The E.B.G.G. report

An article by Don Quixote    No Comments

Ah, I love the smell of board games in the evening.

Last night was another rousing E.B.G.G. at Casa Soulliere. Those attending were the ever on time Jon Adam, followed by the “we travel in herds” Joanna Robbins, her roommate Mark I have no last name, and the pontiff of gaming gatherings, Brian Stouder. While we were all certain that Ellen would not be able to attend (most likely caused by the onset of school, homework and her upcoming book tour), but we were confused on the attendance of Master Robbins. Brian and Joanna both thought that he might be coming, turns out, no. He wasn’t. The only comment that could be had on the situation was Joanna who asserted, “I’m not my fathers keeper.” Michelle showed up after her evening class, but had a headache and some homework and decided to sit out.

The evening began with a game that was new(ish) to most of us. I had played a two player game a LONG time ago, John had played a few times many a moon ago as well, while Brian and Mark I.H.N.L.N. were still confused about the beans.

Brian read over the rules, Joanna filled in the blanks, and the rest of us just made it up as we went along. Joanna had the clear lead in the game as she turned over bean fields like they were going out of style, and she had all the ones that made quick cash. Mark I.H.N.L.N. was a slow starter and turned over a lot of fields with no yield in gold. Brian made a few fumbles early on, but quickly turned into the man, as he often would have piles of beans in his fields and everyone was willing to pass them his way. He became the Don of coffee beans and several other varieties. The flaw in Brian’s plan was that his beans were low yield for his investment. Jon and I took baby steps, turning over fields as needed, but always certain we made a coin or two on the transaction. I caught on to the low bean/high yield that Joanna was doing and moved forward with all speed. Joanna would have most likely won the game is she hadn’t been the victim of all of our “donations”. It was clear to the rest of us that she was the biggest threat and so we made her a target. The game wrapped up pretty quickly. It was a bean biter to the end, but Jon and I tied with 18, Joanna had 14, Brian 11 (or 14) and Mark I.H.N.L.N. came in with 9.

Next Brian decided that we needed to jump into something with a bit more meat, we were torn between Alhambra, Union Pacific, and Amun-Re. Jon and I were secretly pulling for U-pac, but Brian thought it might be a bit long. So we settled on Alhambra.

Now Joanna had told me weeks ago that she didn’t have a long attention span for games and that she got bored easily. Her ADD showed its self during this game. Brian was the king of over spending, paying at one point a whopping 7 dollars more than he needed to for a tower to add to his Alhambra. The first scoring round came pretty quickly. Brian had the commanding lead as he had the longest wall and control of the towers. I got hosed. I had 3 points for my wall and that was the sum total of my scoring for the first round. Jon also seemed to do well and Mark I.H.N.L.N. seemed to be taking to the game well. The game progressed on and it became clear that for all future E.B.G.G. events we had to ban Mark I.H.N.L.N. from drinking Mountain Dew. As the hour grew later he got louder and more talkative, you would have thought we spiked it. But we could tell he was feeling comfortable and enjoying himself, so comfortable in fact he got into a discussion about his “tackle”.

Brian continued to dominate this game with his purchasing power. Jon was hanging tough with him, Mark I.H.N.L.N. and I were trying to keep in the game, and Joanna checked out somewhere after the first scoring round (though she continued to collect money). The game became very close at the end with Jon, Brian and myself all within a point of each other. Brian won the last tower and serval but due to poor building of his Alhambra wasn’t able to place them, he had walled himself in. This fatal error cost him the game and I was able to shoot out for the win with 106 points, while Joanna, longing for her gameboy brought up the tail end with 40 points (4 of those coming from her mighty wall).

The hour was getting late and we had considered calling it a night, but for good or bad, we wanted to let Joanna end on a good note and so we broke out killer bunnies. This might have been a bad idea as I’m not sure how it went over. But we pressed on, killed a few bunnies and Mark I.H.N.L.N. even broke out the dread Ebola virus into our bunny circle. Brian was the king of carrots and had secured 5 of the 12 total available. Joanna nabbed two, Mark I.H.N.L.N. two, and I had three. Jon, who had fought a good game didn’t have a chance to get one. Perhaps if his last bunny hadn’t been killed by the pizza delivery guy he might have had hope. In the end though, Rick, the sailor carrot was the magic carrot, and I stole the game from Brian. A good time was had by all.