After Action Report –Thursday Night Gaming @ Paradise Perks, September 12, 2013

This week a Paradise Perks there were 20 -25 people in attendance with an average of six games being played at once.  There were a number of new faces at the event.  I am guessing that they were regulars at Paradise Perks not regular gamers.  They were playing games from the store’s collection and keeping more to themselves than joining with the rest of the group.

We got a later start than normal.  This was due in part to late arrivals of people and in part to trying to get consensus on what game to play.  Finally some of us decided to play The Castles of Burgundy while the others went on the play Last Will.

The Castles of Burgundy is a territory development game that plays 2 – 4 players.  The players start with a hexagonal play space where each side of the hex has six small hexes on it and the play space is filled with hexes as well.  The hexes are divided into six different terrain types that are grouped together into different regions of the same terrain type.  While there are player boards where the regions are set up exactly the same, we played with boards that had varied layouts.

Players develop their territory rolling a pair of dice and using the results of each die to select improvements from options on the board.  There are ways to modify the results of the roll so the random element does not prevent the player from doing something that can help them improve their position.

I started the game in fourth position which is a tough place to be since all of the other players get to choose areas before you.  I took a mine to be able to complete a one space area for victory points and get future income.  The next turn I got a ship in to play so I could improve my position in the turn order to being the first player.  This started a battle between me and another player for starting position for the rest of the game.  We would alternate between first and second player for the rest of the game. 

I was able to stay in the middle of the pack through the middle of the game by selling a set of goods and completing small areas.  During the fourth round I was able to launch myself into the leads by completing a six space area during one turn and shipping 5 goods during the next.  This launched me in to the lead which I was able to maintain for a while. 

Unfortunately, I did not have a great last round.  I was able to complete two more small areas on my board and set myself up to possibly complete a third, but in doing so I used up all of my workers, which are used to adjust die rolls.  During my last turn I had a horrible role that I was not able to do anything with besides collect more workers.  I ended the game tied for first place and lost the tie breaker because I did not have as many spaced complete as the other player.

The game took longer than I expected and I did not enough time in the evening to play another game.   At this point to chatted with a couple of people for a while and then left.

The results for the evening:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	Avg.
The Castles of Burgundy	1	-	1	-	-	-			2.00
Totals	1	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	2.00