Gaming Session

A completely epic gaming night, and we played some great titles. We started quickly with Shadow Hunters and it ended up being no contest as Stephen was a neutral Charles and was able to get everyone in the same place and blast them all with a machine gun, meet his win condition, and end the game quickly. Probably the shortest SH game I've ever played. We then divided into two groups where one played Egizia (one of my favorites), and I taught Small World with two players new to it. I am still having difficulty getting my timing down with declining races, but it was again fun, there is great variety in the game. 

After our ping-pong/ pool half-time, one group played Power Grid and my group tried a new game, Ninjato. Its a game of 7 turns & 3 scoring rounds where you have three actions each turn represented by nifty wooden shuriken (throwing stars). You can train at the dojo to get cards used for other actions, learn skills from the sensei, attack clan houses by defeating guards to obtain treasures, and then use those treasures to either bribe envoys or collect rumors. Each element fits together nicely, and you see how important your choices are in the scoring rounds. You can't do everything, so there are interesting choices to get the most honor points. I kept setting off alarms at the clan houses and could never fully defeat them. Tyler jumped to large lead early and we couldn't quite catch him. I did get to throw one of the shuriken at Nate though, but it didn't stick.

Josh is either worried about Nate, or how late it is

Check out the cool shuriken markers!

We decided to start using points and keep track of our placement in each game to make things a bit more interesting. I'm calling it the LaMont Boardgamers (LMB), and here are the LMB standings criteria:

A. For games that have a positional finish, points depend upon the number of players:
3 (9, 5, 2); 4 (10, 7, 4, 1); 5 (10, 7, 5, 3, 1); 6 (10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1); 7 (10, 8, 7, 5, 4, 2, 1); 8 (10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1); 9 (10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1); 10 (10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0)
B. For games with only a winner or group of winners, the winners earn 7 points, others get 3.
C. An LMB member's points are then divided by the number of games played to arrive at their standings score.
D. To qualify a member must have played a minimum of 1.5 games per group session.         

Shadow Hunters: Winner - Stephen; Losers - Brett, Tyler, Garrett, Josh, Nate, Tim
Egizia: 1st- Josh, 2nd- Nate, 3rd- Tyler, 4th- Dallin
Small World: 1st- Brett, 2nd- Garrett, 3rd- Stephen, 4th- Tim
Power Grid: 1st- Dallin, 2nd- Garrett, 3rd- Tim
Ninjato: 1st- Tyler, 2nd- Brett, 3rd- Nate, 4th- Josh

So after this last session, here are the standings so far:
March sessions: 1
Brett H: 3,10,7 (20) = 6.7
Tyler H: 3,4,10 (17) = 5.7
Stephen M: 7,4 (11) = 5.5
Garrett S: 3,7,5 (15) =5.0
Dallin E: 1,9 (10) = 5.0
Josh D: 3,10,1 (14) = 4.7
Nate J: 3,7,4 (14) = 4.7
Tim R: 3,1,2 (6) = 2.0

Beware the Grim Reaper

Today was EFM at Fountain Valley High School, or "Every Fifteen Minutes", that is how often a drunk driver kills someone. It is a production for Juniors & Seniors at FVHS that involves the police, fire, and other city departments to warn teens of the dangers of drunk driving. Last year Hannah was on the award-winning crew that produced the video for Los Amigos HS, and was recognized by the city. This year she is co-producing it at FVHS, and today was the accident scene in front of the school. Hannah got to film at the jail, ride in the ambulance, and tonight will be editing film all night to produce the video for the school assembly tomorrow. She is doing an awesome job, and the event today that the students got to witness was very sobering and moving. Remember this is all a production, not an actual accident.

To see all the pictures following Hannah, click below:

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Gaming Session

We began game night with some 8 player flavor and broke out Incan Gold. Its your basic push your luck gem collector. My daughter Sarah then taught a group Snorta! while 5 of the gents who signed up proceeded to play an abbreviated game of Core Worlds. With 4 new players it took awhile to get going, but there were quite a few good strategies emerging. As my second play I definitely like it better than Eminent Domain, maybe even a little better than Race for the Galaxy. We then got seven of us to rev up the engines for what I was anticipating, a full advanced rules race of Formula D! The game is MUCH better with the advanced rules, with different wear points and slipstreaming it kept all of us within reach of each other. We had multiple leaders, and debris littering the track from our wreckless driving. Eventually only three drivers finished the race!

Stephen was one of the few that finished the race.





Many of the games we play would be cool to use tournament style, or collect points for placement or standings. Maybe we could do monthly point standings or something of the sort, to make the finish of games of greater interest. The most difficult thing is finding what style of game most enjoy.

Dallin was leaving debris on the track from the very first turn!

"On The Road" HB show 7-17 Mar 2012

My family fully participated again in the Huntington Beach Stake musical production they put on every three years, this time called "On The Road." It was the first time without Brittany, but we still had a blast and members of our family were involved in dancing, singing or choreographing in 18 of the 42 numbers, over a third! The stage pictures are not the greatest (taken from the back of the room without a flash), but still capture some of the great memories and performances we had.


The full family after the last show

Sarah in Munchkinland

Caleb in action in Ghostbusters

Jonathan with friends from Proud Mary

Hannah in Welcome to the Sixties

Shell dancing in Pirates of the Caribbean

Brett's final chord in Prima Donna

Check out a full slideshow of the pictures here:

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Gaming Friday

Another session on Friday where we played the good 'ole standby Dominion, a tight game where of course the newbie to the game Mike won! We finally got Small World to the table and it was a pretty good game. There is good variability with different matches of races to special powers that makes for some interesting decisions. We had a 5 player game, but I really didn't feel too squashed on the board (which you're supposed to, it's a small world after all). There was also some awkward down time if you just let your race stay on the board and you weren't attacked - in essence you didn't do much. It was still fun especially as we saw more strategy unfold. I am not sure if the balance in the game is great between what order you go in, and what race combination you can choose from. Some combos are definitely more powerful than others. I'm sure the game will see table-time again. As a game note, because it seemed like Tim had a lead and advantage he got ganged up on and squashed. It also happened to Josh early in the game, but still the ending scores were close and I eeked it out against Mike 105-98.

Tim's stupid Underworld Elves couldn't be defeated by my
Fortified Skeletons, but my Flying Halflings finally got him.

Nate could not make a reinforcement role for the life of him.

GAMING - Friday Edition!

We played Homesteaders as a Friday special. Homesteaders is another euro-style game by TMG that utilizes auction and worker placement mechanics to help grow the most successful settlement into a town and city in the old west. Each auction someone loses out on being able to build a building, so there are some real tangible ways to mess with the other players, driving prices higher and foiling plans. A steady run of victory point income beat out the purchase of higher value buildings in this one. The game does run longer than expected, but plays well with many strategic paths. Nice components too.


How about dem apples!