Gentlemen, start your engines. A review of Thunder Alley

We like race games, all kinds of races and all kinds of game mechanics from the quick and fun GMT Formula Motor Racing to slow and analytical Bolide; from dog sledding in Snow Tails to escaping pirates in Cartagena. Thunder Alley caught my attention when it was announced for GMT’s P500 list and I proceeded to follow the designer’s blog and subscribed to the game page.

This game has had quite a life already and it hasn’t even been printed. From the P500 where it lagged, to Kickstarter where it perished, and back to GMT with a guarantee to be printed this summer thanks to a contribution from a fan, it has several laps under its belt before the race even started.

The files section on Board Game Geek contains a Print and Play version for 2 players, which is the basis for my review. It contains the simple oval track, the Race Cards, Event Cards, and lots of chits representing your cars, damage markers, lap points, and place trophy points.

The two main things that separate this race game from others are that you control a team of three to six cars, depending on the number of players (2-7); and when you activate a car, it often affects many cars, including your opponents’.  This doesn’t sound like a big innovation and in truth, I couldn’t grasp how it would feel to race with these rules– what made it fun or special. That’s why I finally put together the PnP version to try it out myself.

This is the Dover oval short track.

The board shows a simple oval with an inside track that is used only as the pits. Pitting occurs at the end of each game round no matter where you are on the track. This is a simple way to handle pitting and works very well although not totally thematic for those who are anal about such things.

The player mat for each player’s team also has a handy reference for damage results and End of Turn Sequence.

Each player has a player mat to keep track of the damage for each of their cars. The damage can be either permanent or temporary, the latter being the only kind that can be fixed during a pit stop. The cars are two-sided, gray and white backgrounds so you can keep track of which cars have been activated on a turn.

The Race cards contain various pieces of information. At the top is the title of the card shown in a particular color which denotes the type of damage taken when that card is played. In the top left corner are two numbers, the larger is the number of Action Points used on a turn, the smaller is used only when leaving the pits. In the center is an icon to show the type of movement you’ll be using on the car you activate this turn. More on this later. Some cards have text which applies when you play this card, and at the bottom is the Team Bar which is used to choose starting positions at the start of the game and to settle any ties. Simple and very useable cards but I’d personally like to see the movement arrows reflected at the top left so it can be seen when the hand of cards are fanned.

Each round begins with dealing cards to players, one more than the number of cars they control. Then players take turns, starting with the owner of the pole position car, playing a card to activate one of their cars and continuing around until all the cars have been activated. Then you perform the end of the round sequence which is:  determine the Leader, perform Pit Stops, determine first player (the lead car), and remove any lapped cars (ouch! Keep up!)

The movement mechanic is the heart of the game, of course, and is like no other game I own or have played. It is quite simple and very effective.

Solo movement is just as it states, you activate one car and move it using the Action Points on the card. It takes one point to move to an adjacent empty space, straight ahead or laterally (sideways); two points to move sideways when that space is occupied; and three points to move forward if you must push a car that is in front of you. If you push a car laterally, it moves into the next lane unless it is already in the inmost or outmost lane, in which case it is pushed backwards one space. Doesn’t that sound like racing?

Draft movement involves a line of cars linked forward and backward to the activated car. The whole string of cars move the allotted movement points, including any cars that are picked up in front of the line as it moves. You can move laterally only at the start of movement, spending movement points as you do in solo movement; once you start forward, you must keep going forward in a straight line until all movement points are used.

Pursuit movement is rather like pushing the line of cars you have linked to in front of you. Like Draft movement, you can only move laterally at the beginning of your move. Not being a race fan in real life, this felt like the least thematic part of the game. Come on, if the car in front of me makes a break for it, I’m going to stick to his tail if I can, right? Maybe that’s it, the cars behind are just not able to keep up.

Lead movement is the final type and is just as it sounds, leading the string of cars that begin the movement linked behind the activated car. Unlike Draft and Pursuit, you can zig and zag through the pack however you wish provided you have the action points, and the cars behind you will follow your actions exactly. This really feels like finding the whole in the pack and making a break for it.

Damage (or wear) on a vehicle slows it down, the more damage, the less movement points you can use. If you activate a car that already has 6 damage markers, it is eliminated.

At the end of the race, points are awarded for the Position each car finished, one point for being the lap leader at any time, and an extra point for leading the most laps. After adding the points for each car on your team, the player with the most points wins and does a victory lap around the table, finishing with a couple of donuts if they still have tires.

We were captivated by the game in almost no time at all. It’s simple to grasp, offers a challenge but isn’t brain-burning, gives you the thrill of a real race without all the noise and fumes, and most importantly…it’s fun. There’s the feeling of racing that I can’t explain effectively, something that doesn’t come through by simply reading the rules and understanding the concept. It can only be understood by doing–by seeing the movement of cars and changing of positions that you caused with a simple turn of a card.

If you can’t print your own version or see a demo somewhere, then take just trust me on this: if you love racing or racing games, you should try this game. I’m pretty sure you’re going to love it.

Suburban Blight

Back in the ’90s I was hooked on a computer game called Caesar, a city building game with a Roman theme. I loved seeing the results of building different buildings and working to keep my citizens happy. I played it over and over, trying different setups.

That should make a highly-rated board game that people compare to such computer games as Sim City and City Tycoon a decent option for me and my husband so I finally got a copy of Suburbia by Ted Alspach.

Image by Walt Mulder. Suburbia at Essen 2012

I don’t mind the stark graphics on the tiles because everything is clear, easy to see, and easy to understand. I’m not thrilled with the color scheme on the population score board, but it’s useable. The boards are marked so as to aid you in setup, which is always nice in my opinion.

The game play is very simple: Pay the price on the tile you want plus any extra shown above it on the Real Estate Market Board, place it in your borough of the city, then adjust income and reputation as shown on the placed tile, any adjacent tiles that are affected, any non-adjacent tiles that affected, and any tiles in someone else’s borough that are affected or that affect the tile you just placed. Oh, wait, that’s simple in theory but annoying in practice. My husband said it felt like work. Then you receive your income (or not) and population increase (or decrease) as shown on your player board. Lastly, shift the building tiles below the Market board and add a new one to the left side.

Since the newest tiles are more expensive due to the added cost on the Market Board, your choices will often be limited to the cheapest two or three, maybe four tiles. I found the choice offered very little tension or angst most of the time. During our first game, I kept thinking, “I’d rather be playing London.”

The main goal of the game is to increase your population but if your city grows too fast, you could be in big trouble. You start the game with zero income and one population. Reputation gives you people every turn, but every time your score marker crosses a red line on the population track, your reputation and income decrease by one. You can actually end up paying money rather than getting an income, and losing population instead of gaining. This is a means to keep players from running away with scoring too easily but it seems that every time I’d manage to increase my reputation, I’d cross a line and lose it again. Annoying.

There are 100 building tiles in the game but each game uses only 49-67 of them placed in three stacks with an end-game tile mixed into the bottom 10 of the third stack. That’s a lot of replayability. Add into that, 20 Goal Tiles, some known by all the players and one that each player keeps hidden. This adds to the replayability, too, but can be frustrating as well. Also, it feels a little like it was added on just to add something extra, a secret scoring that would give hope to those dawdling at the back of the pack.

Most of the things I’ve griped about are things that many, many others have not experienced. It’s a clever game with neat interactions between the buildings, and also subtle interactions between the players. But in the end, my husband and I just could not find the FUN in it. And therein lies the secret to a well-loved game: fun.

A Personal Post–Not IBS, FM

It seems that every other person now, from youngest to oldest, has a problem of some sort with some food product. Allergies, Lactose intolerance, Celiac disease. I want to share my story of another, less well-known problem in hopes of saving someone else from the many years of pain and embarrassment that I’ve had. After 30 years of trying to figure out what was the problem with my digestive system, I finally have an answer–Fructose Malabsorption.

My problems began almost as soon as I became pregnant the last time, a change in my all-so-regular bathroom schedule. It wasn’t much at first, an extra trip to the bathroom shortly after my usual daily bowel movement. By the time I was 5 months pregnant, I was usually running to the bathroom several times every morning–and I do mean running. I hoped that after having the baby I would get back to normal.

Instead of normalcy, I developed a new symptom which eventually was discovered to be gallstones. O.k., I thought, I have the gallbladder removed and everything will be fine again.

Wrong.

Nothing has been fine in that department for all these years. For me, the lack of a gallbladder can make greasy foods trigger a bout of diarrhea, but I could deal with watching my intake of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Unfortunately, careful monitoring of greasy foods did not make the problem go away.

I tried watching the milk products, thinking I was lactose intolerant but that wasn’t it. I tried pointing my finger at various other things but nothing seemed to make a difference.

I eventually developed another symptom: painful cramping which can last for hours and totally wear me out. On a really bad day the cramping can trigger nausea and I absolutely hate throwing up while sitting on the toilet!  For want of a better label, I call my problem IBS: Irate Bowel Syndrome.

Last November, after several good days, I had a really bad one but I had eaten almost the same things. Once again, I turned to the internet looking for an answer–this time salt is on my hit list. The search led me not to an article about salt and IBS but two separate articles, one about salt and high blood pressure and one about fructose malabsorption and IBS. I started reading and nodding my head, yep, yep, yep. That sounds so familiar! And I had had something with honey in it the day before. Only soda (can you say high fructose corn syrup?) and applesauce have more fructose than honey.

So here’s the deal. Fructose gets to the small intestine where it is picked up by transporters, the mini-vans of your digestive system. If there aren’t enough transporters for the amount of fructose, this unabsorbed amount then travels to the large intestine–probably in the back of a pickup truck–where it causes many kinds of trouble. It creates an osmotic load and is fermented by the good bacteria in the large intestine. In other words, it pulls in moisture which causes diarrhea, and the fermenting causes gas, bloating and pain. It would seem I’m a little short on mini-vans.

Now I’m trying to get a feel for what I can eat, how much fruit can I tolerate before the pickup trucks start loading up. Sugar is no problem as it is sucrose, one molecule of fructose and one of glucose. When these two travel together, they’re more easily absorbed.

Two small slices of canned peaches did me in the next day. A lovely, tasty balsamic vinegar-brown sugar reduction I made also did not go over well. Ice cream with candy pieces has enough HFCS in the candy pieces to kick it over the edge.

The biggest offenders aren’t fruit but the liquid sweeteners:  high fructose corn syrup, honey, molasses, agave. Look in your cupboards, check the ingredients on the pre-packaged food. It’s amazing how many items have one of these sweeteners, even stuff you wouldn’t think of like some peanut butters. Smucker’s makes their jams with HFCS and corn syrup instead of sugar so I have to stick to my homemade jams and apple butter but how much? A couple of teaspoons has been as much as I’ve used and so far so good.

It’s a work in progress and I still have bad days as I experiment, but I have almost no really bad days. I miss some things like apple with peanut butter–half an apple one afternoon came back to kick my butt the next day. And I need to learn to eat some vegetables that I have resisted in order to replace the vitamins and minerals I’m not getting from fruit.

This hasn’t been an easy post to write but if I can help one person discover what is causing their distress and save them years of pain, then it’s been worth it. There’s quite a bit of info online about Fructose Malabsorption, but you first have to know to look for it.  Now you know, assuming you’ve read this far.  ;)

Teach Your Children Well

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday with their loved ones. We spent time with our son and his girlfriend, and our daughter. We had lots of fun and laughs but, as happens on the rare occasion when we all get together, we also discussed serious topics. This year we inevitably turned to the Newtown, Connecticut shooting.

The discussion was mainly focused on the NRA, schools, and generally what could be done to prevent this from happening. I think the answer is not to look at how to prevent such horrors, but to ask what causes someone to do such an unthinkable thing? What is it in our society that promotes this kind of thinking?

I grew up in the 60′s. That’s not so terribly long ago and yet it’s an eternity when you look at the giant differences. We would never think of talking back to an adult unless you were looking to get a slap in the mouth for your trouble; we behaved in public or could look forward to a whack on the butt; we knew that an A on our report card meant we earned it and an F meant we were in trouble; we might play “cowboys and Indians” with toy guns but we also knew that when our beloved pet died, it was forever. In short: we learned there were consequences to our actions, for good or ill.

We raised our children the same way, teaching them that their actions would have consequences for them. In the late 80′s when they were about about 4 and 8 we took them to Mt. Rushmore with another couple who had four small children. While we were sitting in the cafeteria someone came up to us and complimented us on how well-behaved our children were.  What a feeling, to hear that the little people that will someday be the ones in charge of the world are worthy of praise from a complete stranger.

Somewhere along the line we’ve become so concerned about child abuse that we’ve taken it to an extreme, disallowing parents to show these impressionable creatures that being bad is not allowed. We had a man and his wife over one time, the man to help my husband put up walls in our unfinished basement, the woman and their son to socialize. The boy was about 2-3 years old and whenever he would misbehave, his mother would say, “I’m going to tell your father”, “I’m going to get your father up here”. Not my style of parenting at all but I let it pass. Until. The boy mouthed off to his mother and pointed his tiny index finger at her. I reached out and took that hand and calmly told him that we didn’t do that here; that he should show his mother respect. He was shocked, I think, that someone would actually show him there was a limit to his bad behavior and he was a good boy for the rest of their stay (which was their last, thank goodness). Was I wrong? My house, my rules.

I’m not saying everyone should beat their misbehaving children–I never used a belt or switch on my kids, maybe because that’s what I grew up with–and a “time out” works for many kids. But we need to set boundaries and make sure they’re followed or there will be consequences.

Children should once again know that they earned good grades rather than being given a gold star for everything so they don’t feel inferior to some of their peers. Children should have specific chores to do around the house so they learn responsibility. Even at 3 years old, my kids had to pick up their toys; that’s not too much to ask, is it? We love our children and want them to love us back, but we must also be aware that what they learn as children will carry over into adulthood.

Is this the answer? I don’t know. Maybe we’ll never know what goes through the mind of someone who takes a weapon into a public place and shoots everyone in their sight. Maybe the answer is something as basic to human nature as having a pet as a child, something to love and who shows you its love everyday no matter what. Wouldn’t that be nice?

 

Autumn is here. It’s Game Time!

Summer always seems too busy, and too tiring, for games. But it gave me the chance to discover gaming on the iPad! Even when you’re busy, you can take a couple of minutes to take your turn at several very good games. I am currently enjoying several games of Carcassonne, which I was talked into paying the exorbitant amount of $10 and it was worth every penny! Every little touch, such as the chat and the option to see what tiles remain in the draw, adds to the ease and enjoyment of the game. I also am playing Summoner Wars and patiently awaiting new factions to try out; Le Havre is kicking my butt since I was only vaguely familiar with it before the purchase; Ticket to Ride Pocket; Lost Cities,;and the oh-so-fun-and-frustrating Disc Drivin’. But enough of that–on with the board games!  (The links here are to the Video Game Geek game page, when available.)

Now that I’ve finished canning beans, making pickles, and freezing applesauce, there’s time to think about board games again. I recently bought Castles of Burgundy after finally making it through a video review of it. For some reason, I had a hard time getting interested enough in most of the reviews to watch more than a couple of minutes, and I couldn’t get into reading the rules at all, but my long-time Geek Buddies assured me with their ratings and comments that this was a game I should try. And they were indeed correct.

I set up a 2-player game to play solo, working through the rules so I could easily teach Richard the game, and after only a couple of turns knew this was fun! I love rolling dice but they are so unabashedly evil to me that I usually want to throw them across the room at some point in the game. Not so with Burgundy. You have several choices of what to do with your roll as well as “Workers” to help you adjust the count if you need to.  Any roll can be used to get you more Workers, and they are worth points at the end of the game so are always a useful commodity. There are tough choices in how you attempt to build your estate, and the game comes with several different estate layouts to keep the game from becoming the same old thing.

Castles of Burgundy

Speaking of dice, Richard and I have been playing Wurfel Bohnanza (the Bohnanaza dice game) whenever we have 20 minutes of so to kill, like between lunch and get-up-and-get-back-to-work. This is a light, quick, fun dice-roller so don’t let the bad rolls get to you. Roll the dice, set at least one aside as you try to fulfill the orders on your card, then roll again. Oh, wait! Those other players who seem to be just waiting around to take their turn? They need to be paying attention because if you roll what they’re looking for, they can use it to fill their order, too! This is a good little filler for people who can’t help but love to roll dice.

Wurfel Bohnanza

Another new-to-me game that I’ve had my eye on since it’s debut at Essen 2010 is Matin Wallace’s London. This is basically a card game but the board map adds another way to earn points at the end of the game. The premise is the rebuilding of London after the fire of 1666 so the cards (which represent buildings, for the most part) are divided into 3 groups to keep the theme running in chronological order. You must use a card from your hand as payment for another card that you wish to build. This, as in San Juan, can be cause for some tough decision-making. Now balance making points with making money, throw in the Poverty Points (which are bad, as you can guess) and you have a game that is an intensely satisfying experience. Yes, it may take longer than you had planned– 1 1/2 to 2 hours– but it’s the type of game my husband and I enjoy. We also love the crayon rail games (Martian Rails, British Rails, Eurorails), so if that helps you set the atmosphere, so be it.

London. I like the colors and style of the map, but others have been less than enthusiastic.

And the final new addition which we’re really enjoying is the expansion boards for Ticket to Ride, India and Switzerland. These are tight boards which are good for 2 or 3 players, and each have a little twist to the basic rules, of course. Switzerland has tunnels; lots and lots of tunnels. If you try to build a tunnel line, you also turn over 3 cards from the deck. For each one that matches what you played to build that stretch of rails, you have to play another card. You don’t lose the cards you played, but your turn is over with nothing accomplished. There are also some Destination Tickets that are more generic, giving points for connecting a specified country to any other country on the edge of the board or a specific city to any country. The points vary depending on how hard these connections are to manage.

Ticket to Ride maps, India on this side, Switzerland on the back.

India is more standard in its tickets and rail-building, with the exception of Ferries. Ferries are water routes that have one or two spots on them which must have a Locomotive to fill. And there is an additional end-game scoring for “mandala”, which means “circle” in Sanskrit. Every ticket you finish which has at least 2 distinct continuous paths qualifies for a bonus; the more tickets which qualify, the bigger the bonus. This is a clever variation because of how densely populated the map is, and it may be my favorite so far.

So with the leaves falling in the yard, and the squirrel gathering walnuts from the trees out back, I’m hoping to find the time and inclination to do more writing here. And Essen is just around the corner, friends!

Game Day: Doing it Old-Style (mostly)

Our tiny group has taken a bit of a turn lately. Dave has been plagued with various problems, including working 7 days a week! so Mike has brought his nieces (Sabrina, age 10 and Samantha, age 13) along with him. He has been honing their gaming skills for years and they enjoy a variety of games including Caylus and Power Grid.

Sunday Mike brought Talisman and Cosmic Encounter with him. These are two older games, Talisman being around since 1983 and Cosmic Encounter since 1977. Both of these games have been reprinted by various publishers to keep them available for the fans.

I brought out Cartagena (2000), Tsuro (2004) and Bohnanza (1997). Again, these games have been around for a fair number of years, Tsuro being the baby of the bunch at only 8 years old.  I also had to play my current favorite, Kingdom Builder, just today nominated for the 2012 Spiel des Jahres (German board game of the year award).

So what keeps some of these older games in the forefront of people’s imaginations? What makes them classics, worth reprinting years after they were first introduced even with the plethora of games coming out each year? Sometimes, I think, it may just be nostalgia. Talisman and Cosmic Encounter were many gamer’s introduction to board games; their Monopoly, as it were. And that seems an apt comparison to me because the amount of randomness and lack of control, not to mention the time it takes to play Talisman, is very similar.

As for Cartagena, its cleverness surprises me every time I pull it out. Play a card to move forward; move backwards to receive more cards. Simple. But managing your cards and where you leave your playing pieces at the end of your turn are the goals to succeeding in this game. People who figure out these two points will enjoy this game, people who can’t be bothered will never understand.

Bohnanza is a great game for a group of rowdy, extroverted people ready to haggle and trade. Again, a simple concept– you must not rearrange your cards in hand– results in a fun and memorable game unlike anything else. I can understand this being a classic; it’s great for families, serious gamers looking for something light, kids playing something without supervision, and drunks out for some laughs. Those last two are quite a bit alike, actually, aren’t they?

Personally, I’d rather play a lot of these older games in my collection than almost anything released in the last 3 or 4 years. How many games being released this year will become the new classics in 10-15 years? Will Kingdom Builder have a cult following, yearning for another expansion or a fancier version with better bits?

As far as game day went, we had a great time. Well, except for Cosmic Encounter, which I just do NOT get. I’d rather play The Farming Game!

Wil Wheaton hosts a game of Small World

If you haven’t heard, Wil Wheaton has started a video series called TableTop that is simply sitting in on a game with him and some friends. How entertaining could that be? That was my first impression on hearing of it, but today was the first episode which featured Small World by Days of Wonder, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing voyeur at a gaming session.

Wil starts by introducing the game and its theme as well as his opponents for the day, then does an excellent job of summarizing the rules.  As the game gets going, you watch what feels to me like a typical game session with trash-talk, back-stabbing, silliness, cussing (it’s bleeped, so don’t worry), and lots of laughter. The half hour show, which I didn’t expect to watch all the way through, was so much fun I didn’t realize the time had flown past.

I highly recommend setting aside a small part of your day to check it out at GeekandSundry.com

Kingdom Builder

I’m not a fan of Dominion so when I bought Kingdom Builder, I wasn’t looking for the next awesome game by Donald X. Vaccarino; I was looking for a lighter, fun game with lots of re-play value. Did I find that? Yes. Emphatically yes.

The game is for 2 to 4 players, age 8 and over, with a play time of about 45 minutes. If you’re a fan of Dominion and think this is another deck-builder, it’s  not, in any sense; nor is it card drafting or hand-management as you only get 1 card at a time; nor is it area control, worker placement or pick-up and deliver. There are no stocks to invest in, no trading or betting or bidding. The mechanics listed on the Board Game Geek page is “route/network building” and that’s close but still misses. You’re just making points the best way you can manage given 3 random cards that set the parameters, and four random abilities provided by the map layout. And that, it turns out, is more than enough.

Here are the 8 boards that come in the game. You can't build on the grey mountains at all, and only on the water with a special ability chit.

On your turn you show your card and place 3 of your wooden houses (settlements) on that type of terrain, adjacent to previous houses if possible. The “adjacent” rule is very important, limiting where you can go and possibly making your opening move a critical one. If you have built next to a location where the various ability chits are placed, you can use each of those abilities once each turn either before or after building your settlements. Then you draw a new card. That’s it; that’s your whole turn. Doesn’t sound like much, does it?

The secret is in which locations with their special abilities you build next to.  The abilities are:  place a new settlement on a desert (yellow) hex, move a settlement two hexes in a straight line, move a settlement to the terrain type on your card, place a new settlement on the edge of the board, place a new settlement on  a grass (light green) hex, place a settlement on a hex of your terrain card type, move a settlement to a water hex, and place a new settlement at the end of a row of three or more of your settlements.

These nice location summary cards are placed next to the boards as reminders.

When you add 4 of these abilities to your placement options, it can open up your choices nicely. But if you choose poorly, you can find them totally useless in helping you achieve points as dictated by the scoring cards drawn for this particular game.

There are 3 scoring cards (out of 10 that come with the game),  dealt randomly each game. You can be trying to place settlements adjacent to mountains or water, on many horizontal lines or vertical lines, or adjacent to castles and locations. You may be trying to create one very large settlement area or as many areas as you can. Maybe you’ll have to build settlements in each of the four map sectors, or connect locations and castles. Sometimes the combination of scoring cards work together but sometimes they are such that you have to choose which ones to concentrate on.

 

Here are the 10 scoring cards with lovely artwork.

When a player puts his last settlement on the board, that triggers the end of the game–scoring occurs at the end of that round. You add the points you earned for the three scoring cards, and three points for each castle next to which you placed a settlement. The winner is the player with the most points, of course. In case of a tie, you’re all equally brilliant!

The components are nice, as you would expect from Queen Games. The colors and artwork are clear, making it easy to see across the game table, and the cheat sheets for the locations’ abilities are a nice addition. I like that the back of each map board has a score track, making it useful as well as eliminating the need for VP or money tokens to keep score.

Each time I’ve played, I’ve had a good time even if I lost. Although the game is simple in theory, there’s a puzzle-like aspect to finding the best way to accomplish the goals set out by the scoring cards. How do I get across the board or build many small areas when I am required to place adjacent if possible? Which ability tile is going to help me the most? Where should I start when I want to make one long horizontal line but the board is full of rivers?

The game may take 45 minutes to play, but it doesn’t feel like that much time has passed because the turns are quick for the most part. There is very little confrontation except when someone builds in your way, which could be on accident or deliberate, depending on the people with whom you’re playing. Around here, you can assume it’s deliberate!

 

Game Day: More Risk Legacy

When Dave and Mike showed up, I had Hansa set up ready to play. This is a simple but tricky Michael Schacht game that I really enjoy. I had forgotten how nasty it can be but fell right in to old way, screwing my left-hand neighbor who just happened to be my husband. Well, you know what they say about Karma… yeah, more on that later.

Then we convinced Mike that we should play Risk Legacy next; wouldn’t want to forget it or run out of time!

Here's the setup, my first bad decision.

Mike, Dave and Richard all stuck with their starting factions but I, being the adventurous type, decided to change to the one that was ignored the last time. I also liked their ability to treat their starting base as “fortified”, which gives a +1 to their dice when defending. Mike started again, and again placed his base in North America. Then it was my turn and I chose to switch things up again, moving my start territory from Africa to the northern reaches of Asia. Ohhh, I know, I know. What a bone-head move! But it’s only a game, right?  Richard started in his favorite location, Australia; Dave switched from Europe to South America.

For his turn, Mike spread across his N. American continent. On my turn, I took a couple of territories to protect my base and broke into Mike’s continent by taking Alaska. Well, I could see it from Russia! Then Richard’s turn. Remember that Karma? Yeah, here it came, marching north from Australia. And while I was getting a butt-kicking on one continent, Mike was taking a beating from Dave on his continent. I wasn’t spread as thin and managed a bit of a defense but Mike was seriously hurt. On the next turn he could only reinforce his dwindling defenses.

Karma kicking my butt.

Now came the, possibly, second dumb decision from yours truly. I trusted Richard. Dave was on the verge of winning on his next turn. I asked Richard if he could stop picking on me for one *$#@!* turn so I could take Dave’s second base from him. And I did. But the two-faced man that I married turned around and attacked me again! World domination is not a job for the faint of heart. And so I was left with few resources and no base. A perfect setting for Dave to make a final run through America’s base and into Asia winning his final point with my base.

It didn’t take much, just one word from someone, and we were setting up for a second game. Everyone kept their factions and their start locations with the exception of me starting in the southern part of Africa. I had hoped that a more defensible starting location would be the key to my first win. Oh, how foolish of me.

The second game, trying a different strategy in the initial base location.

Africa getting a double butt-kicking.

After the initial turn where we all take our respective continents, Dave started right in attacking Mike to his north then me. As if that weren’t enough for one peoples to endure, Richard marched his army right over to Africa through southern Asia and attacked me from the other direction.

And as history repeats itself, Mike wasn’t to fare any better this game than the last either. From northern Africa, Richard then continued through Europe to attack Mike on a second front, eventually eliminating all of his men. This forced Mike to start in a new area with a lonely 4 men. They settled in Asia in order to pick off a single man left by Richard to defend on his trek through to Africa. This was a fly bite on the rump of an elephant. There was no slowing down the war machine of my evil husband.

Outside of Mary's Town, Richard ran out of men.

On Richard’s next turn, he got 22 armies, Marched through America, taking its base; then on through Dave’s South America and taking his base; and the final push into Africa where he came up juuust short. Oh, too bad. But, really, when you control all but a few pockets of resistance, there is little doubt of the outcome. On his next turn he had no trouble taking the final point he needed to win.

At this point, I’m beginning to wonder if there is a safe place to start for me. I think next time Africa, but using the old standard, the Australian Strategy:  just sit still and add men until I have enough to break out. Or Mike and I need to gang up on someone.

In truth, the weird thing about Legacy is that the board is totally empty except for your starting locations. No maneuvering for who will take Africa or America; no single, expendable men slowing down your progress through to your target location. But it also must be noted that I can NOT ROLL DICE!!!!

Flash Point: Fire Rescue

After two games of death and destruction, we decided to save lives. Mike had brought Flash Point: Fire Rescue, his newest game. He had played 4 or 5 times with his nieces but hadn’t managed a win so our chances seemed slim but somehow, by the skin of our teeth, with only 2 black cubes remaining between us and a collapsed building, we managed to win by saving 6 people and a dog. It’s a pretty good co-op game, very thematic but also fairly fiddly. And… dice rolling can kill you!

We ended the day as we end many of them, with Ra: The Dice Game. Mike won by a fair margin which means we each won one game this day and beat a co-op game.  I hope that is some kind of good omen for the coming year.

A Quick Look At 2011

I’m not going to do a traditional post listing every game I played this year; I think that’s boring to write so it’s probably boring to read as well. But there are a few things of note that I wanted to mention.

As far as board gaming goes, this has been a stellar year for me. In the middle of June our group of three expanded to four with the addition of Dave. And a great addition he is:  funny, smart, a gracious winner as well as a good loser, and willing to give anything a try.

Richard and I discovered the crayon rail games this year and logged an amazing 53 plays of Martian Rails. In fact it was the final game of the year, played on New Year’s eve as we waited for the year to close. We also played Eurorails 22 times. That’s a lot of crayon rails!

Two other games that got more than the usual number of plays was Defenders of the Realm and Power Grid, both with 11 plays. Defenders of the Realm was played mostly 2-player, while Power Grid has become one of the group’s favorites. Along with Ra: The Dice Game, it will never be turned down.

A bring-your-own-umbrella wedding in the back yard.

On the personal side of the year, our daughter, Cori, got married in a lovely steampunk ceremony in the back yard, in the rain. It was the highlight of the year and will be remembered by everyone in attendance as one of the best weddings ever.

The less wonderful part of life also visited us this year; we lost my mother in July, one of our cats in September, and our Corgi in November. Those were probably the worst six months I can remember in a long, long time.

And so… a new year begins and I wish all my readers a new year filled with hope and love and laughter. And may this year be better than the last.