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Thoth, Gatherer of Knowledge
MerricB
Underboss
2353 Posts
    
Australia
 | | 04/25/2006 9:13 PM |
| Friday afternoon, before we got to our Living Greyhawk session, I arrived at Card Crazy to find that Sarah had bought a new board game: Torres (or Towers). How could I resist? We set up a quick game of it, and discovered all the ways I could be sneaky.
It's an interestingly strategic game.
Sunday proved to be the occasion of our monthly Board Game day, so eleven of us gathered together at Dave's place to play a few. Alas, some of the people who wanted to play D&D Miniatures weren't able to make it, so the proposed tournament didn't take place.
We began with an eight-player game of RoboRally, as Rob and Allan hadn't quite arrived yet, and Dave decided to sit out. When you're playing RoboRally, it's a very good idea not to get in front, as there are seven other 'bots gunning for you (with lasers!) I stayed behind at first, then made a dash for it. The first flag was difficult to get, the second moderately so, and Adam's bot got there before me.
Adam and I raced for the third flag, and a real mistake on my part pushed Adam onto the flag. I had to wait another turn before I could attempt it, whilst Adam had a pretty clear field to the fourth flag. Meanwhile, everyone else was still trying to achieve the first or second flag, whilst taking out their frustrating by shooting other bots or pushing them into bottomless pits... you know how it goes. [)] Daniel and Sarah grabbed some options, but were being hurt pretty badly.
I reached the third flag, and looked at Adam's position. At this point, he realised he'd reversed two cards on his registers. Oops. No, we weren't about to let him take it back. He turned left instead of right, walked off the conveyer belt that was taking him to the final flag, and thus allowed me the time I needed to grab the victory before him.
At this point, everyone was here that was arriving. Due to the cancellations, my original schedule had been completely shot, so I asked what games people wanted to play. Bad idea. Apparently, they didn't know.
Deciding to put a stop to this, I sent Dave, Craig, Ben, Nathaniel, Rich and Adam downstairs to play Betrayal at House on the Hill, whilst Sarah, Daniel, Allan, Rob and I took advantage of Allan's suggestion that we play Honour of the Samurai (more of a card game than a board game, but we're not too picky).
Honour of the Samurai is not my favourite game. It has a nice theme, and some good mechanics, but tends to drag out the endgame; people pick on the front-runner, and the game ends when everyone has run out of "nasty" cards. Allan proved the victor, although Rob, Sarah and myself all came pretty close at times.
Meanwhile, in the Betrayal game, Ben proved to be the traitor. He was in league with a banshee, and then started hunting down the other players. Unfortunately for Ben, they were more than a match for him and his ghostly pet, and so the explorers managed to escape the House on the Hill again!
At this point, my schedule began to be applicable again, so we started a seven-player game of Shadows over Camelot, whilst the remaining four went downstairs to play Ticket to Ride: Europe.
The game of Shadows was great. The knights were doing really well in completing their quests, but a couple of Morgan cards knocked us about, and suddenly we found ourselves with four black swords against our five white swords.
Then we looked around. Lancelot had been found. Excalibur had been claimed. The Grail Quest was about to be completed... but if there was a traitor amongst us, he'd cause us to lose! We worked out the maths. We could accuse someone of being a traitor, but it we were wrong, we'd lose as well!
It was Sarah's turn. She looked around our innocent faces. "Ben? I accuse you of being the traitor!"
Guess what? This was Ben's day for being the traitor. The treacherous dog had been holding on to several Merlin and Grail cards that he knew we needed!
Things still weren't good. We placed the 11th siege engine, and a single bad card draw would doom us all. Rob's knight was on 1 life... he gave his life to assure us of victory. I used Lancelot's Armour to view the top two black cards: indeed, the next card would have placed the final siege engine! I chose the other, and placed the final Grail card to claim the Holy Grail! The game was ours!
I didn't really get a glimpse of the Ticket to Ride: Europe game, though I think they had fun.
The final round of gaming included Sarah, Rich, Rob and me playing War of the Ring, whilst everyone else (save Daniel, who went looking for dinner) played Arkham Horror
Sarah and I have played several 2-player games of WotR, but this was our first four-player game; neither Rob nor Rich really knew the rules, so we did as well as we could. Sarah's forces stormed Gondor early, eliminating Osgiliath and taking Minas Tirith, whilst the Fellowship began their trek fairly slowly.
The Balrog appeared, causing problems for the fellowship's path, but the Elves set up their shield (protecting Lorien, Rivendell and the Grey Havens).
Rich, who was my partner, brought Gondor and the Elves to war, and began to reinforce Gondor and Lorien and thought about taking on Moria. Rob moved up many easterlings and marshalled Orthanc against my Rohan.
The Fellowship declared themselves in Edoras (which was a great surprise to Sarah, she hadn't seen that before), and Gandalf the White appeared in Fangorn. The Ents attacked Saruman, but he held them off.
Then came the turning point of the game. Helm's Deep was about to be besieged. Gandalf the White appeared. Sarah sent in the Nazgul (as she held a card to negate Gandalf), but before she could attack, I played The Eagles are Coming and rolled exceptionally well. All five Nazgul present were slain, and Helm's Deep was safe for a while.
Rich mustered in Dol Amroth, and a combined force of Elves and Men, led by Aragorn and Boromir began to move up to liberate Gondor. Even as Sarah and Rob attacked the dwarves of Erebor, the remaining companions entered Mordor. Gimli, Legolas, Merry and Pippin, all lost their lives in the treacherous chasms until only Gollum was left. However, before the forces of darkness could continue their assault, the Ringbearers completed their quest, and the game was ours!
Meanwhile, the investigators in Arkham Horror were facing the great Cthulhu himself. The game was entering its end phase as we finished our game. Ben wasn't actually playing an investigator, instead acting as a games master controlling all the game elements. The game ended with Cthulhu arising... they fought it bravely for a couple of rounds, but their weaponry (and luck) was depleted. Cthulhu devoured them all.
That was it for our Sunday board game afternooon. You can find pictures of it here:
http://buggs.multiply.com/photos/album/3
However, that wasn't it for gaming. Tuesday was a holiday in Australia (Anzac Day), so Sarah, Daniel and I got together to play Sarah's new acquisitions: Through the Desert and World of Warcraft: the Board Game.
Through the Desert is an unusual design - you place pastel camels to connect waterholes and oasises (oasii?), while trying to enclose areas and have the biggest caravan. There are five colours of camels, all of which are played from a central stock - the restriction is that you can't play a camel where it would connect caravans of two players of the same colour.
I really didn't have much idea of what I was doing, which probably explains why I won so convincingly.
World of Warcraft: the Board Game is unusual. It's like playing a solitare game. You control one or two characters who hunt down monsters and take treasures over the map. There are various quests that you need to complete. The combat system is rather nice, if somewhat longwinded, and it's fun getting all the talents, spells and items you can.
Unfortunately, interaction with your opposing players is almost non-existent. You can attack each other, but it's so rarely worth it (you gain no XP, and can only loot one treasure that they're not using!) So, Sarah & Daniel played the Horde team, and I played the Alliance team (I had two characters, they had one each).
In the early game, I sent my two heroes on quests together, whilst Daniel and Sarah split up. Sarah quickly advanced in levels, but poor Daniel kept on dying - eventually he was successful, but several turns had been lost.
By the end of the game, Sarah's character was 4th level, Daniel's 3rd, whilst mine were a 5th Warrior and a 4th level Warlock. The final battle was very one-sided, with my Alliance wiping out the Horde.
I'd like to play the game again (hopefully with 6 players), but I don't think it is anywhere as good as our other boardgames.
http://buggs.multiply.com/photos/album/4
We finished off the evening with a quick game of King Me!, one of our favourites; I bought a copy for Sarah for her birthday last year, and it's become a standby. It's quick and fun.
Alas, I mismanaged the voting for my candidates very badly, and thus lost. (Revenge for all the wins I'd done over the weekend, I guess).
Cheers! | |
Merric Blackman
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Avatar of the Tank
Newtoncain
Commander
2985 Posts
Land of 10,000 taxes
| | 04/25/2006 9:54 PM |
| I tried the new board game "Game of Thrones" based on the popular book series this weekend.
3-5 players and it kicks arse. No dice in this game btw. IIRC Fantasy flight makes it. | |
They just don't know what's good in life...Conan, tell them what is good in life.
To rip the boosters. To count the minis spilled out before you, and to hear the indifference of the women... | |
| Thoth, Gatherer of Knowledge
MerricB
Underboss
2353 Posts
Australia
| | 04/25/2006 10:28 PM |
| Game of Thrones is on my list of games to investigate; it's got some wildly varying reviews, but it looks very interesting.
FFG have some very good games at present (as do Days of Wonder).
Cheers! | |
Merric Blackman
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Fun Guy from Yuggoth
Cthulhufnord
Warlord
11113 Posts
Umass Amherst Baby!
| | 04/25/2006 11:01 PM |
| | I just picked up "The Fury of Dracula" this week, it looks promising. | |
Pathetic Earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void - without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe - anything at all - you would have hidden from it in terror. | |
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llyrsln
Sneak
100 Posts
| | 04/27/2006 1:42 AM |
| Wow. That's a lot of games for one day. Usually our group only manages 1 or 2 in a day at maximum.
RoboRally is a fun and replayable game, but I find that it gets a bit tedious towards the end (at moderate level), because there is usually a clear leader (or two) with a chance to get the last flag, and since everyone else knows they can't make it without a big snafu on that guy's part, they just content themselves on making his life difficult with their special components... resulting in him taking much longer than necessary to complete the game, and everyone else just completely losing any chance of winning...
Betrayal at House on the Hill has also somewhat lost a bit of appeal for our group, since we have exhausted quite a number of the scenarios, and they start sounding too similar after a while. Also, I have some balance issues with the scenarios: the traitor's abilities and minions in some scenarios give him an overwhelming advantage, whereas they aren't worth a penny in others (e.g. the cultists painting the pentagram).
Shadows over Camelot is a pretty good game for us, since it is co-operative, and lessens the ill-feelings that can creep up after games like Betrayal. Our only issue with the game is this: because we know each other pretty well in the group, the traitor becomes pretty transparent at an early part of the game (we can sense when someone isn't playing their normal game)... but if we don't play with the traitor, we quite easily manage to obtain about a 9/12 victory (in terms of swords) over the game itself, which is too comfortable a margin.
As for A Game of Thrones, only the chess lovers in our group seem to enjoy it. Because everything rests purely on strategy (in terms of what actions you and your allies take on your respective turns, and the sequence of each player's turn), they have an advantage over the 'fight first think later' types or the 'unbelievably lucky with dice' types.
FFG is definitely coming up with some interesting games (e.g. Marvel Heroes), but I'm not sure I feel the same about Days of Wonder and Eagle Games... the latter two have come up with a few gems (e.g. Mystery in the Abbey, Civilisation) but their overall selection isn't as enticing somehow.
My two cents worth.
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