Monday, June 22, 2009

Impromtu Gaming Session

On Saturday, June 20th 2009, we played a 4-player game of A Game of Thrones. None of us had played before, but I had read the rules the previous night. A random drawing of Houses resulted in Nevin playing Tyrell, Mervyn playing Baratheon, Cody playing Lannister, and myself playing House Stark. The game is ten turns long after which the House with control of the most Stronghold and City Areas is the new King and wins the game. The game may also end early in an automatic victory to the player that manages to control seven Stronghold or City Areas at any point before turn ten ends.

Supply, or lack thereof hindered Mervyn and me from forming more than two armies until turn 7 while Cody and Nevin traded punches in the center of the map; the first supply card showed up on turn 2 but we were not prepared for it and then the 2nd Supply card did not show up until turn 7. Mervyn and Cody then ganged up on Nevin as I made my way down the East side of the map from the North. Turn 8 ended in a Stark victory when I grabbed the Neutral stronghold on the East coast and an open city in one March order.

I'd like to try this one again with 5 players. The 5th player(I forget the house name) is a neutral house in the 4 player game so Stark can ignore him.

Next up was Kingsburg. Nevin took the lead early and lost it only to Cody for a short period before regaining it as he cruised to victory with 40pts followed by Cody with 36pts and Mervyn and myself with 30pts.

Nevin(Borgo), Cody(Hegemony), and myself(Outpost) finished with a three-player game of Neuroshima Hex!. After all the nuclear dust settled, Cody came out on top followed by Nevin and myself last.

On Sunday, I taught Claire how to play Ace of Aces. She said she enjoyed the game even though her dad kept shooting her down.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

D-Day, June 6th, Game Day at Frisco Public Library

On Saturday, June 6th, we had our third game day at the Frisco Public Library. Thirteen people split up into five groups and played the following games:

FOR THE PEOPLE
Joseph Acker and Sean Harris managed to get in two games of FTP.

Sean: I got schooled in the ways of how the south lost the war.

JUNTA
The group of Al Hay, Mark Bausman, John Boone, Nevin Ball, and Mark Simonitch played Junta.

The game was very fun and the the table was loud with the trash talking. I believe the government changed 5 different times during the game. Nevin and Mark ended up tied for first place followed by Al, myself, and Mark.

Al left after the game finished so that left the remaining four for a game of Small World.


SMALL WORLD
Nevin, Mark S, Mark B, and I then played Small World. Small World is based on the earlier game Vinci.

Where Vinci had nameless empires, Small World adds a little flavor by using fantasy races each with their own special power mated with randomly drawn additional special ability. Some of the combinations that came up were Commando Hobbits, Berserk Humans, and Diplomatic Skeletons.

I owned Vinci before and traded it away as too dry so I was surprised by how much I liked Small World. It played quickly and the race/power combination's that turned up were fun. This must have been Nevin's day as he came in first again followed by Mark Bausman, myself, and Mark Simonitch.


HAMMER OF THE SCOTS
Steve Gallob and Tom first played Hammer of Scots where Tom's English defeated Steve's Scots.


TWILIGHT STRUGGLE
They then played a game of Twilight Struggle. I'm not sure how that one turned out.



WATERLOO
Mick Mickelsen brought the new Waterloo game by Martin Wallace and he and David Harrod gave it a try. I believe they played it twice both games ending in Mick's French being defeated.

Mick: The first game of Waterloo was a learning game. The British cavalry broke through the French columns causing great chaos. We rebooted. I continued as the French. They did better but still had made no significant progress when the Prussians started to arrive. Neither David nor I could see a clear path to victory for the French. Plan to double check the rules to make sure we were playing correctly. We then played Twilight Struggle. I played the USSR and David had the worse luck on the card draw. USSR seemed to control most of the map most of the game.
TWILIGHT STRUGGLE
Afterwards, they played Twilight Struggle.



UNHAPPY KING CHARLES
Brian Marrs, as the Royalists, took on Steven Sheasby's Parliamentarians in Unhappy King Charles.In the end the King got to keep his head by surviving till game end for the victory.

Brian: I had the Royalists versus Steven's Parliament. For most of the game, we fought over the Midlands and South regions. I briefly laid siege to London but the dreaded 1-6 die split went against me and I had to retreat.

The Scots made a brief appearance in the North, but Newcastle, with 3 brigades of Veterans won the first battle, and then I hit him with a card that not only drained 2 cards from his hand, but also 2 brigades from the Scots. That left them easy prey for Newcastle to finish him off.

The New Model Army(NMA) became available during the final two turns of the game. Steven received relatively few Operations cards and was unable to get the NMA into action. Cromwell spent some time chasing after Hopton in the South but could never quite catch him. Meanwhile, Byron was running amok in the East region converting spaces as he went.

In the end, Parliament controlled the South and Midlands, while the Royalists controlled Wales, North and East. I think Parliament controlled 3 resource areas and the Royalists controlled 5. Charles was happy and got to keep his head.

Plenty of tables at the Frisco Public Library McCallum Meeting Room.