The Opinionated Gamers

In late July I convinced a third and final friend from New York to make the trek down to Virginia for a long weekend of board gaming, or for those of you without an aversion to newly minted portmanteaus, a gamecation.  Two days ago I recounted a May gamecation and yesterday I regaled you with one from June, and today the trilogy concludes with one final hurrah.  I used to visit this friend’s office for gaming because both of our apartments in New York were too small for a proper game group and his office had good-sized tables and an accommodating atmosphere.  Now that I found myself displaced to the suburbs of D.C. there was plenty of space to play in my humble abode and plenty of new favorites to try out since I’d moved away a few years earlier.

I have eight go-to two-player games these days.  For a game of moderate length, I pull out Summoner Wars, Netrunner, Neuroshima Hex, or Innovation.  For times when time is not a factor, I reach for War of the Ring, Through the Ages, Twilight Struggle, or Antiquity.  I’m getting to the point where nothing else seems really needed, although I’m happy to trifle with other games to the extent my compatriots desire.  This particular gamecation started off right with the first four games being straight from these top eight.

Mere moments after the train from New York arrived, we opened up the Summoner Wars: Master Set, which is indeed masterful.  It was great to see an old friend from years gone by and equally great to introduce him to a new favorite of mine.  It was the first time he’d experienced the joys of summoning, but not the last as you’ll soon see.  I followed this up by teaching Netrunner and running unsuccessfully twice against his corporate tricks and traps.  And then taught Neuroshima Hex for a pair of games where my armies of Smart and Moloch emerged victorious over his Outpost and Hegemony.  Finally, we concluded the first evening with the main attraction – War of the Ring.  I know we played for a few hours, but I must have blinked because my shadow forces had barely gotten started when he managed to dunk the ring in the fiery pits of Mordor.  I think my armies took too long consolidating and marching north, while Frodo sprinted across Middle Earth on a war path of his own.  After a night spent in equal parts sleeping and retreading how I might have used Gothmog and my Isengard units differently, it was soon time for a whole new day of gamecation.

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When we left off yesterday, we had just concluded the story of a May gamecation (or long-weekend vacation for the express and sole purpose of playing board games) and were resting up for our June visitor.  Today we continue our tale with that promised second round.

Leaving New York meant leaving a lot of board game friends, the kind of friends that understand why October is such an exciting month and that know why there’s a pastel camel on my t-shirt.  Fortunately, there are buses and trains that will bring them to my doorstep where I can make them play games with me for several days straight.  This particular gamecation was inspired by the Game of Thrones LCG, even though I don’t play it.  Another New York friend has apparently turned into an avid player since my departure and was eager to come down to D.C. for a labyrinthian tournament.  I was more than happy to put him up, so long as he spent every waking moment playing games with me when he wasn’t at the tournament.  I even made sure to put a curse on his performance to ensure as quick an exit as possible from the tournament.

Friday evening saw a handful of great games.  My New York friend had brought another friend in tow for the tournament, so we started with a three-player game of Evo.  My strategy of being a cheapskate in the auction is one that continues to work, particularly when introducing the game to new players (and teaching the game poorly).  This was followed with the latest novelties in the field of speed puzzles and pattern recognition – Panic Lab and Pick-a-Pig.  These draining games sent the friend of a friend off to bed, so we had time for some two-player gaming.  Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit practically leapt off the shelf as it’s an old favorite from past times setting it up in a cramped Manhattan apartment where the three dimensional board filled an entire studio.  My palace guards were brilliant with their window ledge movement, but after showing initial promise Anakin was an utter disappointment and the Jedi fell flat on their face.  The droids were incessant and ultimately overran my forces.  The evening concluded with a game of Innovation using the latest Figures in the Sand expansion.  The figures are a wonderful addition to a great two-player game.  They change it just enough without changing it too much, which is a tough balance to find and a lot to ask from a handful of cards.

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This summer I managed to cajole, pressure, and persuade four friends from afar to travel to our nation’s capital, not for a weekend of sightseeing but for a weekend of game playing. One traveler dubbed this his “gamecation” and the name stuck.  This is what comes from uprooting your life and moving to another city, finding yourself needing to transplant former neighbors for a weekend of reliving a year’s worth of lost game nights in a few days of non-stop gaming.  It’s intense and exhausting and exhilarating.  I had to space out these visits to keep from passing out.  I also had to keep a buffer between my many – and I mean many – War of the Ring defeats.

It all started in May when a friend from New York and another from Texas both converged on the District of Columbia for a long weekend of game playing.  It was half-way between BGG.CON’s and high-time for a dedicated board game weekend.  The Texan arrived early, presumably for the express purpose of corrupting Frodo.  But I’m getting ahead of myself; we started slowly with a game of Crokinole in which I demonstrated my extreme flicking prowess, followed by a couple games of my latest addiction Android: Netrunner (hereinafter Netrunner).  Then we took a left turn down memory lane and did a two-person Rochester draft of my retro 1994-1999 Magic: The Gathering cube.  Much to my chagrin, I never drew my Vesuvan Doppelganger.  Six games of Magic later, it was time for the heavy hitter – War of the Ring, with the latest and greatest Lords of Middle-Earth expansion and a newly flown in Treebeard promo to round it out.  Frodo fell to the lure of the ring and it was time for a night of fitful dreams on the error of the hobbit’s ways.

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