Gathering Report - Day 8

The ending Saturday of the Gathering is always a big day, and this will be a correspondingly long post. Enjoy the ride, because we are almost to the end.

The day starts promptly at ten with the flea market. At this event any attendees who wish to sell games from their personal collection may do so for one hour. This is a great way for some folks to get money for old stuff, others to fill in their collection and to generally browse some very obscure titles. I rarely buy much, this year just a replacement copy of the game Shadowlord that I remember playing as a kid.

Walk the Dogs - Ken and Gail were looking for a third to play this very quick game from Simply Fun before the Liar's Dice tournament started. The particular set we pulled out had a pure white (like the poodle) figure in the shape of a Schnauzer. We dubbed it a Schnoodle and declared it could count with either set. Gail won the game with several bones. A mindless diversion, and would be fun with kids who are learning how to plan ahead.

Liar's Dice Tournament - I don't do a lot of tournaments generally, but this was my third of the year. My table consisted of Charles, Jeff, Ed, Campbell and me. We played twice with the first game winner sitting out of the second game. Both winners could advance, but I was neither. I did ok, but would have to play this game more often than once a year to start doing better as my head to head game was poor when I got to that point.

Prize Table - Alan moon spends a huge amount of time at the Gathering just making sure things run smoothly. On Saturday that includes a great deal of time organizing the prize table, which this year must have had close to a thousand games on it. Despite all this, he is always glad to pause for a moment and address the needs of any guest. This, quite simply, is the core of what makes this such a great event. The portion of the prize table seen here is most of the smaller stuff, the piles of big box games are out of picture to the left.

Wikinger - I had been hoping to play this new Hans Im Glueck game for most of the week and finally had a chance after Becky came down and was able to teach us rules from her earlier play. Greg and Dominic joined the two of us as we attempted to build up and protect our islands. There are basic and advanced versions of the game and we played the latter, which includes an auction for turn order, stricter rules for distributing your men and bonus tiles to work towards. Overall I enjoyed this game quite a bit and found that there are just enough decisions to keep it weighty for me. I also like clever purchase/auction systems which this has in the way you buy islands/ships and men.

Mykerinos - The same group stuck together to try Mykerinos, another new to me game. This is a simple area influence game where the influence you purchase also gives you special actions you can use on future turns. I got two Sir Browns on the first turn which let me take a dominating position in the part of the Museum I wanted, but then made the mistake of trying to build him as my big collection. He is just too valuable to everyone and so I ended up in a fight for control with all three other players. This is a good simple influence game, but a little less filling for me that Wikinger was. I'd gladly play, but don't need to own a copy myself.


Die Baumeister Von Arkadia - Greg had to step aside for prototype activities so we were joined by Kory to test out this new title. We ended up describing it to curious passers-by as "Tetris Stock Market" although that does give this clever game a bit short shrift. As you play building pieces and workers you collect colored seals and get to place additional pieces on the castle at the center of the board, and the total value of the castle when seen from above dictates the value if you sell the seals. You only get a few actions during the game to sell, so timing the castle (market) correctly is key. I enjoyed this a great deal and may well pick up a copy. The rules are simple, but I can see there is quite a bit of depth to the play as well.

Now it was time to gather for the closing ceremonies, centered around getting prize table picks. This is the one time you can expect to see almost everyone in attendance. The only folks missing are the dozen or so who need to leave early and designate others to take picks for them. We were sitting in the middle of the room, so this is about half of the crowd pictured above.

Golden Geeks - After chiding them for not making it to BGG.con there was a little awards ceremony run by Aldie and Derk. This is the first time I've ever seen an award winner cross-examined by the host, but that is Derk for you. William Attia, Jason Matthews and Alan Moon got awards. Both William and Jason got two medals, but in a bid to retain good favor Derk and Aldie declared a last minute rules change that "The winner is the one with the most medals _who does not tie_" and designated that to Alan. We don't think he won much, but he seemed happy with the ruling.

With that the prize table picks commenced. This whole ceremony takes quite some time because there is simply no way to call 325 people up twice and let them make decisions without it extending the time. Still, the total time for picks was about 90 minutes, so not too bad. At times there were twenty to thirty active individuals making choices at the front of the room and walking off holding up their games. One thing you can do to pass the time is make a list of games you might want and try to check off copies as they are taken. It both gives you something to do and helps you know whether to look for a title when you get to the front of the room.

With that in mind, here is some of my initial list, just to give a context of the scope of this activity. The numbers in parenthesis are how many copies were present before the ceremony began: Notre Dame (4), Wikinger (3), Battlelore (5), Imperial (4), Ypsahan (9), Pillars of the Earth (11, some German), Space Dealer (7), Hermagor (4), Fortress America (2), Zooloretto (2). Obviously I could go on. There was also a table of smaller card games and the like that was designated as a three for one pick. If you chose items from the table you got three instead of just the one normal pick. Finally, everyone in attendance got a copy of the Spielbox magazine with Thurn und Taxis expansion rules.

Prize Table Picks - I got a far earlier pick than usual and decided to grab Wikinger. I liked it quite a bit on my one play (despite losing horribly) and it will be a bit before it is out and available in English. Becky also got a good pick and grabbed one of the English copies of Pillars of the Earth. As round two of picking is in reverse order we were done to grabbing stuff off the three for one table by the time our next picks came, you can see the full list above.

The World Cup Tournament Football Game - This is an annual Saturday evening tradition at the Gathering run by the Pedlows. Becky and I played last year when Chris Kovac won the big game but Becky led on points with 14. This year we had at our table Robin, Lorna, Richard, Steven, Chris, Linda, Becky and me. Above you can see Steven giving a brief refresher of the very simple rules. Basically they are: "In phase one, play two cards on your turn, one above the line, one below the line, no more than three to a space in the game. In phase two play one card above the line on your turn, still no more than three to a space. Draw cards to three at the end of your turn." The rest of the game takes care of itself. An eight player game takes a bit over an hour with set up and rules.

So here we are closing in on completing the opening brackets. This year Becky followed up on her previous performance by both winning the World Cup and leading the pack with an astonishing 15 points. Robin had a team place second, and was third in the points race with 7 and I had the third place team and second in the points race with 2. Poor Chris, last year's World Cup winner, had the prior champion eliminated in brackets and finished with 0 points.

Cluzzle - I had time for one more game for the night and so joined into a game of Cluzzle. Dominic, the designer, came over and help straighten us out on the rules as they are slightly different in the two printings, mostly due to components. We played four rounds and I managed to make puzzles that were too difficult to guess in three of them. Sometimes you just get unlucky with how folks ask you questions. I choose syringe and made an obviously pointy object. I was then asked if it was a tool. I answered yes, but of course that sent everyone off in the wrong direction. A fun game a great way to wrap up the day.

That wraps it up for the main reports from the Gathering. I am doing some family activities today and preparing to head home tomorrow, so may or may not get any more games played in. At some point I'll post a wrap-up of the whole event, but that may not be for a couple days as I try to return to normal life. Until next time, may your dice roll well.