Spite upon spite (High Frontier, Quarriors x2)

The four of us (Kozure, Shemp, Pablo and I) started with an intro game of High Frontier. Knowing that it's a difficult game, Kozure thought a learning game involving just trying to build a factory on mars would be a good idea to ease Pablo into the system (although, as Shemp aptly pointed out in our email correspondence leading up to the game, "not good" is a very generous description of our skill level with High Frontier). What is it about this game that is so challenging? Every time I play, I spin around in circles accumulating fuel endlessly only to realize that I could have launched much earlier. This game was no exception... I had forgotten how the air break leading to Mars worked, so I was trying to come up with a rocket that could get to the planet and still pay the landing costs. Anyway, Kozure got off to an early lead with a mission to drop of the robonaut he needed to build the factory. I was behind him ( once again wasting my time refueling at a nearby planet, not realizing it would be unnecessary due to the air breaking). Kozure essentially lost his lead by blowing up while going through a danger zone.

Then, out of nowhere comes Shemp with all the parts required for the refinery and successfully lands. Shemp for the win!

Pablo seemed willing to play again. We'll see.

Next up, we played 2 games of Quarriors, the new dice building game from Wiz-Kids.

Quarriors is a game that follows much of the Dominion model... Draw a hand (of dice, in this case), see what you can play from your hand and purchase one die from the center. The fact that the dice represent creatures and that there is much inherent randomness gives the game a very distinctly chaotic and light feel, but for a 1/2 hour game it's fun. I've personally been playing this quite a lot with my eight year old son and having a great time of it. The variety of creatures is very good because they very cleverly include several variant creatures and spells for use with each dice. There are synergies to be found between the dice, which is fun, but since it's a dice game you never know whether the combinations you are shooting for will really pan out.

Anyway, for the record Pablo won one of the games. He was very proud, because it was his first win at WAGS. I think I shed a tear of pride.