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Dramatis Personae

Samantha Parker: A South Austin type young woman who works in an Antiques store. She is streetwise, stealthy, can lock-pick, and is a survivalist based on her having been a teenage runaway that spent a few years on the streets.

Manny 'Ace' Gomez: He is an ex-army infantry and now owns a lawn-maintenance company. He is a disc-golfer and pot-smoker. He is also paranoid, loud, and a gun-nut. Edges: Luck, Great Luck, Quick. Hindrances: Overconfident, Minor Habit (weed), Big Mouth. Skills: Stealth, Shooting, Driving, Fighting, Climbing, Survival. Main Attribute: Agility.

Mu Chen: He is a Chinese waiter.

Kyle Zander: He is a doctor.

Kinky Schneider: Kinky dropped out of UT while working on his PHD in biochemistry to pursue his music career in the Music Capitol of the World: Austin, Texas. Kinky's small frame has left him with quite the Napoleonic complex and is liable to go into a frenzy if mocked.

Magnolia Cafe on South Congress

9:00am. It's been a while since our last breakfast get together. Too long. I was happy to see everyone. But that mood did not last for long. The local FOX morning news show started talking about rumors of a Zombie sighting in Austin. We tried brushing it off, but everyone got spooked. So we decided to head down to Tex Guns and buy some weapons for self-defense. The place was busy when we got there and was quickly getting swamped. Since I have never fired a weapon before, I bought a nightstick and a knife.

We then decided to head down to Southpark Meadows (Slaughter Lane and IH-35). So we all got into the car and started driving. But, when we reached East Stassney Lane and South Congress we saw our first Zombie! People started freaking out. And a big wreck happened right in front of us which shut down both lanes of traffic. We knew that the roads were only going to get worse. So we had to head to somewhere safe. Chen told us about El Borrego De Oro, where he had worked previously. So we started walking North up Congress Avenue. People were mostly minding their own business and we had no problems reaching the restaurant.

10:45am. Inside, the place was calm. The TV was giving non-stop news about Zombie sightings. There were a lot in Williamson County but none in Manor, Bee Caves, or South of the Airport.

Around 11:00 am, people started running outside. When we heard the commotion, we started to barricade to front door. But we were not as quick as we wanted to be. 21 people made it inside before we finally reinforced the doors enough to remain closed. People were still agitated and one person freaked out enough to want to leave the building. Of course, we were not going to let this happen. Thankfully, Chen knocked him out before he could open up the door.

Zander tried calling St. David's South Austin Hospital for information. But they were extremely busy. They told us that they "were up to their nuts in guts" and hung up on us.

Unfortunately, our building was not as reinforced as we would like it to be. And we could now see some Zombies wandering around aimlessly outside. So we decided to head to a better fortified position: Camp Mabry. We opened up the back door and spot some Zombies and quickly close it again. We need some diversion to make a run for it! Chen comes up with the idea of putting the unconscious man on a serving cart and pushing it away from the building. We close the door and wait while the Zombies gather around the cart and start feasting...

With the immediate area now clear, we slowly make our way outside. Chen climbs up a ladder onto the roof to act as a look out. However Zombies from the North noticed us and start shambling towards us. We now run for safety. Unfortunately, my initiative is at the bottom. Everyone runs towards the South. I call for help. Gomez takes a shot (at a disadvantage) as he runs away. Zander takes a shot at another zombie before he too runs off. Parker and Chen just bolt. Two Zombies shamble up to me and take swings at me. Both miss and I am now able to run away! Thankfully, it is quite easy to run far enough away to lose the Zombies.

12:00pm. We make it most of the way to Mabry. At Guadalupe Street and West 38th Street. However, when Chen climbs a roof again to reconnoiter, we see destruction between us and where we think Mabry is. It is better now to head East as that still looks safe. So we head towards Hancock Golf Course.

1:00pm. We arrive and find the place deserted. We look around for something to help us out. Chen comes up with the bright idea of stealing some golf carts. We then head East towards Walnut Creek Nature Preserve.

3:00pm. We arrive and look around. There are some abandoned cars in the parking lot. Since we need a faster mode of transportation, we hot-wire a car. Unfortunately, some people saw us as we were driving out and run towards us screaming for help. We do not want to get bogged down, so we run over them with the car. And, just to make sure, we put it in reverse and back over them again, before taking off towards Manor.

We drive past Manor and make it to Elgin. We notice a huge National Guard presence and relief effort. We stop and talk our way into the complex and into safety...

Imperial

Wow, its been a while since I have played Imperial. And, what is surprising, is that three of the people at the game have never played it before! In my opinion, this is the best of the rondel games. You just have to get out of the mindset that your goal is to run a country and win the game.

I was a little worried with how everyone else would play the game. It is hard to bet on countries and then watch as they are mismanaged. But it seems that everyone caught on and did well. I was able to reinvest my money often enough to jump out in the lead. I definitely had the most stocks. But this is not always a good thing. You want a lot of shares in the winning country and the second-most shares in the second-place country. But I was a little too spread out and had shares in every country. I did make one mistake at the end in buying a share in Austria. I should have instead bought another share in England and get a better multiplier (2x versus 1x). Oh well. I still one handily though.

Hansa Teutonica

Big surprise, another game of Hansa Teutonica. This game was different from the start. On both sides of the "gain extra action" building, we placed different cubes. Which I think was a mistake. It takes two different attacks to finally be able to gain control of one of those roads. This is just too costly. If you only have to attack once, then it is not so bad. So no one was able to increase their actions that way in the beginning of the game (until someone finally moved away).

Wayne also was able to gain control of the top road in the game. This meant he was getting points whenever people were "popping" any of the three buildings to improve your abilities. I was behind and saw no way out of it. I needed to increase my color ability before I could place another person in the point building, but that would end the game since Wayne was too close to the game ending condition. Sigh. Still an interesting game though.

Before we could play games tonight, we had to displace the cat. But not before we took pictures of it...

Hansa Teutonica

This is the new hot game. It was discovered late during BGG (on the last day of the con). It is definitely my favorite new Essen game. Unfortunately, it is rather expensive because they had to air-ship it from Essen to BGG.con. This tacks on an extra $12 per game. And I didn't know about it then so I would have to pay an extra shipping charge to buy it now. So I will wait until the reprint...

I was able to win this game by creating a large network. Unfortunately, I did not have enough action points to end it immediately. So I set up an obvious game ending move and finished my turn. Jeff, ended the game before it got back around to me (which cost me like 12 points). But it didn't matter since no one was able to catch up to me.

I did notice that Jeff was trying to connect across the board. But I was able to stop him by taking a bottle-neck point. He should have built there first rather than from the other side...

Roll Through The Ages

We ended the night with a light game of Roll Through The Ages...

At BGG.con this year, there were some AWESOME, hand-painted crokinole boards! I normally hate finger-flicking dexterity games, but I would love to own the Dragon's Lair or Magicola board.

Rise of Empires

I definitely looked forward to trying out Wallace's new game. However, we got a really late start and only played out one of the three eras. Sigh.

Last Train To Wensleydale

We played Wensleydale again when it looked like God's Playground might take too long.

Last Train To Wensleydale

We played a new Wallace game that I received recently. It is another train-themed game. This time, about delivering cheese (and stone and passengers). The interesting mechanic in this game is the fact that you pay for your links every round. So you need to sell off your links to one of the two major train corporations. Which will cause you to inch your way across the map. You bid for token with different abilities. These will be used to buy engines for a round, build in certain spots, and sell your train tracks back. So you need to be able to get a variety in order to do what you plan.

I definitely want to try this game again.

Tonight was game night. But first, Jeff took some pictures of Tim for his profile.

Automobile

I was able to convince a group to play Automobile. As I remember it, (being a month later -- so sad) I ended up in second place. My problem was that I never diversified much. I think you definitely need to sell the high end cars as well as the middle or low end cars.

Endeavor

Mike hosted a session to try out his new game that he purchased, Endeavor. It was interesting. An area control game with four different abilities that you can specialize in. However, I don't think that we will play it again anytime soon. So it is hard to judge a game based on one playing...

Gravitt held a meetup at a new location. A pizza restaurant called Plank's near Parmer and IH-35. I tried their plank (style I guess) pizza. It was meh. But they did have ZiegenBock on draft for a buck. You can't beat that! Hopefully the meetups will continue with a better frequency than they have in the past.

The tables were a little small for gaming. But it's a restaurant. What do you expect?

Race for the Galaxy

Jon and I started out with a quick two player game of Race for the Galaxy.

Age of Steam

My big game for the day was a game of Age of Steam on the original map. Jeff had wanted to play it and I was more than happy to oblige. We had two other people join who were also new to the game. Unfortunately, this was not their type of game. But they did keep playing all the same.

My position was not the best. Jon was all alone on one section of the board. I was in the middle of the board surrounded by people. I know Jon commented during the end game that he made a mistake by not upgrading his engine. While he had better goods than I did at the end, t he was not able to catch up to me.

Chaos in the Old World

Jeff wanted to play a new area control game about ancient gods. Unfortunately, no one had played it before or read the rules beforehand. So I am sure that we got some things wrong (not even counting the mistake when assembling the board).

While I love dice games, this one had a fatal flaw. When attacking, an enemy unit is killed on a four, five, or six. So far, so good. However, if a six is rolled, you get to roll the dice again for an extra attack. For as long as you keep rolling sixes. This was used to devastating effect on Jeff and Tim almost wiped him off of the board. Thankfully, we called the game after an hour or so and I was able to leave. I was not enjoying that game at all.

Race For The Galaxy

We started off with another filler game of Race For The Galaxy.

The Princes of Machu Picchu

It took us a while but we finally decided on a game to play: The Princes of Machu Picchu. I took a different strategy this game. I tried concentrating on activating my priests as much as I could during the game. And I didn't place that many workers out in the field. Unfortunately for me, I could not collect the set of cards that I wanted. They were spread out into too many areas. And since I didn't have a lot of workers out in the field, I didn't score that much at the end. It was also the first game that I have played where we had an ending due to the arrival of the Spanish conquerors.

Race For The Galaxy

The meetup group used to meet regularly and at a large gaming space (even if it was in a church). But it doesn't anymore. Only occasionally will it meet elsewhere. This time was at a wine creation place (with a Christian sounding Water To Wine). There are only a couple of tables here. And they are cramped! But I will take what I can get.

We started off with a opening game of Race For The Galaxy.

Through The Ages

We then moved on to a three player game of Through The Ages (even kicking out a potential fourth player). Jose was new to this game. But he started off strong. He was far out in the lead for most of the game. It was only in the third era that I started making progress towards catching up to him. And, when we were performing final scoring, did I finally pass him. Wow, I didn't see that coming. I was able to score more than him for each of the final categories.

Dominion: Intrigue

We started off with yet another filler of Dominion: Intrigue. And yet another meh playing.

Phoenicia

Luckily, everyone was interested in playing Phoenicia. It has been too long since I have played this game. And I suffered for it. Instead of building up my income immediately, I bid on, and won, a dyer card. I had my sights set on Cloth Making and not on profitability. Unfortunately, it took me the entire game to recover from that setback. The R.O.I. (return on investment) nature of this can also amplify a slow start into a much slower purchasing power. Unfortunately, I probably cannot get game to the table again.

Ra: The Dice Game

We finished up with the Ra dice game. It is pretty thematic to the original game. However, there is no bidding aspect to it. So you can't always call Ra when it your turn and you have low tiles. Which means that this game has a different feel to it.

Dominion: Intrigue

We started out with a game of the new Dominion expansion. It is an okay game. I could see how some people might love it. For me, there are many other light filler type games that I would rather play.

Tigris and Euphrates

Our real game of the night was the classic E&T. It took a little bit to refresh our memory on the rules. Thankfully, everyone was willing to play it again. In the first game I was able to come in second to Susan. During the second game, Wayne started an External Conflict between myself and Susan. Luckily, I had the right set of tiles to win all the battles (and Susan didn't). This propelled me into the lead. It also helped that no one picked on me after that and I was able to place tiles to round out my collection of cubes.

Unfortunately, I was quite mean to Jeff during the second game. He had three of his leaders out on the board only being supported by one common red tile. I needed to support my kingdom from external threats. So I kicked out his three leaders with one catastrophe tile and joined up the remnants of his kingdom into mine.