Posted by John, Catholic Studies Master of Arts student
John Rogers here. I’m a Catholic Studies Master of Arts student, and I’ve spent the last two summers as the event coordinator for the Church and the Biomedical Revolution faculty seminars. During the school year, I attend CSMA classes part-time and work full-time as a teacher at Saint Thomas Academy in St. Paul, MN. This summer I took “Paul’s Letters” with Dr. Martens and an independent study on “Phenomenology and the Theology of Disclosure” with Dr. Wojda.
After summer classes ended, I hit the road with my friend Russell Shurts, who will be entering the UST Master’s in Engineering program in the fall. We headed to Lancaster, PA, and spent a week competing in the 19th annual World Boardgaming Championships. This convention is a chance for 2000+ boardgaming enthusiasts to test their mettle and play their favorite games. A lot of the events at the WBC are either European-style games (popular ones in the U.S. include Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and Power Grid) or strategic/war games (Risk and Axis & Allies being two of the best known). It’s also a great opportunity to try out games that are brand new or currently in development.
Perhaps my favorite event at the WBC was the Here I Stand tournament. Here I Stand is a six-player war/political/religious game about the Wars of the Reformation. Players control either the Protestants, Papacy, English, French, Hapsburgs, or Ottomans and try to score points by capturing cities, converting areas to their religion, exploring the Americas, etc. I advanced to the semifinals in this event and had a blast meeting lots of people who are as interested in this period of history as I am! In addition, I was able to try out “Small World” (pictured above) early on in the week. I liked it so much I purchased it at a discount in the Dealers’ Room on Thursday, and played it four more times throughout the week. It’s a fast-paced, multiplayer game of territory control. This is the sort of game I knew I could quickly introduce to my family. They really enjoy it!
If you want to learn more about my trip, or about board games in general, please visit my blog about board games: Margin of Victory.