Georgia Boardgames Association

As soon as I mention board games, I immediately get what I call the Monopoly look. I try and explain what I mean by board games, but the Hasbro line always comes up. I understand it. There’s no commercials for the board games here on BGG for the most part.

So, when you try an explain board games, how do you get past the Monopoly stigma?

Not knocking Monopoly.

Here’s the interesting responses to what I wrote on boardgamegeek.

Announcing a new event for Georgia Boardgames Association!

What: Georgia Boardgames Association November 3rd Meetup

When: Saturday, November 3, 12:30 PM

Where: Click the link below to find out!

Event Description: Hello,

Our next Georgia Boardgames Association meeting will be Saturday, November 3rd from 12:30 to about 4:30. It will be at the same location as before, The Atlanta Bread Company, near Town Center Mall in Kennesaw. The location is on Barrett Parkway, convenient to I-75 and 575. The website and map are available by clicking here.

I will have games, but you are welcome to bring your own. I can’t guarantee everyone will get to play their favorite game, but there should be a good selection to choose from. I have my games posted on www.georgiaboardgames.com and bring most of them. The game selection changes periodically, so check back to see if your game is listed.

The Atlanta Bread Company has a great menu selection of sandwiches, salads, soups, and bakery goods. Coffee and soft drinks are also available. Prices are from about $3.49 – $6.50 for sandwiches, bakery items costing less. You’re not required to eat there, but you will enjoy it if you do. No outside food or drink, please.

Free stuff will also be provided by Georgia Boardgames. There will be a drawing of participants for a $5.00 gift certificate to The Atlanta Bread Company and a free large soft drink and cookie for the runner up, provided at least five people attend to draw from.

I hope you enjoy yourself, and RSVP if you can. The first five to RSVP and play a game at the meetup will receive a free cookie from the bakery.

I look forward to meeting everyone. There is no cost to attend.

Last time we had a great time learning new games. At least they were new to me. So feel free to bring your own games, just be cognizant of the time it takes to play them. Since most games don’t take three to four hours to play, just about anything should be okay. This also means you don’t have to come in at exactly 12:30. Last meeting we ate lunch, played games, ate cookies, and played more games. Great fun.

I hope to see you there.

John Marchant

Georgia Boardgames
“Together time all the time”

www.georgiaboardgames.com

Learn more here:
http://boardgames.mee…

I just returned from our latest Georgia Boardgames Association meetup. I met four new people, learned two new games, and played a third better than before. First, I wanted to say thanks to every one who came and played. You’re very nice people and great teachers. I didn’t have one dull moment. Okay, there was this one moment where someone got up to buy some freshly baked bread, while we all waited , but other than that it was non-stop board gaming.

Our first game was Vegas Showdown. It was the first time I had played. And since I am a fan of auction games, it worked out well for everyone. I lost, but at least I now have another game to purchase. Our second game was For Sale, another auction game, that acted as a nice filler until our last game of Citadels.

I had only played Citadels with three people, but this game had six. It lasted longer than expected, but it was worth it. One of the highlights of the Citadels game was the confirmation that I was not alone on one thing: There is no good way to assasinate your wife. For those who have not played Citadels, you can assassinate another player’s character. You don’t know who has the character, but after you play someone over and over, you can guess, sometimes, what a person will pick. The husband and wife team today had played a lot of Citadels, and I think the husband may been using past experience to guess his wife’s card. Well, he was right, but as I’ve told one of my sons before, “Even if you’re right, you’re wrong.” In reality, I’m embellishing, she took it well, even though it was close to the end fo the game. I think she was being picked on because next round the thief stole all her money (not buy her husband, whew!)

Folks came from all over today. We had a gentleman from fifty miles away this time and this gave me the idea for our new rule, where the person that comes from the farthest, gets to pick the game. I also wanted to apologize to a nice person that didn’t have a game to play at first. I’m glad you stayed. I’ll try and have a one player game for this situation in the future.

Again, thanks to everyone that came. If you didn’t make it this time, I hope you can come to the next board game meeting.

John Marchant
Georgia Boardgames Association
“Together time all the time”™

Lately, I’ve been lazy, not playing many board games, but not playing video games or anything else either.  I don’t know if it’s work or because I’m enjoying learning about podcasting and video editing.  I recently got a Macbook Pro and have revived my interest in audio and video broadcasting – they were taking over.  But last night I decided to stop procrastinating on a game I’ve been wanting to play, Richard Borg’s Wyatt Earp.  I hope you’ll find this review interesting.  I know the game is a little older, but unlike the latest technology, board games have a life all their own and can sustain many game technology transitions – the benefit of being non-digital, I suppose.

For those who don’t know, Richard Borg is one of the “big names” in the board game industry.  He’s made some other board games you may be more familiar with like, Memoir ’44 and Battlelore.  In fact, I had no idea he had made any other games until I read a recent issue of Knucklebones concerning his board game design history.  In that article Wyatt Earp is mentioned as one of his “best games.”  I liked the look of it and bought it.

Now when I classify things, I like hard and fast categories, but that’s a little difficult to do in board games.  On the other hand, I’m not sure it it matters for board game enthusiasts.  It seems that players simply put all “analog games” that you play on a table as a board game.  I agree, but my point here is simply to point out that Wyatt Earp is primarily a card game.  It consists of 78 cards which contain Outlaw sets and Sheriff action cards, with Outlaw placards used as place holders for bounty money.  If you’ve never seen the game that won’t make much sense, so let’s look at the pictures below:

The Outlaws surround the money and the draw and discard pile, contents, and rule book:

The gameplay is simple.  You each have ten cards and attempt to create sets of outlaws.  When you create a set, depending upon how big that set is, you place a certain amount of money, measured in thousands, on the Outlaw’s set you just collected:

Here’s an Outlaw up close:

Here’s the money up close:

At its heart, Wyatt Earp is a set collection and hand management game. Here is a picture of a set, which must contain at least three. Also notice how the game is color coded, each outlaw with their own color:

But up till now you may be asking, so what? You collect sets like Rummy and whoever gets the sets gets money, right? No.  Actually, sets only place money on that Outlaw’s wanted poster. You have to get something called “Capture Points” to get the money. And the money is just as liable to go to your opponent, or a share of it.  The money distribution is based upon how many capture points there are total between all players and the difference between your score and the other players. First, look again at the picture above of a set. See the numbers in the upper left? That’s a capture point.

Now, I’m not going to go into the math of the game, but essentially there are three scoring tests to figure out who gets the money on an Outlaw wanted poster, using simple addition and subtraction.  Of the three posibilities, the money on an Outlaw is either left until the next round (hand), taken completely by a single player, or divided/shared amongst players who have a common set. Here a picture of money on an outlaw to show what’s at stake:

In the scoring phase just described, the players move to each Outlaw, scoring sets and determining bounty money distribution. The object is simple: Whoever gets to $25,000 first wins. When I played a two-player, this took two hands. That may not sound like a lot, but it took over 20 minutes. Hand’s don’t end until one person discards the last card (with a few exceptions.)

But to break up the set collection into something more fun, Wyatt Earp has something called Sheriff cards, what I called action cards. This allows for more interesting hand management and adds a risk factor to gameplay. In addition, there are several actions one Sheriff card may have, and based upon a random draw from the deck, some actions may be worth more. Consider the Wyatt Earp card (hey, it had to be in there somewhere). It has three possibilities:

Notice the last one action, “after successful shot.” To make a shot, you draw a card from the supply. If the card has a bullet hole, that’s a successful shot, you get that action. Notice the bullet hole on Jesse James, which makes a successful shot:

Other action cards add to the capture points of an opponent or can keep an opponent from using capture points in the scoring phase of the game. Here are all the cards types together:

In summary, the ease of understanding set collection, the monotony breaker of Sheriff cards, the risk factor of successful shots, and the nice western theme of bounty collection, creates a game that will not be placed on your boardgaming shelf for very long. It’s packed with strategy and tactics and sure to get great reviews from your family and friends, and while I consider it more of a filler than not, it’s not so lite that I put it in the For Sale category (another great game I hesitate to call a filler.) Enjoy!

And, and, this drew me out of my board game fog.  I think I was just lazy.

John Marchant
Georgia Boardgames Association©
“Together time all the time…”™

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