So we squeezed in 5 game plays this past Thursday.
A three game day that did not last too far into the wee hours of the night!
So we managed to play a few new to us games plus an old favorite the other day. We wound up playing two zombie games, the semi cooperative Run, fight or die and the competitive Last night on Earth. Much preferred the latter game as it offered a bit more involvement as Run, fight, die tends to just be a simple random lightweight game. I really do like the Flying Frog games, they look great, they typically are very thematic and are easy to play.
You see, there is not a strong incentive to end the game (beyond the insanity of a 7 hour game), nor does the game force you to meet the game ending conditions. Yes you advance along a chart that gives you money and victory points, but you can also get those items from the cards you draw. Also, while the game has a turn tracker, the turn tracker only applies to the solo game forcing an end after 14 turns. In the regular game there is no such mechanic. The mini game of building money/VP engines is terribly tempting and can supplant the whole terraforming theme of the game.
This is a problem.
It is also exacerbated by the fact that some cards have victory points on them and many of these cards once played will be hidden so only the owner will know how many victory points they have. Thus one is further incentivized to gather as many victory points as you can and since you have no way of knowing you opponents total you are de-incentivized to end the game as you may not know how well you are doing.
Despite all this the game was entertaining (newness factor) but I am not certain if the game will work for me and my regular player(s).
So a couple of nights spent playing boardgames this week saw a new game for us played and the return of an old favorite.
In order to get ready for our new campaign, we figured we should maybe try out the rules again as it has been a long time since we last played this game. Also this game was a way of introducing a new player to the game.
In the trail of clues scenario four plot points are placed 12" in from the corners, then each of the leagues are deployed within 12" of a corner (more than 6" away from a plot point) The major plot point is only placed on the table when one of the leagues has completed a minor plot point.
From the late 1980's it came, never played by me back then but I did see it at the club a lot. Well I picked up this copy cheap at a bring and buy a few years back just cause. Well, now I have played it and, well, it was not that bad (not that great either)
So here are the first grouping of games that are going. A weird mix to be sure. Held on to some for future generations (the old Parker Bros games) and some were kept on the off chance that one of the groups of players that I know might play them. Well, the parents of the kids show no interest in the 'family' games and my acquaintances have expressed limited interest in the others.
So, out they go!
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So, for the last few days I have been involved in helping to remove damaged or no longer required items from my in-laws home. They have a small home but it certainly was packed with stuff. It got me thinking about my own abode, thinking long and hard about getting what I should do. Now, parting with games or books is anathema to me, something is hardwired into my system demanding that I retain everything that I own. Certainly there have been times when I have got rid of stuff only to regret it many years later.
That may happen again, but, it will not stop me. I am caught up in a ground swell of energy that I do not want to escape, rather, I shall ride the wave and see what I can do to decrease the amount of games, books and stuff that I have!
So, this past Sunday I started on the garage, going after all the crap that I have saved that I might use sometime. Well there is a thick layer of dust over a lot of that stuff, I just don't think I will miss any of it and should I, I am certain I can find something else. So, 4 bags worth of crap went out in the garbage and/or the recycle bin. Some stuff is going back to Value Village with VV price stickers still on them.
Books
I have a tall pile of books that will be heading out of my game room this week. A real mix of mostly military history books with some general history books thrown in. I just do not need a reference library for the gaming I am doing. So, there must be 60+ books in the pile, then add in some old Sci-Fi/Fantasy books that I am adding to the mass I must be close to a hundred..
Board games
I am once again culling the herd (as it were) of board games. So far the first wave sees maybe 30 to 40 games pulled off the shelves. These range from old time games like Monopoly to modern games like Legends of Andor, Mice and Mystics, Conan and many other such games plus some Sci-Fi wargames. I will be back at it tomorrow.
RPG's
Another source of insanity. I have so many games that I just will not get around to playing. A few months back I had pulled out a large number of games just to see if I would miss them. Well how can you miss something that you don't play? Well, you can't entirely. Somehow, for some demented reason, I still think that I will play these games sometime...but really deep down I know I never will. So a few weeks back I started another round of purging thinking that this time I would get rid of the Eclipse books and some other games, only to find that they were part of the previous purge.
This made me happy.
I had essentially reconfirmed my original decision, those games remained purged, so I added some more to the pile.
What to do with this stuff?
Well, normally I just give games away, trying to find a home for them with someone who will actually play them. But this time, I think I just might try to sell the boardgames and the RPG's online (shudder). While some of the books are quite nice and all in good shape I think I want them out of the house sooner than later.
Of course Cangames is fast approaching, and while I have never sold through them, now may be the time that I finally do so.
Final note
The sad thing so far is that even though I have taken a lot of stuff off my shelves it does not always look like I have made that much progress in the reduction of my collection. Sigh.
So, first time gaming at the club went well. Two rookies to the game and one old pro. I am not certain if the rookies knew what they were getting into, but they seemed to go with the flow and picked up the rules pretty quickly. I brought 8 leagues with me and allowed the players to choose who to play. We went with a simple scenario, Lost Keys and after a brief explanation of the rules we had at it.
See the bottom of the post for the league sheets used.
It was a scatter start so the leagues deployed all over the board and at all heights!
So, we finally got around to playing this game and it is an excellent game, which is a good thing because I also own the North African version, the reinforcements set and Stalingrad set. I really should be more careful about buying expansions or new versions of a game before I have even played one game of the original. In this case it worked out!
Full proper reviews are available all over the web, but I will throw in my own two cents.
The base game is for two players, one controls the Germans, the other the Americans. The game has a scenario booklet that tells you what forces to assemble and how the battlefield will look. The game comes with 18 double sided terrain tiles that are placed on the table based on the instructions in the scenario book. The setup also tells you what troop to use, where to deploy them and what other markers should be placed on the board.
Two 1000 point armies, Dwarf vs Orc.
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| Dwarf defenders |
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| Orc attackers |
First board game of the new year see us return to an old favorite! Recently I had located some new decks, so we decided to try them out, that was our first error. We decided to go up against Miss Information in the Silver Gulch terrain. (both new to me) I selected Fanatic as my hero while Mainstay was the other hero.
As it worked out, Miss Information is not a good choice for a two player game. Her main attack does damage equal to the number of heroes minus 2. So in our case, no damage. We suffered more damage from the enviroment than we ever took from her. I did the most damage to myself, 5 points than any other single attack from any of the other sources.
So our second big mistake that night was to keep playing the game even after we realized the how bad it was going to be. By bad I mean how easy it was to win and it was obvious pretty early. There was no point to playing this particular configuration. I much prefer a bigger challenge where the villain and or terrain is giving us a real run for the money.
Oh well next time will be better (could not be worse)
This is a beat of a game, not quite the geek crushing weight of a Twilight Imperium, but heavy nonetheless. It is part of the Undaunted series which includes Normandy and North Africa and possibly The battle of Britain. (so far not found it for sale) It is a deck building/counter game involving small skirmish units. Stalingrad is a massive game that has a complete coherent campaign. While I have yet to set it up it looks like it has more parts than the other two games, combined.
I do look forward to getting this game into the board game rotation!
