Mad March roundup #1. Chivalry and... sorcery?!

Wednesday night woes: but for whom?
Badger was on holiday from work a week past Wednesday, so a day's gaming was called for. There was talk of playing Conflict of Heroes because of my imminent demo session at next weekend's Conpulsion 2010 but that'd've felt too much like homework for me, so we decided to play Combat Commander: Pacific instead. The CoH homework will be done solitaire next week I guess.

Combat Commander doesn't hit the table as often as it used to these days, so I was pleased to get in another game. Full CC battle reports here @RD/KA! have become less common even than that, the most recent being May last year. So I'll forbear from comment about our game until another day.

Stemming the varlet tide
Liam came round for dinner later, which curtailed our CC session after that one game. Dinner done, we turned to that old favourite- a new favourite of Liam's to boot: Ivanhoe. We managed 5 games.

Score
Badger 1 (15 tokens).
Liam 1 (17 tokens).
Me 3 (21 tokens).

I also owned the pwnage, with a game in which Badger and Liam's combined total was 3 tokens. Bragging rights to brave Sir John! :0)

Stonking Sunday session!
Stemming the viral tide?
Gav was sick which made us 5 thanks to Dave and Tony. My hopes of last Friday were realised: the lads were finally introduced to the game which had so impressed me last last xmas. A confirmed fan himself, naturally enough, Dave has already played the game elsewhere so he was able to get us up and running with the minimum of fuss. This is pretty neat when you think about it: Dave's new to adventure games some year ago and this new habit of his own is brand new: first post-Settlers entry-level breakthrough game anyone?

Game 1: Disaster strikes!
Setting: normal.
Roles:

• Donald: Scientist.
• Dave: Medic.
• Me: Field Operative.
• Andy: Epidemiologist.
• Tony: Operations Expert.

Short and sweet: despite my save-the-day heroics with Remote Treatment and the Mobile Hospital, and Andy changing his role to the very useful Containment Specialist we lost due to exhausting our deck (just 1 of 6 ways to lose).

Game 2: In the nick of time!
Setting: normal.
Roles:

• Me: Field Operative.
• Andy: Generalist.
• Tony: Archivist.
• Donald: Despatcher.
• Dave: Containment Specialist.

Our much more focussed team managed to cure red at the beginning of round 3 (we counted the cards then my notes became more detailed). Tony became the Medic- giving him near godlike healing powers (a highly trained and motivated innoculation team as I kept insisting). The first Outbreak came in Tony's turn, round 5; which also saw Donald cure yellow; and outbreaks- in Khartoum and via Epidemic in Dave's turn. Round 6 saw Riyadh pop in Andy's turn and Donald cured black. Tony cured blue- the last remaining strain of the 4, in round 7 just before he had to draw from an empty deck!

Final levels:
Outbreak: 6
Infection: 4
Blue: 1 block
Whew!

Score
The plague 1
"The cure?" 1
:-/

Carcassonne
With an eye on the clock we regretfully put Pandemic aside. The time was apt to introduce Dave to another recent favourite at the table. The teach went smoothly and the game was as clunk and fumble free as it could be when a seasoned green is introduced to a game of the class of Carcassonne.

The game didn't look to be going well for me for a long time: I opening my scoring on my penultimate turn. It all went down to the last draws: Dave had just before me drawn the piece that'd've won me my long farmers' game, so I was waiting for game-saving bum draws by Andy and Tony. I was out of luck. Still, I did have a play in that final round.

Score
Andy 86
Dave 50
Me 50
Donald 44
Tony 43

Afterthoughts
Pandemic was a smash! Fast paced even when people are pondering and engaging during downtime due to the cooperative element, the games had everyone at the edge of their seats and constantly leaning into and over the table, especially in the endgame. We were all really stoked at the end. There'll be more, you can be sure dear readers. ;)

Related@RD/KA!
Mad March roundup
- #2. Grand geek gathering!