Avalon Hill, we hardly knew Ye (Nexu Ops, Vegas showdown)

Poor Avalon Hill. They decide to make Euro-influenced games and then, despite good reception from the game community, shuts down the line after the sales don't meet mass-market expectations. This week, we played a couple of the better ones: Nexus Ops and Vegas Showdown (for the record, Robo-Rally is another excellent game from this line, even though we didn't play it tonight)

Nexus Ops

In the hopes that Nexus Ops played better with three than it does with two, we set up and started battling. I drew the "Hit 'em where it hurts" secret mission and noticed that Bharmer was a little soft in his base defense, so I went on a rampage. It was a gamble from the start, and I can say unequivicaly that it didn't pan out. Over the course of repeated attempts, I Bharmer and I waged mutual destruction without any real advance. Meanwhile, Kozure spread out over 50% of the board and was generating a very good income. Having been thwarted with Bharmer, I amassed a sizeable army and came down on Kozure's dragon (which was accompanied by a few other units). He played a card which reversed the order of attacks and then tore me to shreds before my expensive units could do anything.

Needless to say, I didn't win. Kozure continues his big year with another decisive win in the plains of Rubium.

It was a fun game. I'm glad I have Nexus Ops... it does what it sets out to do.

Vegas Showdown

Vegas Showdown has been played a few times by WAGS, but only once by me and that was a long time ago. I was looking forward to playing this Princes of Florence/ Amun-Re esque game again. The central auction mechanism obviously lost much of it's tension with only three players, but we did manage to bid other players up on a few occasions. I was well on my way to filling both ends of my play mat in addition to connecting both ends when I realized the game was about to end. A quick calculation revealed that I needed to choose between purchasing a slots room or saving my money and buying alarge room worth 12 VPs. I chose to wait and buy the big one, but I realized right after that I actually had enough to do both.

Guess what,I lost by less than the margin of that error! The slots would have filled my yellow zone (casino?), giving me the 5 points. Oh well, live and . All in all, a fun game. learn.................................................................................................................................................................................