5/30 Recap

Greetings!

This most recent FND session featured yet again record numbers!  We had 18 people come out to play games - Lee N., Beth, Brian, Dan, John D., Lee T., Logan, Dustin, Heather, Helen, Ruth, John S., Vita, David, Dana, Jake, Drew, and Amy.  Dustin, Heather, Jake, and Logan were all newcomers.

Because we had so many people we were able to play a wide variety of games - having as many as four going at one time.

Beth taught Carcassone to David and Dana at one table.  They both seemed to enjoy the game, though David a bit less so as he was beat pretty convincingly by his wife.  Dana won this one, despite it being her first game!

Meanwhile, I taught Takenoko to Ruth, John S., and Vita.  Takenoko is a very light game involving pandas and bamboo and gardening... It's a little different, but the components are beautiful.  Like Beth, despite being the teacher, I did not win!  Vita pulled it out by just a few points.

As these games were going on more people filed in and they took to some other tables with different boxes.

Jake, John D., Any, Drew, and Helen all gathered around for a game of Smash Up!  I'm not sure of any of the details, but I do know that Helen reigned in the crown despite being dealt into the game late.

Finally, Brian, Lee T., Logan, Heather, and Dustin busted out a game of Lords of Waterdeep, which has seen quite a good deal of playtime at FND.  Brian won this game.

While Waterdeep and Smash Up! were still being played, it was time to start one of the featured games of the week - Telestrations.  Telestrations, as detailed in the preview, is party game that combines the drawing element of Pictionary with the 'telephone game.'  It is quite hysterical and the few rounds we played were no different - made particularly humorous due to a few members particularly interesting drawing abilities.

After Telestrations broke up we moved onto a whole new round of games.

Alien Frontiers, another of the featured games, was learned by Dustin, Dan, Logan, and Lee T.  Frontiers is a reasonably complicated game and they all picked up on it quite quickly.  Despite a very back-and-forth game, Dustin, taking control of the Smugglers faction, was able to end the game on top of the scoring track.

At another table John S., Ruth, and Vita taught Ticket to Ride to Dana.  Unfortunately her luck of winning new games ran out as John S. won this one.

A second game of Smash Up! started up with Jake, David, John D., Brian, and Helen, however this time it was Brian who won the game.

Finally during this stretch of time Beth taught Takenoko to Drew and Amy - Drew felt particularly manly playing a game with pretty colors and a nice painted Panda and looks forward to playing it again as soon as possible.  Despite his affection for it, he was bested by his sister - Amy won.  Apparently it was a good night for people learning games to go ahead and win.

Takenoko and Ticket to Ride finished up around the same time with still around an hour left of gaming so I taught John S., Beth, Amy, and Drew the last of the featured games - Kingsburg.  The four of them seemed to really enjoy it as there was a lot of tabeltalk occurring - particularly at the end when the King's dice roll for defense was exactly what Beth required to win the battle and have everybody else go down.  Despite that convenient luck, Drew was still able to pull out the victory with Beth in a close second.

The last game that was played was Hanabi - a fun and relatively quick cooperative card game.  Brian, Helen, Lee T., and my self played and ended with 20 points - good for the third highest winning category.  Not too bad!

As you can see we played a LOT of games!  Good times seemed to be had by all and we are very excited to see are numbers continue to grow.

We are making a large push to get our next FND past the 20-person mark so we will be doing some extra things to make that happen - including some prizes, food, and more!  Be sure to check the featured games page when it is posted for more details.

If you weren't at this most recent FND hopefully we'll catch you at the next one!