Saturday, June 04, 2011

The Fog of War (Alien Frontiers, Nexus Ops)

Another math trade is coming up, and since I had a number of games I was considering trading I sent an email to the group and asked if they objected to me trading any of them away. After receiving their feedback, Kozure mentioned he'd like to give a couple of them a parting play. Alien Frontiers and Nexus Ops it was.

Shemp, Kozure, Pablomeka and I started out with Alien Frontiers. It was actually a very close game, with everyone within one point. The game ended with a great turn by Shemp placing his last two colonies before anyone expected him to. He won.

I like Alien Frontiers well enough. I've played it with the group a few times, and a few more times with my oldest son, but ultimately it's just "meh" and lasts too long for what it is. This farewell session confirmed that to be true...

Nexus Ops was a bit different. I hadn't played in a long time, so I was prepared to feel like maybe I shouldn't trade it. It certainly has it's charms... I like how it forces combat, and the combat system itself is fun. However, it is also too long for what it is AND it suffers from a generic and bland feeling I can't quite put my finger on. I wouldn't have expected a garish and dayglow space combat game to feel bland and generic, but there you go.

This session was characterized by phenomenal bad rolling on everyone's part. Pablomeka, in particular, had his rubium dragon breath approx. 6 times in a nearby square and fail every time. On another turn, I had 3 rock striders and two fungoids attack 4 humans and no hits were registered on either side. We blamed it on a mysterious space fog that must have been causing the problem.

Anyway, it was fun as always but both games remain on the trade pile.

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