We had nine gamers last night, including Morgan, Modboy, Travis, Dr. Rob, Campoverdi, Dave, Dutch, Scott, and myself.

Dr. Rob and I paired off for our ASL playtest, Campo led Dutch and Morgan into the world of RHB's Blackbeard Strikes Back, while Scott, Travis, Mr. Squires and Dave opened with Race for the Galaxy.

Rob and I got one turn in of our game - it's a mini-campaign game set in the town of Singling in December, 1944. It starts out with Creighton Abrams leading a lot of armor and not much infantry against a real mixed bag of tired German troops backed by Panthers and assault guns. The campaign is really just the morning, mid-day and evening segments of the battle. We had a lot to set up plus some pregame smoke shenanigans, but are well underway. My smoke worked wonders and I diced my way clear of the couple solid punches Rob did manage to land, so I feel okay about my position. However, the campaign has a self-balancing mechanism - if I do really well, I won't get much in the way of reinforcements, while Rob is guaranteed more troops and AFVs. It's early days, but this one has been all over the place so far, with some playtest reports indicating German invincibility, and others saying the Americans can't be stopped.

In Race, Travis bemoaned his sorry state of affairs before stomping the field by ten points. That crew then cracked the shrinkwrap on Year of the Dragon. Everyone agreed it is a difficult game with the system constantly forcing you to make painful choices, but Dave and Scott seemed to really like it, with John and Travis giving it at least an 'okay'.

Blackbeard seemed to drag a bit as Morgan fell afoul of the dread pirate Ennui. I don't remember things moving this slowly in the playtest back in August but I do recall it had some problems with pace. It clearly didn't float Morgan's brig, though - I'm curious to hear what Dan thinks. I need to try the finished product to see what has changed since I played it last.

We wrapped up the evening with GMT's Formula Motor Racing. This is a very simple card-driven race game, consisting of three races to crown a winner in overall points. Places score 10-6-4-3-2-1, with every player having two cars. Some slick driving by Morgan and Travis in the first race put them in front with 12 and 10 points respectively; Dave and Campo failed to have a single car finish between them, while John managed fve and I got a point. In the second race, I pulled into the lead with 14 while Morgan and Travis were both shut out. Dave managed to put up six points while Chris maintained his perfect score. In the finale, I was looking good but slipped from first place to out of the money on the last round of cardplay; Chris took first and fourth to jet from last place to third. Morgan finished with 16 points, I had 14, Campo and Travis had 13, with the tie going to Chris by virtue of his first place race finish. Fun nightcap, especially with mandatory racecar sounds, but I wouldn't bet a kidney on the outcome.

Next week will be another Thursday night affair - hope to see you then!

JR

We had eleven gamers last night for rock 'em sock 'em action and a touch of chamber music.

Ben, Nate, Dave, David, Campo, Dr. Rob, Scott, Dutch, Travis and Aaron (up from Florida) all darkened our door and were treated to a violin solo by Matilda for their trouble. That done, we broke into Container, Blackbeard, and two tables of Manoeuvre.

Travis, Ben, Dave and Nate tried Bid Low to Win, with Travis bidding low and winning. Dave said the scores were tightly grouped so it sounded like a good game, though again Dave's dockside siren calls went unheeded as his dodgy lead-painted goods went unpurchased.

Campoverdi got the new Blackbeard on the table with Scott and Dr. Rob, with Scott winning despite Campo's best effort to put him in a watery grave. Sounds like cautious thumbs up on this one.

Dutch taught me Manoeuvre and we managed to get a couple games in. In the first, Dan's Russians defeated my Prussians as I couldn't get him over the casualty cap and misplayed the endgame. In the second, we played the two powerhouses, Britain and France. This was a very cagey match with very little territory yielded. I bagged the monster unit of the game, his Imperial Cavalry, but failed to press my advantage. I screwed up and lost an infantry unit on my left flank which in turn unhinged my center. This was a very tight game with little room for error. I later spent a couple actions trying to save an encircled piece when I should've been grabbing territory, allowing Dan to grab another close victory. I quite like the game - simple, fast-playing, but filled with tense decision points. David thinks it lacks depth and pales quickly after a few plays, but I'm more optimistic about its long term staying power.

David and Aaron played a game of Manoeuvre themselves, the US versus Spain - not sure who won that one. They followed up with Battlelore, a little fantasy hack 'n slash while they did jaegermeister shots from the little lore cups. Again, one of them will have to provide a recap.

After Bid Low concluded, Ben, Dave, Nate and Travis broke out Race for the Galaxy. Unsurprisingly, Ben built a finely tuned machine and once again lorded it over the galaxy.

Next week we'll be gaming on Thursday once again! Feel the late-week excitement! The M2M crowd is again welcome to join us - I'll put up an event notice too. Take care,

JR