Sep 16 RussCon Report
We were back down to smaller numbers, a mere dozen of us. I amazed everyone by the major housecleaning I did recently...
A variety of old and new games were played!
As Devil, I chose to play my new game Trainsport Austria. This is a crayon train game from Winsome (not to be confused with the evil crayon train games from Mayfair). It proved to be a good game where your decisions matter, and boy did I make wrong decisions. After starting with $40 I ended with $8 and last place. Clayton won, being the first to reach the required $80.
Meanwhile KevinH won a 6-player Acquire.
Then we played Elfenland, the rare German game I'd seen mentioned on rec.games.board but had never seen in real life. Marty managed to special order a single damaged copy. It turns out to be quite fun and clever. As in the Traveling Salesman Problem, you want to visit all the cities. The way movement works is an unusual combination of competition and cooperation, with a fair amount of luck too. I won the first game of it, and Marty won the 2nd game. It appears that very close finishes are common, which adds to the fun.
KevinH won Priceless.
Tim won Guillotine. (The book listed JonathanC as 2nd place; I can only assume that was JonathanB. Folks, please be careful when recording game results. (See Errata section below.) Thanks!)
Finally, William, JP, and Squeaky played Master Labyrinth, which is actually the very first German import I ever acquired, years ago. It's quite a good simple little game, and I'm glad it finally got played at RussCon. JP & Squeaky agonized more than I've ever seen, though, stretching what is normally a half hour game into a 2 hour game. Squeaky won, and got all 3 of his secret ingredients, so his agonizing paid off.
Thus KevinH won 2 games. Clayton, RussW, Marty, Tim, and Squeaky won 1.
There was also a 4-player game of Ursuppe, but near the end the players determined that a major rule screwup had taken place, and they annulled the game. I figure they should have called it a 3-way joint victory with William coming in last, since he was the low-down cheatin' varmint, but hey... what ever! Everyone was probably feeling kindly toward William thanks to his generous supplies of ice cream!
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Evening's Soundtrack:
The theme was The Bard. Jay and Alfred win a prize for detecting this.
Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Michael Nyman, Prospero's Books
Shakespear's Sister, Hormonally Yours
Tromeo & Juliet (soundtrack)
William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (soundtrack)
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Amazing Downtown Fact:
Last week it was reported in the RussCon Report:
WendyWhi won Downtown. A single zone valuation earned her $42! That's the largest single chunk of income I recall anyone earning in Downtown.
To which our esteemed reader JP replied:
Actually, it's not. The maximum that can be earned is 50, and it has been earned, by James. (of course it was James.)
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Amazing RoboRally Fact:
I learned on rec.games.board that we erred on the new Radiation rules. Radiation does a point of damage at the end of a turn, not the end of every phase. I propose we play RoboRally again soon to restore our Robotic Karma.
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Email woes:
Did anyone not get the Sep 9 RussCon report (sent late last Thursday night, Sep 10)? I was having grievous mailer woes.
Let me know if you'd like me to send you one.
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Ratings Errata:
Last week it was erroneously reported that JP & Marty tied a game of Guillotine. In fact, there was a recording error in the book; JP & Squeaky tied the game. As William observed later, "It's the insidious Marty Mix-Up-Maneuver! Also known as Ma-MU-Ma."
After recomputing the stats, the ordering changed, and Squeaky was 3rd place in the Devil Hierarchy last week.
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Rank ratings:
1.0000 KevinH (2 games played)
0.6000 JonathanB (3)
0.3333 Marty (3)
0.2500 Tim (2)
0.1667 RussW (3)
0.0000 Clayton (2)
0.0000 Jay (2)
0.0000 Ken (3)
-0.2000 JP (3)
-0.6000 William (2)
-0.6364 James (3)
-0.8182 Alfred (3)
Win ratings:
1.0000 KevinH (2)
0.6364 Tim (2)
0.6000 Clayton (2)
0.3333 Marty (3)
0.3333 RussW (3)
0.2308 JonathanB (3)
-1.0000 Jay (2)
-1.0000 Ken (3)
-1.0000 JP (3)
-1.0000 William (2)
-1.0000 James (3)
-1.0000 Alfred (3)
KevinH
/ | \
/ | \
/ | Tim
/ Marty/ |
JonathanB | / |
\ |/ Clayton
\ RussW /
\ | /
\ | /
Jay=Ken
|
JP
|
William
|
James
|
Alfred
Congratulations to KevinH, Devil after his 2nd RussCon! Arrive at 7 and play the game of your choice at the dining table. Vice-Devil is Tim, then Marty, then Squeaky... just as the carefully laid out state-of-the-art diagram illustrates.
And congratulations to Jay and Ken for sharing the Extra Average award for winning no games and defeating exactly as many opponents as defeated them in their games.
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If we gamers have offended,
Roll the dice, and all is mended!
See you Sep 23,
Russ