Later today (it is Friday early morning right now), the four of us will pack up the car and head back to central Oregon (La Pine, to be specific), this time for Jacob's weekend baseball tournament (schedule here, White Sox division).  This will be a nice break - we haven't had time like this together as a family for a while, and his schedule is such that we should get some time to explore on Saturday morning.  I'll take plenty of photos of course.

This will be my last entry on the Sun River gaming extravaganza.  Sunday was a shortened day - George and I left together around 3:30pm to get home in time to see our kids to bed.

We started the day with a replay of KC's Tres Amigos, a clever little trick taking game.  This was enjoyable for me as we tweaked the rules as we went along, trying a few variants including the ability to go 'nill'.  This turned out to be a bit easier than anyone initially thought, so the points were probably imbalanced.  Chuck one this match in a come-from-behind manner by, you guessed it, going nill in his last hand.

George, (I think) Dave, Chuck, and Mike played San Francisco.

KC and Rita were very interested in a game of New England.  This was one of my favorite new releases last year so I eagerly joined in as did Doug.  This game, as are most I play, was very close.  I believe KC won, scoring the winning points on his final play.  We exhaused the tiles and cards simulataneously.

Tongiaki comes out. I don't get to play this game nearly enough.

I asked to play Magna Grecia - this is a game I picked up on the cheap a few weeks ago so wanted to learn from an experienced player (Doug in this case).  This game reminded me of Java - tons of choice and opportunities for analysis paralysis. A bit too abstract for my taste, but it was enjoyable and I'll play it again.  It took a while to grasp all of the connectivity and scoring rules.

This game of Tyranno Ex took quite a long time to play.

Mike and I played Blue Moon again.  This is a non-collectable two-player card game with big cards and some fantastic artwork.  The game, however, I could take or leave.  Most games Mike and I play (we've played 4 now I think) end up in a draw or an unsatisfying victory due to deck exhaustion.  I would rather played a pre-constructed Magic or Game of Thrones game.

As George and I left, KC was setting up for a game of Base Camp Delta for the diehards that stayed through Tuesday.

I want to extend my thanks again to Doug for offering up his house to our group, and to the rest of the group for welcoming me into their fold.  These guys (and Rita!) are a fantastic group to hang out with and I'm blessed to be a part of it.

Let's move on to day 2, Saturday, at Sun River.  This was my heaviest day of gaming, both in terms of the number of games played and the style of games.  I'll provide a bit more commentary this time on a few of the games played, including a Settlers variant, Wallenstein, and Bus.

I woke up relatively early and went for a run around Sun River.  When I came back around 8:45, I found Mike, KC, and Rita playing Solo Dice. I saw this played at the two-player tourney at GameStorm and need to try it at some point.

Dave, Chuck, Mike, and KC play Web of Power.

Dave, Chuck, Mike, and KC battle it out in Domaine, one of my favorites.  Hard to be in two places at once, but I was sorry I missed out on this game.  I was too wrapped up in my highlight game of the weekend however.

Doug was eager to try out one of the Settlers variants from Das Buch, a collection of 15 expansion scenarios.  He chose the Great Race, a variant where the only objective is to build a city in one of 8 possible locations to claim a stake of gold at the end of a chain of islands.  No victory points, no longest road, just get to that freakin' gold mine as fast as you possibly can.

Rita, George, Doug, and I start the Great Race.  All players start at the edge (top-left) of the board and try and build a city at the other end (bottom-right) on one of the red chit spaces.

The game starts in traditional Settlers fashion on one end of the game setup.  Quickly players start to explore with their ships to travel to what could be an island or more open sea - there's an exploration element to this gama ala Goldland or Entdecker.  There's very little blocking allowed in this game, as players can build roads alongside each other and may rent ports from other players (by giving up a random resource card) to launch ships.

Part-way through the race.  Doug is green and a bit behind at this point, though not as far behind as I am.  Rita and George are blazing the trails.

One disadvantage of getting too far ahead too early is that you must commit to a path that could lead you to less productive land spaces (they are drawn randomly along with the die roll marker).  I was a bit slow out of the gate but was able to avoid the less useful spots that George uncovered.

What made this game so much fun was how close it got near the end and the raw tension that created.

Near the end - I reached the gold just before Doug, and you can see that Rita is barely ahead of George on the other island.

We all reached the final islands near simultaneously, but Rita's lack of ore production cost her dearly as she either needed to trade with unwilling opponents or do expensive trades with the bank (I don't think she even had a 3:1 port).  I didn't have any settlements on 6 hexes, and a string of bad rolls (for me) starved me of resources for 4-5 consecutive turns.  Doug turned out to be the victor - he did a great job of getting some cities built early on key resource hexes and this proved to be the difference.  Playing this variant convinced me to pick up this collection of expansions (good price at Boards & Bits!).  This was definitely the highlight game of the weekend for me.

Dave ran a Brawl tournament next, which I found to be quite fun but didn't float everyone's boat.  This is a real-time, simulataneous play card game.  I enjoyed playing this much more than Frenzy, a similar, newer, but inferior card game.

Dave, Doug, KC, and Rita start a game of Nautilus.  I've seen this come out a few times but have never played it.  Seems long but has some pretty parts.

I offered up Wallenstein as the next option, and got thumbs up from Chuck, Mike, and George.  This is one of my favorites, and I am usually in a few online games at Mikael's great website.  Face-to-face play means you get to use the cool tower...

Sorry for the poor lighting on this one.

For those that don't know Wallenstein, think of a cross between Risk, Diplomacy, and light traditional wargames.  The setting is central Europe in the 1600s during the 30 years war, and players play mercenary commanders in charge of a few regions/states within the German region.  Each turn players plot their fixed set of moves (reinforce, move, take gold, take grain, build buildings) in each of their regions under control.  There's a bit of diplomacy involved, a lot of strategy, and plenty of fighting.

Battles are resolved via the Wallenstein tower, an innovative device that has hidden shelves that capture some of the little wooden blocks as they cascade from the top down to a tray.  So if I have 10 soldiers and fight a province with 5, we take all of the soldiers, plus any leftover in the tray, and drop them into the power.  If more of mine come out than his, then I win the battle and any of my leftovers go to the conquered province.

I had a strong start at this game, taking control of the north and getting some solid buffer zones.  I had a decent position in the southwest as well, and this lead to a decent lead at the end of the first year (25 points, with second place at 19).  An event at the end of the first year, though, foretold how the rest of the game would go for me.  I failed to harvest enough grain to survive the winter, and I lost my most valuable northern province to a farmer rebellion, costing me five points.  I needed these points because of my early rush tactics, and new I would be the target during year two.  If I managed to build a big enough lead, however, my buffer zone in the north would allow me to maintain my lead and hopefully lead to victory.

I certainly became the target in year two, and as luck would have it lost my most valuable province again to a freakin' rebellion, losing another 5 points in the process.  I finished dead last with Mike winning the game.

Final positions.  I was black, and you can see my anemic position in the north (three provinces held).  Those two revolt markers are were I lost to a rebellion, even with 4 soldiers in the province.

George and Mike play the two-player Carcassonne: the Castle.

Hey, a picture with me in it!  Chuck and I had a rematch of our Game of Thrones CCG battle earlier this year.  This is the best CCG I've played since 7th Sea; I need to teach it to Jacob.  And if you are a fan of the books, this is the best place to get solid artwork.

KC, Rita, and Doug play KC's prototype NW Trek.  This game was played with a rectangular tile set instead of the Cairo-style tiles.

KC, Mike, Rita, Chuck, and George play Zirkus Flohcati.  I played this light cardgame down in Dallas last year, but haven't since.

I played Wyatt Earp, one of my favorite rummy-style games, with Dave and Chuck.  I got smoked.  This usually happens when I play Dave.

Schrille Stille comes out again.

Mike helps assemble KC's new Igloo Pop game.  I guess you fill up these igloos with a certain number of beads then label the igloo.  Looked to be a pretty tedious job.

My last big game for the day was a try at Bus, the great transportation game from Splotter.  We played with a variant (KC made up a special board) that provides more options for choosing player turn.  This makes player seating position less of an issue than in the original game, and I like this variant much better.

Doug, Mike, KC, and I play Bus.

Doug didn't realize he was getting into a thinking game - he was hoping for something a bit lighter.  He humored us though and hung in there until the end.  I played a decent game, holding the lead for the majority.  Towards the end, however, I petered out as I was unable to get and available passengers.  KC played a great game and pulled ahead by one at the end.

The final board configuration in Bus.  Note the street markers used at the top right to track player order; this is the variant.

Things got a bit rowdy during this playing of Merchants of Amsterdam.

We closed the evening with a game of Mü, a trick taking card game that I'm eager to play again.  This is not a light card game - the bidding and trump rules are complex, and the scoring even moreso.  Just my kind of game!

Hopefully I'll get day three posted tomorrow sometime.

Twice a year the RipCity Gamers group journeys to Sun River for 3-5 days of gaming goodness.  Doug and his family are kind enough to offer up their vacation home to a bunch of gaming geeks - this tradition started back in 1999 and has continued ever since with gatherings (hah!) in May and November.  I missed the event last November, but was eager to accept the invitation this time around.  George and I drove up Friday afternoon, arriving around 4pm.  Doug, Dave, and Mike had arrvied about two hours earlier and we got started pretty quickly.

Rather than my normal format for session reports, I'm going to make this one more photo oriented and post comments on the games I played with the pics.  I'll make some final commentary when I do my entry for today's (Sunday's) gaming.

The five of us (clockwise from left: Mike, Dave, Doug, George) started things off with a game of Titan: the Arena. I somehow managed to win this one, though I'm not quite sure how.  I think this was a case of nobody realizing how good my bets were until the 3rd round or so.

Mike and George dueling at Vortex.  I haven't played this one yet, though George spent some time explaining it to me on the drive back today. I'm definitely interested in giving it a try.

Check out the shelf-space for a sampling of the games folks brought for the weekend.  This was before KC and Rita showed up, so there was a pretty sizable collection there.  Less than in prior years I'm told though.

George and Dave playing A Game of Thrones CCG, I believe with the Ice & Fire premium starter decks.  More on this later - I got a chance to play on Saturday.

KC and Rita arrived and while George and Dave played AGOT: CCG, the rest of us played my favorite party game: Schrille Stille.  I can't remember who won this game - I think it was KC or I.  Truth is, I don't really care - this game is always a blast and a great way to start an evening of gaming.

Next, KC introduced us to his latest prototype, Tres Amigos.  This is a light trick-taking card game, reminiscent of Euchre but with a few nice twists.  The game needs some tweaking still, but it was certainly fun.  The theme is lifted from the classic comedy.

What better game is there for seven people than Bang!?  I can't think of any... though it can be brutal when someone leaves the game early.  Like when the deputy (me) takes out the renegade (KC) before he takes his first action, while sitting in jail.  That's why you see KC cutting out pieces for one of his prototypes.  Fortunately we were playing the High Noon expansion so he was able to come back to life for an encore.  This time the sheriff (Mike) and his deputies (Rita and I) were victorious.

After Bang! we started some more serious gaming.  This crowd played Atlantic Star, the remake of Show Manager.  Which was a remake of Premiere.  Not that this means anything to me as I've played none of them.

KC offered to teach us all Robo Rally, a game I recently acquired from KC.

Robo Rally is a programming game where players attempt to guide their robot through a series of checkpoints while avoiding hazards on the factory floor and while distrupting the progress of the other robots.  This is a great game that I look forward to playing again, but it seems like it could be quite long.  We only played to one checkpoint and the game lasted almost two hours.  Much of this was setup and rules explanation though.

Mike, Doug, Chuck, and Dave enjoy a game of San Juan while we finish our Robo Rally session.  I believe Dave won this game.  Side note: a few of us brought our iPods, so there was a near continuous stream of music wafting through the house.  At this time in the evening, my iPod was in play.  Notice the headphones on Dave - I think they may have come out when my random shuffle brought out the “Pina Colada“ song.

My last game of the evening was Foppen, one of my favorite trick taking games.  I managed to get through the game in the black for the duration; everyone else was negative for most or even all.  Good hands I suppose. Update: Oops - as George pointed out, this is actually Attribute here.  We also played Foppen, but that's not what I'm showing here.

Perhaps my photo taking has gone a bit far, as Dave and Doug are clearly annoyed with this shot of them playing the GameCube.

KC and Dave finish out the evening with a serious game of Loopin' Louie.

I mentioned last week that some parts were missing from my Axis & Allies: D-Day game.  Sent an email to Hasbro/Avalon Hill/WOTC and got this quick response:

Please accept our apology for your defective product. I have sent out the replacement part requested to the address you provided below.

And the parts showed up 4 days later.  Nice.

Forgot to mention - Jacob's baseball team took second place out of 8 teams at last week's Oregon City baseball tournament.  Congrats team!

Jacob's team posing for the camera after taking second place.

Quick session report this time - I'm in Sun River with the RipCity group and got a bit behind.  Gotta catch up so that I can start posting photos from the weekend!

Last Sunday morning, before the finale of Jacob's tournament, he and I sat down to play a couple of new games for us: O Zoo Le Mio and Alexandros.

O Zoo Le Mio came out first and was our favorite.  A fairly light game, it is reminscent of Carcassonne and other tile laying games.  Players are in charge of building out their own zoo by laying tiles and trying to make attractive exhibits to steal visitors away from opponents.

Jacob examining his zoo.

Exhibits become attractive by having adjacency with others of the same type.  This isn't always easy because of tile placement rules.  When your attraction has the most stars, you attract two visitors.  Second place attracts a single visitor.  These visitors, along with adornments like park benches (created when you enclose an area with a path) and trees (awarded to the players with the most and second-most shrubs), score points at the end of five separate scoring rounds.

Beautiful bits in this game.

Jacob got off to a strong start, but by the final rounds I was ahead.  Given that each round successively scores a multiplier (first round 1x, second 2x, etc.), I finished pretty far ahead.  This game was a blast and would probably be even better with three or four players.

Alexandros, on the other hand, will take a few more plays for me to decide if it is a keeper (I got both of these games for 50% off so I figured it was worth the risk).  Jacob and I both found it a bit dry and abstract.  Players try to wall off and control regions delimitted by Alexander's wanderings.  The bits are certainly nice enough, especially for a small-box game.

If you still haven't taken the plunge and picked up an RSS reader, maybe all you need is a nice tutorial on what it is and how to use.  Ole wrote a great RSS cookbook for just this purpose.

Mark wrote a very insightful post about his recent experiences at the Gathering.  Even though I've lobbied for an invite, it would take some serious thought before I would attend due to the time (opportunity) cost.  My vacation time is precious and losing 5 days that could be spent with the family would be tough. Oh, and Mark: I would have watched the basketball playoff game with you!

United Airlines has been doing a lot of things right lately.  I spend a lot of time on this airline, and am already half-way to 1K status this year (missed it by about 8,000 miles last year, booking a total of 92,000 qualifying miles, and over 200,000 actual miles).  I'm not talking about Ted, though I did hear an interesting theory on why they started that brand (maybe I'll discuss that later).  United has rolled out fairly ubiquitous T-Mobile wireless broadband in their terminals (PDX, O'Hare, Denver, SFO, and probably others).  I buy blocks of day passes and make pretty good use of the connectivity.  Right now I'm sitting in the Red Carpet Club at PDX getting ready for my flight to O'Hare.

So, why is this day significant?

1. Julie and I were married 13 years ago today in St. Louis, May 18 1991.  What an amazing 13 years!  We were married the day after she graduated from Washington University; I had graduated the year before and was half-way through my graduate program at UC Santa Barbara.  Since getting married we've lived in Culver City CA, Dayton OH, Boise ID, and Sherwood OR.  We also managed to bring into the world a couple of pretty cool boys.
2. I was commissioned into the US Air Force on May 18, 1990.
3. Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980.  Even though I was fairly young (12) living far away (Indianapolis, IN), I have very vivid memories following this story line.

I just created a game of Wallenstein over at SpielByWeb.  Title: WallyBlog, Password: ripcity.

This is where I test to see if my blog can be used to ping someone about their tardiness in an online game.

Friday evening Jacob and I started our first game of Axis & Allies: D-Day, a game that we managed to finish tonight after his baseball game.  Jacob played the Allies (USA and UK) while I took on the role of the Axis.

Jacob looking at the initial board setup.

The game starts furiously with Allied paratroopers dropping in to start the game, followed by shore bombardments and the first amphibious assault.  Action is non-stop with little opportunity to avoid combat given the 10 turn time limit on the Allies.

Thank you Hasbro for not making me take all of these pieces off the plastic trees.  The game comes ready to play, though like most I was missing a few pieces (1 German tank, 1 UK infantry, 1 extra German infantry).

The order of the each turn is managed through Order Cards, which are turned over in succession each turn to call out the phases.  This is a nice system if a bit tedious at times, though by removing cards that are no longer relevant as the game moves things start moving very quickly.  Our first game lasted about 2 - 2.5 hours, but I suspect we will get it down to 90 minutes pretty easily.

These Americans look ready to storm the beach.

This game is not for those who prefer to avoid dice rolling - as with any A&A game, dice rolling is a major part of the game and can unwind even the greatest of plans.  For my kids this is considered a bonus because it can also be a great equalizer.

One great component of this game is the use of patrol fighter aircraft that the Allied player can position on the board.  These units do not attack like ground units, but rather wait for Axis ground units to move into our out of thier region.  When they do, the aircraft get a shot at each unit moving, rolling a single d6 and eliminating that unit on a 1.  At one point Jacob rolled 4 consecutive 1's, eliminating 4 of my tanks.

As I found in my playtesting, this game appears to be very well balanced with tons of tension throughout the game.  The Allied player needs to capture three towns and hold them for a complete turn before the 10th turn ends, meaning they must capture by the 9th.  While Jacob was routinely destroying my forces, he lost track of time and around turn 7 he realized his time crunch and starting getting more determined to achieve his victory conditions.  Unfortunately for him St. Lo was too hotly contested and he was unable to extinguish my troops there in time to claim victory.  After the game I gave him some advice on how to slow down my troops, use his tanks more effectively (the can move two regions per turn), and concentrate his forces a bit more effectively.

Final battle at St. Lo - the Axis are victorious.

This game will come out frequently, and will be a perfect 3-player light wargame to play with Matthew and Jacob.  If you are a fan of the A&A series but don't often have time for a full game, consider picking this one up.

Time for a few more family photos.  Julie and Matthew are in Reno for the weekend, so I'm spending each day shuttling Jacob to his baseball tournament out in Oregon City.  So far things are going great - Jacob's team went 3-0 in their pool play and play tomorrow afternoon for the tournament championship.

Last Thursday evening Jacob had his annual school music program, so I'll post a few photos of that as well.

Part of Jacob's program was a bit of traditional folk/square dancing.

The boy is focused on his recorder play.

Not exactly an action baseball shot, but it underscores the fact that much of the time at these tourneys is spent waiting for the next game.

Axis & Alies: D-Day (publisher site, preview) was released this week.  I was fortunate enough to be a playtester for this (thanks for the invite Doug!) - you can see us in the credits: “A Bridge Too Many.” This game is good (or was good when I tested it) and it will be interesting to see how it stacks up against the other big D-Day anniversary release Memoir '44.  I was in Reedville (between Hillsboro and Beaverton) for a grand total of 20 hours Saturday/Sunday for Jacob's baseball tournament, so I made a stop at Rainy Day Games.  They were conducting a great clearance sale, with many decent titles on sale for 30-50% off.  I picked up a few gems, including Trias, Magna Grecia, and O Zoo Le Mio.  They had A&A D-Day in stock too so I picked it up.

A&A D-Day is quite different than Axis & Allies.  It is on a smaller scale, is much more tactical (no production or economics), and plays much more quickly. One potential complaint may be replayability due to the smaller scale and lack of scenarios to replay other conflicts.

Check it out.  Unfortunately, registration is required.

Jacob, Matthew, and I are already registered for a full conference at Gen Con this year.  Last year Jacob and I spent 3 days there and Matthew joined us for a morning.  We'll see how much time Matthew is interested in spending there this year.

Rather than sign up for a lot of the pre-scheduled board gaming events, we will most likely rely on generic tickets this year and focus on pick-up gaming at Game Base 7.  I'm also going to try and do a better job of coordinating with other spielfrieks out there that are interested in hooking up, so please let me know via email or a comment if you plan on attending.

Greg and Patrick conspired on a spontaneous, full-scale garment design cycle.

Jacob and Matthew have a long 4-day weekend (Julie's dad arrives tomorrow morning), so without an early bedtime we decided to play Ticket to Ride after dinner.  I had only played once before and was eager to teach the boys - we love train games and I thought this would hit a sweet spot in terms of complexity and fun.

Jacob and Matthew about mid-way through the game.  I played red, Jacob black, and Matthew blue.

Ticket to Ride is a fantastic game in so many ways.  It plays very fast with almost no downtime, there are strategic elements (many routes or long routes), tactical plays (blocking, throwing down a shorter route out of fear of being blocked), and tension because it can be difficult to estimate the final point totals.  Throw in trains and a decent geography lesson and you have a winner of a family strategy game.  I was able to teach the boys how to play in less than five minutes, so this game should be very attractive to families with younger (7+) kids.

Grin away, Mr. Lucky.

I wish I could say that I was playing to let the boys win, but I was sincerely trying to play my best.  Matthew smoked us as usual, finishing 30 points ahead of Jacob and me.  Some of it was luck of the draw - he drew a destination ticket in his second-to-last turn and picked up a 22 pointer that he had already built!

I'm having way too much fun with my Digital Rebel.  I'm especially impressed with the results I'm getting with high-speed (1/1600, 1/2000) action photos of Jacob and Matthew's baseball activity.  So bear with me if you are only interested in gaming activity - I'll probably be posting quite a few family photos this summer.

Jacob in the dugout with teammate Joey.  Focal length 80mm, F/4, 1/320 sec.

Jacob getting one his many hits on Saturday.  He had one of his best hitting days ever, reaching base every at bat over two games.  Focal length 300mm, F/7.1, 1/2000 sec.

Jacob is doing a great job as the backup catcher.  This is a photo of Jacob taking signs from the dugout coach that he will into ball position for the pitcher.  300mm, F/5.6, 1/2000 sec.

Not much gaming happening lately.  Busy travel schedule again (though things look to be quieter in May/June), and my gaming date in Las Vegas feel through last week.  I did manage to get in a playing of San Juan at work last week with a couple of co-workers, and I taught KC's prototype Northwest Trek to the family Friday evening.

San Juan

Two co-workers, Jason and Arron, took me up on an offer to play San Juan over lunch at the campus center at Corillian.  Jason had played Puerto Rico before so was very familiar with the role-choosing mechanic; Arron hadn't played PR but had at least read the rules, so within 5 minutes or so we were underway.

I experimented with a lot of producing/trading in this game, certainly to my detriment.  Unlike PR, in San Juan everyone can sell any goods, so it often isn't as advantageous to choose the Trader role.  Arron stuck to prospector most of the time and did a nice job getting violet buildings out, but his lack of experience with the card combos hurt him as he didn't get a good multiplier.  Jason picked up the game very quickly, going nuts with lots of production buildings then laying out a Guild Hall, which gave him (I think) a total of 14 bonus points.  He won the game running away, I was a distant last place.

Northwest Trek

The boys asked me to teach them one of KC's new games, so I pulled out Northwest Trek, a fairly light and simple geometric tile-laying game. 

As I have mentioned before, Northwest Trek uses Cairo tesselation - a cool geometric trick which creates some challenges in placement because the tiles are vertically asymetric.  We are working on some different board/piece decorations to make it easier to orient the pieces for placement.

No surprise - Matthew managed to beat all of us with a strong showing - four sets of animal photographs with 6, 4, 4, and 3 in the sets.

Would you be interested in downloadable versions of these games?  If so, leave a comment here.  KC and I are gauging interest in making DTP-style versions of 1 or 2 of his games available.