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Subject: Fort Worth Gamers: gaming session 09/26/17
From: Michael Ward <mward258@gmail.com>
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Tuesday, 09/26/17 6 to 9 PM at the Hulen Mall food court, at 4800 South
Hulen Street, in southwest Fort Worth, TX.

We eventually had seven gamers at two tables, including newcomers Andreas, Miranda, and Evan.


Table #1 - Written by Duane
Players: Connor, Corey, Duane, Emanuel, Miranda (new)

We first played ‘Booty’ a new game of Duane’s which was new to all (except Duane who played it one time at Gen Con this year). Each round 15 prizes (booty) is shown to the group and one player becomes the Quartermaster which divides the loot into subgroups for the players to pick. Each group consists of Treasure, Relics, Commodities, Ship takeovers, Life styles and island conquest. Each has different XP which counts toward the final score. The game took exactly one hour to play. The final commodities market was Sugar
3 xp, Cotton 1 xp, Indigo 1 xp, Tobacco 3 xp. Final places: First - Miranda with 43 total points (6 pts treasure, 9 in relics, 5 in commodities, 2 in ships, 12 in life, and 9 in islands). Second - Duane with 40 pts (10 treasure,
8 Relics, 14 Commodities, 4 ships, 4 life). Third (TIE) Emanuel & Corey with 35 pts (Emanuel - 6 treasure, 9 Relics, 6 Ships, 14 islands) (Corey - 5 treasure, 12 relics, 11 comm, 3 ships, 4 life). Fifth - Connor with 32 pts (8 treasure, 3 relics, 3 comm, 14 ships, 2 life, 2 islands)

Corey then grabbed out D’s ‘Biotix’ to play. The game was new to Emanuel
and Miranda. Corey had been telling Miranda all about it and had to show her.
Five players is max for this game and a special board is used which is smaller
and there is only two rounds before the white biotix is put in the bag to be pulled out for end of the round. The game goes pretty fast for five players. Round I finished with D at 33 pts, Corey 20 pts, Emanuel 5 pts, and Connor and Miranda both at 0 pts. Round II finished with Emanuel at 22 pts, Miranda at 13
pts, Corey 11 pts, Connor 5 pts, & D at 2 pts. Round III had Connor qualify for the Eureka project but his guess was wrong so no special points for him this round. Round 3 scores: Corey 25 pts, Emanuel 20 pts, D 1 pt and 0 for Connor & Miranda. FINAL SCORES: 1st Corey 56 pts, 2nd Emanuel 47 pts, 3rd D 37 pts, 4th Miranda 13 pts, and 5th Connor 5 pts. First game finished in 40 minutes.

We then had a new individual show up at the table… Evan. Evan is relocating to Ft. Worth to work at the airbase with Lockheed/Martin. He saw us on Meetup and thought he would see what it was all about. D gave up his space at the table. We then played Biotix again. This game took 19 minutes. Round I Evan had 10 pts, Connor 5 pts, and Emanuel 1 pt. Round II everyone had a good matrix working. Corey had 30, Miranda 28, Connor 26, Evan 25, Emanuel 10. Round 3 both Emanuel & Evan had 23, Connor 22, Miranda 18 & Corey 11. Final score: Evan 58 pts, 2nd Connor 53 pts, 3rd Miranda 46 pts, 4th Corey 41 pts, and 5th Emanuel 34 pts.

One more time! This one took 28 minutes right up to 9:00 p.m.!! First round was a low scoring one. Connor 9, Corey and Miranda 6, Emanuel 4, Evan 3.. Round 2 - Evan and Connor 20, Miranda 18, Emanuel 17. Round 3 - Emanuel 30, Corey 21, Miranda 19, Evan 13, Connor 9. Final scores: 1st Emanuel 51 pts, 2nd
Miranda 43 pts, 3rd Connor 38 pts, 4th Evan 36 pts, and 5th Corey 27 pts.



Table #2 - My El Grande, which was new to Aaron and Trish. Andreas and Meg had
played years ago. Right out of the gate Aaron jumped into the lead. By the end
of round two he had about 30 points while the rest of us had between 17 and 10
(me). This ratio hardly changed the rest of the game. After round three we had
general scoring. The scores at that point were; Aaron 43, Meg W 34, Trish 23, Andreas 22, Michael 16.

Tired of sucking hind teat, I did my utmost to improve my standing in rounds 4-6. Yet I was heading into a stiff headwind as it seemed impossible to take Aaron down a notch. Even so, I (and Andreas) tried, and had some success. Round
6's general scoring saw the standings as: Aaron 68, Meg W 54, Andreas 42, Michael 42, Trish 41. So at least I'd moved from 5th into a tie for 3rd.

In round 7-9 Andreas and I redoubled our efforts to whack juggernaut Aaron. I figured it would be impossible to completely thwart him. But we (now including Meg) did have some success. Andreas even went so far as to hurt himself in round 8 to stymie Arron's runaway lead. Somehow I managed to jump into (a distant) second place.

I do want to point out that not once in our 2.25 hour game did Trish do anything to stymie hubby Aaron in the least. And he returned the favor. Basically they *NEVER* entered any province if the other's cubes were present. Neither of them ever removed or displaced the other's cubes from anywhere on the board. The odds of that being mere coincidence are astronomically low. After the game I complemented married couple Andreas and Meg for playing the game as individuals and thwarting each other when need be. In brief El Grande is *not* a Team Game.

Scores: Aaron L 95, Michael W 85, Meg W 75, Trish L 62, Andreas W 56. Duration:
two hours and 17 minutes, which is one of the longest of the 35 games of El Grande I've played. Even so, everyone enjoyed it.



See BoardgameGeek http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ for more information on the games mentioned above. And if you're in the area on a Tuesday night feel
free to join us for a game.

--
Michael Ward
Fort Worth Gamers
And check out our MeetUp page http://www.meetup.com/FortWorthGamers/ .
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