Another board game day, Dungeon Lords, Spectre 007 and Undaunted Normandy

 

 

A three game day that did not last too far into the wee hours of the night! 

DUNGEON LORDS

Up first was Dungeon Lord which we had played before, but as we set it up and started to play it, very little of it game back to me. It is, an interesting game and a frustrating game. The gist of it is that you try to build a dungeon, populate it with monsters and traps and try to withstand the incursion of adventurer parties. Acquiring stuff is quite the challenge given the limited amount of time and other restrictions that one encounters. From my perspective it felt like I was always behind, always trying to catch up, never able to get ahead. It was not the most pleasurable gaming experience that I have had, but it was not the worst. 

We played the two player modified game which I am certain had an impact on the gaming experience but I am at a loss to imagine if that impact was good or bad. In a two player game the two missing players are replaced by random draws which can by dumb luck mess up your plans. In a four player game the other players will be more actively messing things up.

SPECTRE 007

Again two player version, this time the villains were Blofeld and Raoul Silva. The game did not go so well. Lets just say that Raoul Silva does not work well in a two player game, he is just too unbalanced. His ability to advance along the victory track by 2 steps when a mission is failed means he has no incentive to help complete the mission. The other player therefore has the sole responsibility to resolve the mission, which is nigh impossible. Evan if they can stop the mission from failing the drain on their resources and the impact on their token placement means they will not be able to do much of anything else that turn or in future turns. To add insult to injury, should the Silva player realize that the mission will be resolved they need to bid only 1 resource to be part of the successful mission and therefore advance along the victory track. In short they cannot fail to advance each turn! To defeat Silva's power you need to have four players who can each contribute to any given mission, one player cannot do it.

Silva is not to be played in a two player game!!!

UNDAUNTED NORMANDY

We played another great game of Undaunted Normandy. I really like the easy to remember rules and tactical challenges of this game. It helps that we are playing through the 12 scenarios that came with the game, it gives a different feel and different challenge to each game. 

The game mechanics are simple and smooth but the game itself is not simple. There are a lot of tactical challenges in any given game and the randomness of your card draw can impact on your choices, but in this case I rather embrace the challenge. 

Undaunted Normandy is easily my favorite deck building game and my favorite WWII skirmish game.