[Gaming] 2017-08-12 FSPA Gaming Group meet-up notes and results

Tue Aug 15 13:49:35 EDT 2017

Contents:

Location
Attendees
Announcements
Next Meeting
Games played
Game analysis

Location:
"Talisman Annex" William Wulf's townhouse in Columbia

Attendees:
Andy W. Rich A., Max B., Steve and Emmett J., Deb and Sara K.

Announcements:
We're really trying to meet more often than we have, so anyone who is
interested in hosting should speak up!
*     EDIT: New Member Steve Peck is offering to host in MD on August 19th.*
New Member Mike Wycoff has created a Slack <https://fspazone.slack.com/apps>
group for the FSPA to chat. Wulf has created an FSPAGaming channel for
gaming discussions. If you haven't seen the invite or need one, please let
the list know.

Next meeting:
To be determined.
*     EDIT: New Member Steve Peck is offering to host in MD on August 19th.*

Games Played:
The first game played was Attack the Buffet, which everybody won by
consuming mass quantities of grilled Italian Sausage, homemade Pulled Pork,
Grandma Wulf's German Potato Salad, popcorn, and fudge brownies. Good Job
everyone!

The second game played was 7 Wonders
<https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/68448/7-wonders>, which balanced well
for the 6 players at the table at the time. I placed first with 57 points,
followed by Steve with 49 points, Max with 47 points, Rich with 37 points,
and then Andy and Emmett tied for last with 35 points.

After that we played Munchkin
<https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1927/munchkin> with only the original
set. It came down the wire with everyone at level 9, but Max pulled off a
victory by first stealing a level from Steve, the only other cleric at the
table, then used tthe card Divine intervention.
Deb and Sara arrived at the end of Munckin, so we needed games that could
handle 8 players.

We chose one of Steve's games, 6-Nimmt!
<https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/432/6-nimmt>, which is played in
rounds until one person loses.
Deb managed to rack up the necessary 66 cow heads in only two rounds to end
the game! Therefore, Emmet came in first with only 5 heads, followed by
Steve with 15 heads, Rick with 17 heads, myself with 21 heads, Sara with 22
heads, Max with 32 heads, Andy with 60 heads, and Deb actually managed 73
heads!

We followed that up with a rousing game of Cthulhu Fluxx
<https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/122159/cthulhu-fluxx>. Due to the
meta-rule, *Cult Clash*, that allots victory in the case an Un-goal is met
to the player with the most doom Counters, when the un-goal *The Dunwich
Horror* was completed (6 doom counters and Yog-Sothoth), Deb won.

Steve and Emmett had to leave after that, so with only 6 players and less
than an hour left in the night, we decided to finish up with King of Tokyo
<https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70323/king-tokyo>. Andy won on Victory
Points (20), after I, Sara, and Max were knocked out of the game, in that
order.

Congratulations everyone, there were no dominators that ran away with the
victory count this time!

Game Analysis:

7 Wonders continues to be a crowd favorite, since there are no turns and
everyone plays at once. It paces well at 6 players, even with one player
being completely new and several others having to refamiliarize themselves
with the rules--or to consult the voluminous icon legend.
I won by buying only resource-production early on in the first age, and a
little military might. In the second age, I was able to buy my Wonder up
all the way, sacrificing science cards, without relying on buying much in
the way of resources from my neighbors, while earning from them because of
the spread of resources I could produce. This prevented Rich from taking
advantage of his Wonder's extra Science card and running away with a
Science-related victory. In the Third age, I sealed my military dominance,
then took advantage of some rather fortuitous guilds. Military victories
totaled 17 points, and I got 17 points from the two guilds. Beyond that, a
fully built Wonder was worth 10 points, and I also had two monument (blue)
cards for 9 points, and enough gold to net me a four points. I had no
points from science (green) or commerce (yellow)
Steve played a more balanced strategy, gaining points in all categories,
though he went light on science with only 1 point. Max loaded up on
monuments (blue) for 21 points, and had a smattering of points in other
categories, but not much science and he didn't complete his Wonder. Rich
loaded up on sciences because his Wonder granted him a freebie, and
completed his Wonder, but wasn't able to get any guilds or run away with
the science score, and suffered 3 negative points from military losses
(red). Emmett tried for a military strategy but wasn't able to bolster it
with many points other than his completed Wonder. Andy lost a lot in
military losses, and had no sciences, so his wonder and monuments weren't
able to carry him very far.
Strong Sciences still seem to be the dominant strategy in this game, though
guilds always have the chance of turning things around. I am not confident
that my strategy would have held out had I not cut out sciences from Rich's
choices before passing on the cards. More Sciences would have helped Steve,
who sat just beyond Rich, as well.

Munchkin:
There isn't much in the way of strategy to be applied in large games of
Munchkin. Instead, it's a combination of luck, and the ability to con the
other players. Max won with a clever combination of cards, but he won
because everyone else had spent their instant effects to prevent previous
players from winning, often at his prompting.
Basically, the best strategy I can recommend in Munchkin, is to not be the
most hated person at the table at any given time--but don't let yourself be
a pushover either.

6-Nimmt!:
With fewer players, 6-Nimmt is best played by counting cards and weight
risks vs. rewards. However, in an 8-person free-for-all, it is very very
difficult to strategize or count cards. The best one can do is try to play
a card that is only one digit higher than one on the table, and to
constantly try to take piles that are not full by playing lower value
cards. Even these relatively safe methods of play can be spoiled by the
sheer randomness of that many players.

Cthulhu Fluxx:
Unlike other variants of Fluxx, Cthulhu Fluxx is designed to mimic the
Lovcraftian stories from which it is derived, by driving the players mad
and preventing anyone from winning. Without the Cult Clash meta-rule, this
means that many games end with no victory. However, it is like all the
other Fluxx variants in that every game is unique.
In this case, no strategy could have changed how Deb won, which was to
receive all creepers from the card, *The Crawling Chaos*, which shuffles
all Keepers and Creepers together and distributes them randomly to all
players.

King of Tokyo:
The Six-player variant has room for two monsters in Tokyo, which means
there is a lot more damage being dealt all around.
I was knocked out of the game early and quickly, because I failed to curb
my enthusiasm in attacking. Staying in Tokyo after taking damage in the
early phase of the game really cost me, and I got so little in the way of
victory points in return I regretted it a lot. I think that if I had
concentrated solely on getting energy early on and forwent attack value, I
might have lasted longer, or been able to buy some Enhancements that could
have mitigated the early flood of damage.

*William WulfLunaria, Ltd. Consultingpsyque at gmail.com
<psyque at gmail.com>410-428-0070*
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