Sept 26th - Frisco Library Game Day

Ten players showed up for boardgaming today at the Frisco Public Library.

Four of us played Britannia. The first three places were competitive. I brought up the rear way behind. Here are the scores with the highest score of each nation listed for each player.

• Mark Woodson - Red - 263 points (Saxons - 185 pts)
• Steven Sheasby - Yellow - 261 points (Romans - 147 pts)
• David MacAlpine - Blue - 200 points (Picts - 74 pts)
• John Boone - Green - 142 points (Welsh - 74 pts)

The Saxons and Romans scored more points by themselves than all my guys did combined.

On the first turn, the Romans will invade England from the South.

The Roman-British fill the void left by the Romans, but only temporarily...

The Saxons take over where the Romans left off, once they annihilate the Romano-British.

It is turn 15 and the Saxons are unstoppable in Southern England and they rule for many years as Bretwalda and King.

William the Conqueror cuts a path through Saxon England and eventually will rule as King..

Al Hay and Brian Marrs played No Retreat....

BRIAN MARRS: I played the Soviets to Al's Axis. The Germans did the usual slice and dice number on my Soviets on the first turn. I started to form what I thought would be a good line of defense, but then Al played some kind of Operational Reserve card that allowed one of his panzers to advance farther than I had anticipated was possible.

By the start of turn 3, Al actually had captured enough cities for a sudden death victory, but I had a card that cancelled the victory and so we played on. I got blown out of Moscow and figured I was pretty much toast. But then the mud and snow turns arrive and my lines start to at least stabilize.

The Germans in Moscow were the most advanced units in what was becoming a bulge in their line. The winter offensives put my Soviets in position to cut Moscow off from supply, although it was a weak ring at this point. The Germans easily reopened supply on turn 5, but by the start of turn 6, they were once again cut off.

Al once again attacked to open up a supply line, but with worse odds than on the previous turn. The Germans had a 1 in 6 chance of blowing the attack and as luck would have it, he rolled a 1. There were 4 units in the Moscow pocket that vaporized from lack of supply. We called the game at this point.

...followed by Storm Over Stalingrad.

Tom and Glen Richardson played a couple of games of War at Sea.

A close up of the action in the Atlantic and Med.

TOM: Played two games of War at Sea, switching sides for the 2nd game. Glen was just learning the game, whereas I've played quite a few times before.

In the first game, Glen's Axis forces attacked in the South Atlantic on Turn 1. Luck caused the battle to go the Allies way, and the Axis was not able to fully recover from that. We went about 7 turns before calling it an Allied win.

In the second game, I played as the Axis. Early on I attacked only where the Allies were weakest, and by mid game my forces were strong enough and Glen's forces weakened enough that I was able to break out through the North Sea and Barents Sea into the Atlantic. After Turn 6, we called it an Axis win.

GLEN RICHARDSON: We played two games and he placed his Das Boot in my Rear Admiral, if you get my drift!

Mick Mickelsen and Matt Kelley played 1805: Sea of Glory.

August 15th 2009 - Frisco Library Game Day Pictures

Some pictures from the August Game Day at the Frisco Library.

Five-Player Starcraft. Mark Simonitch would eventually win as the Arcturus Mengsk faction.

JOHN BOONE: Called the game a early but Mark Simonitch was cruising to a win. His Stage II two extra Conquest Point markers were a big help gaining him 4 CPs in two consecutive turns. Mark S - 11 pts - Red Terrans Mark B - 8 pts - Green Zerg John B - 8 pts - Orange Protoss Mark W - 6 pts - Blue Terrans Mervyn D - 5 pts - Purple Zerg Mark B was the only player to select his Special Victory condition as his Stage I Leadership card, so everyone kept an eye out on him making sure he wasn't going to get 3 bases on three different planets. The combat system to the game takes to long to resolve, especially for new persons to the game.

Joseph and David battle over the streets of Stalingrad.

Ken and Steve play out the 1960 Presidential election.

Sean and Steven re-fight the US Civil War.

Al and Glen fight a fictional street battle from WW2.

The mean streets of Sniper Town.

GLEN RICHARDSON: WW2 Germans vs Americans Squad on squad fire fight, in a small village. Americans(Al) initiated combat,with an excellent first shot. From there on luck left Al. He usually moved second, and was rarely in a position to inflict casualties on the Germans. Dice went cold on him. I was able to take up good defensive positions, and quickly began inflicting casualties on the American forces. In the end Al conceded, as I had already inflicted 25% casualties on his forces, which demoralized Al's forces (and I think himself, to a degree) : )

July 25th 2009 - Frisco Library Game Day

Another Game Day at the Frisco Library with a few regulars and two first timers showing up.

Nevin Ball, Mark Bausman, Mervyn Dejecacion, and myself played A Game of Thrones.

Here is a picture at or near the beginning of the game. It looks like Mervyn is up to no good.

At one point, as House Stark I managed to acquire the Iron Throne, the Valyrian Steel Blade, and the Messenger Raven, but I didn't do much with them that turn sadly.

In Turn 9, 4 of the 5 players had a chance to win depending on how our orders resolved,

but Mark Bausman came out victorious with the most City/Strongholds held at the end of the game!

JOHN BOONE: I think everyone had played the game at least once except for Mark so we had a little refresher rules session at the beginning. A random draw of the houses resulted in the following distribution: Sorry I don't know the house names so I've used the player colors. Mark B (Green), Mick M (Yellow), Nevin B (Red), Mervyn D (Black), and John B (White "Stark"). In the first couple of turns Nevin and Mervyn went head to head but soon formed an alliance under Mick's urgings. I moved north to occupy the two power spaces and south and east grabbing supply spaces. Mick expanded westward and Mark eastward. Nevin's memory of our last game where I as White expanded unchecked to win came into play as he and Mervyn arranged a sneaky sea invasion by Nevin's forces taking my home area around turn 4. On the next turn, of course I kicked him back out. The sneaky Red player would do this again on turn 9! Mick gained the lead first with 5 city/strongholds but Mark would take it from him later in the game with a Mark/Nevin alliance. Mervyn's 3 ship fleet made tried to make Mick's life miserable on the south and east coasts but Mick always seemed to have just enough to keep Mervyn out; eventually Mervyn's fleet would head back west. On the last turn the game was still up for grabs with 4 of the 5 players still having the possibility of winning. In the end Mark's Green forces came out victorious with the control of 5 city/strongholds. Congratulations to Mark for the win on his first time playing. We will have to keep an eye out for you next time! Other things of note, was that the first supply card did not come out until turn 7! I thought Mick did well with his limited supply up to that point.

Eric Nicely finally showed up at one of our meetings after two aborted attempts. Eric and Sean Harris fought the Battle of Antietam in Glory III from GMT Games.

SEAN HARRIS: We played the short scenario of antietam. It was 4 turns long. The union suffer heavy losses due to failed charges in the early game and could never recover from it.

Another first timer, David Taylor played regular David Harrod in Twilight Struggle. This is another game by GMT Games. They are putting out a deluxe edition this year with a mounted map and new artwork I believe.

Regulars, Brian Marrs and Joseph Acker squared off in Warriors of God, a game by Multi-man Publishing.

It has a nice looking period map.

BRIAN MARRS: I think everyone had played the game at least once except for Mark so we had a little refresher rules session at the beginning. A random draw of the houses resulted in the following distribution: Sorry I don't know the house names so I've used the player colors. Mark B (Green), Mick M (Yellow), Nevin B (Red), Mervyn D (Black), and John B (White "Stark"). In the first couple of turns Nevin and Mervyn went head to head but soon formed an alliance under Mick's urgings. I moved north to occupy the two power spaces and south and east grabbing supply spaces. Mick expanded westward and Mark eastward. Nevin's memory of our last game where I as White expanded unchecked to win came into play as he and Mervyn arranged a sneaky sea invasion by Nevin's forces taking my home area around turn 4. On the next turn, of course I kicked him back out. The sneaky Red player would do this again on turn 9! Mick gained the lead first with 5 city/strongholds but Mark would take it from him later in the game with a Mark/Nevin alliance. Mervyn's 3 ship fleet made tried to make Mick's life miserable on the south and east coasts but Mick always seemed to have just enough to keep Mervyn out; eventually Mervyn's fleet would head back west. On the last turn the game was still up for grabs with 4 of the 5 players still having the possibility of winning. In the end Mark's Green forces came out victorious with the control of 5 city/strongholds. Congratulations to Mark for the win on his first time playing. We will have to keep an eye out for you next time! Other things of note, was that the first supply card did not come out until turn 7! I thought Mick did well with his limited supply up to that point.

July 18 Gaming at the Boone Casa - Blackbeard and Age of Empires III

Mick Mickelsen, Nevin Ball, and Al Hay came over to play Blackbeard from GMT Games.

Of course if you're going to play a pirate game you must have provisions,

and more provisions,

and grog.

The game ended much too quickly with the pirates doing hardly any piratey deeds.

Mick really kicked our booty in the final scoring.

My useless pirate who stayed in port more than at sea.

Afterwards, we played Age of Empires III. Mick got the pirate building in this game and won this one too.

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.

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.

Catching up with recent gaming activities

On Saturday, May 2nd, the North Texas Wargamers had our second meeting at the Frisco Public Library. Twelve people showed up for some boardgaming goodness.

Nevin Ball and Erik Nicely were going to play Panzerblitz: Hill of Death but Erik had bad directions and didn't make it so Nevin took off early after playing a single game of Neuroshima Hex! with Sean Harris. Sean's report on Neuroshima Hex!:

This is a great little wargame. Each game is different. I was blue and Nevin was green. Nevin had some early good draws and hit my HQ pretty good. I came back in the late game but I could not catch up. This is a great short wargame and can play up to four players. The randomness of the draws just adds to the strategy.

Other games played that day included:
1. For the People

• Joseph Acker - CSA
• Al Hay - USA

A brief synopsis by Joseph:

In summer of 1861 there was Foreign Intervention in favor of the C.S.A. Robert E. Lee captured Washington D.C. in the spring of 1862, giving the C.S.A. a sudden death victory due to Strategic Will.

2. For the People

• Brian Marrs
• Sean Harris

Sean Harris' report:

This was a learning game for me. so I basically got stomped, but I did learn alot. And apparently Brian is one of the really good players of For the people. So it is always good to get stomped by the best. I just hope he does not get tired of playing with rookies like me.

Brian and Sean had planned on playing a different game, Bloody Roads South, and in fact had set it up but there was some confusion of trying to play the game with a newer version of the rules so they decided to play For the People instead. For the People was the most popular game at this meeting; it was played three times Saturday.

3. Age of Conan

• Ken Mikolaj
• Mark Bausman
• David Harrod

I'm not sure how the factions were divided up but Mark said Ken won this one. This is one of my current favorites.

4. Fall Blau playtest

• Greg Blanchett
• Mark Simonitch

This is Greg's WW II Eastern Front game he has been working on. What better way to work out the kinks than playtest it with game designer Mark Simonitch!

5. Unhappy King Charles

• John Boone - Parliament Player
• Steven Sheasby - Royalist Player

My thoughts:

This was the first game for both of us so there was a lot of rulebook page flipping for the first couple of turns and I'm sure we still got a few things wrong and missed others - just like every game you play for the first time.

We had one and half turns left to go but called it after Steven lost a general in the midlands( I intercepted and he accepted battle) leaving only King Charles on the map in the North region facing off with the Lord General with his 6+ brigade army. At this point, we agreed it was time for the Fat Lady to come out and sing. In the previous turn, Oliver Cromwell decisively defeated Prince Rupert in the South which allowed Parliament to clean up down there taking all South areas except one.

The early pattern was that Parliament controlled the South West (East and most of the South Region) while the Royalist controlled the North West (Most of the West and North Regions) and we split in the Midlands Region.



Most of the fighting occurred in the line from the South-Midland-North Region. There is a possibility for auto victory for each side. The Royalist player automatically loses if King Charles surrenders but he was hard to run down up in the North in our game and bringing in a large enough army to have a chance to do anything requires 3 OPs cards or Minor/Major Campaigns. The Parliament player can lose of the Royalists manage to take London and hold it for two turns but I would think this would be hard to do.

Battles end up bring indecisive affairs for the most part, either not occurring at all because one side disperses leaving the field of battle or in battles that do actually happen resulting in "draws" with loses of one or two brigades at most. Even Major and Decisive victories only result in the loss of two brigades at most but they also allow drawing strategy cards from the deck (Major -1 card, Decisive - 2 cards) which the victor must either discard or play immediately to finish off their turn.



I had fun playing it and want to play it again.

ps - Steven thinks my Alien Dice are loaded. I rolled a few opportune sixes in the game but, I also rolled consecutive ones on the siege I was doing up North too Steven.

Some groups finished their first game and started another.
6. For the People

• Joseph Acker - USA
  
• Al Hay - CSA
  

Joseph and Al switched sides and played FtP again they enjoyed the game so much!
Again, Joseph's thoughts:

By end of spring of 1862 the Union had taken West Virginia and Missouri. There was a small Union force in Columbus, GA and another one in Little Rock, AK. The Union also had taken much of Virginia; the C.S.A. still held Richmond, but prospects were very grim, and the C.S.A. conceded.

7. Warriors of God

• Brian Marrs
• Sean Harris

Brian's thoughts:

We had to end this early due to time. I was really impressed with this game. The leaders mortality adds another dimension to this lite wargame. It insures each game is different. I lost on points but I would play this again in a heartbeat.

8. Twilight Struggle

• Ken Mikolaj
• David Harrod

This one seems to be a popular game with wargamers and eurogamers alike.

So ended another good gaming session at the library with plans for another sometime in June.

Teaching Claire Memoir '44

Inspired by Memoir 44 History Club I decided to ask Claire if she wanted to learn Memoir 44. She said yes so we played the Sword Beach scenario from the base game. Claire picked the Germans and I took the British. To minimize the complexity I removed all the special wordy cards from the deck. I also played a random card from my hand each turn.

Here is a picture early on in the game.

Claire did well but didn't have the cards to stop my advance and the British won 5 medals to 3.

North Texas Wargamers at Frisco Library - 3/14/2009

On Saturday, March 14th, twelve of us showed up at the Frisco Public Library for a meeting of the North Texas Wargamers. The Vivian Stark McCallum meeting room was the place to be from 10 AM to 3 PM for some boardgaming goodness.

The meeting room is quite nice with plenty of space and enough tables and chairs to hold a dozen more gamers comfortably. After a half hour of catching up, since we haven't had a meeting in a while, we divided up into four separate games:

1. Successors (GMT Games edition) - John Boone, Mervyn Dejecacion, Nevin Ball, Steven Sheasby
2. Storm Over Stalingrad (Multiman Publishing) - Al Hay, Greg Blanchett
3. The Napoleonic Wars (GMT Games) - Joseph Acker, David Harrod, Ken Mikolaj
4. Twilight Struggle (GMT Games) - Sean Harris, Steve Gallob

With the exception of Successors, the other games finished early allowing another round of games which included:
1. 1960: The Making of the President (Z-Man Games) - Joseph Acker, Ken Mikolaj
2. Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! - Russia 1941-1942 (Phalanx/Academy Games) - David Harrod, David MacAlpine
3. Manoeuvre (GMT Games) - Sean Harris, Steve Gallob

As you can see games by GMT Games were in the majority which is expected given the group's interest in historical board wargaming and the proliferation of games put out by GMT Games since their founding in 1990.

Sometime during the gaming festivities, John Kranz, founder of the ConsimWorld website, showed up to meet the guys. John relocated to the Dallas area from Arizona where he has hosted the annual ConsimWorld Expo for board wargamers in Tempe, AZ.; this was his first time to show up at one of our gatherings and hopefully not the last. Below are some after action reports (AARs) on some of the games played.

1. Twilight Struggle - A card driven game (CDG) simulation of the 40 year Cold War between the two Super Powers, the United States and the former USSR. I did a more exhaustive write up of the mechanics of game play in an earlier post here for those interested.

From Sean Harris' point of view:
"[The] U.S. was behind throughout most of the game. Every major area was very chaotic but the Russian got some key [victory points] in the Early war and Mid war. The U.S. did not make any headway in the Middle East until it did not matter. The U.S. got hit with Quagmire [an Event Card] and that made Russia's progress in Central America fairly easy. The late war began and Russia won on turn 8."

2. 1960: the Making of the President - Yes, a boardgame about the 1960 Presidential Election between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy. Why play a game on a subject when you already know the outcome? So you can see if you can do better of course! This game is from one of the designers who designed Twilight Struggle, Jason Matthews.

Joseph Acker's perspective:
"[The game] went the full distance. Nixon took the lead in the early rounds, pursuing a strategy of ignoring the East and focusing on the South and the Midwest. Kennedy was fortunate to win two of the three debate rounds and was then able to dominate the last two rounds, especially the last round with a final whistle stop campaign. The final result was fairly close but a definite win for Kennedy."

3. The Napoleonic Wars - Another card driven wargame - this time in the Napoleonic era when all of Europe tried to stop the steam roller of France under its greatest general Napoleon Bonaparte.

Joseph Acker's perspective:
"Nappy lasted one turn. France had the Capitulation card, so he gambled and made too strong [a move] on Vienna which was defended by a combined Austro-Russian grand army. Kutuzov routed Napoleon in both attacks, and Russia gained a resource each time. England and France both conceded the game [Russian victory?] at the end of the turn since France was badly weakened and had no hope of gaining an ally since it was a three player game."

4. Storm Over Stalingrad - World War II epic battle for Stalingrad. Not a card driven wargame but uses the same Area-Impulse system made popular in the games Breakout Normandy, Storm Over Arnhem, and Monty's Gamble Market Garden.

Greg Blanchett's perspective
"It was Al's first time playing so we did a standard bid of three [victory points?] and let him play the Soviets. I had hot dice on the first turn but things turned sour. Cards were not shuffled enough and I didn't take Mamayev Kurgan [an important objective] as I should have. He had four VP areas left and I was closing to take take two more on the last turn... If I had drawn an Overrun card it would have been possible. Al played a good game, exploiting the system to its gamey reaches..."

5. Successors - My favorite multi-player card driven wargame, recently redone by GMT Games. I have both the new edition and the original Avalon Hill Game Company edition. This is a multi-player game covering the wars of Alexander the Great's Successors after he died unexpectedly in Babylon leaving no direction and no apparent heir. My past entries about Successors are here. A random distribution of generals resulted in the following assignments:

Mervyn - Antipater(2L,2R,Macedonia - Pella); Lysimachus(2L,2M,Thrace)
Nevin - Antigonus(2L, 2M, Phrygia - Celaenae); Leonnatus(2L,2M, Hellspontine)
John - Craterus(2L, 2R, Cilicia); Peithon(2L, 2M, Media - Ecbatana)
Steven - Perdiccus(4R,2E, Babylonia - Babylon); Ptolemy(2L,2M, Egypt - Memphis)

Note: Numbers are the number of combat units (CU), L = Loyal Macedonians, M = Mercenary troops, R = Royal Macedonians, E = Elephant troops. Names in parenthesis are starting Province - starting location.

My perspective:
Turn 1- The usual first turn card play to place Political Control (PC) markers to expand everyone's holdings and no battles except Mervyn's run in with the Independent Army in Greece. I grab one of Alexander's heirs, Heracles, in Damascus.

Turn 2 - Steven buries Alexander in Babylon instead of trying to run the gauntlet to Pella. This effectively makes this a "crown the Regent" or "try to get the most territory, i.e. victory points, game". Mervyn spends most of the early turn capturing Greece and goes in to the lead in victory points (VPs). Mervyn also cashes in VPs for most fleets with control of the Macedonian and Athens fleets. Nevin raises a force in Persis province and builds a Loyal Macedonian there trying to be a pain in my backside threatening possible move against me in Media or against Steven in Susiana and eventually Babylonia. Mervyn then grabs Olympias from under Nevin's nose and marries her to one of his Generals strengthening his legitimacy bid as the rightful heir of Alexander's empire. Nevin is greatly disturbed Mervyn is messing around in his provinces. Nevin, in the later half of the turn, combines units from both of his Generals and defeats both of Mervyn's Generals piecemeal sending them to the Dispersed box. Now Macedonia lays completely open to Nevin. Nevin marches victoriously in to Pella but doesn't have time to take it by turn end. Steve is content not moving his Generals most of the turn but instead sends a small force to try to take the West African province of Cyrene. I gain control of the Phoenician and Cypriot fleets trying not to fall too far behind Mervyn's naval supremacy in the Med. Peithon hangs out in his own province of Media for most of the turn eyeing Nevin's force south in Persis but then heads west to Mesopotamia to attempt to break the PC marker stalemate there. Craterus ends up in Cyprus, gaining the Cypriot fleet, then goes to Rhodes thinking either to attempt to get the fleet in Rhodes or move against Nevin or Steven. When I'm in Rhodes, Ptolemy(Steve) starts invading Phonecia for easy pickings and I eventually lose the Phoenician fleet. Perdiccus(Steven) defeats Peithon(me) in Mesopotamia (Arbela), kills Peithon and sends my 3 Loyals to dispersed box; this is when I definitely decide to go against Steven and march to Egypt. In this battle, since I had more Legitimacy than Steven his 4 Royal Macedonian CUs (8 combat strength) would sit out the battle; this would give me an advantage in combat strength provided Steven rolled average for his Elephants. Steven rolls a twelve giving him 8 combat strength of elephants and I end up losing the battle. Moving into Rhodes in the first place was part of the possible circle back and head to Egypt plan but since Nevin had so thoroughly spanked Mervyn in Thrace I was having second thoughts about our alliance. Once Steven hit me in Mesopotamia and Cyprus I decided to continue with my first choice and go after Steven - 6 VPs in an undefended Egypt is just to good to pass up. At the end of the turn, I'm still low man on the totem pole for VPs so make Steven go first again. I believe Nevin is now the Usurper.

Turn 3 - Ptolemy (Steven) starts moving back toward Egypt. Mervyn spanks Nevin's big force in Pella (Antigonus) sending it to dispersed box and Nevin captures the rest of Hellespontine for 2 more VPs. I successfully seige Egypt's capital, Memphis, denying Steven the 6 VPs for Egypt. We have to call the game after first round of cards of turn 3 as our time for the room is up.

The game is pretty close at this point, Nevin leads in VPs but he and Steve are low in legitimacy, after giving up their Champion status, and are now Successors. Mervyn and I keep our Champion status since we are such nice guys! Since I had higher legitimacy than Steven I think I could have defeated Ptolemy this turn (he's not going to roll double sixes for elephants again is he?). With my combine legit and VPs I think I would have had a chance for a Regent victory at the start of turn 4. I definitely want to play this one again.

Game Day at Mark Woodson's House, Saturday Feb 28, 2009

News spreads quickly throughout the Empire that the Emperor has died. The circumstances are still unclear but he was involved in an "accident" leaving a power vacuum in the Empire. Now the nobles of the various houses have begun their struggle to position themselves to become the Galactic Emperor.

From 2009_02_28 - Galactic Emperor

Of all the noble houses, only four have a real chance to gain the throne, House Woodson, House Dejecacion, House Bausman, and House Boone. All factions have established their power bases on Omega Sector systems to use as jumping off points for further exploration and expansion into the newly discovered Omega Sector.

It's Hard to Conquer the Galaxy on $5 a Day!

From 2009_02_28 - Galactic Emperor

Another game of Galactic Emperor at Mark Woodson's house. We had played before at Mark Bausman's  place back in November of 2008. This was my second time playing and the game ended up pretty close in the final scoring. Mark Bausman pulled out the win, his first he remarked, with 51 points followed by Mervyn and I tied at 49 points, and Mark Woodson in 4th place with 47 points. Mark B was able to score 13 points in the final scoring round for a come from behind win.

From 2009_02_28 - Galactic Emperor

After Galactic Emperor ended, we played a quick 4-player team game of Neuroshima Hex!, Humans (Outpost and Hegemony) vs. Mutants (Moloch and Borgo). Mervyn (Moloch) and I (Borgo) ganged up on Mark B's Hegemony HQ and destroyed it for the team win. Mark Woodson's Outpost HQ was undamaged at game end. At one point, Mervyn and I were scoring a combined 7 hits on Mark's HQ every battle. At that rate, it didn't take long to knock it down to 0 damage points!