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.

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.

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!

Saturday, Feb 14, 2009 - Starcraft and Neuroshima Hex!

On Saturday, Mick, Nevin, Mark, and Mervyn came over for a game of Starcraft: the Boardgame with the Brood War expansion. A random draw of factions and player order resulted in the following player assignments and play order:
1. Nevin - Aldaris (Protoss) : Home Planet - Tarsonis
2. Mick - Arcturus Mengsk (Terrans) : Home Planet - Chau Sara 
3. John - Tassadar (Protoss) : Home Planet - Halcyon 
4. Mervyn - Jim Raynor (Terrans) : Home Planet - Braken
5. Mark - The Overmind (Zerg): Home Planet - Victor V

"STRATEGERY" in Progress

At the beginning of the game, every player must chose one of his Stage I Leadership cards to start the game with. Nevin was the only one to chose his special victory condition requiring all the other players to accumulate 20 Conquest Points to win the game. Nevin would win by accumulating 15 Conquest Points or win at game end by default. Mark chose "The Overmind" leadership card which gave him an extra Conquest Point every turn as long as the Overmind was in play. I chose the "Warp Gate" which let me move all units in the area with the Warp Gate to any other area that was friendly to me or empty at the end of the Regrouping Phase. Mervyn chose the "Storage Facilities" which gave him 3 resource tokens at the start of the game and allowed him to collect up to 3 more resource tokens at the start of the Regrouping Phase provided he had unused workers remaining in his worker pool (this is a nice ability for the Protoss whose units are expensive). Mick chose "The Sons of Korhal" ability. This allowed him to use the star order token. When executing it, he could chose to use it as a Mobilize, Research, or Build order and he could chose to treat it as a special order provided he fulfilled the other requirements for using special orders. Nevin's special victory condition was going to make it tough for any of the other players to win and increase the game's playing time.

The View from the Trenches - During Turn 4 Planning Phase, I believe

The set up of the map dictated where the early battles would be fought and in this case it was divided along two major "fronts". In one front, Mark and Nevin would be the major combatants and in the other Mick, Mervyn, and I would fight over planets.

In the beginning, Mark's Overmind token allowed him to take the lead in Conquest Points but it did not take long before Nevin's units invaded and destroyed the Overmind taking away Mark's bonus Conquest Point ability. While Nevin and Mark waged war against each other, Mick and Mervyn fought on Antiga Prime allowing me to expand to Hydrax peacefully and eventually the space area of Erebus Station. Mick would land on the land portion of Erebus Station where we would maintain a truce until turn 5. Mick's initial battle went badly forcing him to retreat to an empty area of Antiga Prime but at the end of the turn a "navigational error", played by Mick, caused Mervyn to lose his way back to the planet when Mick swapped the Z-axis end points between Antiga Prime and my home planet. After a second round of battle, on the following turn, this left Mervyn with a lone isolated unit on Antiga Prime and Mick with a gleam in his eye thinking of future clean up operations on Antiga Prime. After the "Navigational Error", Mervyn had "backdoor" access to my home world, Halcyon.

During the turn 3 planning stage, I told Mervyn I was going to trust him not to invade my home world so I could consolidate my holdings on Hydrax. Mervyn did not attack my home world but he did contest Hydrax. I can't blame him as that was the only logical expansion route off his home world, Braken. Turn 3 saw more fighting between Nevin and Mark, and Mervyn and I. Nevin and Mark fought to a standstill on Dylar IV while I managed to defeat most of Mervyn's forces on Hydrax. Turn 3 saw the appearance of the Stage II event deck and during the end turn Regrouping phase everyone chose to play their "Hero" Leadership card.

A Hero has  abilities specific to that faction and the following additional abilities common to all heroes, immunity to splash damage, immunity to mind control, and immunity to technology card abilities that destroy units outright. I placed my hero, Zeratul (Dark Templar), on my home planet in the area where the Warp Gate was located so I could warp him off planet if need be during an end of turn regrouping phase. I think it was at the end of turn 3 that I used a "Navigational Error" event card to swap Mervyn's and my z-axis routes back to how they were at the beginning of the game giving Mervyn a chance to come to the aid of his lone unit opposing Mick on Antiga Prime.

More fighting ensued during turn 4 between Nevin and Mark, and Mervyn and Mick. I landed on Mark's home world intending to attack his lone hero but he had evacuated his planet before my troops landed. At the end of turn 4, all factions were on at least 3 different planets but I had a slight lead in Conquest Points and so was attacked by Mark, Mick, and Nevin during turn 5. Turn 5 would be our last turn of the game as both Mick and Mervyn had other commitments that evening so we called the game at the end of turn 5 in favor of Nevin since none of the other players were anywhere near the 20 Conquest Points required to win.

After the Starcraft game ended, Nevin and I played a two player game of Neuroshima Hex! and then we played a 3-player game with my son Cody. In the first game, my human Outpost faction was victorious over Nevin's Moloch cyborgs. In the following game, my Hegemony human gang HQ was completely destroyed and Cody's Outpost humans squeaked by with the win beating Nevin's Moloch by one point. We played the new Z-man Games version that included four different factions, the Moloch, Borgo, Hegemony, and the Outpost. The game consists of laying tiles on a hexagonal grid map trying to score the most damage on the opponent's Headquarters (HQ) tile by game end. So how do you do all this?

Two-player game in progress - Outpost vs. Moloch

Each faction's playing pieces include one HQ tile and 34 other army tiles divided up between Instant Action tiles and Board tiles. The Board tiles are units representing either "combat" units or "modules" that enhance a units abilities or give them additional abilities. Instant Action tiles, as their name implies, are not played on the map but cause a certain action to occur immediately when played. Examples of Instant Actions are Battle, Move, Sniper, Push Back, and Air Strike.

At game start, each player shuffles their 34 tiles and places them in a stack. This will be their draw stack used during the game. After setting up your draw stack, each player's HQ is placed on the map starting with the first player. The are no terrain effects on the map in the base game so all hexes are the same. For a two player game, only the 19 hexes in the center of the map are used. The other hexes are reserved for future scenarios. After the HQs are placed the first player then starts the game by drawing the top tile from his stack and revealing it. The player then has three options, play the tile, discard the tile or save it for a later turn. The second player then takes his turn by drawing the top two tiles from his stack and either plays it, discards it, or saves it. Play then passes back to the first player but from then on the players will draw a number of tiles until they have three revealed tiles. Once this happens a player on their turn will first have to discard one of their tiles and then takes their turn as before, i.e. discard, save, or play a tile. This turn sequence continues until all players have drawn all of their tiles from their respective draw stacks at which point the game ends and a winner is determined. The fun part is deciding where to place your tiles to do the most damage to the other player when a battle occurs and the resolving of the other instant actions. 

Three-player Death Match

Combat units will have at least one of the following combat abilities, Melee attack, Ranged attack, Net, or Armor. These actions will be assigned to a specific hex side of the combat unit. This indicates in what direction that ability can be used. Combat units, if it has an attack type ability, will have an initiative rating which determines when it fires during a battle resolution . Units that have a better (higher) initiative rating can destroy enemy units before they have a chance to fire. Melee and Ranged attack are the abilities that cause damage to enemy units. The Armor ability provided protection against ranged attacks, and the Net ability prevents an enemy unit from doing anything. Finally, a combat unit may have one, or more of the optional abilities: Mobility and Toughness. Mobility allows a combat unit to move during the owning players turn. Units without Mobility can only move when a Move Instant Action tile is played on that unit. Each Toughness icon on a combat unit increases the number of hits required to destroy a unit by one. Units without a Toughness icon require only one hit to destroy. So how does a battle begin?

Battles are initiated when a player plays a Battle Instant Action tile, the 19 hexes of the play map are filled with board tiles, or at the end of the game (the final battle) when the last tile is played, discarded, or saved. All units with the same initiative fire simultaneously, with higher initiative ratings firing first, and all fire from the same initiative is resolved before going on to the next lower initiative rating. Combat units and modules are removed, at the end of the initiative phase they were fired at, if they take hits equal to their wound rating. Hits on HQs are recorded on the score track on the map board. HQs start on the 20 space of the track with each hit deducting a point of their total. It they go below the 1 space the HQ is destroyed and that player is eliminated from the game. If this was a two player game then the game is immediately over and the other player wins. The game has quite a bit of strategy trying to figure out how best to use the Board tiles and Instant Actions you've drawn and plays quickly so if you are eliminated in one game you have plenty of time to get even.

Saturday, Dec 13th - Senji and Citadels

The day started off with a trip to Madness Comics and Games down in Plano. They are having a buy 2 get one free sale so I met Mervyn Dejecacion and Nevin Ball down there. Since we always usually play each other we coordinated our purchases so as not to get duplicates. I bought Kingsburg, having never played it but Nevin said it is good, Mervyn got Android, and Nevin picked up Neuroshima Hex!. Merv and Nevin then followed me back to my house where we waited on Mark Simonitch to arrive to play a 4-player game of Senji.

Mervyn and I had played a three player game with Mick Mickelsen at BGG Con 2008 and decided it would play better with more people. BGG Con was our first time playing it so we played a couple things wrong but still were willing to give the game another go. After today I can say that it does definitely play better with more people. A random draw of the factions resulted in Mark being Purple, Nevin being Black, Mervyn Red and I Green.

The object of the game is to be designated the daimyo by the emperor at the end of the game. The daimyo is the person with the most honor at game end which ends once someone achieves or exceeds 60 honor points. Mark started off with an 8 honor Samurai so had first crack of hosting the emperor. In Senji, the player hosting the emperor decides the turn order of many phases so it is a powerful position and the rules even state "you must not let a player host the emperor several times in a row or he will soon be victorious. You have been warned!"

Mark soon added on to his lead and was able to host the emperor for 3 turns. I had tied him for honor at the end of turn 2 but the hosting family gets to decide the tie breaker. Around turn 3, one could see how the players were going to try to achieve their goals. Mark and Mervyn were heavy into collecting Hanafuda cards which are basically the resources in the game. Nevin was pursuing a balanced strategy of collecting resources and building up to attack, and I was going for a military strategy forgetting about collecting resources. In the first turn, I lost one of my initial provinces and being sandwiched between the other three players on the map I had to build up my forces, forced into forgoing collecting resources.

At the end of turn 3, I had claimed the right to host the emperor and I kept it until the end of the game. By this time I had honor somewhere in the forties with the other players in the twenties and lower. My fear was that Mark or Mervyn would make a big jump in the end with their Hanafuda card resource strategy if I couldn't end the game quickly by military victories. As the game went on my forces were slowly depleted and Mervyn moved up to a close second place with Mark and Nevin taking 3rd and 4th, 25-30+ honor points behind.

On the final turn, I was at 57 points but did not seen any good attacking prospects. Merv made a last ditch attack on Mark and closed in to around 53 points. During the Autumn phase Mark made his move turning in resources (Hanafuda cards)worth 26 points and some family members for another 6 or 7 points to jump to 69 honor points. Mervyn could only turn in a set worth 4 honor, ending up with 57 honor, and I could only muster up 4 honor with family members to end at 61 honor. I believe Nevin ended up somewhere in the forty range.

It was a great game and a nice come from behind win by Mark. I definitely want to play this one again.

As Nevin had only and hour left to kill, we played Citadels to end the evening. I completed my 8 buildings first and managed to score enough for the win with Mark a close second.