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KL BOARDGAMES MEETUP & SETTLERS OF CATAN QUALIFIER REPORT @ OLD TOWN KOPITIAM & BOARDGAMECAFE.NET CHERAS 8/7/07
by jack208

Usual Friday.. usual Boardgames Meetup at OTK (Old Town Kopitiam) Cheras for R1 (round 1). I've to admit I've been occupied with another "council" (ie. work) lately and therefore have not been writing any meetup reports. Hope to get back to my weekly routine of posting updates here....

Let's begin with last Friday's Meetup which was attended by the largest crowd so far at OTK with 16 gamers dropping by and in spite of 3-4 regulars not being able to attend due to various other commitment. Last Friday also happened to be the Settlers of Catan M'sia Qualifier at OTK.

Last year, two of our (M'sia) best Catan players - Ryan and Kok Keong - were sent to Essen to represent Malaysia in the Settlers of Catan World Championship. They came back and said the experience of taking part in the World Championship was an immense experience.

This year's Catan Qualifier (sponsored by Imagine Games) started at the Asia Gaming Zone event in July 07 and it went to Toybox, Mage Cafe, Outpost, GACC (the 1st qualifier outside KL) and last Friday, it was Boardgamecafe.net's turn to host the last open qualifier at Old Town Kopitiam Cheras.

So far, 12 players have already qualified for the Catan Malaysia Finals (to be held tentatively Sep 22) - Ryan & Kok Keong (last year's finalists), Rob Street & Henry (Asia Game Zone), Kai & Joshua (Mage), Vincent & Foo (Toybox), Mohd Amran & Sujatha (GACC) and Daniel & Tracy (Outpost).

There are 4 more places left with 2 seats coming from Boardgamecafe.net and another 2 from a closed Qualifier for last year's 14 finalists (read the Settlers of Catan M'sia Finals report for the full list of the 16 finalists). 

Two of the players having a warm-up session with their friends before the Qualifier starts. 

Once all the 8 registered players turned up, we started the table-draw and divide the players into two groups of four; occupying both the coffee table sofa sets in OTK Cheras. 

Table 1 consists of Steven Yap, Phuah, Kah May and Dominic. Steven raced to an early lead and never looked back. Kah May who managed to get 6 pts - when Steven ended the game - took 2nd place for the Final Round.

Table 1 (from left):  Phuah, Kah May, Dominic and Steven

Table 2 was made up by Karan, Wai Yan, Bi Lin and Jorge. That game was quite evenly matched in the beginning until Karan made the breakthrough. He quickly established his 10th VP to win the game with Jorge coming in 2nd at 7 VP.

Table 2 (from left): Jorge, Karan, Wai Yan and Bi Lin

Steven, Kah May, Karan and Jorge took a short break before coming back to the OTK coffee table for the Final Round of today's qualifier; with the top 2 winners going to compete in the Settlers of Catan M'sian Finals 2007 for the right to represent Malaysia in the Catan World Championship in Essen, Germany.

The gameboard for the Final Round

Player turn order - Steven, Kah May, Jorge and Karan. With the desert hex being right in the middle of the board, the players took some turn analyzing the board to decide on their starting positions for the settlements.

 
The Final Round starting with Steven (in white on right), Kah May, Jorge and Karan

Mid-game position for the Final Round. Kah May had an early lead but the others were very close behind.

 
Jorge (on right) looking pensively at the board. He's the eventual winner for this Qualifier.

Almost end-game position for the Final Round 

I would like to thank all the 8 participating players for taking part in this qualifier. To those who did not succeed to enter the M'sian Finals this year, I wish them better luck (and more practice) for next year. To the two qualifiers from OTK - Jorge and Karan - I wish them all the best in the upcoming Msian Settlers Finals.

Thanks to OTK for allowing us to host the qualifiers there, and to Imagine Games for sponsoring the eventual prizes.

Dominic	Steven Yap	Phuah	Kah May
Karan Dhillon	Jorge (Patomas)	Bi Lin	Wai Yan

Beside the eight Catan Qualifier players, we also have LostBoyz and Wolfx hanging around giving moral support or otherwise known in gaming terms as K.P.C. (kay poh chee).

Two of the Terasek Gamers decide to make a special appearance - after a long hiatus from the (face-2-face) boardgaming scene. The two are Chris Yap (aka BSW Caylus sifu) and Daniel Tan (randomhit).

Chris Yap, Daniel, LostBoyz and Wolfx playing Manila

The five of us non-Catan players were about to start a game of Manila with Wolfx running thru the rules for us. In the end I could not join their game as I've to attend to the Catan Final Round but the four who did play, enjoyed the game tremendously.

 
The wooden punts in Manila. Nice game bits.

Manila is what you would term as a push-your-luck type of game where you attempt to make the most money (Pesos) by whatever means possible; legal or otherwise... A light filler that plays under 1 hour; it's a game that I feel many would luv to play!

Note: There was a misconception that Manila is a broken game due to a misplayed rule that allowed the Harbor Master to buy unlimited shares (of ware)! However if played correctly, it is definitely not broken... Refer here for the misplayed rule clarification.

The usual Friday crowd streaming into OTK as we continue to play on....

Those Catan players who did not get into the Final Round then decided to have another round of friendly Settlers of Catan. ah... the magic of Catan!

More trading in Catan

After their game of Manila, I joined the Terasek/Wolfx group and we did one of Knizia's finest and arguably the best pure auction game, Modern Art. The Terasek Gamers were bemused in the beginning as they began to comprehend how to evaluate the "value" of the painting that's being auctioned.

Terasek Gamers Chris and Daniel figuring out how to put a value to the paintings put up for auction in Modern Art 

Meanwhile another occasional OTK gamer, Ian (shrapnel) dropped in with two of his lady friends... and guess what he brought along as a gateway game? Yes - Settlers of Catan!! Boy.. I think we are having too much of Catan on one night!

Ian (shrapnel) playing Settlers of Catan with two of his friends over at the other table 

The Catan Qualifier concluded with Jorge and Karan taking the top 2 seats (congrats!) but it was a close finish. Guess what they did after stressing out over two rounds of competitive Catan? You would expect them to play a filler for eg Coloretto, yes?

 
Jorge showing some Younglings the art of jousting in Caylus.

But they started a game of Caylus! Some of them have not played Caylus before so Jorge volunteered to be the jousting instructor in the absence of our resident jousting Jedi Knights ayheng or aanemesis. It is rumoured aanemesis went south to search for the mythical dragonlance... while ayheng was busy preparing to hand-over his trusted lightsaber (vanilla Caylus) to padawan Wolfx.

Meanwhile after our table (Terasek/Woflx) finished our game of Modern Art, we decided to do another OTK favorite - 5p Havoc, the poker-like card game based on the 100-Year War.

OTK's Round 1 soon came to a close... and as usual, those-who-can adjourned to Boardgamecafe.net for R2 (round 2). Initially I thought we've a group of 10 for R2 and was excitedly talking up Werewolf (Lupus in Tabula) to the Terasek Gamers. Alas, I found out later that Phuah and Dominic have to take their leave....

Note: If only some of our regulars were present - ayheng, rhyen, aanemesis, vincent; we could have a 15p Werewolf!

So that left us with 8 players. Two or three short to do a good Werewolf session, but two extra to do 6p Power Grid (or 1856, hehe). We finally settled on party-fun-card games.... and Saboteur hit the table. Wolfx did the rule explanation and soon we were digging and mining our way thru to the gold mine!

 
Wolfx teaching Saboteurs

In the 1st round, halfway thru Lostboyz started acting like a saboteur. Very soon, he was hit with broken equipments from some concerned miners which drew the assistance from another would-be saboteur.

The broken equipments kept coming out.. and soon we have the 3rd saboteur.. and then the 4th saboteur?? Cannot be ma.. coz even in a 8p Saboteur there can be at most 3 saboteurs only! Now we have 4 prime suspects!!!

Turned out Lostboyz misunderstood the game to be "competitive" for the miners and halfway thru the round decided to "sabo" his own miner friends.... causing the other saboteurs to be confused as well! LOL

 
Wolfx showing how to draw a gun (er... card) quickly in Bang Dodge City

Bang! was next to the table. With 8 players, we put in the Dodge City expansion ie we have one Sheriff, two Deputies, three Outlaws and two Renegades. The two Renegades will initially be helping out each other until they are able to confront the Sheriff for a one-on-one in which case, the renegades then need to turn on each other to decide who's the eventual winner.

Wolfx as Vulture Sam demonstrated the art of the quick draw... but that didn't seem to help him as he was quickly knocked out in the 2nd round!

   Finally time for some to call it a nite around 430am. There four of us left, and an hour and a half to 6am. So the four of us continued with another round of Modern Art. Was so tempted to open 18Scan!

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Pssst.... did you see 1856 somewhere in the picture above??? :P

We finally say sayonara around 630am. It has been a great nite of gaming at OTK/BGC for gaming (and also the Catan Qualifier).

Besides the absent regulars, the other missing gamers tonight were the Pudu Gamers, who initially were supposed to come for the Catan Qualifier but could not make it last minute. If they came, it would be an even greater gaming nite at OTK! 

p/s The icing on the cake would be if we'd brought 18xx to the table for R2. The bright news is that some of the gamers in tonite's session are very keen to try 18xx. So perhaps we'll get to see two 18xx games going on at the same time at OTK/BGC one fine day.

Click here for more photos of this gaming session.
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