Where we live in Michigan real men (non gaming geeks) are awarded a certain birthright: hunting. That is to say, real men are not only allowed to spend a week in the woods away from their spouses and children where they drink beer and shoot guns with their friends, but they are expected to do so. It's what they do and God help you if you stand between them and their hunting trips.As you may have guessed, I am not a real man. I'm a gaming geek. So are my friends. We may drink beer, but we don't hunt. Instead, we play games. Lots and lots of games. The sad part of this is that we were somehow left out of the part where we get to leave home with our friends for days at a time to pursue our hobby without distraction from spouses, children or jobs.
A few years ago our group got together and decided that the madness must end! So, we designed the Foot Foot Gamers Annual Retreat (named, of course, after The Shagg's 1969 international hit My Pal Foot Foot). The first year we had the retreat was 2006. That year we rented a cottage on a bluff overlooking Lake Huron and gamed from early one Friday morning until about 2pm the next Sunday. Last year we took things a bit further. We arrived at the same cottage on a Wednesday night after work and played through Sunday. (You can read about those retreats here and here.)
For our retreats we designed a scoring system, logged all of our games and awarded a grand prize to the "Best Overall Gamer". The prize is a plaque with 12 blank name plates on it. If you win the plaque you get to have your name engraved on it and you get to keep it for a year. Jake won our inaugural event in '06 and Paul won it last year in '07. There are enough name plates on the plaque to keep us doing this until 2017! After that, we buy a new plaque.
My lovely bride with the coveted prize.Anyway, this year we decided to take things a bit further. This year we rented a different cottage for 9 days from 4pm on Saturday, August 2nd until noon on Sunday, August 10th. Not everyone could show up at the same time, though, so we broke the week up into segments. From Saturday to Wednesday morning would be a free for all in which any of us could use the cottage and invite our spouses and children. Sunday, specifically, would be "family fun day". Then, from 12pm on Wednesday until 12pm on Sunday would be gamers only time. The entire week would feature a lot of gaming, but the official scoring wouldn't begin until Thursday morning at 6am and would last until we left on Sunday.
The following is a narrative of how the week went, what games we played and the other fun things that happened.
Saturday, August 2nd
Barb and I, along with Simon and Gwen (who are 6 and 3 years old), arrived at the cottage at about 4:30pm on Saturday. We were the first ones there and Paul was the only other Foot Foot member we expected on that day. While we waited for him we took some pictures of the cottage, which was much nicer than the place we rented the previous two years. Here are some of our pictures:
The following is a narrative of how the week went, what games we played and the other fun things that happened.
Saturday, August 2nd
Barb and I, along with Simon and Gwen (who are 6 and 3 years old), arrived at the cottage at about 4:30pm on Saturday. We were the first ones there and Paul was the only other Foot Foot member we expected on that day. While we waited for him we took some pictures of the cottage, which was much nicer than the place we rented the previous two years. Here are some of our pictures:
Here is the front/side of the cottage we rented.
Here is the back yard as seen from the patio door. Because there would be so many guys in the house for the week I opted to bring our tent along. That's chateau Hawksbill there on the left. This picture must have been taken later because Lake Huron isn't visible in the background. Must have been a bit foggy at the time.
This is the view from the edge of the bluff overlooking the lake. We spent a lot of time between games standing out there looking at the water and telling gaming war stories.At 5pm, before Paul arrived we decided to take the kids down to the water to check out our beach access. I don't have pictures of it, but our path down to the water was by way of a very long staircase. About half way down we reached the first landing and I noticed a few bees flying nearby. I foolishly said "stand still kids... don't scare the bees." That's when the 2 or 3 bees disappeared under the stairway and came back moments later with 15-20 bees. Then they attacked! Seriously! The swarmed all over us and we all ran back up the stairs yelling. Simon and I both got stung three times. Gwen got stung twice. Barb escaped being stung at all. Nature sucks!
A little while later, at 6pm, Paul showed up and we helped him unpack. Then he and I went out and bought 2 big cans of some bee-killing chemical that sprayed 2o feet away. We went back down the stairs to investigate. We found that we could get fairly close to the bees without causing them to swarm and that we could figure out where the hive was based on their activity. It turns out it was right under the staircase. So, we planned to crawl under the staircase with the cans of Raid and hose them down from about 8 feet way. That's when we noticed something else. The entire hillside was covered (completely!) with poison ivy. Ugh!
So, our plan was this: To return to the cottage and cover ourselves completely in clothing from head to toe and then to return to the staircase where one or both of us would crawl through the poison ivy, under the staircase and kill the bees, all the while hoping that the bees didn't launch a full on counter attack.
At 9pm this is what we did. I put on long pants, tucked my pant legs into my socks, put on a hooded sweatshirt which I pulled over my face trekked back to the staircase, ready for battle. Then we decided who would crawl through the poison ivy to kill the bees. For some reason I volunteered. I don't know why I did this. I knew I was very allergic to poison ivy (A few years ago I got a horrible rash after chasing a black bear into the woods, but that's another story). Anyway, I hopped over the railing, crawled through the poison ivy on my knees and elbows and finally located the hive. Then I emptied two large cans of Raid on it. The bees didn't know what hit them. They not only didn't counter attack, they merely fell and died instantly. It turns out that, although bees may have a huge dodge bonus to melee weapons, they have a profound weakness to chemical attacks. Score one for the good guys.
After this Paul and I want back inside where I stripped off my presumably diseased clothing and took a very hot shower. Then we all took a walk down to water with the kids. I was very interested in seeing the beach because our gaming retreats are often filled with drunken midnight swimming. Here are some pictures.
A little while later, at 6pm, Paul showed up and we helped him unpack. Then he and I went out and bought 2 big cans of some bee-killing chemical that sprayed 2o feet away. We went back down the stairs to investigate. We found that we could get fairly close to the bees without causing them to swarm and that we could figure out where the hive was based on their activity. It turns out it was right under the staircase. So, we planned to crawl under the staircase with the cans of Raid and hose them down from about 8 feet way. That's when we noticed something else. The entire hillside was covered (completely!) with poison ivy. Ugh!
So, our plan was this: To return to the cottage and cover ourselves completely in clothing from head to toe and then to return to the staircase where one or both of us would crawl through the poison ivy, under the staircase and kill the bees, all the while hoping that the bees didn't launch a full on counter attack.
At 9pm this is what we did. I put on long pants, tucked my pant legs into my socks, put on a hooded sweatshirt which I pulled over my face trekked back to the staircase, ready for battle. Then we decided who would crawl through the poison ivy to kill the bees. For some reason I volunteered. I don't know why I did this. I knew I was very allergic to poison ivy (A few years ago I got a horrible rash after chasing a black bear into the woods, but that's another story). Anyway, I hopped over the railing, crawled through the poison ivy on my knees and elbows and finally located the hive. Then I emptied two large cans of Raid on it. The bees didn't know what hit them. They not only didn't counter attack, they merely fell and died instantly. It turns out that, although bees may have a huge dodge bonus to melee weapons, they have a profound weakness to chemical attacks. Score one for the good guys.
After this Paul and I want back inside where I stripped off my presumably diseased clothing and took a very hot shower. Then we all took a walk down to water with the kids. I was very interested in seeing the beach because our gaming retreats are often filled with drunken midnight swimming. Here are some pictures.
Gwen and Simon on the beach.
Gwen, me and Simon admiring the big rocks.After this it was time to prepare for the arrival of more gamers the next day. We went back up to the cottage and organized our games.
My stack of games. (Note the kids games up front... ready for family game day!)
Paul's stack of games. Lots of good stuff!
In addition to games, Paul took steps to make sure that nobody would be thirsty this week.At 10pm Paul and I sat down to our first game of the week: Saint Petersburg. He and I had been playing this one fairly often on Yucata.
Sunday, August 3rd:
For most of this day Paul and I were the only gamers on site. After a nice breakfast of egg sandwiches and bacon we settled down for a 2 player game of Aton before heading out to explore the beach some more. After that Simon, Paul and I chilled out to a game of Blokus, which is one of Simon's favorites. Then Paul and I played some Babel and 3 games of Blue Moon. I won Aton, Blokus and Babel, Paul won 2 out of the 3 games of Blue Moon.Around 3pm that afternoon our pal Mark and his family arrived and after getting them all settled we all went back down to the beach for some swimming. At about 6pm Mark made us all some burgers. Then around 6:30pm Mark, Paul and I settled down for a game of Nefertiti, which I totally didn't grok. Mark took 1st, Paul 2nd and I came in last. Then, to wrap up this first day, Paul, Mark, Angela (Mark's wife) and I played a game of Settlers at around 9pm which Paul won.
Monday, August 4th:
This was a very rainy day and we were stuck inside most of the time. This morning Larry arrived and we opened up the gaming day with round of Gulo Gulo. Playing were me, Paul, Larry, Mark, my son Simon and Mark's kids Kip and Athea. Simon beat us all. He's pretty good at the Gulo Gulo! Then me, Simon, Athea and Mark&Kip (teaming up) played some Blokus and the Mark&Kip team cleaned all our clocks. Around 11am Paul and Larry played We the People (Paul won) while Mark and I played some Babel (I won). At 2pm Larry, Mark, Paul and I played some Saga, which Larry won.At 3pm I showed Angela how to play Castle Keep in case she and Mark wanted to pick up a copy for their kids and at 3:30 me and Mark conducted a teaching session of Chateau Roquefort with Athea, Kip, Simon and Gwen.
At about 4:30 that afternoon Mark's family left and me, Mark, Paul and Larry played a game of California. I came in 1st. I'm glad to get some milage out of some of those Tanga deals!
At 6:30 Paul made us a great dinner of short ribs. Here's a shot of Paul, Larry and Mark around the grill.At about 8:30 Paul, Mark, Larry and I sat down for our first heavy game of the week: Wealth of Nations. This is probably one of my favorite new games of the year. It is still on my wishlist. I really do need to get myself a copy.
Wealth of Nations (that's me in the middle, flanked by my minions Gwen and Simon)About midway through the game, around midnight sometime, Paul and I did some late night swimming in Lake Huron. Midnight swimming is one of my favorite parts of the retreat. We halted the game for the night, to be complted the next day.
Tuesday, August 5th:
This morning Barb, Simon, Gwen and I went out for breakfast while Paul, Larry and Mark played some St. Petersburg. (Paul one).
After that we finished up Wealth of Nations. Mark kicked arse with a total of 103 points. I was close behind at 102. Around 1:30 that afternoon we played some Tichu, which is one of my all time favorite games. Mark and Paul beat Larry and I handily. Later we played some Magic: The Gathering (sealed deck). My notes don't say who won, but I know I choked badly. I think Paul won, if memory serves, but I could be wrong.
Later that evening, around 8:30 I played some O Zoo Le Mio with Barb, Larry and Simon. As usual, Simon won. As with Gulo Gulo, he's pretty good at this one. After that Paul, Larry, Simon and I played a round of Hare and Tortoise, which Paul won. (Hm... this is not the best picture of Gwen, I think. :)Late this night, around 11:30 we played another of my favorite new games of the year: Primordial Soup. Larry, Mark and I played with Larry coming in 1st. Good stuff. Who doesn't love a game about poop?
Wednesday, August 6th:
The next morning Paul introduced me to the game Tamsk, which I'd never heard of before. I managed to win dispite that, though. Then I went off to breakfast with my family again while Larry, Paul and Mark played some Aquaretto with Larry taking first place. I like Zooloretto, but I still haven't played this spin off.
Then from 1pm to 5pm we played another heavy. Paul brought out Perikles which he and I and Mark and Larry played. I don't think any of us had played Perikles before and I don't think any of us liked it very much. Someone quite accurately described the game as being very much like spending several hours doing someone's taxes. Not very interesting. I won anyway, but it would have been a more satisfying win if I'd actually enjoyed the game more.A little before 7pm that evening our buddy Steve arrived and we all sat down to a game of Glory to Rome. Mark took 1st with me coming in a fairly distand 2nd.
Then, around 9pm Eric showed up and we jumped into a 5 player game of Relationship Tightrope (with me, Steve, Eric, Paul and Larry... Mark didn't join us for some reason.) I really like this game. It has quite a silly theme, but it is fast, entertaining and pretty challenging. Larry took 1st place with only 10 points! Go Larry!
Finally, we wrapped up the evening with a 6 player game of Hoity Toity, another one of my favoirites. I really like the simultaneous reveal mechanic. Somewhere in the middle of the game Eric spilled his glass of Red Bull and coconut rum all over the table, which made quite a mess, but the rest of the game smelled quite nice. In the end Mark won and Steve came in 2nd.
Thursday, August 7th:
This morning marks the beginning of our official scoring to win the fancy plaque! From here until noon on Sunday all the games count for the big prize!
We started off splitting into two groups. Paul and Steve played some We the People (Paul won by killing Washington). Me, Mark and Larry got started with a game of Amazonas. Mark won this one. Amazonas is a fairly nice little game, but the tie breaking mechanism is terribly flawed. If I ever play again I'll push for a tie breaking system similary to O Zoo Le Mio.
Eric spent the morning sleeping it off.
Since Paul and Steve were still paying We the People, Larry, Mark and I played a game of Stone Age, which I won.
Steve and Paul playing We the People.
Mark and Larry prepping our game of Stone Age.
At 11:30am we all gathered together again for a game of Tribune. Well, all of us except Eric who was still asleep. Larry won very handily with a strategy of acquiring laurels, favors of the gods and cold hard cash. At 2:30 we split into two groups again. Steve, Larry and Mark played Antike (Mark won) while Paul, Eric and I played some Caylus (I won). After that, around 5:30pm or so Steve made us all dinner by serving up his amazing pulled pork sandwiches. Good stuff!
Then, at 6:30 Paul, Larry and I played Hollywood Blockbuster (Larry won) and Erik, Mark and Steve played Metropolis (Mark won).At 8pm Jake and Ben arrived, bringing our total now up to 8 players. We split into two 4's with Ben, Eric, Paul and Mark playing Notre Dame (Paul won) while Steve, Jake, Larry and I played some more Primordial Soup (I won). What can I say? I just can't get enough poop related gaming!
At 11pm everyone but George jumped into a game of Pow Wow, which was madcap and crazy. I took 1st while Paul came in 2nd. Then we split into 2 groups again and Larry, Eric, Steve and Jake played Situation 4 (Eric and Jake won) while Paul and I teamed up against Mark and Ben in another game of Tichu (Paul and I won). After Situation 4, Eric, Jake, Larry and Steve played their own game of Tichu with Larry and Jake winning.That brought us all to about 3:00am in the morning and we all passed out exhausted from a fantastic day of gaming.
Friday, August 8th:
Early this morning at around 3:30am our friend George finally arrived from New York and our group hit its peak of 9 gamers. When we woke up Mark made us a fine breakfast and Paul served us up some delicious mimosa.
At around 7:30am Jake, Paul, Steve and Ben played a game of Nefertiti. Later, at 9:30am Larry, Paul, Ben and Steve played a game of Friedrich which Ben took 1st in as France. At the same time I sat down to another game of Wealth of Nations with George, mark and Jake. Mark cleaned up with 80 points and I took 2nd with 71. Mark played brilliantly. He managed to get an operational bank on turn 3 and spent the game totally focusing on money. Good stuff!
Mark and Jake planning their Wealth of Nations conquests.At around 1:30 on Friday Larry, Eric, Steve, Ben and Paul sat down to some Puerto Rico, which Steve won and Paul came in 2nd. At 3pm, Me, George, Mark and Jake finished Wealth of Nations and tried out Caribbean, which I totally sucked at and George dominated.
Later at a bit after 4pm two new games started. Paul, Steve, George, Jake and Larry played El Grande which Paul won and Jake came in 2nd. Also, Mark, Ben, Eric and I started up a game of Stone Age. Mark took 1st while I came in 2nd.
A beautiful sunset overlooking Lake Huron on Friday night with my own personal barracks in the foreground.At 8pm Steve, Paul, Jake, George and Eric played a game of Quo Vadis?. Steve won this one and George took 2nd place. At the same time, Ben, Mark and I played Midgard. Once again Mark took 1st place and I came in 2nd. By this time I was getting crazy tired after being up so late the night before. My ability to think coherently was seriously diminished and I went off to bed at 11:30.
After I went to bed Larry, Jake, Paul and Steve played some more Relationships Tightrope. Larry and Jake took 1st and 2nd respectively.
Then around 10:30pm a big game of Antike formed with Eric, Steve, George, Jake, Ben and Paul. Sometime around 12:30 I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep so I came back inside to watch the action unfold. Finally, around 1am Steve completed his Antike domination and Paul followed him with 2nd place.
Around 2am we all packed it in and went to bed.
Saturday, August 9th:
Wow, our last full day of gaming before returning to the real world.
This got off to a bit of a slow start this morning. The gaming didn't really begin until 10:30. George, Paul, Larry, Steve and Eric played a game of In the Year of the Dragon, which Paul and George took 1st and 2nd in. At that point I hadn't played this game yet, but in the last year I've had the chance to play it many times and have even picked up my own copy. I like it quite a bit.
At the same time Jake, Ben, Mark and I played a game of Vikings. Once again Mark took 1st and I came in 2nd. Vikings isn't the best game in the world, but I find it very pleasant. I like the way it mixes a number of familiar game mechanics in a pretty interesting way.
Later on, George and Paul took 1st and 2nd in a game of Modern Art. Good auction fun.
At 1:30 on Saturday another game of Settlers broke out between Jake, Ben Mark and myself. I took 1st and Jake came in 2nd.
Then, at 3:30pm we played yet another game of Primordial Soup. I just couldn't get enough of that poop eatin' fun! Since the retreat I've purchased my own copy of this game along with the 5-6 player expansion set. I really like it quite a bit. I took 1st place while Ben came in 2nd.
While we were playing Primordial Soup, George, Paul, Steve, Jake and Larry played a game of Wallenstein. I was glad to miss this one. I never really liked Wallenstein. There are some heavy games my head flows naturally into. Wallenstein isn't one of them. It just makes my skull hurt. Ugh!
Primordial Soup and Wallenstein both took quite a long time to play. The next set of games didn't start until 8:30 Saturday evening. Eric, mark, Jake and Paul sat down for a match of Age of Steam while George, Ben, Larry and I played a nice game of Ra. Paul and Mark took 1st and 2nd in Age of Steam while George and Larry tied for 1st place in Ra.
Age of Steam took a lot longer to play than Ra, so while those guys were still playing that one George, ben, Larry and I played a quick round of For Sale (I won) and then another game of Pizarro & Co. (George and Ben came in 1st and 2nd). I have to say, Pizarro & Co. is one of my favorite auction games. I'm always happy when this one hits the table.
Then, around 1:30 in the morning Mark and I teamed up against Jake and Ben in a game of Tichu. Mark and I got our hats handed to us. It's tough sitting down against Jake in a game of Tichu. He's just plain good at it.
After that, it was once again time for bed.
Sunday, August 10th:
Ah... our last day. We all got up around 7:30am and started cleaning up. For some reason I stopped taking notes at this point so I'm not exactly sure what happened this day. I was getting a ride home from Jake and he had to leave a bit early, so I don't think I got in any gaming on this day.
I'm pretty sure that several of the guys stayed until noon and played the customary final game of Ticket to Ride, but I don't know who won or anything.
What I do remember is that on the ride home my neck started itching like crazy. By the time I got home I had a crazy, itchy, scratcy rash on my hands, neck and cheeks. It turns out that I had contracted poison ivy the Sunday before when I'd crawled around in the underbrush to kill the bee hive. I didn't know it had such a long incubation period, but it waited to hit me until the ride home a full week later. I spent the next 3 days trying not to scratch my skin off and taking lots of Benadryl. Ugh!
The next day Paul tallied the final game results and it turns out that he took the overall grand prize for the 2nd year in a row. I came in 2nd place while Mark took 3rd.
Well done Paul! Next time we will crush you!!! :)
Here's a couple of pictures of the last game of the week, with several of us in our official Foot Foot T-shirts, designed by Larry.
From left to right: Paul, Eric, George, Mark, Ben and Jake.
Me, Mark and Paul.My thanks to the whole group for all the fun and good times. I hope we can keep this up for many years to come!
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