Ludocracy Now

I packed a duffel bag full of 9 games, games I chose using the WhatToPlay tool with the following criteria:  3-5 players, less than 90 minutes long, low weight score.  I was feeling hungover, Nate was feeling hungover and he hates “learning new things” so I knew it was going to be a day of fairly light games but that still left a lot of great options.

First, I went to Kohl’s.  Which is something I don’t think I’ve done in the 21st century but I found a zip up hoodie (no kidding, right?) that was fleece lined and amazingly adorable.  Is it sweatshirt weather yet please?  Who knew that this find would be an auspicious start to the day as, spoiler alert, I kind of had “a day” when it came to board gaming.  Now onto the pictures that Nate took with his phone

Um.  Ok, well, this dog was not there but for some reason Nate sent it along with our Ludocrating pictures so I guess he wanted his pooch to have a blog shout out.  Nice ta meetcha, pooch!

We started with two games of a three player Small World and if you recall the last time the three of us played this game, Adam won with his Merchant Elves.  Well, Adam is in LA being his own brand of Merchant selling penis pumps (for real) so it was left to the three of us to duke it out on the 3 player board.

I went first and took some Spirit dudes and was basically left alone on the right side of the board.  Jake and Nate were exchanging blows and disdainful exhalations of exasperation and I came away the winner with some thing like 118 points.  It was a rout and I was off to a good start.

YAY ME.  Oh yeah, in the first game Jake had Berserking Elves and rolled a blank face nearly every time he tried to conquer.  It was a rough day for the Duke of Gobblington as he was not getting very lucky and Nate and I were mercilessly mocking him.  It’s hard not to.

We played a second time and this time both Jake and Nate decided to spread out and I went third in the rotation.  I started with Pillaging Giants and repeatedly took them all off the board to try to disable each opponent.

Here I am laughing because I won the tie break.  We finished 85-85-83 with me taking the win for having the most units on the board at the end.  Two of the most enjoyable rounds of Small World I’ve ever played, to be sure.

It was time for munchies so we headed to Nate’s favorite haunt, the Bulldog Uptown where we refueled and I had two Rush River Double Bubbles.  Oh boy those are delicious.

When we got back we added new Ludocrat Katie to the mix who was a part of the disastrous BSG attempt last week.  However because she likes musicals and she lives at the apartment she was allowed to join us for a few games of 7 Wonders.  I know on this blog I usually then follow up with “Oh God we played 7 wonders and it was a mess and everyone hated it.”  Well guess what, that was not the case this time!  As both Jake and Nate had played a few times before and Katie is, as most St. Olaf grads are, a smart cookie, we were off and running pretty quickly.

Why aren’t phones taking better pictures?  Isn’t it 2011 already?  Anyway, I took the first game with a 61 point blue/green strategy.  Katie also helped by building every possible resource.  It was great.

The second game, Nate eked out a win, I came in 2nd and Katie got last with, wait for it, 15 points.  What?  Is that even possible?  She was a good sport about it at least.  Also probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing 7 Wonders.

We had a 5th Ludocrat show up, Sarah, who was also a member of the epic BSG Fail (and who also likes musicals and lives at the apartment.) so we brought Small World back out for a 5 player slug fest.  I have to give a big “Hats off” to Katie and Sarah because I remember thinking that our explanation of the rules was entirely inadequate and we basically skipped over talking about Decline saying “Oh, one of us will do it before you’ll need to, we promise.”

The 5 player game is interesting because it is only 8 turns.  I could not for the life of me rack up a 10+ point round, but I did pick up a Wealthy race and a 5 point selection of a Troll combo to finish respectably high.  I think Jake won this one in another 85 point tie break with Sarah.

It was late, Nate’s brain was fried but Jake and I still kinda wanted to play Dominant Species.  Katie left the gaming table due to some terrible reason like “I have to go to work at 6am tomorrow” or something and Nate was cashed out.  I pointed to Founding Fathers, thinking that there was no possible way we’d get through even one round of Dominant Species, saying it’s a pretty easy game and runs about an hour long.  Sarah and Jake were game so we took to the Constitutional Convention!

It was a very quick game as votes were played quickly and Jake dropped George Washington like a bad habit early in the 4th round with only two votes cast.

Anti-Federalists were a very strong faction along with Big States, but I had a well diversified debate token supply and I pulled ahead by one point at the end to emerge as the most distinguished statesperson! (This game is so weird but so great.)

A long, fantastic day of gaming behind us I went home with a very impressive (and very rare) 4 win record on the day out of 6 games.  There may even be some more Ludocrating going on today and hopefully my winning ways will continue!

Until next time, Ludo Ergo Sum.