Mike came by yesterday afternoon. I had recently traded for Conflict of Heroes and had it set up on the aforementioned game table. Funny thing about that table, the Plexiglass top seems to confuse the cats so that they don’t get on it; they’ve scratched at it from underneath, trying to get a hold of a fun-looking piece but they haven’t jumped to the surface and disturbed a set up game… yet.
Conflict of Heroes set up for Firefight #1.
Conflict of Heroes, first Firefight, I’m the Soviets, I’m totally embarrassed, losing 8-1. I think my aggressive first move was the wrong strategy for this fight. That and the fact that dice instinctively hate me. Mike and I both enjoyed the game, and I find myself thinking about how to play the Soviets more effectively… a good sign for any game. Their high cost to fire seems to suggest that they should sit tight and fire whenever possible rather than moving in for short range confrontation.
Mike brought Race For The Galaxy, which I’ve resisted up until now due to all of the icons on the cards, but decided to give it a shot. We played a teaching game, cards all open and Mike explaining iconography and strategy as we went. I’m still not comfortable with all the icons after that one game and don’t have any idea how I won by almost double Mike’s points, all I know is that I went for the brown worlds or any cards with brown in the icons. I’d like to play again, this time with my husband joining us to get his opinion of the game; if he doesn’t like it, there’s no point in even considering buying it.
Finally we tried the other new game I traded for: Perry Rhodan. This is one of the Kosmos 2-player line, a pick-up-and-deliver game set in space. There are a couple of clever things about this game, one is that it takes more moves to travel away from the sun than toward it. Another is that the delivered goods cards are turned over and recycled for pick up unless a matching pair are delivered, in which case they are removed from the game. This makes getting profitable sets to deliver tougher as the game progresses. Another aspect of the game that I like is the deck of cards for each player which can help you in several ways, sometimes at the expense of your competition. Yes, everyone here likes that hands-on, mess-with-your-opponent aspect in games.
Perry Rhodan
Mike and I both loved this game and want to say to Jay Tummelson of Rio Grande Games, “MAKE THIS GAME AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH!”. Seriously, even though Mike became the premiere trader in the solar system by many megagalaxes, we both thought this game was an excellent addition to the Kosmos line and think it’s sad that it’s only available in German since it does have a lot of text on the cards.
Thoughts From The Gameroom 