VBGG Wakes up for COVID-19 Pandemic

Well good morning!  VBGG has been asleep for a LONG time!   VBGG started in 2016 when we all had young kids and were home-bound in the evenings.  We wanted to came, but couldn't leave the house for the infant and toddler's sake.

Now it's 2020, and we have a new reason to be homebound - COVID-19.  Time to wake up the VBGG and get to some board gaming with requisite social distancing!

Check the links on the right side.  We'll update them with our new favorite online gaming resources.

Want to play something right now?  Try a game of Dominion against a bot at https://dominion.games/ . 

- Pete

Session Report - November 5 2008 - Beth is the Mayor of San Juan

San Juan was the game of choice tonight. Karen, Beth, Dana and Collin played the first game after a long wait to upload BrettSpielWelt. Collin used the chapel strategy and discovered it prevented him from building as fast as the others. Most of us were building a lot of production buildings. Beth ended up winning it in the end with the Guild Hall, a couple of monuments, and City Hall.

-- IceFire2112 erreichte 32 SP, davon 18 SP durch Gebaeude und 7 SP durch grosse Gebaeude. Kapelle: 7
-- magennis erreichte 39 SP, davon 23 SP durch Gebaeude und 16 SP durch grosse Gebaeude.
-- Amazon4God erreichte 34 SP, davon 22 SP durch Gebaeude und 12 SP durch grosse Gebaeude.
-- fineltour erreichte 31 SP, davon 25 SP durch Gebaeude und 6 SP durch grosse Gebaeude.
-- Now magennis has won classy with 39 points! (40:37 min.)

After Dana left, Karen, Collin and Beth played a second game of San Juan. The game changes a bit with three players. Beth had the gold mine which helped a little bit in the first game, but with three players no one selects the role of prospector. Again we saw lots of production buildings and Guild Halls, but Collin didn't see that darn aqueduct card until the very end of the game. Beth ends up winning this game too. Kind of nice since she hasn't been to the Wednesday night VBGG in quite some time.

-- IceFire2112 erreichte 33 SP, davon 19 SP durch Gebaeude und 14 SP durch grosse Gebaeude.
-- magennis erreichte 34 SP, davon 22 SP durch Gebaeude und 12 SP durch grosse Gebaeude.
-- Amazon4God erreichte 25 SP, davon 21 SP durch Gebaeude und 4 SP durch grosse Gebaeude.
-- Excellently, magennis obliterated the opposition with 34 points. (40:10 min.)

Session Report October 8 2008 - Better late than never

Collin reports:

A short night at the VBGG. Brian, Dana, and Collin showed up ready to play. Bill popped in briefly, but had other fish to fry. So the three players set off on a thrilling ride through the German countryside, playing a game of Thurn und Taxis. Brian got to go first, which in this game can get you at endgame. Collin jumped out with an early hit to have all the white areas and a 7 length train, but Dana kept scoring every chance he got. Collin triggered end game, which meant Brian was done, but Dana had one more turn. With that he completed a small train and got enough bonus points to take the victory. Well played! Scores: Dana 30, Collin 27, Brian 18.

And Dana Reports as well -

I couldn’t make it last week since I was busy learning how to lose at HeroClix, but I did log on last night. Sadly Team Speak was down. I don’t realize how much I prefer Team Speak until it doesn’t work. Anyway, we had three people : Colin, Brian and myself. Both Colin and I wanted to take a swing at T&T. Other than the fact that we kept getting the same city (3 Budweis came up in a row followed by 3 Lodz) which clogged up the available cards, things went well. All three of us went after the “world traveler” bonus, but most of the points seemed to go in big runs. One example was my third score where I played a six long route which completed two “region” bonuses and one of the “length” bonuses. Seemed like all of us built a couple small routes getting set up and then got some big point runs. Colin pulled off a 7 length run which also scored the white “region”. Anyway, lots of fun. We managed to pull off a game in less than an hour. Personally, I wish it was a little shorter so we could have gone two games, but I was pretty wiped out and the wife came home, so I just called it a night. Now if we could only get a couple more people…J

Session Report September 17 2008 - Where have all the Gamers Gone?

Report in from Dana -

So, bit of a slow night. Brian and I were the only two to show up, so we decided to go for a potluck. Started out with Lost Cities in Brettspeilwelt and used the Continue feature. Of course, I agreed before I realized that the score was cumulative and I’d lost the first round by more than 100 points. I actually managed to win the second round. By 4 points. Not catching up that way. Third round was like the first round, but not quite as severe. He had positive points and I…didn’t. So, score one for Brian.

Then we decided to flip to Gameboardonline and tried out Turbo Hearts. It is not the nicest Hearts interface I’ve seen (personally I’m partial to the Puzzle Pirates Hearts interface), but it is the only TURBO hearts interface I’ve seen and allows you to play with bots if you don’t have 4 people. For those that don’t know, turbo uses the normal rules but has four special cards that affect the score of whomever takes them and plays for a set number of hands. Queen of hearts is worth 13 points, ace of hearts doubles the point value of all hearts, ten of clubs doubles all point values taken and jack of diamonds is worth -10 points. You can also “charge” (reveal the cards face up before the trick starts) to double their value, but you can’t play them on the first trick of that suit. You can use charged cards in combination. So if you capture a charged 10 of clubs and charged queen of spades, you get 104 points for the round. If you capture 4 hearts and a charged jack of diamonds and a non-charged 10 of clubs, you get -32 points! Anyway, Lisa watched over my shoulder and the game was a lot of fun, but the scores REALLY flop around and in the end, a bot managed to take the win. Score one for computers.

I wanted to let Lisa see 10 Days in Africa since I’d almost picked it up at Gencon. Had a good setup. Actually, the problem was I had two good setups that just didn’t work with each other at all, so I wound up replacing all of one of them. We almost went through the whole deck, each looking for a specific card before Brian found what he needed. I’d tried swapping things up a bit and managed to have 9 days in Africa. Still, score another for Brian.

At that point, we decided to call it a night. Good games.

Session Report September 11, 2008 - Close the windows, it's cold outside

Greetings!

A nice session of gaming this past evening, with a couple games being played.

Things started out really nice and friendly like with Karen kicking butt in a game of San Juan against Dana and Brian




















Beth joined later, and they playd Thurn and Taxis. Here's Beth's report:

Hi Pete,

Just thought I would send you the second game stats that we played tonight.

Karen, Beth, Dana, and Brian played Thurn Und Taxis. Dana and Brian were trying to avenge themselves since Karen had thoroughly creamed them in a game of Puerto Rico. Beth had just joined at 9:45, and had never played Thurn Und Taxis before. Brian and Karen were doing well at the beginning of the game with some early runs and chit collecting. Then Dana was making long runs which bumped his score up. Beth ultimately finished the game with the first run of seven, but Brian pulled it out in the end. Very close game.

Brian - 23
Beth - 21
Dana - 20
Karen - 8

Thanks for the submitted reports!

Pox Nora

Pox Nora is an online CCG. I can't tell if the individual games are for 2 players, or what. It's sort of cool? Base game is free, but then you get hooked in to buy expansions.

http://www.poxnora.com

Session Report July 30 2008 - Verflixxt

Pete, Brian and Paul played Verflixxt. Fun!

Brian taught us how to play, and we muddled our way through. It's sort of like that pirate game Carthagia.

Brian 34
Pete 16
Paul 13

-- Now brian7 has won overwhelmingly with 34 points! (27:18 min.)