So Mark decided to take Wednesday off on sick leave because I wasn’t feeling well. We left the house at 11:15 am and after a stop at the bank and a stop in Fort Wayne for lunch we got into Indy around 5pm. We checked into out hotel, and then walked over to the convention center to pick up our badges, to get the kids kid badges and to get our swag. The swag was very sad this year there was a dice and a booster pack of Magic cards and that was it. Then we went to Champs in Circle Center Mall for dinner, then back to the hotel to go to the pool and then to bed.
Thursday morning we ordered room service from the hotel from breakfast and after getting the bill thought better of it. Then we all got dressed/showered and walked over to the convention center to find where our games were. Mark was in 500 reception playing Catan Geographies: Germany by Mayfair and I was in the Wabash Ballroom playing Secrets of the Sea by Playroom Entertainment. For some odd reason they put Playroom Entertainments games in a ballroom full of miniatures it was weird and somewhat annoying. Secrets of the Sea is a kids game that after I played it was a little bit too old for Abby but the people I played with(a dad and his 2 boys) I had played with previously during an OtB(Out of the Box) game in previous years. The dad was explaining that this was the first year he had brought both boys(age 10 and 8 ) because the 10yr old had bought his own badge.(impressive for a 10yr old to save up $65 to spend I thought) A note kids 8 and under don’t need a badge if they won’t be playing in games but if they do play games you have to buy them a badge. Secrets of the Sea was only an hour time slot and the game only took like 30 minutes. So I took a break and grabbed a coffee before coming back for a 11am Killer Bunnies Start Deck game. Killer Bunnies went with 7 people: 3 people new to the game, 2 somewhat familiar with the game and 2 a little rusty. The 3 new people to the game were a dad and his 2 boys(seeing a pattern here?), the one guy familiar with the game was quite abrasive and overly competitive and we promptly ganged up on him and he never say another bunny for the rest of the game. The dad ended up winning the game. During my Killer Bunnies game Mark’s Catan Georgraphies game ended and he came to Wasbash to learn Portobello Market.(I’ll see if I can get him to log on and write game reviews on the games he played in) My Killer Bunnies ended and Mark’s game was still going so I delved into the dealer’s hall for 30 minutes and then we went to Chick-Filet<sp> at the food court in the Circle Centre Mall.
Mark and I then played Ticket to Ride Dice by Days of Wonder. It very much simplified the game and in our thoughts made the game more playable for kids and made the game a quicker game. The dice replaced the gathering of train cards so it did away with having to collect certain color sets in order to claim certain routes. The dice had a single track on two sides, a double track on two sides, a “wild” red engine on one side, and a blue station on another side and there were 5 dice. On your turn you rolled the dice and then you could claim anywhere from a 1 track to 5 track route. Also if you had 2 leftover dice you didn’t use(they did not have to match) you could take a single or double track token to use at a later time. The station side of the dice allowed you to look at new route tickets and the number of stations you got determined the number of route tickets you could look at it(1-5). The set also came with 3 black dice that you used if you were playing Marklin, 1910 or Europe. Mark ended up winning this game.
Ticket to Ride Dice ran long so going into Pirate’s Cove(another Days of Wonder game) we made a few people unhappy because we had tickets and the GM had already let generics sit(though we had been telling them since Ticket to Ride dice practically started that we would be there for Pirate’s Cove but more than likely late)So after 2 people got up grumbling we sat down at different tables to learn the game. Well the GM had already given the jist of the game so the people at my table kindly caught me up and we started. It was quite a delightful game I though. You were a pirate and you had a ship that had 4 stats: sails, hull, crew and cannons. You started off with a base number of 4 in all stats and started with like 6 coins that you could use to make upgrades to your stats right off the bat. All ships started off in Pirate’s Cove and then you could decide to go to one of 6 islands to plunder. There were 4 items you could plunder; gold(to use to purchase upgrade or tavern cards), victory points, treasure chests and tavern cards. Treasure chests you held in your hull(your hull stat determined how many treasure chests you could carry before you needed to go to treasure island to turn them in for victory points) Tavern cards came in varities: parrots, volley cards, battle cards and other fun cards. On your turn you had a dial you decided which island you wanted to go to secretly based on the face up plunder card, then everyone would flip over their dial and move their ship. If more than one ship landed at a particular island a battle ensued. The ship with the highest sail number would shoot first. Your cannon stat determined the number of d6 you rolled to do damage and before you rolled you declared what you were shooting at(sails, crew, cannon or hull) Your crew number and cannon number need to be equal or you can only shoot as many cannons as you could crew. You played 9 rounds and the person with the most victory points won.
Then we went to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory with Jay and family. The fams and kids went back to the hotel to go to the pool and my mom and I headed back to the convention center to squeeze in one more game. I played in Cutthroat Caverns with my friend Sharon from Texas and my mom played in Redneck Life. I liked Cutthroat Caverns even though the GM didn’t know the game very well, the other 4 players at the table seemed to know what they were doing and that was day 1!
Friday morning Mark volunteered to walk over to Chick-Filet and get breakfast meanwhile we ordered an order of pancakes from room service for the girls to split. I showered while the girls slept and while Mark went out and got breakfast. Then I ate breakfast while Mark showered then we walked to the Starbucks in the Westin and headed to our first game Candamir: The First Settlers. Loved the game after we finally tracked down a GM that knew the game and could teach us. You picked a character each character had 5 stats; endurance, strength, charamisa, prowness and agility. The board was split into two; the village side and the wildnerness side. You had 4 movement(unless another player did something to lower your endurance) your movement was determined by a deck of cards. On each movement card you could go North, East, South or West, but in each movement direction you could run into a bear, a wolf, help candimir, gather a herb, run into a ? or sometimes their would be nothing. Next to the bear, wolf, and help candimir would be a stat and a number for example their would be a prowness symbol and the number 6, which meant that you would look at your character card next to prowness and then roll a die 6 to see if you could beat the wolfs 6, if you could you were awarded with a fur. On the wilderness side were face down hex tiles that had rewards on the back. Rewards were resources, herbs, experience, goats and cows. The resources were used to make swords, window coverings and chests. The herbs were used to make either a healing potion, mead or an elixir which you could use to boost your prowness, agility, strength or charisma. You got victory points for creating swords, window coverings and chests to give to the villagers. You also got victory points for giving goats and cows to the villagers. The first person to get 3 items a villager wanted also got a victory point(similiar to longest road etc). On the wilderness side there was also a mine, a fur camp, and a lumberyard you could visit and collect 1 resource. The game ended when 1 person hit 10 victory points(which were represented by 10 wooden colored cubes you were given at the beginning of the game)
We then went to lunch at the Old Spaghetti Facoty with Sharon and Mark and Angie who Sharon and I knew from a mudd we both play on. I then went to go play in a Wits and Wagers tournament. In Wits and Wagers a trivia question is read and then you write down a guess to the answer on a colored wipey board and place it face down on the board(which is a felt mat) everyones guesses are then arranged on the mat from highest to lowest. The mat resembles a football field with 7 rectangles with odds written on the edge. Ranged from 5 to 1, to 2 to 1. Then you take your 2 colored tokens and bet on which one you think is the winner, the answer is read and the bets are paid out. The person at the end of the game with the most chips wins! I came in dead last at my table and Mark was just starting Railroad Tycoon so as I was heading to the dealer’s hall to wander I received a call from Jay saying he and the family was heading that way and then I bumped into Alex, Mike and Mike’s Little Brother. I wandered the dealer’s hall to my next game.
My next game was Word on the Street by OtB. In Word on the Street there 5 columns and the middle column were most of the alphabet minus vowels and the letter Z. Players were split into 2 teams. On your turn you had 30 seconds to come up with a word that answered the topic and then move the letters in the word you selected one column to your side of the board. The goal was to move as many letters off the board onto your teams side. The first team to get 8 letter tiles off the board to your side won. I thorougly enjoyed this game but my teammates were a little lack luster and didn’t stay around for the consolation rounds so I was kind bummed. Next I played ABridged which I had played before and came in second and won a $5 gift certificate. Then we went to a resturant called Bucca di Beppo with Sharon, her husband Mike and Sharon’s sister and brother-in-law. Bucca was a delicious Italian family style resturant. We all shared a family salad, Mark got lasagna and my mom and I shared a delicious Spicy Rosa Shrimp dish. Then for dessert we got a sampler dessert platter of tiramisu, triple chocolate cake, cheesecake and a apple tartlet. My mom went to go play Trailer Wars and Sharon, Mike and I played in Red Neck Life. Hilarous game just like the Game of Life but redneck style. The person at the end of the game with the most teeth won! Thus endth day 2.
Day 3 Mark volunteered to go to Einstein Brothers for breakfast and the girls had room service pancakes again. Mark was supposed to play in Age of Napolean by Mayfair but it was only a 2 player game and the second player never showed instead he played Struggle for Rome. I played in Catan Geographies: Germany. Delightful game where are given 10 town halls which represent your victory points. The board is pre-set and there are 4 cards with 3 starting cities on them that are dealt out randomly. In this game you earned victory points by building townhalls in cities, largest army, longest road and monuments. For building the monument you got rewards like resources and development cards. Then we went to lunch.
That afternoon Mark and I played in 3 new OtB games 7ate9, Super Circles, and Letter Roll. 7ate9 was a speed game. The cards had number 1-10 on them and in the corner would be a + or – 1, 2, or 3. So if a 1 +1 card was laid on the table you laid a 2 on it. The first person to get rid of all their cards won. Super Circles was another speed game. The cards had 4 colored rings on it and you had to match A ring, so if I played a pink one, the next person to play a card to match a colored ring could do any other ring other than 1. Mark came in second in this game. Lastly we played in Letter Roll in Letter Roll there were 7 dice; 2 “easy”, 3 “medium”, and 2 “hard” dice. The level of difficult had to do with the letters on the dice and the dice were all 20 siders. The roller would pick 4 dice, roll them and then the person to the left of the roller would take 1 out. All the players would then have 2 minutes to come up with as many words that had the 3 letters in it somewhere. Once the 2 minutes were over the roller would start reading off the words they got and crossing off any word that someone else came up with. Normally with 5 players you would go around till everyone had rolled twice but we only had time to go around once. That was the last game of the con for me.
We then went on a shopping spree where we bought matching Cookie Monster shirts for Mark and the girls, I got a shirt that showed a little dragon and a pile of books that said, So many books, so little time. Then I hit the Marget Weiss/Tracey Hickman booth and bought 6 books(2 hardcovers and 4 paperbacks) the 2 hard covers were by Tracey and Laura Hickman so I had Tracey sign them and had my picture taken with him, and I had my picture taken with Maraget Weiss(I’ll post pics on facebook). Then we purchased Catan Geographies:Germany, Letter Roll, Redneck Life and the expansion for my mom and then the girls each got 1 stuffed animal. Then we went to the Weber’s Grill with the Blob, then onto a PodCasters meet and greet, then I went back to the convention hall to walk my mom back to the hotel. Thus endth day 3.
Day 4 last day
Mark got Einstein Brothers for us for breakfast and the girls ate room service pancakes. We packed up the room, then I went over to the Marriot to tape a Blobcast.