5/16 FND Recap

This game group continues to be blessed with an influx of people!  5/16 saw a new record in attendance (for the second session in a row) with 16 people!  One more than our previous record!  We're hoping that at the 5/30 session we break the 20 person mark.

Lee, Beth, Brian, Annmarie, Emily, Drew, Amy, Diana, Shelley, Steven, Vita, John S.,  John D., Tish, Patty, Jen, and Hellen were all in attendance.  It was Hellen and Tish's first times at FND while I believe all other members had been present at least once before.  And you're reading that right.  Of 17 people, 11 of them were female. 

We got a LOT of games in, including a handful from our featured games list.

To start, Brian taught Shelley and Steven Smash Up!  Unfortunately due to some time constraints they weren't able to finish, but it looked like they were having a good time.

Annemarie and all of the girls not named Beth and Shelley played a game of Life.  Nobody died, which in my eyes means everyone won at life.  They even had a family game night!  How appropriate!

Meanwhile, I taught Dominion to John, John, and Vita (though didn't play myself).  They likewise had a good time learning this deckbuilder and now that they have the basics down will likely have even more fun adding in expansions and doing generic games of it, rather than just the 'intro' one.

Finally, Lee, Beth, Drew, and Amy saved the world from pestilance and disease in Pandemic.  Yup.  We saved the world - you're welcome.  We will accept 'thank yous' in the form of checks and money prizes.  I mean, we're heroes.

After the first round of games drew to a close, everybody not playing life combined forces to play a few rounds of The Resistance: Avalon.

We got two games of Avalon in with 8-9 players each time, which was extremely enjoyable!  The most important thing to know is that Brian is ALWAYS evil.  Always.  Even when he's Merlin. 

In the first game the forces of evil won because of a costly miscalculation on my part (as a member of evil).  I brain-farted and send only one bad guy on the 'two fails required' quest, handing them the game.  Oops.

The evil folk won the second game because they were able to figure out that Helen was Merlin.  You would think that the long white beard would have given it away from the start....

The girls finished up LIFE during this point and played the super fun party game Say Anything.  I don't know what they said specifically, as it could have been anything.

After Avalon concluded we finished with two seperate games.  Helen, John D., John V., Jen, Vita, and Annemarie gathered around for Ticket to Ride (one of them didn't play, of course, as it only supports 5 players).

While that happened, Drew and Amy taught Tish, Brian, and I the very heavy Euro-game Archipelago.  It was very cool but also pretty complicated and so while we got a great grasp of the rules, we didn't quite finish a game.  We concluded after two rounds with Brian holding the lead.

All-in-all it was a terrific night and I think gives a good representation of what FND is all about - encouraging people to play games in their comfort zone.  I don't know of many other gaming groups with people playing an easy game like the Game of Life as well as heavy-hitter like Archipelago, but here we do!  Again, we broke the record with 17.  Whether it is at the upcoming Memorial Day Board-B-Que or the subsequent FND regular meeting, we're aiming to break 20!

Blessings and happy gaming!