After Action Report – Game Night Southwest @ The Little Shop of Magic, August 31, 2013

Since I was still in Las Vegas on Saturday, I decided to visit another board game event in the area.  The event was Game Night Southwest at The Little Shop of Magic in Las Vegas.  It is a event that is run weekly from 5pm until the store closes at 11pm. 

The Little Shop of Magic is laid out with all the products, which include all kinds of tabletop games displayed in the walls on the outside of the store and uses the majority of the space in the cent of the store as playing area.  The playing area is clean and looks nice.  It is set up mostly to accommodate collectable card gamers, which I imagine is who are using the space the majority of the time, but there is one set of table that is set up to accommodate RPG players, which was being used by a group playing Pathfinder that evening.

There were around 35 people attending the game night this time with 5 to 6 games being played at any given time.  I managed to play three games that evening including two that I brought along because they were new to some of the group.

The first game I played was Bazaar.  In Bazaar the players are gem traders trying to fulfill gem orders from demand cards in competition with the other players.  They do this by using two trading boards that represent the exchange rates for the market.  For example one red gem can be traded for two blue gems.  The players use the exchange to fulfill the demand cards as efficiently as possible to maximize their points.

I only captured two demand cards during the entire game.  One with two gems left and the other with one gem left.  I was not able to get a third card before the game ended.  Mostly because the game ended two players before I was able to pick it up plus the exchange was not set up well for the gems I was getting to get the cards that were in the game.  I managed to come in fifth out of six players and that was only because I completed fewer demand cards to get my five points than another player did.

The next game was Circus Train.  The theme of Circus Train is the players are owners of circuses in the 1920s.  They are traveling the north east and Midwest o the United States by train trying to put on shows and hire additional talent to improve future shows.  Every time a player’s circus performs, the players score the show based on the demand of the show.  If the score is better than their previous best show, they will receive a bonus in their payment for the performance.  Victory points are scored at three points for the top three performances and who has the most of a certain type of performer.

The players move around the board using a set of ten cards that allow movement and actions to be performed.  The players may only play a certain card once until all of ten of their cards are used.  They may then start reusing them.

I did not do well through most of the game.  It started out with my first chance at a performance being taken from by another player but I took my revenge by taking their clown act.  This gave me a reputation for having three clown acts which gave me a bonus in performance scoring and the victory point bonus for having the most clowns for two scoring rounds.  This only allowed me to stay close to the pack.  I did not optimize my first set of cards very well.  I did manage to improve my use of the cards the second and third times through but I was not picking up the additional acts I needed to be able to score a really big performance and remained at the back of the pack until final scoring where I managed to launch myself into fourth place out of five players.

My last game for the evening was The Hanging Gardens.  The theme in the Hanging Gardens is that the players are architects in ancient Babylonia that are trying to design the best monument in the city.  As they complete areas of their monuments, they are given rewards that are worth victory points.  The more of any type of tile a player can get the more victory points the tile is worth. 

It is a game that has tile placement and set collection elements in it.  The players take turns adding tiles which are actually cards divided into six sections.  1 – 3 of the sections will have features on them that the player needs to combine in groups of 3 or more sections.  Once a player gets a large enough group of tiles together, he can then earn tiles that score points depending on the number of similar tiles he collects.  The larger the section the player can build before scoring it the more options the player will have in scoring tiles.  The player must then block one of the spaces in the section they scored with a temple.  This space is blocked and cannot be covered with a new card.

This was a teaching game for me so I was more concerned with helping the other players learn the game then I was with trying to win the game.  I did manage to play my position well enough to pull out a victory even though I was helping them beat me.

The victory in The Hanging Gardens ended the night for me on a high note.  I will definitely have to go back to this event the next time I am in Las Vegas.

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	Avg.
Bazaar	1	-	-	-	-	1	-		5.00
Circus Train	1	-	-	-	1	-	-		4.00
The Hanging Gardens	1	1	-	-	-	-	-		1.00
Totals	3	1	-	-	1	1	-	-	3.33