What game is hitting your table?

[Jolo]

On Saturday I had a games day in my home, we played a total of 6 different games.

We started with Small World, which we played 4 player. It played more like a wargame than the usual area control game it is, with players picking up their entire army and moving it around the board continuously. We finished with scores of 59,59,59,50. I lost the tiebreaker to finish second on the last turn when the Sorcerers took one of my Elves.

The second game of the day was Rails of Europe, the expansion based on Martin Wallace's game Railways of the World, which we didn't play like a wargame. I built between Berlin and Rome for the most part and won the tiebreaker to finish third.

Container was our third game of the day. Now Container can be difficult the first time it is played, so we played the basic game. I like this but others don't...
I won the tiebreaker to win the game.

Game four was London, Martin Wallace's card game about rebuilding London after the Great Fire. I cruised to a bare victory (no tie breaker) and was sitting in third place overall.

The fifth game was Brass, considered by many to be Wallace's best. This was a tough slugging game, as we all had played it several times, there was no tiebreaker, and I finished third.

The final game of the night was Power Grid, we played on the Portugal/Spain map. I didn't know this but three of the players colluded to hose me over. Well I got even with them! I finished 4th, losing the tie breaker for second.

[Colin Dearborn]

Got in a few this weekend.


World Without End and Aton with Matt and Kathy. I really enjoy World without end, it has tough choices throughout the game and there aer many twists and turns with the events. We had a very close game with me winning on the tiebreaker. Who would think I was more pious than virtually anyone? Aton is a decent 2 player, kind of regret trading my copy off now.

Qwirkle with the family. Pretty neat little tile laying game, I see now why it was up for the game of the year award. You lay tiles and have to match either colors or shapes. Amanda has found her new favorite I think.

Spin Monkeys was a surprise hit. I played a 3 player game and it was great to see my wife getting into it and enjoying herself. I took it off my for sale list and am now thinking it would be fun to see what a full 8 player game would look like.

Also got in a couple game of the old standby Hive with my daughter.

[R Newell]

Matt, Robert, and I played a game of Mage Knight using the Cooperative Blitz scenario.  We lost, big time -- either the victims of an incredible string of bad luck or we weren't great at adapting to the map/hands/dice we had available, I'm not sure which.  Matt had the most success, potting in the garabage goals after Robert's hard work.  For hockey fans, Matt was our Ryan Smyth.  I had built up a great hand, with multiple spell cards and an artifact or two (arguably the best cards in the game), but never really got much chance to use them in the truncated Blitz scenario.

[celticgriffon]

Was able to make it over for Games Day this past Saturday for a few hours.

We started off with a game of Escape, The Curse of the Temple.  It was my first time playing it.  A few things - the base game without the curses or treasures is a bit too easy of course.  Your group must stick together to likely have a chance of success.  The downloads, however, are not great.  You have ten minutes to get out of the Temple before it collapses.  Every three minutes you have to go back to the starting area to be safe (otherwise you lose a die and that would make things crazy difficult).  On the full speaker settings on the phone we still found it very difficult to make out the gong and door slamming sounds.  These sounds are critical to the game and should be not only loud but also very distinct.  They are neither.

With this being said I still am excited to try out the more difficult versions.

Next we played UP.  I used to have a pretty amazing win record in this game.  My last two attempts have been nothing short of disasters.  Failure to get a majority in anything for most of the rounds left me in a sold last place.  Oh well - I still enjoy the game very much; it is one of my top 30 for sure.

Finally we ended the night with a game of Sticheln.  This game flips trick taking on its head.  Experienced players of the genre will usually make a few critical mistakes.  But the game is genius.

And finally I have been playing a lot of Blood Bowl.  I am going to be setting up a fixed group league to try some stuff out.  If it is successful I will launch it to the greater population.  Our tentative website is here: www.reginaflatland.bloodbowlleague.com 

Please ignore the top log - it is just a placeholder until I get something firmed up.  Check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Michael

[Bix Conners]

Matt, Robert, and I played a game of Mage Knight using the Cooperative Blitz scenario.  We lost, big time -- either the victims of an incredible string of bad luck or we weren't great at adapting to the map/hands/dice we had available, I'm not sure which.  Matt had the most success, potting in the garabage goals after Robert's hard work.  For hockey fans, Matt was our Ryan Smyth.  I had built up a great hand, with multiple spell cards and an artifact or two (arguably the best cards in the game), but never really got much chance to use them in the truncated Blitz scenario.

Thanks to Ryan and Robert for guiding me through this. I think during the last 15 minutes I started to "get it". Man o' man, is there a lot going on in this. I certainly want to explore this some more. By the way, I had to look up the Ryan Smyth reference... funny.

[celticgriffon]

BTW... Ryan Smyth broke my wrist with a butt end in bantam... FWIW I think he is an asshole.

Michael

[Bix Conners]

BTW... Ryan Smyth broke my wrist with a butt end in bantam... FWIW I think he is an asshole.

Michael

So, then, I guess that implies I was the Mage Knight asshole in our game last night...
...fair enough.

[celticgriffon]

lol Matt... I wasn't implying you were one... (and you know that).  

Smyth was far from the best player on his team.  There were a bunch of players who could outskate and out handle the puck.  One player on his team, Stacey Roost, should have made the NHL in a heartbeat.  He led the league in assists and goals year after year...  Two of us were assigned to shadow him every game.  Nobody shadowed Smyth... lol

Smyths size (he is tall) was his (imo) only asset.  But good for him for perservering and getting to the big leagues.  He is still an asshole though... butt ends are dirty and should have severe consequences in hockey.

Michael

[Tempest]

The other night a few friends and I played one of the newer Marvel tabletop RPGs... I couldn't tell you which one because I forgot. In any case, it was pretty interesting. Basically depending on who you pick, you're given your power set and some character features to keep in mind. When it comes down to combat, your effectiveness is essentially determined by how well you can incorporate your powers and features. In other words, you are rewarded for role-playing well. There aren't really set stats and stuff, so it seems like you can just drop in to the game pretty quickly. Combat uses a comparative dice pool type system, so instead of trying to hit someones armour class or something, you just roll all your dice (determined again by which power you're using, plus any other relevant features you can add) and compare it to your target's die roll.

We were initially going to use existing Marvel characters, but we all pretty much had the same qualm about not wanting to RP an existing character. Instead we each took an existing character and re-templated them to our own style. The first person took Victor Mancha (an apparent cyborg son of Ultron, for those not familiar) and made him into this weird nanite-swarm thing, the second made a female version of Collossus (minus the Russian part), the third made a speedster that also happened to be a stoner and finally I re-templated Shadow Cat into Ghost Dad, the father figure of the team who was indeed a Bill Cosby fan, and also a ghost. Needless to say, lulz were had. I'm almost considering keeping a log of our adventures online somehwere.

[Bix Conners]

Last night at ChewsDay Challenge...

Played a five player game of Coloretto. Well, I have the same track record I always have when it comes to push your luck games. I push my luck, I push it right out the door. This is a quick fun filler that is great for an evening opener.

After that I played a four player game of Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar. This was mostly taught by Robert Kuster with me filling in a couple of spots from the rule book. This was my second play and the mechanics have started to fall into place for me. I seem to like these Euros with multiple paths to victory (victory points). The mechanism of the gear wheels is a novelty, but I think it works well. Enjoyable game.