar tomorrow at the store and let you know. 

And then I waited. And waited. And waited.

Veteran attendee and chief under-ass-fire-lighter Dawn posted this passive-aggressive l'il missive on the event's Bookface page on April 1'st:

"No official announcement? Based on what people have said I tentatively booked the 26th with my parents. But I did say tentatively!! So no pressure, ha-ha!!"

"Ha-ha", indeed.

The next day I sent off another email, asking Mike if we were good to go. I heaved a sigh of relief when, just a few short hours later, the reply of "Yes, everything is set" came back.

So, for the record, Mike does answer email, he just doesn't answer the first email. He's kinda like a reverse Jacob Two-Two. Kidding! We love ya, Mike.

Anyway this was all I needed to make an official announcement to the group:

"It's official! Davecon 2014 will be held at Monster Comic Lounge (2091 Gottingen Street) from 10 AM until close on Saturday April 26'th!!!"

The event's Bookface page exploded with excitement. Commemorative photos and videos from past Davecons were shared. Transportation and luncheon plans were discussed. Most importantly, a speculative list of games that might be played were floated. This time out I vowed to make amends for my poor showing last year, so most of the titles I proposed to bring along would be quick to set up, teach and play.

But then, just six days later, I received the following troubling note from Mike:

Hi David,

I botched this date thing up royally. April 26th/27th is our Magic pre-release event, and we will be having 100+ people through those days for it.

We had not marked it on our calendar and somehow it slipped my mind. If you are ok with rescheduling we officially have April 19th and May 10th available if any of these are all right.
 
I will throw in some extra loot as a bribe for forgiveness for my blunder.

Let me know if this is all right with you.

Thanks,
Mike   

I sent this out to the group fully expecting a "TOO...MUCH...GUILT, MUST...LOG...OUT..OF... BOOKFACE..." communal reply. So color me relieved when everyone seemed to be okay with May 10'th as an alternative. Mike more then made up for his honest mistake by offering all Davecon attendees a tax-in deal for their purchases that day. Their reaction was understandable jubilant.

But despite my best efforts to to be pathologically inclusional, there would be a few conspicuous and unforeseen absences that day. Long time Davecon attendee / perennial Ultimate Werewolf moderator Dean got his wires crossed about the new date and ended up embroiled in some work-related obligations. To add to this, 2013 Door Prize Winner Chad (so memorable in last-years Werewolf game as "Anvil the Town's Blacksmith") and his son Malcolm (even more memorable as "Abs the Total Gym Salesman") had to bow out for an impromptu house showing.

I wont lie to you folks; this nearly killed me. Confession time: I'm kinda like John-Boy on The Waltons; I freak out whenever one of my extended family members are unaccounted for. For a moment I considered re-scheduling the whole shebang but I knew that wouldn't be fair to all the people who'd paid particular attention to the changes and made special arrangements to attend. As such, I decided to press on with the original plan.

Came the dawn, time to go. With Cheryl and Sabina in tow I raced down to the store.

As soon as the staff turned that front-door key, I bombed into the place to set up my orientation signage and snag some B-roll video footage.

People were already starting to arrive so I quickly finished up with this and scrambled back to the game room to set up the registration table. What I saw back there immediately made my heart sink. A good one-fifth of the space was occupied by an eight-foot-high stack of heavy comic book boxes.

"How many people do you have?" Mike casually asked.

"I'm not sure," I muttered in a daze. "Could be as few as ten or as many as twenty."

Mike winced and then gestured towards the cardboard elephant in the corner of the room.

"Sorry about all the boxes. Last Saturday was Free Comic Book Day and we were short on space, so we had to put some stuff back here temporarily. Eventually we're gonna move 'em out; we just need to find a place for it."

I made a concerted effort to tack a smile onto my face. Between my missing peeps and our lack of space, I was really starting to get pissed. This feeling intensified when several of my games fell off of the crowded registration table and landed on the floor.

'I'm done,' I silently vowed to myself. 'Done.'

After all of my obligatory housekeeping was done I finally started to calm down. By then, everyone who was going to show up, did. All told we had sixteen attendees this year: Angela, Audrey, Andrew, Cheryl, Claudia, me, Dawn, Jeremy, Joey, Mark, Matt, Mike, Sabina and three new peoples: Joey's friend Kelsey and some old work pals Ali and Shawn. My mood immediately lifted when I saw so many awesome people gathered together in one place, even if it did little for my claustrophobia.

After introductions were made and pleasantries were exchanged, people immediately got down to brass tacks. Jeremy, Cheryl and Audrey taught quick studies Shawn and Ali how to play the classic shuffleboard-esque die-chucker Tumblin' Dice. The great thing about tha' T-Dyce is that you can set it up in a corner of the room, play it for a little bit, move on to something else and then come back to it whenever you want.

The game got played three times in toto that day and here are the results:

GAME ONE

Start Time: "Early" End Time: "Later"

PARTICIPANTS: Jeremy, Cheryl, Shawn, Ali, Audrey. WINNER: AUDREY!

NOTES: Although Audrey was triumphant, Shawn just seemed pleased that he "took down" fellow noob Ali. Hope the couch was comfy that night, pal!   

GAME TWO 

Start Time: 11:25 am End Time: 11:40 am  

PARTICIPANTS: Ali, Shawn, Matt and Mark. WINNER: MARK! 

NOTES: Ali *quote/unquote* got her "ass kicked." In other news: Shawn, Matt and Mark are all big, smelly, jerk-faces for pickin' on a poor, defenseless girl like that. For shame, boys, for shame. LIFETIME DAVECON BAN ON THE THREE OF YOUZE!

GAME THREE

Start Time: 1:55 pm End time: 2:05 pm 

PARTICIPANTS: Kelsey, Joey, Dawn and Jeremy. WINNER: JOEY & JEREMY TIE! 

NOTES: ♪♫ Everyday we Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin' / Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin'..." ♪♫...etc, etc.    

This segued rather nicely into the Dramamine-friendly dexterity game Riff Raff. In this one, participants use a deck of cards numbered one to ten to load goods onto a wildly-swaying ship at sea. Players secretly chose one of the cards to reveal and the numbers determine both turn order and what section of the ship you store your crap on.

If flotsam starts tumbling off the masts, the active player can try and grab their bits (?) before they hit the box or the table. Successfully en-snatchified cargo are eliminated from the game while everything else becomes the tumbler's responsibility. The first player to successfully stow all of their goods away wins.

Riff Raff was played twice that day and here, then, are the hotly-contested results:

GAME ONE

Start Time: "Even Later" End Time: 11:25 am

PARTICIPANTS: Ali, Shawn, Matt and Mark. WINNER: SHAWN!

NOTES: By all accounts, Jeremy did a great job introducing this fantastic game to the new players. In what was described as a "nail biter", Shawn was the first to stash all of his detritus below deck and win the game!

GAME TWO 

Start Time: "Now" End Time: Um, also apparently "now".

PARTICIPANTS: Angela, Audrey, Mark and Sabina. WINNER: ANGELA! 

NOTES: Angela overcame a tsunami of motion sickness in order to win! 

 
A brain-munchin' frenzy broke out at another table with Zombie Dice. This one was played eight freakin' times that day, making it one of the quickest and most popular games of the event.

And here are all the deets:

GAME ONE 

Start Time: 10:50 am End time: 11:10 am  

PARTICIPANTS: Angela, Audrey, Cheryl and Sabina. WINNER: ANGELA! 

GAME TWO

Start Time: 11:10 am End Time: Who the fuck knows? 

PARTICIPANTS: Angela, Audrey, Cheryl and Sabina. WINNER: CHERYL!

GAME THREE

Start Time: 11:15 am End Time: Huh?

PARTICIPANTS: Angela, Audrey, Cheryl and Sabina. WINNER: CHERYL! 

GAME FOUR

Start Time: 11:45 End Time: 11:56 am  

PARTICIPANTS:  Ali, Cheryl, Claudia, Matt, Shawn. WINNER: MATT! 

NOTES: "Bam, Bam, Blam!"

GAME FIVE

Start Time: 11:56 End Time: 12:10 pm 

PARTICIPANTS:  Ali, Cheryl, Claudia, Matt, Shawn. WINNER: CHERYL! 

GAME SIX

Start time: 12:00 noon End Time: 12:10 pm 

PARTICIPANTS: Jeremy, Dawn, Kelsey, Mark and Joey. WINNER: JEREMY!

GAME SEVEN

Start Time: 2:50 pm End Time: 3:02 pm 

PARTICIPANTS: Angela and Matt WINNER: MATT!

NOTES: "Jerk!"  Hmmmm, methinks Angela was taking notes for this one. 

GAME EIGHT

Start Time: 3:03 pm End Time: 3:13 pm  

PARTICIPANTS: Angela and Matt WINNER: MATT!

NOTES: "Jerkwad!" Yep, Angela was definitely taking notes for this one.  

 
After working the room for a little bit I finally addressed my secret and selfish motivation for arranging this whole dog n' pony show in the first place: to play some motherfuckin' games, yo! As Kelsey, Joey and Dawn eased into the brown-acid-inspired tile-matcher Dizios (which eventually saw Dawn triumph), I squeezed into the seat across from Andrew at 10:50 am to show him how to play Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs. X-Men. By 11:20 we'd played our first game.

Despite the fact that I'd fielded an all-X-Men team consisting of Angel, Storm, Cyclops, Beast, Wolverine, Professor X, Colossus and Rogue and Andrew went with a completely schizophrenic mix of Fantastic Four, Avengers, Marvel Knights and a few random dirt-bags ("Spider-Man working with Doc Ock? Wha...?"), the wily bastard still managed to win. My tendency to attack without securing my defenses first clearly indicated that my head wasn't in the game.

After Andrew swapped out The Thing for Black Widow we dove into Game Two. Even though he managed to get his Hulk out (as Andrew is want to do from time to time), I battled back with a solo Wolverine. I managed to knock him down to four Life Points but eventually I succumbed to a rogues gallery of heavy hitters including the Punisher and Venom.

This second match started at 11:20 am and wrapped up at 11:45. You gotta love a game that's quick to explain, easy to set up and still provides a thematically-evocative experience! Yeah, I know it's luck based. Yeah, I know that the rich asshole with all the supa-dupa ultra-rares probably has an advantage. But I don't care; I friggin' love this game.

Needless to say, you can imagine my horror when Mike recently told me that WizKids will be producing a D&D version of the game. In a completely unrelated point, that Paypal "Donate" button in the upper right hand corner of the page ain't just for decoration, people!  

Andrew, Mike and I then segued right into a game of Splendor, which I purchased not long after demoing the game to people during International Tabletop Day.

Over the course of precisely forty-five minutes (the exact same play time promised on the tin!) I mapped out a devious plan for victory. I didn't bother with luring Nobles over to my side with promises of swanky accommodations and / or random sexual favors. No, this time out I went right for the low-level Developments that provide single Prestige Points and then decided where to go from there.

True to my word I picked up an Emerald and an Onyx mine and then used these two new acquisitions to make a Ruby deposit that much cheaper. This scored me three more Prestige Points and, more importantly, the chance to carve out another vein of cost-reduced Rubies. After a fortuitous two-of-a-kind chip score, I had just enough to procure a 7-Ruby Onyx Development which served up another four Prestige. Just like that I was already more then halfway to my goal!

With a treasure trove of permanent gems now padding my coffers I then branched out with some el cheapo Sapphire and Diamond mines. This snowballed into a discounted, three-Prestige Point structure and a third Onyx-related caravan that gave me two more. I hit fifteen Prestige with that last transaction and proudly proclaimed my victory when the turn cycle ended.

FINAL SCORES

Me...15 Prestige Points

Andrew...14 Prestige Points

Mike...9 Prestige Points

I really have a thing for Splendor. Maybe it's the casino-quality poker chips. Maybe it's the strategic path you have to map out for yourself. Maybe it's the game's runaway-snowball-rollin'-downhill pacing. Whatever it is, I really dig this game and it shows in my incongruously-respectable win/loss record.

Meanwhile, from 11:15 am to noon, Jeremy led Dawn, Joey and Kelsey through a game of the classic bluffing/deduction game Love Letter. 

Even though the photo above looks like the most boringest image ever committed to a memory card, Love Letter is a blast to play, as the participants that day would most likely attest. Jeremy and Kelsey battled back and forth for the affections of the Princess but ultimately it was Kelsey who emerged triumphant!

Meanwhile, at another table, Matt steered Sabina, Angela and Mark into a confrontation with the Boss Monster.

Although it didn't grab me the first time I played it, Boss Monster's whimsical art and O.C.D.-style game-play (which rewards players for optimizing their maze's lethality) could easily tempt me into trying it again. Everyone who played that afternoon seemed to dig it, particularly Mark who proved to be "DA BOSS".

The revelry continued at another table where Cheryl proposed a run-through of Timeline: Historic Events married with Timeline: Music & Cinema. The brilliant simplicity of the Timeline series actually makes me wonder why it took Frédéric Henry so long to invent it. 

The game is set up by thoroughly shuffling all one-hundred-and-ten cards contained within the spiffy-looking tin. Each card has an historical event depicted on both sides but only one side shows the year in which this occurred.

After each player is dealt four historic event cards with the date concealed one random card is then placed date-side-up on the table. Players then take turns selecting and placing one of their cards either to the left or to the right of the revealed card, indicating that it happened before or after that date. The card is then flipped over to see if the guess was correct. If it wasn't, the card is chucked out and the player picks a replacement off the top of the draw deck. If they were right, the player is one-quarter of the way to victory! The first person to successfully place all of their cards within the Timeline wins!

Naturally, as more and more cards go down, the Timeline becomes increasingly convoluted and it gets harder to wedge new cards in-between all the revealed dates. For example, most people know that the The Mutiny on the Bounty happened long after construction began on the Great Wall of China, but did the First Hot Air Balloon Channel Crossing happen before or after Captain Bligh was set adrift?

Timeline proved to be a big hit and no less then six games were played during the course of the day. Here's the official tally:

GAME ONE 

Start Time: 12:15 pm End Time: 12:27 pm  

PARTICIPANTS: Audrey, Cheryl, Claudia and Dawn. WINNER: CLAUDIA! 

NOTES: "Learning Is Fun!" was un-ironically recorded on the game record sheet. You can't get higher testimony then that...

GAME TWO 

Start Time: 12:27 pm End Time: 12:35 pm  

PARTICIPANTS: Audrey, Cheryl, Claudia and Dawn. WINNER: DAWN!

GAME THREE 

Start Time: 12:35 pm End time: 12:40 pm 

PARTICIPANTS: Audrey, Cheryl, and Claudia. WINNER: AUDREY! 

NOTES: Winner of the Davecon "No Shit, Sherlock!" Award goes to whoever wrote "The moon is old" on the game record sheet. 

GAME FOUR 

PARTICIPANTS: Sabina, Mike, Claudia and me. WINNER: CLAUDIA

NOTES: Claudia, Mike and Sabina enter "sudden death" but Claudia outlasts her opponents by drawing "The First Appearance of the Dinosaurs"! 

GAME FIVE

PARTICIPANTS: Sabina, Mike, Claudia and me. WINNER: ME!

NOTES: My finishing move was "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. Great, now that'll be stuck in my head for days.

GAME SIX

PARTICIPANTS: Sabina, Mike, Claudia and me. WINNER: ME!

NOTES: My encyclopaedic knowledge of horror films serves me well when I nestle the Texas Chainsaw Massacre card in between a bunch of 1970's dates.

I managed to resist the Timeline series until the Music & Cinema edition made me cave. And I'm sure glad that I did since I don't have any trivia games in my collection and the intuitive and simple mechanic at the heart of this one makes it easy to teach and play. This one's like a good movie: superficially fun on the surface but with a deeper meaning underneath.     

Between 12:20 pm and 12:35 pm, Joey, Kelsey and Jeremy dared to compare Martian Dice to the oft-played Zombie Dice. Once again, Jeremy played the role of instructor, but this didn't prevent him from annihilating his two competitors. No word as to which of the two games people preferred. 

When a bunch of games wrapped up all at the same time, it gave us a chance to play Bang! The Dice Game together.

This one marries the secret objectives and special character powers of the original Bang! card game with the Yahtzee-esque qualities of King of Tokyo. Here's the low-down on this particular varmint right from Board Game Geek:

Bang! The Dice Game keeps the core of the Bang! card game in place. At the start of the game, players each take a role card that secretly places them on a team: the Sheriff and deputies, outlaws, and renegades. The Sheriff and deputies need to kill the outlaws, the outlaws win by killing the Sheriff, and the renegades want to be the last players alive in the game.

Each player also receives a character card which grants him a special power in the game. The Sheriff reveals his role card and takes the first turn of the game. On a turn, a player can roll the five dice up to three times, using the results of the dice to shoot neighboring players, increase the range of his shots, heal his (or anyone else's) life points, or put him in range of the Indians, which are represented by nine tokens in the center of the table. Each time a player rolls an arrow, he takes one of these tokens; when the final token is taken, each player loses one life point for each token he holds, then the tokens are returned to the center of the table.

If a player collects a trio of Gatling symbols on the dice, he fires one shot at everyone else and rids himself of Indian tokens. Who'll get his shot off first? Play continues until one team meets its winning condition – and death won't necessarily keep you from winning as long as your teammates pull through!

GAME ONE - CHARACTERS

Andrew...Black Jack

Me...Lucky Duke

Dawn...Jourdonnais

Jeremy...Jesse Jones

Joey...Slab the Killer

Kelsey...Calamity Janet

Mike...Willy the Kid

In that first match I pardner-ed up with my slowly-revealed Outlaw allies to ventilate Deputy Slab. It soon became patently obvious that Mike was rockin' the Sheriff's tin star and between Indian Arrows and gettin' triple-teamed by me, Kelsey and Jeremy, Willy eventually went limp.

THE SECRET ROLES 

Sheriff: Mike 

Deputies: Andrew and Joey

Renegade: Dawn

WINNERS: "The (New Age) Outlaws": I.E. me, Jeremy and Kelsey! 

  

GAME TWO - THE CHARACTERS

Andrew...Paul Regret

Me...Vulture Sam

Dawn...El Gringo

Jeremy...Suzy Lafayette

Joey...Rose Doolan

Kelsey...Sid Ketchum

Mike...Kit Carlson

That second match proved to be a vicious and cut-throat affair. After tippin' her ten-gallon hat kinda early, Deputy Dawn got interred in Boot Hill by Kelsey, Jeremy and myself. Meanwhile, Mike got far too big fer his britches and found himself on the receiving end of a lead shower by the same pack o' desperadoes.

Kelsey started firing indiscriminate shots around the table and pretty soon she was put in the dirt by some sharp-shootin' Indians and long-range fire from Andrew. As Vulture Sam I'd been attacked on several occasions by Joey and Dawn but as each opponent dropped dead I regained two Life. Exactly how Sam does this I didn't wanna know.

Since Joey had engaged in a running gun battle with both Andrew and myself right from the get-go, it didn't take much to figger out who the law was 'round them there parts. Between Jeremy, Andrew and myself we quickly made short work of Joey for the win.  

THE SECRET ROLES 

Sheriff: Joey

Deputies: Mike and Dawn

Renegade: Kelsey

WINNERS: "The (Not-So-New Age) Outlaws": I.E. me, Jeremy and Andrew! 

So, what do I think of Bang! The Dice Game? I think it successfully encapsulates the spirit of Bang! without all of the confusing iconography or required head count. Yes, this newer version doesn't quite have the same interplay, depth or nuance, but it's easier to table and jump right into. Having said that, both games are different enough from one another that there's no need to purge the original from your collection.

From 2:10 pm to 2:45 pm Andrew took Jeremy, Audrey and Cheryl through a game of Splendor. Since Jeremy had already played this one before Andrew used this as an excuse to mercilessly destroy his inexperienced opponents, including newcomers Cheryl and Audrey. What an asshole, huh?

Not long after Dawn, Mark, Kelsey and Joey got into an epic contest of Seafarers of Catan which eventually saw Kelsey triumph.

Around 3 pm we ended and / or paused all active games to begin our traditional annual run of Ultimate Werewolf. Even though Dean, our esteemed and venerable narrator, was M.I.A. Mike did an awesome job hosting the hipster-y Kickstarted Max Temkin version of the game.  

Almost immediately Matt was horribly mauled by the secret cabal of lycanthropes. No-one was suprised when he revealed his "Seer" card since that seems to equate an immediate death sentence in every single one of our games.

Dawn then decided to go on the hunt, accusing Andrew, alias Sheriff J.T. Stone, of playing "psychological games" since he'd picked a role that he "thinks will protect him".

"Hey, my grandpappy founded this here town!" Andrew replied.

"Oh, he's definitely guilty," Mark intoned.

A flurry of accusations flew around the room. Andrew nominated Mark but it received no traction. Jeremy fingered Andrew (?) in response, which was immediately backed up by Mark. However, the resulting vote was dead even, sparing the Sheriff from the gallow's pole.   

That night Jeremy, A.K.A. the Sheriff's pimp, was hideously mauled.

"I'm free!" Andrew was heard to enthuse.

Dawn continued her vocal crusade as wolf-finder general. This time she cast aspirations on both Andrew and hubby Mark who was playing the role of Francis the town Priest.

"You can only do one at a time!" Mike asserted.

"Then let's start with the Priest," she growled. "Religion's gotta go!"

Just as soon as Mike's call for back up left his lips, Joey the town drunk jumped in to lend his support.

"But I couldn't possibly have affected them since I'm touched by God's holy light!" Mark said, raising a hand heavenward.

Even though moderator Mike was supposed to be completely neutral he couldn't help but say:

"Okay, I can't vote, but if I could..."

Mike's moment of candor was reflected in a unanimous vote to hang the Priest who, sadly, turned out to be completely innocent.

"Everyone wanted to kill Mark!" Mike noted.

"What can I say, I played my role too well. Everybody hated me anyway," Mark lamented.  

"When I was Seer I picked you first," Matt confessed from out of the blue and the entire room erupted in gales of laughter. 

That night, the Werewolves attempted to chow down on Angela but she was secretly spared by closeted physician Andrew!

The next day, after I said that Joey looked "a little slippery over there", Kelsey piled on to second my nomination. "You gotta get a job," Andrew chastised, instantly turning all of the Republican / Tea Party townspeople against him. After a weak-sauce "I didn't mean to vote thumbs down on Andrew last time" rebuttal, the town's liquored-up layabout was soon a-swingin' from the rafters, dead but incontrovertibly human.

The following morning, poor Claudia (A.K.A. Helga) was found disemboweled amidst the rose bushes.

"We gotta make something happen," J.T. insisted. "So I think it's clear; it's between Sabina and Kelsey."

I twisted Sabina's protestations of innocence around to second her nomination. By the time the prosecution was finished, all she could do was beg for mercy. 

"You voted to kill the town drunk!" Andrew insisted. "He was innocent, he wasn't hurting anybody!"

Then, from the corner of the room, Angela suddenly blurted: "I think he's wrong, I think it's Dave!" Mercifully Sabina was still entrenched in the hot seat.

"Okay, if it's not Sabina this time it is Andrew and Dave," Dawn insisted, failing to make friends with the currently accused.

"There might not be a next time," moderator Mike winced.

"They're comin' after you now!" Sabina warned Dawn.

"Doctor...save me!" she replied, evoking shades of a certain BBC sci-fi T.V. show.

Dawn's assumption that Sabina was the next neck on the hangin' parade seemed to generate some sympathy for her. As such, a 3 to 3 vote spared her life!

That self-same night poor Cheryl ended up as fertilizer in the potato patch.  

"Her arm was over there, her legs were over there...it was a mess, you guys didn't want to see it," Mike enthused, sounding like a bespectacled crypt-keeper.

"I'm going back to my original thing," Dawn asserted. "It has to be Andrew! It's Andrew and Dave!"

"It is absolutely Dawn," Andrew replied, pointing a finger at his accuser.

"It's not me!" she shot back.

"I accuse Dawn," Andrew immediately lobbed back.

"I second!" Sabina said, her hand shooting up.

"It's not me! IT'S NOT ME! IT'S NOT ME!" Dawn fought back, stomping her foot in frustration.

But the more she talked, the more she seemed to wriggle into an increasingly-snug invisible noose.

"I'm tellin' you guys...IT'S NOT ME!!! And I'm wishing I'd gone with my original instinct about Andrew 'cause we moved off of him and I still think it's him. He killed Jeremy! Jeremy was the first to die!"

"I did not!" Andrew countered. "He was a good pimp and I'm outta business! Now, I didn't like everything that went on, but..."

"I wanna win this game...it's not me!" Dawn wailed.

But it was too late. The back-lash was quick and decisive.

"You're a little too adamant," Kelsey ventured.

"Okay! I'll go to Joey," Dawn replied, lapsing into a spot-in impersonation of her deadpan brother.

"It's not me."  

After the resulting laughter finally died down, Dawn's fate was sealed with a vote to swing. After casting her "Villager" card on the table in disgust, she plunked down in her chair, muttering one last "It's not me" as a final 'fuck-you' to her blood-thirsty neighbors.

Overnight the still-at-large Werewolves had one last maulin' party, shredding poor Beans the Bartender into l'il giblets. And with that the lycanthropes achieved parity with the humans and won the game!

WINNERS

ME & KELSEY!

I only play Werewolf once a year at Davecon and frankly, that's plenty enough for me. I've been doing this event for years now and the Villagers never seem to come close to winning. As such, I want to introduce a new role every year to try and even the odds a little bit. Maybe after we've added a Seer, a Doctor, a Hunter, a Gypsy, a Silver Bullet Salesman and Kate Beckinsale we can finally achieve some balance in this game.

Having said that, Ultimate Werewolf will always be a Davecon tradition, if only because of the memorable and uproariously-funny moments it continues to provide. That late-game exchange between Andrew and Dawn could very well be the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life.

My quick-game parade kept on a-marchin' with two back-to-back plays of Hey, That's My Fish!  

The game starts with the random construction of an ice floe using cardboard hexes bearing images of one, two and three fish symbols. When the board is finished the youngest player places their first penguin on any tile with one fish. Placement continues clockwise until all penguins are on the board. In a four-player game each player has two penguins, in a three player game there's a matching number and all four are used in a two-player game.

Gameplay begins with the youngest player moving one of their penguins according to the following three rules:

1. Penguins always move in a straight line and can't change direction.
2. Penguins can stop anywhere along a legal path.
3. Penguins can't jump over other penguins or holes in the ice.

So where do these holes come from you might ask? Well, anytime you pick up a penguin to move it, you claim the tile it was sitting on. So the strategy, then, is three-fold:

1. Set your penguins up to capture all of those juicy two and three-fish tiles.
2. Eke out some extra moves for yourself at the end of the game by staking out plenty of free space.
3. Limit your opponent's end game moves with some well-placed holes in the ice.

GAME ONE - FINAL SCORES

 

Me (Red) - 29 Fish

Claudia (Blue) - 26 Fish

Jeremy (Yellow) - 24 Fish

Mike...(Green) - 19 Fish

GAME TWO - FINAL SCORES

 

Me (Red) - 29 Fish

Jeremy (Yellow) - 27 Fish

Mike (Green) - 24 Fish

Claudia...(Blue) - 19 Fish

My strategy for both games was simple: when one of my penguins was on the verge of getting trapped in a corner, I moved them as far away from the competition as possible. Also, if there was heavy competition for the three and two-fish tiles, I just let my opponents fight over it. Often I'd be left alone with a slew of one and two fish fish tiles after my opponents had run themselves out of moves.

This surprisingly deep and charming little game is light enough for kids to grasp and strategic enough to keep adults entertained. As the perfect opener (or closer!) to any game night, you'd do well to add this sucker to your collection.  

Next up, it was time to get cut-throat with a head-rollin' game of Guillotine.

This one has a really interesting genesis. Back in the late 90's, when Magic: the Gathering was at the height of its popularity, Wizards of the Coast published a series of quick n' easy card games that you could bring along to Thanksgiving dinners in order to make hanging out with your repellent family more tolerable.

All the other games in that oddball series (like Alpha Blitz, Pivot, Twitch, Go Wild, Instinct and Earthquake) have long-since vanished into obscurity, but Guillotine is still in print today. So, what made it the ultimate survivor in the 1998 Wizards of the Coast Hunger (Card) Games? Well, maybe it has something to do with its darkly humorous theme. Here's the lowdown on Guillotine from Board Game Geek:

"The French Revolution is famous in part for the use of the guillotine to put nobles to death, and this is the macabre subject of this light card game. As executioners pandering to the masses, the players are trying to behead the least popular nobles. Each day the nobles are lined up and players take turns killing the ones at the front of the line until all the nobles are gone. However, players are given cards which will manipulate the line order right before 'harvesting,' which is what makes the game interesting. After three days worth of chopping, the highest total carries the day."

Right off the bat I used the "Double Feature" card to decapitate a much-despised Lord and a Palace Guard all in one shot. I was hoping to harvest a few more exponential Guards but I quickly became the default recipient for a constant parade of "screw you" cards. Word to the wise: when you're teaching people how to play a game don't jump out to a quick lead and for the love of Sweet Baby Jesus never, ever look like you know what you're doing.

After Claudia started this grass-roots "let's all kick Dave in the knutz" trend she expertly took advantage of everyone's preoccupation by netting a few valuable craniums, like that of the Unpopular Judge. Mike floundered throughout the game and ended up with a disproportionate amount of popular pates. Meanwhile, Jeremy nearly laughed himself into a hernia with the unexpected appearance of the "Piss Boy". He then played "Fountain of Blood" to get himself back in contention.

FINAL SCORES

Claudia...23

Jeremy...22

Me...20

Mike...15

With its whimsically-twisted artwork, coal-black humor and a wealth of creative Action Card plays, Guillotine is a lot of gruesome fun. It's yet another game you can use to convince your non-game friends that there's more to the hobby then just crappy ol' Clue, Payday, Monopoly and Risk. 

Besides, what other game has a freakin' cardboard execution block included in the box?!?

Games continued to be tabled around the room. From 4:20 to 5:33 Dawn scored a whopping 128-points in Small World, humbling both Mike and Matt Iron Sheik-style.

At the same time, Claudia, Jeremy, Mark, Angela and Sabina indulged in two games of Cards Against Humanity. In the first match, Claudia proved to be the most creatively twisted, prompting Joey "Amputee" MacGee to confess that "we are deranged and evil" in the Game Record Log Notes. Mark was deemed the sickest of all the little monkeys in Game Two.  

The final game of the day for me was Uwe Rosenberg's bean-countin' classic, Bohnanza. Here's the skinny on this one from tha' Geek:

"As card games go, this one is quite revolutionary. Perhaps its oddest feature is that you cannot rearrange your hand, as you need to play the cards in the order that you draw them. The cards are colorful depictions of beans in various descriptive poses, and the object is to make coins by planting fields (sets) of these beans and then harvesting them. To help players match their cards up, the game features extensive trading and deal making."

Right from my initial draw I started with some sets, but they were pretty commonplace Beans. Nevertheless, I diligently planted both Blues and Waxies, not knowing that I'd soon be in direct competition with Andrew for the former and Audrey for the latter. I should have gotten out of this low-rent market right away but instead I just kept on plantin'. Sure, I ended up with a few decent runs but they were virtually worthless.

In contrast, Cheryl made plenty of shrewd trades for valuable Beans (like Reds) whilst sweet-talking the rest of us into giving her what she wanted. Andrew managed to parley some mid-value Beans like Chillis and Stinks into a respectable amount of points while Audrey outpaced me in Wax collection. She also made more prudent planting decisions, opting for scarcer crops such as Black-Eyed Beans.

FINAL SCORES

Cheryl...20 Gold

Andrew...15 Gold

Audrey...14 Gold

Me...11 Gold

    
If my enjoyment of tabletop games hinged on winning, I'd never play 'em. Nothing sums up this philosophy more then my deplorable win/loss (or more accurately, my loss/loss) record in Bohnanza. Even though I'm completely dialed into the frequency of the different cards, the importance of constant negotiation, the threat of mandatory planting and a stringent hand order, this rarely translates to in-game success for me.

But maybe that's why I like it so much. It certainly doesn't hurt that the game features plenty of logistical planning when it's not your turn, agile thinking when it is your turn and constant table-talk throughout. It's one of my all-time favorites and I highly recommend it to anyone who's reading this, especially if you dig card games.
This took us right up to 5:30pm: I.E. draw time for the prizes! Here's how that shook down:

GRAND DOOR PRIZE WINNER

($50.00 Gift Certificate to Monster Comic Lounge)

*** ANDREW ***

M.V.P. WINNER

($20.00 Gift Certificate to Monster Comic Lounge)

*** JEREMY ***

FIRST DOOR PRIZE RUNNER-UP DRAW

(for a Batmug, courtesy of Sabina)

*** SHAWN ***

SECOND DOOR PRIZE RUNNER UP DRAW

(for a Zombie Dashboard Bobble-Head, courtesy of Sabina)

*** DAWN ***

As the attendees made their final purchases and then slowly filtered out of the store, I noticed that my irritation over the event's trying logistics had long-since melted away. Above and beyond making amends for last year's poor showing by playing no less then fourteen different games in seven hours, I'd managed to assemble some of the coolest, nicest, funniest people on the planet who'd given me yet another wonderful cache of indelible gaming memories that I'll cherish for the rest of my life. And that's why I love this hobby so much.

I have no idea where Davecon 2015 will be. I don't know who'll be there. Hell, I don't even know if I'll be there. But I do know one thing for certain: 

It's gonna happen.