July 15, 2006 - Games at Home and Rockheads

Andrew and I played 2 games of Dungeon Twister with the Paladins & Dragons expansion in the afternoon.  I got tromped on in the first game and I also lost the second game but it was MUCH closer.  We added in a Timer (2 minutes to complete your turn) part way thru the 2nd game.  That makes it a much tougher game.  Now the pressure is on, especially when you have actions left and you see the time running out.  If you do not complete the actions before time runs out you loose them.  Zac would definitely have a hard time with the timer.

At 7 pm we were going to play Formula De at Rockheads in Kenosha.  The other 5 players risking their lives to drive in the race were Brian, Steve, Patty, Jesse and Matt.  We were racing on the 10th Anniversery Formula De track #33, which is not based on a real track but was designed to be a challenging track.

Starting line is on the bottom and the track runs Clockwise to the left

Turn 1 (bottom left) was a 3 stop curve, Turn 2 (right middle) was a 1 stop turn, Turn 3 (left middle) was 1 stop, Turn 4 (top left) was 2 stop, Turn 5 (top right) was 3 stop and Turn 6 (bottom right) was a 2 stop.

Brian got out the COOL dashboards that he uses for running the Formula De races at GenCon.  We had 20 points for our cars and I built a well rounded car while Andrew built one heavy on tires.

(R to L) Brian, Steve, Patty, Jesse, Tim, Matt and Andrew

Almost everybody got bunched up in turn 1 but Brian and Steve were hitting the gears just right and pulled out to an early lead.  There was a moment of concern when it started to rain as Brian and Steve started to enter Turn 4 but the rain quit averting possible disaster.  At the end of the 1st lap Brian and Steve were still in the lead and everybody was pitting for new tires and repairs.  Brian opted for tires only and made a quick pit and his lead grew even more.  Patty and I managed to pull into 3rd and 4th place leaving the pits. Jesse and Andrew opted to put on Soft tires even with the threat of rain.

Tragedy struck on turn 4 of the 2nd lap and Patty spun out and crashed when she could not decrease her speed enough for the turn.  The 2nd lap also claimed another victim, Brian in turn 6, who had too much speed and could not downshift enough to make the corner and crashed just short of the pits.

At the end of lap 2 the field was down to 5 drivers and quite a change in the order.  Matt, Jesse and Andrew were in 1st, 2nd and 3rd with Steve in 4th and Tim bringing up the rear.  The soft tires were really helping out Andrew and Jesse and the rain that threatened never did appear.

Patty, Jesse, Andrew, Brain and Steve

Lap 3 did not go so well for Andrew however.  Turn 4 claimed another victim, Andrew, who did not have enough fuel to downshift to negotiate the 2 stop turn.  Matt and Jesse battled it out for 1st while Steve and Tim fought for 3rd place.  Matt ended up getting 1st and Jesse got 2nd place.  With Tim and Steve nearly even coming out of turn 6 it was down to the final push.  Tim managed to get 3rd by pushing his engine to the limit and Steve got 4th place.  Three of the drivers that started did not finish.

Brain, Matt, Tim and Jesse

It was a very enjoyable evening and Andrew and I had a great time.  Above are the pole positions and standings after each lap and the finish.  We have board game night coming up at Rockheads on August 5.  That will be the week before GenCon and the week before our gaming at at Chris’s house. 

We may have been done playing Formula De but Zac was waiting at our house so Andrew and I headed back home to see what game we could talk Zac into playing.  It has been a while since we played Railroad Tycoon and Andrew and I were both up for it so we talked Zac into playing and it was almost midnight.  I got everything set up: Zac was Red, Andrew was Black and I was Yellow.

Andrew near the start of the game.

We were playing on only part of the map to increase competition and we were not using any cities in the Northeast.  The first set of cards had a Railroad Executive card, which allowed the person who got the card to immediately take 2 actions.  I knew the bidding would be high and as Andrew and I neared $10,000, Zac bowed out of the auction.  Andrew ended up getting it for $11,000, I should have bid higher.  Another card that was out was a bounty for the 1st delivery to Jacksonville FL. After Andrew took the card as 1st player he built track to Jacksonvile and delivered a good getting the bounty, the 1st delivery bonus and a point for the delivery.  It was not looking good for Zac and me.

Zac and me waiting to take our turns.

Andrew pretty much controlled the southeast while Zac concentrated on the north and me the central area.  The point leader for almost all of the game (Zac was the leader for a turn or two) was Andrew.  Zac and I decide to gang up on him and block him when he tried to connect New Orleans to Mobile.  Andrew still could have connected to Mobile but would have had to pay $10,000 instead of the $2,000 to finish his track.  Instead ANdrew ended up going to a different city with his track.  Our intention was to just make him pay more.

Zac (red) and I (yellow) combine forces to stop the Evil Andrew Railroad empire (black) from connecting to Mobile.

Well, turn about is fair play and Andrew was out to get me as I was the one to talk Zac into blocking him.  Not being one to pass up a chance to get even Andrew tried to block me at Des Moines but without Zac’s help it just caused me to spend a little more money.

Andrew (black) blocking me (yellow) at Des Moines and me going around him.

Zac managed to catch up to Andrew but Andrew was completing deliveries for 6, 7 and 8 points while Zac was only getting 4 and 5.  I completed the route from New Orleans to Minneapolis for 10 points but I did not have long routes until late in the game.  In the end it was Andrew with the win and Zac coming in 2nd.

It was about 3am so that was going to have to be the last game of the day.  We had a good time but now it was time to get some sleep.