Last weekend presented a solid mixed bag of gaming, including two more check-marks off my unplayed list.

Matthew had a birthday party to attend on Sunday afternoon for one of his fellow classmates and chess team members.  As of Friday afternoon we hadn’t yet chosen a present, so Julie asked me to pick up something from Rainy Day Games on the way home from work.  I had a few choices in mind (Pickomino, some lighter card games) but decided to pick up my favorite “simple” Carcassone game – Hunters and Gatherers.  The city is my favorite in the series, but a bit much for new gamers to learn from the box.

Matthew and I figured we better play it again so that Matthew could teach his friend how to play. The game wasn’t very close – Matthew was pretty tired by the time we started Friday night and I had to remind him of the rules a few times – he had the hardest time scoring the fishermen.

Saturday evening Jacob and I broke out my copy of Zero!, volume 3 in the Down in Flames series.  I picked this up along with Corsairs and Hellcats in a GMT sale a year or two ago.  This is a card-driven WWII air combat game that feels a lot like a CCG without the collecting.  We played a simple element (figher & wingman) vs. element dogfight to get a feel for the rules.  There’s a lot more in the box than just the cards for the air combat, including bombers and a well packaged campaign game covering the early part of the Pacific war (Corsairs and Hellcats covering the later part).

The game was very easy to learn and Jacob (playing Japan) managed to shoot me down without taking any damage.  I just couldn’t get into any sort of advantaged position, and it seems to be tought to come from behind once you start to lose it.  I suspect the game is much more interesting with multiple elements where other pilots can come to the aid of one in danger and force an attacker to back off.  Jacob had a great time and looked very interested in trying the campaign game.

Sunday morning we all ran in the Shamrock Run in downtown Portland.  Julie and I were signed up for the 8k, the boys the 5k, but once we looked at the race schedule we decided to all do the 5k rather than keep the boys waiting for an hour after they finished.  Jacob and I planned to play a full game of War of the Ring that afternoon, but I got a call from Ken late morning and we agreed to play.  That allowed Jacob and Brandon to play some XBox 360 and PC games.

I had the game setup by late morning.  Ken arrived around 1:45 and we started our game at 2:15, with Ken playing the Free Peoples and me playing the Shadow Armies.  Like any game of this depth and complexity, things were a bit slow at the start as we worked out the rules.  Of particular help was a player aid / turn summary from BGG – I strongly recommend using this one for each player as it is much better than the aids that come with the game.

This is a very well designed game – I’m anxious enough to play it again that I’m willing to defer playing some other big games on my list for a few more chances to play it while the rules are still fresh in my head. We both fumbled around quite a bit with strategy as the choices often are pretty non-obvious.  It also hurt not knowing what the cards had to offer (we didn’t even scan them ahead of time).  Ken managed to kill of Saruman within 2 turns of his entry into the game, and I managed to steal 6 VPs from strongholds that he left unoccupied.  The tension was great as I moved to 9 VPs (needing just one more to win), with Ken at 2 VPs (needing 2 more for a military victory), and the fellowship on the doorstep of Mordor.

This is where I made a critical mistake, leaving Moria unoccupied as I raced up to Rivendell to capture the stronghold.  I even had a chance to muster a unit into there, instead opting for a Nazgul (useless by himself) and counting on another muster the following turn.  Well, I rolled three “eyes” and three “palantirs” on my next roll, and had no way to get any troops into Moria. Ken got the movement dice he needed and proceeded to walk into Moria unmolested, resulting in a military victory for the good guys.  I ended with 8 VPs.  Overall one of the best gaming experiences in recent memory – I’m glad I finally took the time to get this one played.

Looks like there is a decent likelihood of an English language reprint of Die Macher.  Valley Games, a publisher startup in Alberta, appears to be running a P500–style ordering process for the game.  Unfortunately the store is closed so there’s no way to place orders yet.

From their website:

Yes, the rumors are true. Valley Games is in the process of bringing the gaming community the only top ten game yet to be reprinted in English. This international reprint will have rules written in English, German, French and Spanish. The boards, tiles and cards have all been redesigned to be language independent.

I hope they can pull this off.  Die Macher has been on my to-get list for some time.

I managed to make a mid-week gaming session at Mike’s, a rare occurrence these days.  It turned out to be a nice crowd – we were expecting six but George was delayed at work.  We didn’t know this when the evening started, so we stalled for a bit with a game of 6 Nimmt.  A great opener, some day maybe I’ll be able to figure how to play it well.  Or maybe I’m just taking the game a bit too seriously.  I think Mike and Carey finished tied for low (winning) score.

By now it was close to 8:00pm so we elected to start a five player game without George – El Grande was the natural choice.  This would be my third play – my first happening in Arizona, second in Israel.

Turns out Tim is quite the El Grande shark.  This was one of the first games that launched him heavily into the Euro scene back in the mid 90s, and he clearly has a mastery of the game.  His decisions were often quick and decisive, while I pondered sub-par and mediocre moves.

Doug made a surprising comeback, getting much closer to Tim by the end than anyone anticipated.  I finished a distant third with Carey and Mike behind me.

Thanks Mike for hosting.  Tonight was exceptionally enjoyable because of the company and dialog.  I also got a great glimpse into what Doug’s life was like in the mid 80s.

Tom Vasel recently posted an interview of Nick Medinger, head of marketing for Funagain Games.  I had the pleasure of spending quite a bit of time with Nick at Essen last year – he’s a great guy and much younger than you’d think given his role.  This interview is worth reading to learn about Funagain’s view of doing exclusives (like Havoc and Carcassonne: the Discovery).

I first noticed the projected release date of April 2006 for this collaboration in my latest issue of No Depression, then found this article giving more details.  “And Your Bird Can Sing”, “Cinnamon Girl”, and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"?  You gotta be kidding me – if Amazon would let me pre-order this they would already have my money.

Last week before my trip to DC we worked in a game of Pueblo before bedtime.  This was an Essen pickup for me, and as an abstract, one I thought might really appeal to Julie.  This is a tough game to visualize and pick up quickly – Matthew had a hard time visualizing what the chief would see as he walked around the pueblo.

By all accounts I had a strong lead going into the final pass around the town, but Julie did such a nice job hiding her blocks from view towards the end that she quickly caught up with me (or, rather, I quickly caught up with her in penalty points).  We ended up in a tie for first.  A solid abstract that I’d like to try again soon.

Today was a free Sunday afternoon and a chance to try out Descent: Journeys in the Dark. I picked this up at Rainy Day Games after collecting my auction proceeds of about $55.  We played the introductory scenario with five players total.

Gameplay is very similar to Doom, but with many more chits, cards, and miniatures.  The first 3/4 of the game appeared to be much too easy for the heroes.  None of the monsters I could summon up seemed to be a challenge to these guys, and about the only way I was able to do damage was through traps.  They accumulated a ton of quest tokens and magic items along the way, and it looked like it would be a very one-sided affair.

Things changed dramatically in the final boss room when I had the giant jump stand over the pit for a raged sweep attack, killing all four characters with a single blow.  They were all a bit weakened, but this was devastating to the team and made the game much closer as a result.  They were clinging to just 6 tokens (with my deck running down to the last two cards as well) when they managed to finish off the giant and win the game.  I think it was a big hit for everyone.

George and Sean stopped by for a while to hang out and play some kiddy games.  Sean had a lot of fun with the cats and it was great having him around for a while.  Very social, bright kid.

We had about an hour left after the Descent game finished, so Ken and I tried out my new copy of Roma.  What a nifty little two-player game (make sure you check out Dave’s Roma on Roma post) – very easy to learn and play, and we finished two games in about 50 minutes.  This is the kind of game you’ll want to play again right away after playing.  There is a decent amount of luck to the game, but I suspect good strategy will dominate over time.

Cool – twice in two weeks I’m able to hook up with a local gaming group while away on business.  Last Thursday I joined David Fair and a group of his gaming friends at the Game Parlor in Chantilly, VA, a short 10 minute drive from my hotel near Dulles airport.

The Game Parlor is an outstanding game store, both in terms of selection and gaming facilities.  There were easily over 15 tables available for gaming – there was a CCG tournament going on, folks playing miniatures, a game of Ticket to Ride, two wargames, and we didn’t feel squeezed at all.

David did his homework and new I was a fan of For Sale, so he offered that up as an opener.  As straightforward as the game rules appear to be, I quickly learned that this group plays the game much differently than I have.  You can check out these two threads on BGG for an example of the confusion.  I’ve always played that you lose have your bid in value to the bank when you don’t win the auction.  These guys play that you lose half your chips to the bank, making the use of the $2 chips meaningful in more ways than just the increase bidding.

I’d like to blame confusion over this rule on my poor play (I finished dead last), but alas I just played poorly in the first round of auctions, making it very difficult to have any kind of strong showing in the blind bidding phase.

David recommended San Francisco for our next play – apparently this is a solid game for five players.  To learn more about the mechanics of the game, check out this review by Brian Bankler. While I greatly enjoyed the other players and some aspects of the game, a few of the mechanics left me cold.  The human factors in the game are also a big challenge (this was also called out in Brian’s review), causing mistakes by several of the players at different times during the game.

My primary complaints were about the bidding mechanics.  On some of the auctions, you are trying to choose a type of building type that the others won’t choose (residential, recreational, or business).  While there’s some information on the board to help guide a player’s choice, this felt very much like Hoity Toity to me – and most of you know my feelings on Hoity Toity.  The other mechanic that was annoying as hell was the influence auctions.  Players each choose an influence card ranging from 0 to 9 points.  The auction might give the prize to the top 2 bidders that don’t tie.  So if three players each bid 9, one bid 1, and the other 0, the players who bid 1 and 0 would win the auction.  This leads to similar attempts to out-think your opponents and left me cold.

I think I finished in last again on this one, but the game was a bit closer and given one more turn I might have moved up to third or fourth place.

We wrapped up our evening with a game of Formula Motor Racing after adding a 6th player.  I had seen this played over at Doug & Mimi’s but had not played it before.  This is a great little game and a solid choice for six players – one I might consider adding to my collection.

Adding to the appeal was the nice little track accompanying this game (don’t expect to find this in the box – this was fan made and I don’t even see a file on the geek for it).

We spent some time chatting after gaming about travel, Essen, and the Gathering.  I also picked up a copy of Roma from the store – I felt obligated to pick something up after taking advantage of such a fine gaming facility.  A good purchase as I’ll illustrate soon.  Thanks to David & co. for your hospitality and company.  I’ll check in again next time I’m in the area.

I’m hooked on not-too-obscure musical references.  Or maybe it was too obscure – you tell me.

Anyway, I spent last week in Birmingham, Alabama on business.  Knowing that I would finally have a night free on the road to get in some gaming, I reached out to spielfrieks and got a positive response from Chris Comeaux.  He was kind enough to grab a few of his friends and invited me to his place on the southeast side of town.

Chris has a very cool collection of assembled lego figures from Star Wars.  Darth Maul sporting the Rio Grande Games hat was certainly the highlight.

We had the usual rumblings and indecisiveness about what to play with four players.  Someone mentioned Torres, and while I really wanted to knock something off my not-yet-played list, I agreed that this was a perfect choice.  I had just learned to play it the weekend before and was eager to try it again and refine my understanding of the rules.  Good thing, because I had missed a few key ones in my first playing.  Only Chris and I had played before (and not much at that), so this was very much a learning game for everyone.  We ended up with a small concentration of very large, very tall (and flat) castles neutralizing much of the scoring opportunities (or at least differentiation opportunities).  Interestingly, nobody scored the king bonus in the 2nd or 3rd round.

I managed to pull ahead of the others by getting in the mix in all of the castles and getting to the top of the biggie.

Next up was Domaine, again a game that only Chris and I played.  This was my fourth or fifth play, and I’ve never won the game.  My winless streak continued, with Chris crushing the rest of and getting to (I think) the magical 30 points forcing the end of the game.

One reason Chris won by such a large margin: the three losers had too much in-fighting in one corner.  I got a bit snippy with Christian when he stole a knight from me, taking away any opportunity to defend myself against Chris (yes, there was a Chris, a Chris, and a Christian at the table) without gaining much for himself.  At that point, though, the game was already lost and it made sense for him to jockey for some position against me.  I probably could have more effectively used some diplomacy to unite our forces a bit.

Overall, two great four-player games and it was a great way to spend a Monday night out on the road.  Thanks Chris for hosting and I’ll look you up again when I’m in town.

Wow, only four posts so far this month.  Getting this post in before midnight puts me at five, tying my record low of five in Feburary 2005.  I’ve got a decent backlog of stuff to talk about, so hopefully March will start on strong footing.

Back in 1989 I attended GenCon in Milwaukee, playing mostly RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons and Star Wars.  I attended with a good friend from high school that I’ve since lost touch with (Mike Tavel).  We also lived together in Aspen for a summer after our freshman years in college.

So on a lark we entered the ZEF IV RPG tournament, a wacky contest where you roleplay characters who are roleplaying other characters.  We hooked up with two singles and hit it off.  We roleplayed well and efficiently worked through all of the puzzles – sometimes through skill, sometimes through pure luck.  There was very little combat in the adventure, and much of the judging was subjective.

I guess we did pretty well, because we won the tournament (over 500 people entered).  Here’s a scan of our victory photo from the convention.  I think I won about $200 worth of games and gaming supplies. 

 

I didn’t expect to get any gaming in this weekend.  Some work pressures plus an upcoming trip to Alabama were going to steal away most of the hours.  I thought perhaps 2 hours would free up on Sunday, and I politely informed Jacob that he would be playing Command and Colors: Ancients with me.  He didn’t exactly look happy at the prospect – he’s been having too much fun with his gravity gun playing Half Life 2 – but I knew once we got started he would enjoy the game.  He’s played Memoir ‘44 and Battle Cry quite a bit; in fact he was the Memoir ‘44 demo monkey at GenCon for Days of Wonder.

Fortunately, Ken called around 1pm asking if he could help knock out another of my unplayed games.  I of course invited him (and Brandon) over to join me in a first try of the introductory scenario (Akragas).  This is a nice intro choice as it doesn’t use the elephants and thereby avoids some special rules (Stampy… He tried to kill me!).

The game is easy to pick up for those familiar with M44, with the most difficult rules being combat-specifics for the different units and the effects of leaders.  We kept getting tripped up on the benefits of being next to a leader vs. in the same hex.  The rules are well down and I’m sure it will become second nature.

I’ve read that it is tough for the Carthaginians to win this scenario.  I think if I had played them, I would have won because my dice rolling was unstoppable.  Case in point: I’m up four victory banners to none, needing one more to win.  I play a Darken the Sky command card and fire with 3+1 dice against a full-strength foot unit.  I roll four green circles on four dice.  I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to calculate the changes of that happening.

That roll, while an extreme example, was representative of the rest of my dice rolling in the game.  Ken was very aggressive with his cavalry, trying to dart in on my flank and take out a unit, only to evade on my counter-attack the next turn.  He did a lot of damage, but left four of my units at single strength, unable to finish the job.

We had about an hour left, so Ken suggested Carcassonne: the City.  This is by far my favorite of the series, offering a nice mix of tactical and strategic play.  It plays quickly with 2 players – about 50 minutes – and Ken pulled out a decisive victory.  He got down some great farmers (or stewards or whatever they are called in this version) and 2 exceptional guards.

I feel like I could give away the rest of the series and just keep this one.  The box is real nice too.