Crackin’ the E.B.G.G.

An article by Don Quixote    2 Comments

Well last night was another exciting Evening Board Game Gathering (E.B.G.G. – “egg”, the ‘b’ is silent) at the old homestead. Those attending were: Jon, Mark, Ellen, Michelle, Bob and our newest recruit, Brian (who is a member of Mark’s Game Night [tm]).

We decided tonight to break out a game that I’ve been dying to play since I first bought it, TurfMaster. TurfMaster simulates the sport of kings, horse racing. The goal is simple, be the first player around the track, each of the first four positions scores points, the one with the most points after three races is the winner.

Sound simple enough? Well as always, it’s never that simple. Each race is composed of rounds. Each player has a stack of 32 cards and a pair of dice and rounds alternate between a card round and a dice round. At the start of each round players are dealt 10 new cards from their deck of 32, unused cards from a previous round can be swapped out with cards dealt for the new round, however, every player must discard down to 10 before the race starts. Players move according to position, the first horse moves first.

On a card round, the players individual card played moves their horse forward, however there are some rules and some exceptions to this. The first 3 players are under a handicap. The first horse can move a maximum of 8, the second 9, and the third 10 (unless a joker is played and then there are no movement rules). Also, you cannot just change lanes at random. You are only allowed to change lanes on your first square of movement, after that you have to wait until after your 6 square, but again you can only change one lane. To further make your planning tough, the first space in front of any horse is considered blocked, and you cannot move through it.

On a dice round, one player rolls the dice. He can either choose one individual dice or the total as the moment for the round. This is where things get interesting. The handicap still applies to the first three horses. So if a player rolls a eleven, then the lead horses only get to use one of the dice numbers to move allowing the others to break for the lead.

It was a great game and I was very impressed with.

As always, Michelle one starting position (inside lane) with her continued luck with dice as she rolled a 12, the rest of us filtered in beside here. The bell sounded and the race was off. We jockeyed back and forth as we approached the first turn and the pack got pretty tight. I was able to break for the lead going into the turn and held it for most of the race. Mark in control of the dark horse was lagging behind the whole race. However, from the outside lane there came a red blur. With her usual battle cry of, “As long as I beat Bob and my dad, then I’m happy,” Ellen shot into the lead going into the fourth turn and held it for the open stretch to take the first race. Michelle followed second, Jon third, I came in fourth and Mark took the last spot.

At this point we were joined by Brian who came at the other 6:30 (aka 7:00). Again the bell sounded and the race was on. It became pretty clear that the strategy of the round from all other players was box in the orange horse (aka Bob). Wedge inside there was little room to move and all horses were pressed close. Coming into the fourth turn we were all pretty close as we raced toward the line. No contest, Ellen finished first, Mark Second, Brian third, and Jon fourth. I was left standing one space behind the finish line with Michelle several spaces back. However, as luck (or bad luck would have it), I didn’t have a single card under 8 to play, so I couldn’t move and Michelle crossed the line before I did to take fifth place, and I took up the last spot.

It became clear that this point that the game was no challenge for Ellen and she wanted to end the game early (after all, she had 100 points and no one could catch her) and play something else as bedtime was fast approaching. However, the rest of us wouldn’t have it as we all wanted our chance to stand in the winners circle.

So once again the race was on. Mark and I fought hard for the lead using some of our joker cards to break the handicap rule. But in the end, the good guys won and the Orange horse took the day. Ellen who had already sent her horse to the barn for much needed rest, came in last.

At this point, Mark and Ellen had to take off, so the rest of us were left to our own devices. As fate would have it, I had received in the mail that very day my new Settlers of Catan board that I won on eBay. It was sitting there looking some amazing that we broke down and decided to break it in with a game of Catan.

Brain tried to play the old, “Oh, I haven’t played this game in quite a while” trick, but it became pretty clear that it came back pretty quickly as he cut a swatch across the board with his red road and 5 settlements. Brain had the lead with 7 points and it seemed assured that he would take the game as the rest of us were locked in to 3 victory points. It seemed that every turn Brian was producing a handful of cards.

This however proved to be his downfall as he became victim of the Robber’s unlucky 7 on at least different occasions loosing at least 20 cards from his hand between those times.

Michelle continued to employ her development strategy as she bought cards like they were going out of style. Jon was getting the shaft for 90% of the game, but his luck started to turn at the end as he got the largest army and a few cities to bring is total up to 8. I was using the old “Straw into Gold” strat, and had worked myself into striking posting to get Brian’s longest road. Michelle only had 5 points on the board, it was pretty clear to the rest of us that she had 3 victory points hidden waiting to be deployed. Brain climbed one more point to 9 and the race was on.

I had two good turns with a roll of a 5 and landed four brick just aching for some trees. On my turn I rolled a 4, got a lumber, traded for one, and then used my wheat factory to crank out the other two. In a powerful sweep, I laid down four pieces of newly acquired road to take the longest road and the win.

A great time was had by all.