Brass

Doug wanted to play Brass again with all of the rules correct. And Jon obliged. I started off by building a cotton mill for 12 and a canal for 3. My next turn was the same thing. On the third turn, I took a loan (having spent all of my money) and then shipped both mills. Fortunately, no one else shipped cotton to an external market. And I was able to net 5 dollars for my missing ports.

I started off at the end of the first round last in points. But, to make up for that, I had a good revenue source. I was able build one harbor. And then Doug opened up Barrow-in-Furness. I thought about it and decided to build another harbor there as well. It took most of my money, and I was hobbled after that for the rest of the game. I could only build one high-value cotton mill a turn. In the end, I don’t think that it mattered. No one else was able to catch me.

Brass

Wow, I actually got to play Brass. We still had some rules confusions. So this game has to rate in the top ten of obtuse games. Doug did a good showing of trying to catch me with my shipyards by building some high value cotton mills laying valuable track. But it wasn’t enough.

During the Meetup, Ed wanted to play it (for his first time). Unfortunately, it was difficult to recruit even a third player. Fluffy Susan hosed us once again by playing Pandemic. This time, Ed had printed out some helpful player aids which clarified most of the niggly rules. But, even this time, we had managed to miss some points.

Last Night On Earth

Disc golf and eating at Dos Salsas caused me to arrive late. I walked in on Chapel playing an Ameritrash game!

Glory To Rome

Jon was just starting to play Glory To Rome (which he had just played Thursday night). Since Nick and John were wanting to play Bridge and this was a game day, I jumped into the GtR game. I am liking this game less and less. It seems that the cards are not well balanced. For example, in this game Jon built a Garden. This allowed him to hire four more clientèle (for a total of six). Now, with three brown clients, he has a huge advantage in building new buildings with the Craftsman. The game is pretty much over at that point. Unfortunately, it drug on for another half an hour.

Through The Ages

Ed wanted to play Brass. And this was the reason why I drove up to this game day. Unfortunately, we could not get a game going for lack of other players. Sigh. So I opted to play TtA instead.

I don’t know how I survived in this game. My army was pathetically weak! I was ripe for an assault. Fortunately, I was only attacked three times (one where I lost three science, and two where I let Chapel attack me even though I had defense cards). I was able to eventually get my army up to be only a couple of points behind after many turns. In this game, I only saw two tactics cards. This is the one flaw of this game. And that is the random nature of the military deck draw. I really think it should be fixed where you draft military cards like you draft the normal cards.

I was definitely ahead in the victory point generation. And they finally called it when I finished the wonder that gave me 24 points.

Escalation!

We played a couple hands of Escalation and it was painful because none of the cards that I drew matched up with others in my hand. Not much you can do with that except grimace and bear it.

Wizard

We then moved on to Wizard, which is a much better card game. But one that I have not played in a while. We didn’t even use the big clicky wheels. How flawed! I played a perfect game and did not miss any of my predictions. I also beat Nick, who played perfectly — only less so.

Elfenwizards

At least I was able to play Elfenwizards again. It is a negotiation game that uses dice. The only problem was that this game drug on for twice as long as it should have. And, because of that, I started to get distracted.