Matt and then Natalie showed up in quick succession, and Laura had to do some coding for work, so the rest of us put on our train conductor hats and played Ticket To Ride. It was Natalie's first time, giving us a good opportunity to review the rules, and then we were off. Kathleen, Mike and I played track in the first round, making a quick claim on some important routes, signaling a tense game and congested board. There was no intentional blocking although opportunities arose we could have exploited but chose to keep the game friendly this time (although unintentional blocking is par for the course). We all lost track of our score about mid-game, and Matt accidentally shuffled his cards back into the deck once (karma of not blocking came back to get him). By the end, the board was full, and Matt ended the game before the rest of us could finish our last ticket, giving him the win by two points over Kathleen.
Burr showed up right as we ended, fresh off his first FAWM recording, and since Mike and Kathleen were heading out, we opted for a quiet four person game of Samurai, bringing Burr and Natalie up to speed with the rules. Understanding the tiles and surrounding rules are straightforward, only the end-game win conditions are tricky to see the first time around. But straightforward rules do not make for straightforward decisions, as each of us continually scrunched our foreheads trying to see what moves would be good. Another very tense game, where you want to do so much more than you're allowed. It's a game where you have to pick your battles, and we're learning that playing high tiles early is not always the best move, as the other players are reluctant to help you surround cities where they receive no benefit, and you are left doing all the work for your pieces.
