February 12, 2008

We had a low turn-out tonight, only four people, probably due at least in part to the freezing rain. We also got off to a late start, so only two games.

• Infernal Contraption - Tim, Brian, Hal, and I played Infernal Contraption, with the Sabotage! expansion. Hal had never played before. I had played the basic game before, but not with the expansion. (See 9/25/07.) Early in the game, Hal played a contraption to his machine that allowed him to draw a card from his parts pile and play it immediately. After adding some upgrades, he was able to draw eight(!) cards from his parts pile and play any or all of them. He was able to build one very impressive machine, but after drawing all of those cards from his parts pile, he left himself vulnerable, and he was the first one out. Brian, Tim, and I continued to slug it out. I was losing cards from my parts pile at a frightening rate, but had a contraption with upgrades that allowed me to take cards from the scrap pile and add them to my parts pile, which kept me just barely hanging on for quite a while. Finally, I got to the point where I realized my next turn would be my last. Judging Tim’s parts pile to be smaller than Brian’s, I aimed my machine at Tim, taking him out of the game, but burned my own parts pile in the process, leaving Brian as the winner.
• Guillotine - [Edited 3/3/08] We had about a half-hour left, so we decided to play Guillotine, which Hal won with 24, Tim had 23, I had 21, and Brian had 11.

Our next session will be on February 26.