Games Day 2000

Dost though want Ham, Egg, and Cheese?

On December 29th 2000, I met with my Ale Knight buddies for our yearly all-day gaming session, Games Day. It was a blast. As usual, we began at 9 a.m. at the Lido Diner on this cold winter day, a day when most everyone had a vacation. Lido is one of the smaller New Jersey diners, but at 9 a.m. the truckers have cleared out, and there's plenty of room for rabid gamers. Turn out was light. Some gamers mumbled something about sleep being more important than gaming. Unfortunately they don't follow the moral imperative to consume large quantities of eggs, pancakes, pig-meat, and barrels of coffee to start a good gaming session.

Dave's Taylor Ham, Egg, and Cheese was missing the cheese. We discussed the merits of sending versus not-sending food back. Paul and I both argued to not send it back and avoid the return of the item with the chef's special sauce. Dave argued from a dog's eye perspective: if the food is bad, he throws it up, no problem. But I digress. What does this have to do with gaming?

Carcassone gets a good laugh

Once again, all gamers prepared for the cold confines of Dave's basement. Long underwear, heavy boots, multiple T-shirts and sweatshirts were the standard all-day gaming session winter weather wear. Occasionally I found my self chilling, but I chased away the chill with another cup of hot coffee. Pretty soon everyone else appeared to move in slow motion. Strange wave-effects followed everyone's hand movements. I realized I better cut back on the coffee.

Soon Val appeared bearing a heavy sack of games and supplies. He propped his bag upon a low coffee table as if he were staying for a few nights at the local Embassy Suites. Out came his favorite pipe and latest homebrewing experiments. We launched into a few games of Carcassonne. It was Val's first Carcassonne games, but he caught on quickly and seemed to like this light, quick tile laying game. Carcassonne proved to be quite popular and was played 3 times over the course of the day.

Camel Jockies ponder oases

Another popular game was Sid Sackson's Acquire which was also played 3 times over the course of the day. We discovered Dave's copy contained a duplicate of I6 and was missing I9. Dave expertly overpainted the tile, and it had no ill effect on the outcome of any of the games. All the games were hotly contested. One complaint about the Hasbro edition is the shakiness of the tiles. They tend to fall over when stood on edge. Perhaps a little bit of wax or other weighty material will help them stand up correctly.

As the afternoon progressed other gamers started to trickle in: Andy, Brian, Doug and later on Kevin. Each gamer brought more games, food, and ale. Soon there here was a mountain of chips, pretzels, and sweets on the tables. Dave's spare refrigerator burst to its seams. My favorite snack was the crab seasoned potato chips. These reminded me of summer vacations on the New Jersey shore. Others started in on the ales and good beers. There was a distinct feeling of contentment in the air.

How dare thee challenge my Barbarian!

One of the highlights for me was the Melee Tournament that I ran. We had a single elimination tournament of 16 fighters that Brian won after having both of his fighters meet in the finals! A full accounting of the tournament is at the Melee Results page. It was much fun and very quick, and I will run the tournament again next year.

Shortly after the tournament it was time for more food. We dined on some excellent subs from the local sandwich shop. Dave expertly wrote the order, and surprisingly the sandwich shop got the order correct. There were no mishaps and no sandwiches lost to the hounds this year.

The party fractured into three tables of gaming. In the late afternoon there were games of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dragon Delta, Durch die Wuste, Lost Cities , and Kahuna. There is nothing quite as happy as the hum and chatter of several gaming tables going at once.

Much gambling at the Melee tournament

Around 5 or 6 p.m., everyone started getting a little cold, so we decided to have a massive 7 player game of the classic trading game Pit. I truly suck at Pit, and this game was no exception as I came in last place. Nevertheless, it is a fun game, and it certainly gets the blood flowing in a cold basement.

As the evening wore on, more gamers switched over to drinking beers. Bernie, the Duke of Chutney showed up with a large bottle of Jameson's whiskey, and this also was consumed by many of the cold gamers. Marta, Jen, Jane, and Mary made appearances throughout the day. However they seemed more interested in hanging out than in playing.

There were excellent games of Torres and the Settlers of Catan. Torres was fun since we used advanced rules where each player started with all action cards in hand. We used one of the master game scoring cards as a bonus scoring goal for all to try. I got lucky and ran away with the Torres game. I was paid back in spades by doing very poorly in the following Settlers game which Kevin won handily.

It was nearing midnight when another Acquire game started. I broke off with Brian and played a few two player games: Stratego: Legends and Battle Cry. Stratego: Legends is more fun than regular Stratego. There are special abilities for most of the pieces, and these tend to make the game more wild. For instance, Dwarf pieces may receive a +2 for being near the Dwarf king. This also makes the game more strategic as you move and align your armies to their maximum advantage. Battle Cry was well received initially as Brian got off to a 4 to 3 flag lead. However, my massive Union forces bore down on him and ended the game 6 flags to 4. He was bitching and moaning, but he appeared to like the game.

A game of 2 shots, one beer

Around 2 a.m., Andy appeared very drunk and he was knighted into the Ale Knights. Sir Bacardi presided over the ceremonies with Bernie Duke of Chutney looking very daper in Renaissance garb. Others assisted by chanting and spraying beer on the fool, er I mean, new knight. Shortly after the ceremony, gamers trickled out as there had been a winter storm warning. It was threatening, but did not arrive until 6 a.m. that morning, dumping 18 inches over northern New Jersey (a record for that day in that area).

In all there were 9 gamers who played 24 games. That does not seem like a lot of games for about 18 straight hours of gaming, but does there ever seem to be enough games played. Time goes by so quickly! Kevin won the award for most outstanding player, followed by Paul. And Dave and I received the super dedicated award for most games played that day (14 games). In summation, everyone had a good time and vowed to return next time.