Well, since the fall of 2010, I’ve been blessed to have a regular weekly game group again.  For a long time, most of my gaming occurred at the various conventions and invitationals on the gaming calendar.  However, our local group managed to come back together, and once we set our sights on a regular weekly session, everyone made it part of their regular routine.  We still had a number of weeks where we didn’t meet, usually due to conventions (Gathering of Friends, Essen, etc), holidays and summer vacations… But we still managed to 41 sessions during the year (with at least 3 gamers) – which isn’t a bad turnout at all!

Schedule – We try to meet once a week, usually on Wednesdays, but it seems like every week we end up having an email conference trying to figure out which day is best.  I’d estimate that 80% of the time, we ended up meeting on Wednesdays, but Tuesdays and Thursdays were not out of the question.  Most weeks, gaming starts up about 6:00pm or 6:30pm and goes until people get tired.  Since we meet on a workday, usually the group breaks up between 11pm and 1am, though more often on the early side than the late.  In the end, I’d say we average 5 to 6 hours of gaming and chatting each week.  (There were also two special weekend events held in the fall this year where we got together to play some of the post-Essen games.  I’ll talk about those two weekends after the recap of the regular group…)

Our group is intentionally small – we only have 4 guys in the group… (and 3 of us are contributors here on the Opinionated Gamers: myself, Lucas Hedgren and John Palagyi).  By keeping the numbers small, it pretty much ensures that we can get any game onto the table that we want, and we eliminate the “wasted” time that you always see in bigger groups because you’re waiting for the other table to finish so that people can re-distribute for the next round of games.  The downside of the small group is that real life schedule conflicts come up a lot, and we’re often not with a full roster.  Now, that’s not to say that we don’t include others though… If we know that someone is going to be out, we usually try to invite someone to round out the group… and of course, we’re happy to host visitors – fellow Opinionated Gamers such as Brian Yu, Rick Thornquist and Valerie Putman have stopped in throughout the course of the year.  We’ve also played a few times with Superfly Pete who brings an entirely new level of enthusiasm to gaming!

Like most gaming groups (or at least I think like most gaming groups), we do not have a regular meeting place.  We simply rotate hosting duties amongst the gamers.  By only hosting about every 3 weeks, none of our spouses seem to think that it’s too much of a burden!    And since we are limited to one table (well 1.5 tables if we’re playing Ora et Labora or Eclipse), it’s not a problem finding enough space to play.

An average night for us is usually two to four games with a mix between new and old (well, except after Essen when it’s only new…)  Some recent game nights included:

• November 15, 2011: Cite, Master Merchant, Vanuatu, Meltdown 2020
• October 5, 2011: Vintage, Antigua, Malta!, Rowboat, Tikal 2
• August 31, 2011: Shitenno, Adlungland, Seven, The Enigma of Leonardo, Ninja
• June 22,2011: London, Flashpoint, Troyes, Last Call, Nur die ziege zahlt, Ziegen kriegen
• March 30, 2011: Rivals for Catan, Attika, Pastiche, Hansa Teutonica (w/expansion), Trollhalla

So what do we play?  Just about anything.  We have a pretty informal agenda – usually as we’re emailing each other about which day works best for us, people also pipe up with which games they’re interested in trying.  I’ll admit that I’m often suggesting some new game to play, as I have been receiving more games to take a look at as a result of this blog you’re reading now… I’m blessed to have a group full of gamers who also love playing new games, so I’d say that most weeks we get at least one “new-to-us” game to the table.  But, we’ve also been playing games for years, and there are plenty of times when someone just wants to get an old classic to the table to remember why we loved the game in the first place!

The Cincygamers are also avid rules readers which helps us get through a lot of the new games.  It helps a lot when everyone is already familiar with the basic mechanics or ideas behind a game.  It also makes it a lot easier to teach the game to that semi-educated audience.  Luke usually takes the lead here, as he has honestly never met a ruleset that he hasn’t wanted to read!  There is most definitely a skill in learning games from the rules, and I’m always amazed at how well Luke can teach a game he’s never played before simply from his rules reading.

This year, we played just over 200 games total at the weekly sessions.  Here are the titles that we got to the table in alphabetical order…

1. 11 nimmt!
2. 20th century x 2
3. 23
4. 51st state
5. 7 Wonders
6. 911 to the Rescue x 3
7. A Few Acres of Snow
8. Adlungland
9. Age of Industry
10. Airlines Europe
11. American Rails
12. Ankh Morpork
13. Antigua
14. AoS Outer Space
15. Aquedukt
16. Assyria
17. Attika x 2
18. Avanti x 4
19. Basketball GM x 2
20. Battleship Galaxies
21. Belfort x 2
22. Biblios
23. Big Points
24. Botswana
25. Bottle Imp
26. Burger Baumeister & co
27. Burgund x 6
28. Campos x 2
29. Caravelas
30. Carc Dice Game x 3
31. Cargo Noir x 4
32. Cite
33. Colorado Midland
34. Combit
35. Die Spiecherstadt x 2
36. Dominion x 5 (various expansions and prototypes)
37. Dungeon Petz
38. Eclipse
39. Edison and co
40. Eminent Domain x 3
41. Evolution
42. Famiglia
43. Familienbande
44. Fealty x 3
45. Firenze x 2
46. Fistful of Penguins x 4
47. Fits
48. Fjords x 3
49. Fliegende teppisch
50. Florenza
51. Furstenfeld
52. Goal!
53. Gosu
54. Grand Cru
55. Great Fire of London
56. Hansa teut w exp board x 2
57. Heartland
58. I Betcha
59. Ikebana
60. Inca Empire
61. Irondale
62. Jambo
63. Kaigan
64. Karnaxis
65. Keltis das orakel
66. Key Market
67. King’s Breakfast
68. Kings of air and steam x 2
69. Last call
70. Leprechaun’s Castle
71. Level X
72. Loch Ness
73. London
74. Luna
75. Magnum Sal
76. Malta!
77. Master Merchant
78. Meeptropolis
79. Meltdown 2020
80. Merkator x 3
81. Mines of Zavandor
82. Monsta
83. Nefarious x 3
84. Neighborhood Planner (prototype) x 5
85. New Era x 2
86. Nightfall
87. Ninja
88. Norenberc x 2
89. Nur die ziege zahlt
90. Olympos
91. On the cards x 3
92. Ora et Labora
93. Pantheon x 2
94. Pastiche
95. Patrizier (Patrician)
96. Pergamon
97. PG: Factory Manager
98. Pillars of the Earth card game
99. Potion Making Practice x 2
100. Puzzle Strike x 4
101. Quarriors x 3
102. Risk Legacy x 5
103. Rivals for catan
104. Rowboat*
105. RRR x 6
106. Samurai the cardgame
107. Santiago
108. Secret of Monte cristo x 2
109. Settlers of America
110. Seven
111. Shitenno x 3
112. Splits x 3
113. Star Trek Expeditions
114. StichMeister x 2
115. Strasbourg
116. Summoner Wars x 5
117. Sword & Skull x 2
118. The Enigma of Leonardo
119. The Golden City
120. The Swarm
121. Thebes
122. Tikal 2
123. Timeline
124. Top & Down
125. Toscana
126. Tournay
127. Traffic x 2
128. Triumvirate x 2
129. Trollhalla
130. Troyes x 3
131. Tuareg
132. Uluru
133. Upon a Salty Ocean
134. Vanuatu
135. Vasco de Gama
136. Vintage
137. Wampum
138. Web of Power
139. Wiraqocha
140. World Without End x 2
141. Yomi x 4
142. Ziegen Kriegen
143. *Unnamed prototypes x 5

So, as you can see, we play more newer games than not, and frankly, we don’t repeat a lot of games.  If there is a downside to being in the Cult of the New, and receiving a lot of new games in the mail, it’s that many games only get played one or two times.  However, the list above only includes games from the weekly meeting and there are plenty of other gaming events where we all get to play our favorites a bit more…

And speaking of that… This year, after Essen, our group organized two weekend long events where we got a chance to play a lot of the new games, as well as playing games with a few more folks than we normally see at the weekly group.

In early November, we had the first (hopefully annual) Basement-con.  I hosted 8 or 9 gamers over the course of a long weekend (Weds to Sunday) and we tried to play as many new Essen games as we could!  We played 46 games total, and not many repeats…

Post Essen Weekend list

1. Ab in die Tonne
2. Carre x 2
3. City Tycoon
4. Coney Island
5. Dr Shark
6. Dungeon Fighter x 2
7. Eclipse
8. Feudalherren
9. Forgotten Planet
10. Fortuna
11. Fruit Ninja TCG x 2
12. Galaxia
13. Gnomes of Zavandor
14. Hawaii x 3
15. Helvetia
16. Marble Monster
17. Master Merchant
18. Meltdown 2020
19. MIL (1049)
20. Old Men of the Forest
21. Paperclip Railways
22. PAX
23. Pergamemnon
24. Poseidon’s Kingdom
25. Rallyman: Dirt
26. Recycle
27. Rolling Bones
28. Singapore
29. Talat
30. Terra Evolution
31. Timeline: Inventions x 3
32. Tournay
33. Trajan x 2
34. Tschaak
35. Vanuatu
36. Walnut Grove x 3

This was followed up with the traditional weekend gaming on the Friday/Saturday/Sunday of Thanksgiving.  Attendance on this weekend is always variable because everyone has different plans with their families, but we almost always manage to get in a good session of gaming…  I was also happy to host fellow Opinionated Gamer James Miller for a weekend of fun…

1. Ab in die Tonne
2. Belfort
3. BonBons
4. Carre
5. Coney Island x 2
6. Hawaii
7. Last Will
8. Metropolitan (prototype) x 3
9. Rapa Nui
10. Rumble in the House
11. Sidi Baba
12. Space Bastards
13. Splits
14. The City
15. Timeline
16. Vanuatu
17. Walnut Grove

So, that’s the year that was. We played over 250 games in the group, and 2012 looks like it’s going to shape up to be as good of a year as 2011!  If you’re ever going to be in the Queen City (Cincinnati, OH), let us know and we’ll see if we’re gaming when you’re nearby!

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor