Ruling the Board: Shaw Gaming 6/20/12: Dune

Apparently, when our group jumps into something, we jump in with both feet, full body, bringing everything with us.  Our gracious hosts decided to do a movie, diner, board game night with the ceterpeices being Frank Herbert's Dune.  The movie was bonkers and the food was good.  Afterwards, we sat down to the beast that is:

Frank Herbert's Dune: Space Civilization Power Struggle Game

Our Game

We all chose a faction and taught ourselves how to play.  Things went slowly as we plodded along, but picked up a bit as people figured out how to play.

I had the seers and could choose a player and turn on which they would win.  If I predict it correctly, then I win instead.

Oddly enough, this nearly happened and it took a player two ahead happening to do something that kept this player from winning on this round that kept me from winning.

Final Thoughts

We had a really fun night overall, but this was not one of the better board games I have played and did not work all that well for a bunch of first timers.  This is one that I would try again, but its not that high on my list to do so.

Dixit Tales: #1: Beginning

Dixit looks like a really fun game and I'm hoping to play it soon for the first time.  However, since I have three expansion packs of cards and no need to use them in the near future, I wanted to do something more with them.

The art is great on the cards and I decided to use them as inspirations for little stories.  I'll be posting these ever so often as I get time.

In the Bag: Silent Auction Winnings

The Silent Auction at The MidWinter Gaming Convention was allot of fun and due to a gap in may playing schedule, I was able to take in quite a bit of it.  I made a number of bids throughout and ended up winning one outright and four during the bid off at the end.

Games Won:

Amun-Re - I have played this one a couple of times and really like it so far.

Battle Wizards - This had a really neat look to it and could be really fun at a small price.  Another player mentioned she have friends that recently bought this one and love it.

Citadels - This is a game that vaguely registered in my memory and at the price, I wanted to see what it was.

Combo Box of 3 Games

Loot - A priate themed card game.

Pirate's Plunder - Another pirate themed card game.

Kill Doctor Lucky - Instead of trying to find out who killed someone, the object of this game is to be the first to kill him.  I had multiple people comment on how fun this game is at the Con.

I plan on doing separate In the Bag posts as I learn more about the games.

In the Bag: Tentacle Bento

Tentacle Bento Funding Page

Tentacle Bento is a match making game where certain combinations give more points than others.

This is a bit of a taboo game at the moment as it is based off of a subset of Hentai having to do with tentacles and unfortunate girls.

The fury around the game from some angles seems to have died down a bit and this game was the feature game at the MidWinter Gaming Convention in Milwaukee.  It had it's own table setup, girls working the booth playing the game and showing it to others, sales of the version for backers, and a giveaway of the themed box to hold them with as a raffle.

I have not yet played this game.

In the Bag: Dixit Odyssey

Dixit Odyssey is one of the three expansions for Dixit.  Where Dixit 2 is only cards and Dixit Journey is cards along with a more traditional scoring board, Dixit Odyssey is cards along with a few new bells and whistles.

Dixit Odyssey adds a there and back again track for scoring and allows for up to 12 players where the others were only setup for up to 6.  It also gives rules for a number of variants of the original rules such as team and party rules.

In the Bag: Dixit

In Dixit, players get a hand of cards and one player uses a word, phrase, verse, story, action, mime, whatever to describe the card.  The challenge comes in that all other players play a card face down that they believe others would think matches the description.  Everyone votes on the card they think was the one described.

Scoring:

If everyone or nobody guesses your card, they all score points, but you do not.
If one person, but not all guess your card, you score and those correctly guessing score points.
If someone picks your card, but you were not the giver, you score points.

In this original version, your points are counted up by moving your bunny around the garden.  A fun, whimsical setup that can be really good for families and lighters crowds.

I have not yet played this game, but hope to very soon.

In the Bag: Miskatonic School for Girls

Miskatonic School for Girls - Funded Kickstarter Project

In this game, players draft cards for both themselves and the other player as they try to build the deck that allows their girls to stay sane until the other player's girls go insane.

The cards are themed for Lovecraft with lots of odes to the stories while not always being direct correlations.  The faculty cards are pretty funny as many are representations of The Elder Gods in very flimsy disguising.

I have not yet played this game.

In the Bag: Cthulhu Playing Cards

Cthulhu Playing Cards - Funded Kickstarter

The Call of Cthulhu playing cards are designed from box to card backs, to suits, to jokers, to court in theme and all created specifically for this deck.  These are normal playing cards in use, just very well designed and themed.

The original product on the Kickstarter was a Limited run.  This did not last through the project and all subsequent cards were part of the Unlimited collection.  The difference can be told by the color of the card backs.

In the Bag: Bang! The Bullet

Bang is a game where players have shootouts with each other while, depending on their character, they have different objectives of who needs to live and who needs to die.

This is the core game along with three expansions in one nice package.

I have not yet played this game.

In the Bag: Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature

This expansion to zombie dice adds a bit more strategy, fun, and narrative to the core zombie dice game.  You can add any or all of the three new dice to the original to add different elements.  With the red dice, you add Santa Clause.  The black die with white type is the hero and the black die with pink pink type is the damsel.

I have not yet played with the expansion, but it is supposed to add a movie-like feel to the game.

In the Bag: Zombie Dice

Zombie Dice is a really fun press your luck filler game where players roll dice trying to get as many brains as they can without taking three shots.  If they take three shots, they don't get any brains for that round.

Play

We played this a few times to start of an evening and close it out and it worked really well.  It helped people transition in and out of gaming mode and went by very quickly.

Pros

A very quick and fun game that works great as a transitional game.

Cons

There's not very much going on here, just press your luck.  It doesn't try to be more, though, and seems to know exactly what it is and does it very well.

In the Bag: Gloom: Unhappy Homes

This expansion pack adds 55 new transparent cards to the game along with a new family, Le Canard Noir, Residence cards are introduced as are mystery cards.

I have not played this expansion at this time.

In the Bag: Gloom

In Gloom, you play one of four odd families that live very gloomy lives.  During the game, you want to make your own family as gloomy as possible and kill them off while they are this way, while other players want to make your characters happier and kill them when they are the least gloomy.

At the end of the game, players add up the gloom on their dead characters and the one with the most Gloom wins.

Plays

I have only played this one once and it played a bit awkwardly as nobody had played it before.  It also gets better and better as players get into the crazy actions that their cards are performing and start a narrative about the characters.

Pros

This is a really fun storytelling game while also being an interesting point scoring game.

Cons

You will need the right kind of group to really enjoy this game.  One that likes to spin a yarn and doesn't mind the negative and gloomy nature of the game will thrive.

Give it a chance if you feel the group could be right though, as in our group, the narrative aspect increased as the game progressed and made it allot of fun.

In the Bag: Munchkin 3: Clerical Errors

The second expansion to the core Munchkin card game.  It includes 112 new cards, the new race, Gnomes and the new class, Bard.

I have not yet played this expansion.

In the Bag: Munchkin 2: Unnatural Axe

First expansion pack for the main Munchkin game.  It includes 112 new cards and a new race, Orcs.

I have not yet gotten to play the product.

In the Bag: Munchkin

This is a fun little game that I have yet to play.  It looks like a blast and I hope to get to play it soon.

In the Bag: Forbidden Island

This was a part of my original board games purchases.  It is made by the same people who made Castle Panic.  I haven't yet read up on this one or played it, but hope to in the next month or two.

In the Bag: Castle Panic

In castle panic, players work together to try to beat the game.  Players play cards to try to destroy the monsters as the spawn in the forest and move in towards the towers.  If they knock down all of your towers, you loose, if they are all defeated with at least one castle remaining, the players win.

Players can also choose to anoint a victor among them by adding up their personal kill points to determine the victor if they win.

Plays

So far, I have only played this one once.  We had a rough time near the middle of the game where we were swarmed, but managed to make it through for a victory.  I killed 3 of the bosses and a few trolls with some of the smaller monsters as well and ended up being the overall victor.

Pros

This is a really fun little co-op game with very little setup time and very little explanation time as players and quickly understand the mechanics.

The monsters will come out in vastly different ways leading to allot of variety of game play.

The players are forced to work together and stategize for ultimate victory.

Cons

The game feels a little light and that it might be a bit easy to beat.  This will work well for first timers and newer gamers, but might get a little ho-hum for more experienced gamers.  I've heard the expansion does wonders for this, though.

In the Bag: Elder Sign

After having read a few of H.P. Lovecraft's longer and most popular stories and having started board gaming, this one immediately caught my eye.  I had watched a number of the Table Top shows on the GeekandSundry channel on YouTube and the game that interested me the most was Elder Sign.

In the game you choose a character and along with the others in this co-operative game, try to keep a chosen Elder God from rising in the museum.

Plays:

I have played this game twice so far and had a decent time both times.  However, both times we won pretty handily.  In the first game, we rolled Hastur and in the second game we jabbed Azathoth in the eyes (all of them).

Pros:

The theme here is really good bringing Lovecraft to life.

There are a number of Elder Gods and a surprising number of characters to play with their own special abilities.

The dice are cool with their game specific mechanics.  Along with this, having three types of dice being used in strategy for the cool fighting mechanic is fun.

Cons:

So far, both games have been really easy victories.  I would eventually like to get a game in where it gets to be a bit of a nail biter.  I hope I'm not dooming myself on future plays.

Geek Chic - MidWinter Pull Bag

.... and this

Geek Chic - Midwinter Gaming Convention

While picking up my badge at the Con, I decided to pick up one of their official shirts.

Geek Chic - Cthulhu Logic

Triple pack shirts from MidWinter #3.  A nice little Scooby-Doo like layout with Cthulhu thrown in.  I like the black shirt with the almost neon green text and outlines.

Geek Chic - Fantasy Logic

Triple shirt #2 from MidWinter.  A nice little play on not having to outrun a bear with a fantasy twist.

Geek Chic - Con Logic

Shirt #1 of a 3 for $15 deal at a booth in MidWinter Gaming Convention.  A great deal on shirts and a couple were pretty good.  This was even more impressive by being available in a bigger size.  This was the least of the shirts, but saved me a dollar overall to get.

Geek Chic - A School With Fire and Bite

Sunnydale High School

My final post Christmas shirt purchase was a discounted shirt on ThinkGeek.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first TV show that I ever really got into and made a point of being in front of the TV for every week or setting up the VCR to record.  I re-watched episodes and seasons constantly.  This also led to a collection of books, comics, games, and figures.

Surprisingly, this is the first shirt I have ever bought for it and it feels long overdue.

Geek Chic - Harry Potter

Gryffindor Crest by jimiyo

The thirst and final shirt from my redbubble purchases is the Gryffindor Crest.  I really like this more graphic and dynamic representation of the Gryffindor Crest.  As a huge Potter fan and self sorted member of Gryffindor, I really enjoy this shirt.

Geek Chic - Dark Tower

NINETEEN by Megan Lara

This was the first shirt that I saw on the site teefury.com.  I really liked the design with so many elements from the book series and the billy-bumbler front and center.  I couldn't buy the shirt at the time due to their size limitations, but later found it with a wider variety of sizes at redbubble.com.  This was the second shirt chosen from their great artists to add to my collection.

Geek Chic - Elder God Cookie

The Necron-Om-Nom-Nom-Nom-Nicon by Nathan Davis

After the holidays, I decided it was finally time to buy some fun shirts.  I had bought a few back in high school, but very few since.

 The first one, The Necron-On-Nom-Nom-Nom-Nicon is a fun mixing of Cookie Monster and H.P. Lovecraft where a cookie is facilitating the rise of Elder God Cookie Monster.

Ruling the Board: Unterspielstadt 1/20/13: Wrap-Up

My first trip to play at Unterspielstadt was a whole lotta fun.  I was able to meet a bunch of new people and play some really fun games.  There are a ton of games to choose from with many having their own favorite games from the past and new games to try.

There are a number of the games that I am interested in either due to having heard good things in the past, good themes, and the passion shown by those wanting to play the games.

Crokinole was a fun dexterity game.  Risk Legacy was part strategy, part wonky fun, and part building your own game.  Amun-Re was allot of fun and easy to learn the basics.

My favorite of the night was Amun-Re, but Risk Legacy is one that I really want to try again and see what is different.  I also am already getting the hankering for another round or two of Crokinole.

It is a little bit of a drive for me, but was well worth it and I hope to be back often.

Ruling the Board: Unterspielstadt 1/15/13 #3: Amun-Re

Game Play

In Amun-Re you are trying to get more victory points than your opponents through a number of processes.  First, a number of city cards are flipped for the number of players and they bid on the properties (one each). Once this is completed, they can build pyramids, buy farmers, and draw cards.

All pyramids count towards the mid-game scoring, and the final scoring.  Farmers assist in raising funds for your future purchases.  Cards can help with funds, additional farmers, cheaper pyramids, and several ways of additional scoring.

So, each player, in order will purchase cards, farmers, and bricks/pyramids on an increasingly more expensive scale.  After this phase, players choose how much money to use for sacrifices to the gods.  Each player also has a card they retain at all times that allows them to not give money to the gods and actually gain 3 gold during this phase and subtract 3 from the sacrifice.  Depending on how much money is used determines the god's happiness.  This is on a scale of 1-4 and that multiplier is used to determine how profitable farmer's are during the harvest.  The person who bids the most gets to go first in the next round and gains three of any combination of cards, farmers, and bricks.  2nd place gets 2, and everyone else to bid a positive amount gains 1.

After the sacrifice, the harvest phase happens and player multiply their number of farmers by the god track, plus any inherit city bonus and bonus cards to come up with their additional income.

They then start over bidding on new cities.  This happens three times per Age.  At the end of the third rotation, depending on the number of players not all of the cities on the map will be used.  If not used in the first Age, they are kept out of the second age.  When the first age is ended, all points are awarded as listed on the scoring cards.  These include such things as counting up your pyramids, your sets of pyramids, having the most pyramids on one side of the river, temples (listed on the board: two in one city, and one in two others) multiplied by the sacrifice track, and any special cards that were fulfilled.

After the scoring of the first age, every token on the board except for point tracking tokens and pyramids/bricks are removed.  You then proceed to cycle through the processes of the first half.  However, this time, many cities will be more valuable depending on the pyramids built there in the first half of the game, now referred to as The Old Kingdom.  The second half is referred to as The New Kingdom.

Once the three cycles of The New Kingdom are complete, the final scoring commences.  There are a couple of extra scoring factors that only take place at the end of the game, including who has the most money remaining.  The final points for The New Kingdom are tabulated and added to the points from The Old Kingdom to determine the winner.

Our Play

Gene, Eric, Doug, Paul, and myself

In our game, I started off a bit shaky, having never played the game before and therefore ended up building three pyramids on my first city.  One other city got a bit of construction and my third was pretty much left alone. I had some farmers, but not very many.  At the end of The Old Kingdom  I was surprised to find that I wasn't doing too bad in the scoring.  I believe I was in third, but not too far behind.  I had purchased the city with two temples and managed to get the sacrifice track up enough to make them payoff along with the temple on one of my other cities.  My large number of pyramids also helped.

In The New Kingdom, my hugely built up city went for big bucks and I had to try to some other strategies.  Everything just happened to work out for me as I was able to build lightly on some already built areas, get a couple of temples, turn in a special scoring card at the end, and even save just enough money to get an extra point for cash.  This came in very handy when I ended up tying for first after scoring.  We then went to the first tie-breaker and were tied again.  We had to search the rules for the second tie-breaker, and I just managed to come out on top.

Final Thoughts

Amun-Re was a great game for a fairly new gamer.  It is one that is easy enough to pick up on the fly with a little help from the special card cheat sheet.  However, it is also one that lends itself to allot of replay value as numerous strategies can be used in which cities and types of cities to try for along with the numbers of temples, farmers, and cards to optimize those cities.  Each game is greatly different due to the random drawing of cities to add to the variety.

There is a good amount of luck in the game in the form of the special cards, but I feel that it augments the game to keep it fresh rather than making it hinge too much on luck.

It was fun getting lucky and winning one, but the real win was discovering this neat little game.

Ruling the Board: Unterspielstadt 1/15/13 #2: Risk Legacy

After a bit of discussion and and some shuffling of games, it was decided to thrown down with Risk Legacy.

I had heard a little about this game before and what I had heard was pretty cool.

Nothing, however, prepared me for what I had in store.

Risk Legacy shares only little with it's original title.  In the game, each player chooses an army.  These include mutants, robots, and Braveheart style warriors.  This is one of the handful of options that are drafted for before starting, including starting army size, first placement on the board, starting money, and starting actions.

Once this is all settled, players place their armies starting from their territory, chosen in order drafted, and moving out from there.  Each turn they get more people to add to their army and attempt to spread out across the board, gaining resources and keeping their opponents down.  This is all similiar to Risk and this is where the similarities end.

When players choose their specific army at the beginning, they get a cardboard card with any special abilities for that army and sign and date the back.  If certain things happen during the game, stickers are pulled off from sheets in the box and added to the card for use during the current game and later plays of that game.

The goal of the game is to collect stars, five needed to win.  These can be recieved in a variety of ways.  Also, when you start the game, if you have never won, you start with a star and those who have, start with a missle.  During the game, there are chances for other customizations of the game depending on certain actions taking place.

In the end of the game, depending on what happened, major and minor cities can be placed in owned territories if you have earned them.  These effect armies later in future games.  Also, the winner signs, dates, and comments on a portion of the board designed for this function and the players all track their success level on the back of their cards.  This keeps track of what has happened with the games in the past.

There are a specific number of possible plays on each board and once this has been reached, the owner opens a sealed pouch in the box and the game should not be further played.  A new game should be purchased at this point for additional plays.  I have even read online of people burning the board and box along with other destruction methods.

So, in our game, I played with Gene, Eric, Matt, and Paul.  Eric chose the Mutant army and quickly expanded in North America, which had become very beneficial for them due to previous stickers or "scars" on the board.

Matt started in South America, Paul in Africa, Gene in Australia, and I in Asia.  Paul consolidated most of Africa and made some early pushes into South America and Asia.  Gene tried to push into Asia and using a house rule created by a previous victor, used the bridge from Australia to South America to make his presence there as well.  Matt did all he could to hold on as he was being swarmed from three directions.  I tried to hold on to my majority of Asia and build for later defense.

We were just starting to get into a bit of a groove when Paul makes step one of his devious plan.  He turns in cards he obtained from winning a battles in previous turns to gain a ton of troops.  He spreads through Europe and Asia.  On his next turn, he decides to try to stop Eric in North America who is starting to form quite the Mutant army.  He ended with two opponent's bases, and triggered an event for another star.  Everyone did a double take, as Paul had managed a win without anyone realizing what had happened.

We all had a good laugh and finished our duties in the game by marking our cards accordingly.  Paul signed the board as winner and was able to create a new minor city.

Final Thoughts:  This was my first group game with the Unterspielstadt and it was allot of fun.  It was a little bit goofy at times, but it made for a never dull game.  I definitely want to play this one again in the future and see what else happens.

Ruling the Board: Von Trier 1/14/13: Wrap Up

Von Trier

After work on Monday, I walked over to Pizza Shuttle after dropping some things off at home and grabbed a couple of slices.  I quick stroll down Farwell brought me to Von Trier.

From the outside, you don’t really know what you are going to get as it is a fairly bare building apart from the big sign up top.

When I opened the door, a dimly lit lounge greeted me with candles on tables and a very atmospheric and hushed environment.  I knew that these were not the droids I was looking for, so I proceeded down the walkway to the left of the bar to the back room.

The lights were on bright and 8 people were gathered around a few tables that had been pushed together in the middle of the floor.  Here was that retched hive of scum and villainy I had been looking for.  Not only that, they were actually about to play a pub themed game.

I tossed my stuff in a corner and was invited to pull up a chair and join their game of The Red Dragon Inn.  I did so and proceeded to have a fun and interesting game with allot of laid back people out to have a few beers, come good conversation and some gaming.

The first game started a little slow, but as people left the game it picked up and culminated in a somewhat quick-fire back and forth to see who passed out first.

I was able to squeak out a victory.

We then separated into a few smaller games and I ended up with three others in a game of Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery.  The four of us learned the game and settled in for a longish one.  In the end, we had to call things about 2/3rds through the game due to the lateness of the evening.

We settled our tabs and headed back to our own moisture farms.

Final Thoughts:

The people attending the event at Von Trier seemed like a good group of people with a good mix from more casual gamers to more experienced gamers.  Everyone was nice and seemed to have a good time.

Von Trier was great, allowing us to use the entire back room and frequently sending a waitress back to check on our drinks.

I was a little surprised with the length of the games we played on what I thought would be a more casual/party game sort of environment, but I was also pleased to see some more complexity in the games than I had expected.

With the event occurring every 2 weeks, I don’t think I’ll be attending everyone, but I wouldn't be surprised if I’m not there at least once a month.

Overall a very positive experience.

Ruling the Board: Unterspielstadt 1/15/13 #1: Crokinole

Since I was the first person to arrive, I sat down with the host Eric for a game of Crokinole as people slowly began to trickle in.

In Crokinole, you have small wooden discs that you flick from the edge of the board attempting to land into the center hole or as close as you can get to it for the most points.

If your opponent has no discs on the board, you must land inside of the center ring or foul and remove the disc.  If your opponent does have at least one disc on the board, you must hit one of their discs or foul.

If you land in the hole or "Toad" you score 20 points and set it aside for later scoring.  Other scoring is 15 for fully inside the center ring, 10 for the second ring, and 5 for the outer ring.  Discs touching multiple rings are scored on the lower scoring ring and any disc touching the baseline is considered out.

Play goes back and forth until each player exhausts their discs.  This ends the round and points are tallied.  Only the player with the most points scores in the round and it is the difference of the two scores.  So, if player one scores 40 points and player two scores 20, the round would be scored as 20 points for player 1 and 0 for player 2.

The conclusion of a game can either come after a specified number of rounds or when a points total is met (often 100).  Often games are played in a best of three format.

I had a lucky start with this one and was able to open up a big lead early, capturing 2 toads.  The second round was a wash with both of us banging off of the pegs and rarely having a shot remain on the board for either fouling or leaving the board.

I was eventually able to sweep the rounds and win 100+ - 0

This was a fun way to start the evening and I find this to be a very entertaining game that could be great game to play over a few drinks with a friend as you catch up.  It requires some concentration and some shots require a little forethought and skill, but it could be played while chatting or watching TV as well.

Final Thoughts:

This was a good opening game, especially with only two of us available.  I am looking forward to playing this one again.

Unfortunately, due to the wood construction, the purchase of such a board is a bit on the pricey side.  This would be a fun one to bring to a day long board game event as it would ensure that as long as there are two people, they will always have something easy to pick up and play before games, after games, and while waiting for games to start up.

Ruling the Board: Von Trier 1/14/13: Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery

This is a four player game where each player represents one of the families.  The game is comprised of four phases and each phase is completed by each player starting with the Host and going clockwise around the table.  They all then move to the next phase.

Phase 1: Upkeep – Player collect gold from slaves and pay gold for gladiators in an attempt to balance their books.  Extra gold is kept and owed gold is paid to the bank.  If unable to pay for gladiators, you must discard them until you are no longer negative.

Phase 2: Intrigue – Players draw three cards.  Card hands cannot exceed six.  They then play schemes using their Influence score and can ask another player for assistance by combining influence to play the scheme.

Phase 3: The Market – Four market cards are flipped one at a time and the players have a silent auction to determine who buys the card.  All ties are resolved by additional auctions adding to the original amount from previous ties.

They can also barter for slaves, gladiators, guard cards, equipment and other items before the market itself opens.

At the end of the market phase, the title of host is auctioned.

Phase 4: The Arena – The host gets to choose a house to compete in the arena.  That house may choose to enter a gladiator of their choosing or loose an influence and not enter.  The host then continues choosing houses until two gladiators are chosen.

Once chosen, the gladiators and any items they are using are set on the board and players place bets with a 1:1 return on either gladiator or 2:1 on an injury or decapitation.

Battle dice are determined by attributes on the cards for Attack, Defense, and Speed.  The number of attack is the number of dice rolled in attack, Defense for defense, and speed is the amount of hexagon spaces in the arena the gladiator can move.

The battles are Risk style with the top dice from each player matched up to determine if the attacker wins or the defender keeps from being hit.  Then the second highest are matched, and so on.  If the attacker has more dice than the defender, any unmatched dice must be a three or higher to hit.

One wounds are counted, the defending player loses that many dice of their choice from their dice pool, but can only get rid of their last dice of one of the three types when all other dice are at one.

Once a player has zero dice of a type the battle is over with the following results.

2 dice types remaining – The gladiator yields and loses the match.

1 dice type remaining – The gladiator is injured and gets and Injury token.  During upkeep, the player rolls a die and on a 4-6 the gladiator is healed, 2-3 is still injured, and 1 is dies.

If the gladiator loses all dice of each type, they are decapitated.

All bets won are paid out and the phase goes back to upkeep.

Bartering – Some bartering can be done at any time in the game, but others must be done at specific times.  When this occurs, players can try to make deals with other players.  The player accepting the deal is bound by their acceptance, while it is the choice of the original offerer of the trade whether or not to follow through with their offer.

Also, as much or as little of their intentions or true actions can be stated as they like.  So, they can in effect steal gold, slaves, gladiators, influence, etc. and give up nothing for it.  However, this will tend to make you a target for that player as the game progresses.

End Phase – The first person to reach 12 influence wins the game.  This can occur in many ways throughout the game.  I assume that for shorter games, players can agree on a smaller influence level to reach in order to win.

Final Thoughts:  Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery was a good game, but seemed quite long for what it was.  A quicker way to gain influence or lower overall total to reach would seem to make sense for me.

We played at least 2 ½ hours and the final tally came to:

House Glaber (Bob) – 8

House Solonius (Jeff) – 7

House Batiatus (Me) – 7

House Tullus (Jason) – 5

The game was fun with gladiator battles really starting to heat up as we pulled some better ones from the Market and gave them some equipment.  I had a starting gladiator pick up two early wins, then “Goldilocks”, Mr. 5/5/2 dominated the middle section of the game, and Spartacus actually won his only 2 matches towards the end.

I would probably play this one again, and with the right group, a 4 hour game could be fun, but normally, I would think you would want to lower the influence goal a bit.

Overall, though, still good fun.

Ruling the Board: Von Trier 1/14/13: The Red Dragon Inn

I just managed to jump into this one before it started.  There ended up being nine of us and it took a little to get us through the rules and get started.  It took about a full rotation to really pick up on how the game worked and for people to start settling in to it.

Once, this happened, though, things picked up a bit and quickly a few people were out of the game, which made things pick up even more.

A few players had been unlucky early on, so these were the ones that I focused on, one at a time, to eliminate.

After a few more rounds a couple more people were out and it came down to the two female decks.  I was playing Fiona the Volatile and the woman to my right was playing Eve the Illusionist.  We both were only around 7 or 8 down between the alcohol and fortitude deductions, although I believe I had one or two less hindrances at the time than she did.

At this point, things really picked up as a much quicker back and forth started up between the two of us.  Slowly, our counters got closer and closer together. I thought that I had her a few turns only to have her play cards that negated or flipped the results of my cards.

Finally, down to only 1 movement left for either of us to loose, I played a card that she could not block or deflect and I got the closest of victories.  It is almost certain that if I would have had to drink that turn, I would have lost.

A well played back and forth that she would have won had we started on equal footing.

Winning Wench - Fiona the Volatile

Final Thoughts:

The Red Dragon Inn was a fun game, but I think it was probably a bit of a stretch for 9 players, almost all of which had never played it.  It would probably work best with around 4 or 5 players and then be a fast paced game where the characteristics of each deck would shine more and it would take much less time to complete.

As it was, the structure and charm of each deck had a hard time coming through with so many people.  Luckily, everyone playing was invested, so it was a pretty fun game.

I would sure play this again with others who had played before in a large group or in what it seems would be its best format, around 4-5 players.

Overall, not a bad way to start off the gaming evening.

Ruling the Board: SSHS January Board Game Bonanza!: Overall Impressions

Silver Springs Hobby Shop

I started off the day with an hour on the treadmill to wake up and get going for the day.  After breakfast and a shower, I was off for the quick drive North to Glendale and Silver Springs Hobby Shop.

I got there not long after 10 and was able to look around at games for a bit before starting on my first game.

The first game, Station Master, with Bill, Steve, and Nate was a great way to start the gaming day.

A quick walk down to the Pick 'N Save about 1/2 mile away led to a yummy lunch of chicken tenders and potato wedges with mustard back at the gaming store.

After about 1/2 hour wait, the longest of the day, we started a fun game of Castle Panic.

After this, I switched groups to play Small World, which was allot of fun.

This led to a final game of Elder Signs, which although about as easy as it could be was fun.

This left a half an hour at the end of the night to look through the games for sale.

I ended up purchasing Texas Zombies, The Hobbit: The Card Game, Dixit Journeys, Dixit 2, and Cthulhu dice.

With the great discount offered, I was able to save about $25 dollars off of my purchase.

Final Thoughts:

I never had any problems on the night with the players I played with or the players from other games.  The staff was very nice and helpful making me want to come back in the future.  Being tolerated at a store is nice, but being actively appreciated and encouraged is great.

There wasn't a ton of down time and no game to too long to get get going.

The sale was a great way to help build my small library of games.

Overall, I had a blast and was very glad that I tried it out.  I am now really looking forward to the February Board Game Bonanza and moving sale as SSHS will be moving about a mile away to Port Washington Road near Subway.

I'm now even more excited about trying to get to Von Trier on Monday and especially to Midwinter Gaming Convention on the weekend.

Ruling the Board: SSHS January Board Game Bonanza!: #4 Elder Sign

The afternoon began to transition into night as Trish jumped over at the end of Small World to a game of 7 wonders that was about to start up.  So, with three of us remaining, Brian was interested in playing a game of Elder Signs with he, Allia, and myself.

Currently having a crush on Elder Signs due to the great and addictive Elder Signs: Omens tablet ap (Ruling the Board to come) I was ecstatic to get a game of this in.  With the only other group starting a game of balance on a ship, the three of us started setup for Elder Signs.

Having played the tablet game a number of times and watched the Table Top game a few times as well, I was familiar with most of the game, while not being sure of the differences between the board game and the ap.

Fortunately, the differences were few and after a long setup session (about the same as Small Worlds) we were up and running.  Luckily, after the extended setup, there was not the first turn or two learning curve, so we went from zero to 60 mph on the first turn.

We randomly chose investigators and took on the following personas:

Allia - Vincent Lee
Brian - Ashcan Pete
Stanley - Carolyn Fern

Early in the game, things went very well.  Over the first few turns Vincent was able to defeat numerous Rooms and monsters and build up his character while keeping everyone topped off with Stamina.  Carolyn Fern was able to do the same while keeping everyone topped off with Sanity.  Ashcan Pete had a rough start, failing 2 of his first 3 rooms.

In the second section of the game, we began collecting Elder Signs.  Everyone was rolling well and we went from 1 Elder Sign and 4 doom to somewhere around 8 Elder Signs and 5 doom.

The Mythos cards were fairly weak and we were rolling well.  The gaming night was quickly waning and we began to push towards end game.  Vincent was able to defeat a room and Carolyn was able to do the same while having to sacrifice multiple Stamina and Sanity.  However, I had a card to top myself off on both and Vincent was later able to top off my Stamina.

In the third section of play, we were probably 90% assured of success as we zeroed in on our needed total of Elder Signs.  However, we began to falter as Vincent and Carolyn both failed to defeat rooms.  Ashcan Pete stepped up and was able to defeat a room an earn an elder sign.  Carolyn was then able to turn in trophies to earn an Elder Sign and get within one of the needed tokens to win.  Allia then turned in trophies to purchase the final Elder Sign and locked the portal attempting to call Hastur into the museum.

Final Thoughts:

In the end, we were able to quickly gain resources and then blast through Elder Signs leading to a very quick and fairly easy version of a game that can be very challenging.  Brian and Allia had played numerous times and were able to speak towards the ease that we had in a normally difficult game.

I hope to be able to play this again soon to see how thing will go in another play.  However, after one play, I am more excited about the tablet ap than the board game.

The timing did work out very well for the time limit that we had with the game store soon closing due to the Packers playoff game and me still needing to look around and take advantage of the discount on games offered for the day.

Ruling the Board: SSHS January Board Game Bonanza!: #3: Small World

"The Stale Marshmallow"

After our success with Castle Panic, Bill, Nate, and Steve got ready to start a game of Dominion with a new expansion that Bill or Steve had purchased.  However, it took a long time to unwrap, separate, and look at, so when a new group of players arrived and pulled out Small World, I decided to hop tables and Bill the 2nd joined in that game, so all was well in the world.

Small World took a bit of time to setup and explain from Trish, however, having her and Allia, who had played before, to pull information from was a major bonus as we began.  The World Rulers were as follows:

Trish
Allia
Brian
Stanley

Trish began by purchasing the Dragon Master Ghouls.  She quickly shambled across her portion of the board with the undead.  Next was Allia who went with the Mounted Ratmen who swarmed the board for a substantial early lead.  Brian swung out with the Commando dwarves to take over a few spaces.  On my turn, I lumbered out with the Hill Giants.

For the next few turns, Trish expanded while taking out a few Hill Giants, Allia continued to expand with her Ratmen, Brian struggled with his small party of dwarves, and I ran away from the Ghouls while expanding with my Giants.

In around the 4th turn, Allia started the declining races by putting her Ratmen in decline and the next turn taking the Merchant Elves.  Brian continued the trend by putting his Dwarves in decline and then starting back up with the Bivouacking Halflings.  Scared of the expanding ghouls, I put the Hill Giants into decline and spend the max amount to take the Flying Sorcerers.  Trish was the last to go into decline a turn after the rest, taking the Berserk Trolls.

In the second section of the game, Allia struggled to get a foothold with her elves as they were shoulder to shoulder with the fortified Trolls and she couldn't get a marshmallow roll to go in her favor.

::Break::

I want to break for a moment to talk about the funniest thing that happened in any of my games on Saturday. After some early positive reinforcement rolls, the dice came up blank for quite a while.  At one point, Allia started calling it "The Marshmallow" as she stated that it looked like a stale mini-marshmallow.  This led to much fun requesting "The Marshmallow" as the game continued.

::Continuing::

Brian took over a fer sectors with the Halflings, however, everyone was worried about leaving solo tiles with my flying sorcerers, so the game slowed in it's expansion quite a bit.  My major fodder for the second half of the game was in the trolls, who while fortified were very safe from normal attack, but not from my sorcerer swapping special ability.

Many of my declining Hill Giant tokens remained through the end of the game and my Sorcerer's were sweeping the board.  I also held off Ghouls and Trolls from Trish for three turns on one space before she was finally able to overcome the singular Sorcerer.

As the game wound down, Allia made a last ditch effort by declining the Elves and purchasing the Tritons.  The rest of us finished the game with our second races.

In the end, everyone thought that Allia had the game, however, I had been trading in small tokens for 10's throughout the game and when we added up our points, everyone was surprised to find out that Allia and I were tied and had to go to the first tie-breaker, which is the number of squares occupied by active or declining tokens of yours.

Allia came up to a total of 12, while I counted up to a total of 13 and won the tie-breaker by 1 point.  By some Small Wonder, I won!

Final Scores:
Stanley (Small MASTER OF THE WORLD!) - 94+
Allia - 94
Brian - 76
Trish - 75

Final Thoughts:

This game probably took the longest of all to setup, but most of this was due to two of us having never played and being useless and the other two trying to sort through a mixed up collection of the demo box.

Once we were a turn in, things started making allot more sense and the combinations of Races and Special Powers made much more sense.  I enjoyed that it just so happened that most of the combinations not only made sense, but were actually some of the more powerful combinations in the game.

I was shocked that with Trish's early stomping with the Ghouls that she didn't do better, but she really had a tough go with the Trolls and lost allot of dice rolls that cost her time and lost coins.

Allia started of with a bang with the Ratmen, but lost a couple of turns with the Elves, and turning to the Tritons late only scored her a few points.

Brian had the worst luck of the group.  With both the Dwarves and the Halflings, he ended up with a small number of forces and got pinched by both the Giants and the Elves.

My Giants scored the third most of the first groups, but I was able to stay close enough so that when I exploded with the Flying Sorcerer's, it was just enough to put me over the top.

***
I enjoyed the fun combinations and expanding forces of the game from the beginning and started to enjoy it more and more as we continued through the game.  This is a game that I am really enterested in purchasing in one of it's forms to play with friends as I think it is one that can be extremely fun on a first play and hold up really well with multiple plays.  Also, with the extensive expansions that it has, things can stay fresh for quite a while.

I was really glad that I decided to jump over and give this one a play.  It allowed me to play with another group that was very fun and to experience a game I was looking forward to trying.  It was probably the most fun of all of the games I played on Saturday.

Ruling the Board: SSHS January Board Game Bonanza!: #2 Castle Panic

I started watching Table Top on the Geek and Sundry Network on YouTube a few months ago.  I found the show very entertaining and found some of the games they were playing really interesting and fun looking.  So, when I started playing games with my friends, there were a number of games that I really wanted to pick up so I could try out.

One of the first of these was Castle Panic (In the Bag to come).  So, after playing Station Master at Silver Spring Hobby Shop on Saturday and grabbing some lunch, I started reading the second half of the instructions.

When we had a few people show up looking for a game to play, I suggested the one I had out and we were quickly setting it up.

We had the same four agents from Station Master (Steve, Bill, Nate, and myself) with a new warrior to add to our list, another Bill.

So, we set things up and started playing pretty quickly and the game was simple enough to start off with that by the third player's turn, everyone was understanding of the basic rules and by our second rotation, people were three moves deep in strategy.

The game started out a little slowly from our end as we killed off a few goblins, but had trouble dealing with  a troll that ran through and killed himself on a wall.  Another wall quickly fell, but I was able to rebuild it on my turn, leaving us with only 1 wall down and all towers remaining.

The game was pretty tame for a few round until Nate pulled the Goblin King forcing him to draw three more monster tokens and one of those being draw four more monster tokens.  This was when extra strategy slowed the game a bit, but led to some really good moves.  We managed to kill off the new foes, but at the expense of two more walls.  We built one back, but lost a tower and then another tower to a boulder that rolled through the downed tower to take down another one.

As the monster tokens began to dwindle we had a pretty good handle on the horde, but most of the final monsters came up as trolls, leading to a bit of a panic before we started drawing the cards needed to down them.

On Bill the 2nd's turn, he managed to kill a monster with only a troll with 1 hit point remaining.  The final two turns could not lead to a kill, so the game ended with a troll trying to storm the one fortified wall and dying for his efforts.

The Five Generals of SSHS won the day with 3 towers remaining.  All generals were valiant and wise, but in the end, having dispatched 3 of the 4 bosses, 2 trolls, and an orc, Stanley the Strong won the hearts of the kingdom due to his magnificent conquests.

Final Thoughts:

Castle Panic was a fun game that played fairly easy on the first attempt four all five of us.  I was very happy, though after the extended study needed to start Station Master, that we were able to setup and get up to speed very quickly.  Th

The tough middle of the game added allot of fun to the experience, however, the easy ending made for an anti-climactic ending.

We were very lucky in this game by drawing 5 or 6 tokens that could have devastated us at other times, but did little to nothing when they were drawn, such as a draw 3 monster tokens for the last token when there were no monsters left to draw.

Overall, it seemed that everyone enjoyed the game and that with our luck the game played much easier than it can.  This worked for a first game that could make us work much harder for victory upon a further play.

Now that I know the game, I am looking forward to playing it with another group down the road.

Also, the Wizard's Tower expansion is sure to add an additional level of difficulty and fun after a few plays, so it is on my horizon for a future purchase.

I was very happy to have gotten to play one of the two games that I was very excited to play at this event.  It was fast moving and fun and I hope the difficulty level will greatly vary through it's plays.

Ruling the Board: SSHS January Board Game Bonanza!: #1 - Station Master

Saturday was my first time at any sort of gamer event outside of games with friends.  I had decided to start off with a day long gaming event at Silver Springs Hobby Shop.

After looking around for a bit, a few guys showed up and they started looking through the demo games while I read up on another game I hoped to play later.  Pretty quickly, they found one they wanted to try, Station Master.

They broke the shrink wrap and opened the game while some of us shuffled cards and others quickly scrolled through the rules.  Before long, we had the game laid out and ready to go.

The Station Masters in competition were Steve and Bill who are brothers, Nate, and myself.

Things started out slowly as we were all trying to figure out how the game worked and often consulting the rules.

However, once we were a few turns in, the gamer really started to pick up steam.  After a nice, happy first train, things went bad for a couple of turns as some crappy trains left the station.

Things started to slowly improve.  As time ran low with few trains left to roll out, we did  a score check.  At the time, the score was as follows: Stanley - 140, Steve - 130, Nate - 69, and Bill - 67.

Nate and Bill had both gotten burned pretty badly by our run of negative trains early in the game and Steve and I had both taken advantage of the big trains that followed.  With only two trains left, I decided on a specific strategy as the cards began to show it to me.

He had two tokens on one train and one on the other.  So, I decided to try to sabotage the first train, quickly adding two negative cards to it and then uncoupling a positive card.  This was followed by transferring both of her tokens now on the second train to the first, thus pooling all of his chips onto one train.

My strategy seemed sound, as I assumed that the other players who were behind would want to hurt him as well and since I didn't have any chips on the board, they couldn't hurt me.

However, Bill played a positive card on train one and Nate had to play a worthless card due to our run of positive only cards.  I could only reduce it by a small amount and Steve emptied his hand of large positives onto it.

So, when the last train left the station, Steve ended up scoring 110 on that one train alone and took his place on the platform as the STATION MASTER.

Final Scores:

Steve (STATION MASTER) - 240
Stanley - 170
Nate - 139
Bill - 117

Final Thoughts:  A couple of rounds in, I would not have protested if someone had wanted to stop and try a different game, however, by round 5, we were all hooked.  It seems that learning the basics without haveing anyone with experience in it was a tough start, however, the fun of the game won out in the end.

This would be a great game to teach a small gaming group to play as a short game to start, end, or be filler in an evening of gaming.

I thought that my end game strategy was solid and would almost assure me of winning the game, however, the way that Steve turned my intended negative to his major positive was a thing to behold and made the game well worth it.

I had allot of fun with this one and it helped me to settle into the day with many more games to come.

In the Bag: Dixit 2

When I picked up the Dixit: Journeys box, I also decided to pick up the card only expansion Dixit 2.  This will give twice as many cards to use as well as a very portable version to move around with.

This means that I now have 2 of the 4 sets of Dixit cards and will need the original Dixit game and Dixit Odyssey.

In the Bag: Dixit Journey

This is an amazing looking game that I hope to get to play soon.  I imagine that this game could be insanely fun with the right group of people and probably gets pretty wacky at a party as it progresses.  This is the second expansion to the game with a new scoring layout and lots of extra cards.

In the Bag: The Hobbit -- Card Game

This looks like a fun game with a retro Hobbit art style which is what caught my eye.  I'm going to have to read up on this one a little and give it a go.

In the Bag: Cthulhu Dice

I've had my eyes on this one for a few weeks.  Since I have been steadily reading through the work of H.P. Lovecraft and this one is such a cheap purchase, I knew I would pick it up sooner than later and here it is.

I haven't had a chance to play it yet and don't expect to often due to its over simple play style, but it was a must add to my early collection.

In the Bag: Texas Zombies

I hadn't heard of Texas Zombies until this weekend.  I was at Silver Spring Hobby Shop for their all day gaming day for January and left for some lunch.  Upon my return, I happened upon a table of people telling ridiculously funny stories.  Since no other games were starting soon, I watched them for a while and had some good laughs.

In Texas Zombies, you play with other teammates as one of two student groups on a field trip from The University of Texas. You are either part of "Beta Lambda" or "Darwin & Dragons".

Each player receives a team card face down that is not looked at or disclosed until the end of the game.

During each player's turns they will draw a card from the Event deck.  On the back of each card is a number.  The number of the next card in the deck is the number of Object cards out of the three in their hand that they will have to use to explain in less than a minute how they successfully escaped the event listed on the card they drew.

After their story, each other player playing holds out their thumb, parallel to the table.  On the count of three, they all turn the thumb up if they believe the story is convincing or down if they do not.  If half or more of the votes are Yes, the player succeeds and keeps the card.  The player than draws back up to three Object cards.

The game ends when the last Event card is drawn and the active player must use all 3 of their Object cards.

At this point, players add up their cards won and flip over their team card.  The team with the most total events won, wins the game.  There is slightly different scoring for games with an odd number of players.

I haven't played this one yet, but hope to give it a try soon and recount how it goes.

Finding the Box

A few months ago, I played my first strategy board game in over 10 years.  In high school I had played a few games of Settlers of Catan and another one or two odd games here and there.  I had played Warhammer a half dozen times with a friend and played Magic: The Gathering throughout high school.

However, in college, I never really had friends into those types of games and I was working and going to school so much that there was little time for other things.

Once I moved to Milwaukee, it took a little while to build up some good friends in the area.  A few of them have become very good friends and one of them loved to play board games.

It started with a movie/board game night, which then led to multiple board game gatherings over the next few months.  Now, I am hooked and have bought some games of my own.

I hope to use this blog to keep up with new games that I have bought or am funding on Kickstarter and game play sessions.

Happy Gaming!