SETTLERS OF CATAN 2011 QUALIFIER #2 @ OTK CHERAS
By jack208
After the Boardgame Depot Qualifier last week (read sessrep here), the action moves to Cheras at the legendary OTK Cheras boardgame meetup venue which is the “home” of Boardgamecafe.net. As usual, things happen here in OTK on Friday nite and to reward those who dare to brave the traffic jam to get to OTK, we’ve on display five different editions of Settlers of Catan! And what does Catan have to do with World Peace? Read on… King Philip is Fair. 😛
The Five Elements of Catan
Those who were observant in our last sessrep (Boardgame Depot) have noticed we used two different editions of Settlers of Catan – the current 4th Edition and the earlier 3rd Edition. Today with Jedi Master aanemesis presence at OTK, we bring you a rarely-seen edition of Catan – the very 1st Edition from Mayfair!
From top: The rare 1st Edition, the now OOP 3rd Edition and the current 4th Edition
Sleeving the 1st Edition Catan set before using it in the qualifier…
Beside bragging rights as Malaysia’s best Catan player (should you win at the finals in MAGACON), the winner would also win a copy of the Settlers of Catan 15th Anniversary Edition (worth USD150) which we’ve on display at OTK. And all for the price of a RM20 MAGACON ticket? 😛
Housed in a lovely wooden case, all it’s components are made of wood – even the number tokens – and it is a set that would grace every Catan player’s table. Btw the Final table at MAGACON will likely be playing this 15th Anniversary Edition. J
The fifth set is the (now OOP I think) 3D Catan Turkish edition….
Everything’s in plastic 3D. But Development Cards in Turkish… LOL.
Table 1: Darwin, Junyet, Jacelyn and Kah May
Players were quickly drawn into their respective table, and like Boardgame Depot since we started late we decided to do only a single round with the winner of each table qualifying for the Finals. I actually prefer this single-round format since it meant every player will go for the kill as there’s only one qualifier from each table. Getting 2nd place is simply the “First Loser”.
Table 1’s initial setup using the 3rd Edition set. It’s a sign of not-so-good things as the resources are not well spread out…
The obligatory photo-shoot for the ladies…
Kah May (red) off to a good start, claiming the Longest Road and effectively cutting up the rest. She’s one half of the OTK Catan Couple as she first met her other half Steven in the 2007 OTK Catan Qualifier. 🙂
The Rise of Blue saw Junyet’s Blue dominating ore and using that effectively to quickly develop his settlements into towering cities!
I rob you, you rob me…
This table had a very tight finish with Junyet and Kahmay a point shy of claiming victory and Jacelyn not too far behind. The No. 7 (dice) thwarted Junyet’s plan a few times before he finally got the ore/wheat he needed to build his 4th city to claim victory!
Table 2: Ian Binn, Steven Yap, Amanda Chua
Table 2 has the honor of playing on the rare 1st Edition set… and we have here The League (Puchong)‘s single representative in Amanda Chua! Respek!
Aanemesis setting up Table 2 on his newly sleeved 1st Edition Catan playset
Ian Binn (Wolf Game Shop) seen here. Eh, where’s Empress Hacan? Hibernating ka? 😛
Starting position for Table 2. You can almost see where this is heading… hehe
My hat off to this young lady. Played Catan once but she “dared” come all the way from BGN Puchong and is in fact The League‘s singular representative. Her supporter (DWolve) came later… wah, where were all the League gentlemen ah.. leaving Amanda to fend for herself against Wolf-Ian and Croc-Steven. LOL
I think win or lose, she has already WON! J
Blue was Amanda Chua and she has given a good account of herself… She built across to box Ian Binn (orange) into a very uncomfortable corner. But it was not enough to prevent Steven (black) claiming a win through the basic approach of building settlements & cities.
Steven Yap, the other half of our OTK Catan Couple, having good times again with Catan as he qualified for the Finals from Table #2.
Congrats to the OTK Qualifiers!
All the best to Steven (left) and Junyet for the Finals @ Magacon!
MAGACON’s Chang manning the registration table…
Caylus for World Peace!
After Catan, some of the gamers decided to stay for another game and an OTK fave, CAYLUS was brought to the table.
Jimmy taking a break from GO for the evening to help King Philip build his castle.
Darwin (left) moving from Catan to Caylus within the same day….
CAYLUS – the next competition? 😛
FACEBOOK PHOTO ALBUM
To view pictures from this event
NEXT QUALIFIERS
If you miss this, we’ll be at FND Mindspot (Taman Tun) and Meeples (SS15) tomorrow (Sat Dec 3); both starting 2:00pm. Do drop by even if you just wish to observe the game. But why watch… play la! And get a ticket to the upcoming MAGACON event this Dec 17 & 18.
– FND Mindpost (TTDI) on Saturday, Dec 3rd, 2.00 pm onwards (link to event invite), and
– Meeples (SS15) on Saturday, Dec 3rd, 2:00 pm onwards (link to event invite)
Next week we’ll wrap up the pre-MAGACON qualifiers by visiting Mage Cafe (Damansara Jaya) and Comics Mart (Midvalley) to find four more qualifiers for the Finals.
See ya!
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Categories: Events, Tournaments
Boardgamecafe.net 
Wow that was quick, CK! We just had the qualifiers yesterday. After playing it, Catan seems like an interesting game. Looking forward to play with the rare editions of Catan! 😀
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New company KPI for blog updates… haha. No la, just had a bit more time lately so trying to keep blog entries up-to-date (still a lot more to go… including like 3-4 very interesting 18xx sessreps). Sorry for the delay yeah… 😛
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oh…. to your comment on Catan being an interesting game, yes it is. Still one of the better gateway games around. But at OTK, the gamers tend to favor the heavier Euros (or the other totally random dicefest called 18xx. LOL).
We also tend to play Catan (if it gets to our meetup tables) using the Government Grant variant.. where you get something even if your dice roll sucks. 😛
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