Dragons Down board game

 

So, Dragons Down is a really long game to play. We started around 8pm and finished up some time after 1 AM. Yet in its way it was a fun enough game. We played scenario 4 which saw us declare at the start of the game what we hoped to achieve, gold, fame, spells and or epic treasures. It reminded me of the old careers board game. 

So we dealt out the tiles and took turns laying them out to create our board. My opponent wound up with all three of the civilization tiles, which I thought was something of an advantage, but in the end it was only sort of an advantage. Take a look at the board, note how we managed to divide the board making it difficult to move east west. I started the game in the lower left tile, where the monster is in the picture. It might be tough to see, but if you can expand the image you will see that I can only advance on the six tiles to the left, then I hit a dead end in the caves to the far left. I could not reach the actual civilization in the civilization tiles even though I could at least touch the Sanctuary tile. To go north or east I would have to go south and slowly trudge through the mountain tiles! I chose not to do that. My opponent had far more tles that he could travel through and explore, many options. Thankfully I had luck on my side.

My hero

My opponent

So, while I did not have any easily accessible civilization tiles I did get lucky with sites.  At one point my opponent revealed a site, but because of the board layout he was unable to explore it, but I was able to and did. I also got lucky by finding two sites in one tile, with another right next door. This led to a lot of looting, which helped with my pregame victory conditions, as did the fame in actually locating these sites.

He did manage to get close to my hero, but this also meant that he was too far away to get back to civilization before the end of the game

I ran into some challenges, in this case 13 enemies ganged up on me, eight Orcs and 5 juvenile dragons!

For maybe half of the game I had two curses on me courtesy of two epic treasures.. One prevented me from sneaking or going on alert, this made it harder to hide from monsters.  The other curse was a monster magnet, that meant if any monsters were rolled for any surrounding tile, I would see those monster show up in my tile. What a revolting development that was.

In the end I was able to dodge (hide) from most of the encounters, but I did fight two epic battles that drained me a lot. Thankfully I had enough wounds/cubes to absorb most of the damage, but it was close. Fortunately I was able to retreat from the enemies to lick my wounds, and spent three turns just healing and hoping for no wandering monsters to find me, they did not.

So in the end, while my opponent suffered a penalty I was able to touch part of a civilization tile and not take any penalty when I retired. In the end it was all the treasure sites that gave me the victory. Out of the four points that we had to spend before the start of the  game I had put two in fame and two in epic treasures. I never did get any more money nor spend any money than what I started with. As for spells I found three near the end and never had a chance o learn any of them. 

Final Girl, finally played!

 

So, I have had this game for a few months now, even had it all set up, but just never got around to playing it, until now...

Final Girl Camp Happy Trails!

This works out to be a fine solitaire game with plenty of potential variety, be it within the scenario or due to there being many add on scenarios. Camp happy trails is a riff on the Friday the 13th movies, you are the hero trying to defeat the homicidal villain and safe some campers.

Well into the game, many campers have been killed by Hans, but I have saved 5 of them! Hans is the red meeple, I am the purple one.

The game presents you with many decisions to make. You can perform actions based on cards in hand, but fail to many actions and you will run out of time, if you run out of time you will be hampered in getting actions for your next turn. Also what do you do in a turn, do you save campers, gather equipment and weapons to counter the villain do you combat Hans or try to elude him? However you can rarely if ever do all the things that you want to. meanwhile Hans may move and or attack the campers or, gasp, you!

It took me some time before I actively attacked Hans.

After I took the fight to Hans.

Horror level low, well armed but outclassed by Hans. I was reduced to 9 health and when flipped the token indicated no extra life, I was dead, but Hans was reduced to 2 health!

It was a tough but fair game. I had my chances but also dealt a tough blow at the start of the game. The initial event forced me to only be able to rescue one camper at a time, this put quite the crimp in my plans.

I plan to try this adventure out again real soon before trying out some of the other movies.

Midgard Heroic battles, Undead vs Lizardmen August 23rd

 

I played host to two mighty armies, Jeff's Undead vs Braden Lizards. It was a 300 point game with four players. We had some challenges in the first game, an error by the undead player saw his forces slaughtered due to a mistake about how much damage they could take.

So, a reset and a second game...

Showdown in town, What a Cowboy! game six finale

Tuco's men take position at one end of town

 

While the Earp gang advances from the other end of town

Local pugilists conduct a donnybrook.

A lucky escape for Poole of the Earp gang!

Wyatt in action!

The Drifter observes Tom, a new found ally gun downed by Wyatt

Doc and Ike decide to move along their right flank

Ears still ringing, Poole decides it is better to remain in cover.

The local Undertaker senses an upswing in business!

By the last game the Earp gang was pretty much an unstoppable force. All of them had progressed to Gunslinger status with Doc just on the cusp of becoming a legend. Doc was the most successful character in the campaign.

As for the Tuco gang, well they had their challenges in the campaign. There were moments of brilliance but all too many instances of bad luck. More of their gang members were killed outright than in the Earp gang, This delayed their progress such that only a couple of them made it to the shootist level.

The drifter who was there to add some balance to the gangs appeared in the last two games but did not really factor into results. He was badly wounded in game five and ineffective in game six.

I enjoyed the campaign and I think the players had fun too. There is a lot of randomness in the game, that is for certain, but the randomness in its own way does add a certain charm to the game. This game is not for those who like certainty in how their figures act. Each turn brings a challenge for the player, they may have plans for their figures, but the dice are the ultimate determinator of how those plans will play out.

The penultimate What a Cowboy! game

Game 5 saw the two opposing forces conducting a vendetta against each other. The background was an old mining camp turned small town. Each side selected an opponent to be the target of their rage, and with no other objective they advance upon each other.

Both side took advantage of the terrain

Heavy fire from the Earps drove back their opposition

A Drifter (the man in black) was 'recruited' to fight the Earps and their allies

Tuco and his ally gang up on one of the Earps underlings

New to us boardgame Black Forest

 

So, just after I finished ranting to a friend about how I disliked worker placement games what should my regular boardgaming partner bring over but a worker placement game! However this was not that bad. Unlike other such games each player only has one worker which therefore eliminates the whole nightmare aspect of trying to get your extra workers before your opponent does. 

In the two player game you add a neutral third worker who can be moved around by either player, usually to interfere with the plans of the other player, but with so many options available each turn the Prescence of this third worker is not a game breaker but can be a nuisance!.

The game was fun and easy to learn. It has an intriguing resource wheel (well actually two per player) that tracks what resources you have and has an interesting mechanism to show the interrelationship between raw materials and finished glass. (required to build more advanced buildings) The game sees the players pretty much playing their own game with only limited interaction. The players are trying to develop their demesne, by increasing their flocks, constructing buildings and completing jobs.  

I found it to be a nice game, much like Eminent Domain. Both players just keep working on their plans without the other player attacking and ruining their plans. A very pacifist game.

That same night we also played another game of 5 year mission.

Some new additions

 

Old HO scale Tyco Turbo 'futuristic' train 

Found this in Almonte at an antique store for under $20.00. The tag suggests that it still works, but I have no power pack to test it out. It is a small train, three cars including the engine but it should work for 15mm sci fi well enough.

What a Cowboy game July 12th

 

The attackers advanced along the top of the table from left to right

So, our regularly scheduled game day was cancelled as the venue was still drying out from the Canada Day floods. As a result I decided to try and get a What a Cowboy game played at my place. While four people initially said yes, by game day we were down to 2 players and me as ref. Thankfully the players were from different factions so that part of it worked out.

The game was set up and prepped for the ambush scenario. The attackers had to get a mule across the table, the defenders had to stop them. A note about all our games, I tend to set a time limit of six turns on the games. At the end of six turns we roll a die, if a six is rolled the game ends if not then another turn is played. At the end of this 'extra' turn we roll again and the game ends if a  five or six is rolled. We keep rolling and keep increasing the result range. The idea is that it inspires players not to waste time but to get on with the mission. The variable nature of the last turn adds some tension.

The defenders made certain to place a sniper high up guarding the 'north' passage.

The attackers move in force along the northern edge the defenders have a henchmen gang and one other defender on the ground

Tuco pushed past a fellow gang member to try and stop the attackers

Meanwhile one of the deployed defenders desperately tried to get across town to join the fight

Things do not look good for the attackers as the defenders move to cut off their escape route

But good shooting by the attackers pin a number of defenders and drop one of their number

The sniper failed to halt the attackers, and they manage to advance the mule almost off the table 

More defenders fall

In the end it was a very near run thing. The mule was left untended but the defenders failed their morale test

It was a very good game that went right down to the wire. The defenders were whittled down and forced to flee, but had they stood they may yet have prevailed as they had more men around the mule.

The next couple of games are going tough for the gang that were the defenders. The attacking gang has managed to gain enough experience to raise most of not all of their members to Gunslinger status. I see a lot of henchmen in the defenders future.

Boardgame night, Dragons Down

 

So, we finally got this off the shelf and onto the table. It is a reworking of the old Avalon Hill game, Magic Realm. This edition is very shiny, lots of large tiles, poker chip size tokens and fancy accessories.

For our first game we decided to play the introductory scenario using just the mountain tiles. I bought the fancy edition that comes with metal coins, fancy character boards and weighted chips. 

I was the Human barbarian, while the other player chose a Dwarf knight.

As for the game it was a mixed bag. The game was fun to play but we had some issues with the rulebook. Nothing so serious that it ruined the game, just sometimes a challenge to locate information. We started late so by 1 Am we decided to call it and we both retired our characters after about 18 turns. We both had fun and will definitely try this game again, soon.