Agent Easy trades his games a lot. Poor addled Shemp can't keep track of what games are available to the group, since a lot of those listed on the left have been traded away.
So.
I'm initiating a new series of posts. Starting NOW. Hopefully my math trade stalking skills are strong. Of course if I'm incorrect, AE will let me know. I'd hope.
EASY COME -
Tribune Prima Inter Pares
High Frontier
Power Struggle
Nightfall
Dixit
EASY GO -
Dungeon Twister 2
Alien Frontiers
Earth Reborn
Ingenious
Ghost Stories: The Village People expansion
Showing posts with label Alien Frontiers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alien Frontiers. Show all posts
Thursday, June 16, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Yahtzee for geeks (Alien Frontiers, Vikings, 7 Wonders)
We finally had a nearly normal week at wags, with three people in attendance and everything! It was my pick, but we weren't sure how long we would have so I kept it to relatively short games.
Alien frontiers
Shemp hadn't played this yet, but it,s rather simple so it didn't take too long. Alien frontiers has been a bit of a disappointment for me.... I enjoy it, but not overly. I hadn't yet played it with more than two, and the added interaction and blocking was welcome, but the downtime that comes with it was not so great. In this session I felt that the interplay on the planet was somewhat missing, though. In my last game with Kozure, we had taken advantage of the alien tech cards and their abilities to move space colonies around on the planet and this had added substantially to the game in my opinion. This session, we were mostly just placing them and leaving them be.
Anyway, Kozure managed to win this one. I was in the running, and Shemp was going the "tech king" route which probably would have payed dividends if the game had a lasted a little longer.
Vikings
Tonight was also our second session of Vikings and WAGS. I had been looking forward to playing this again because I had enjoyed the design. Shemp has built his collection out of games that are simple yet engaging straight euros (Carcassonne, Acquire, Transamerica, Santiago, etc). There is a nice mix of straightforward design and tough decisions that makes it a light puzzly auction game.
This one came down to the wire. Kozure and I were tied on points, but he had more left over coins for the win. Shemp looked like he was running away with it at the beginning, but this is one of those games that leaves much of the points for endgame bonuses so it can be unpredictable.
7 wonders
Another game of 7 Wonders. This is consistently enjoyable and I don't see that changing. I might sleeve the cards, because they are starting to show wear ( a problem in hidden card selection games!). We all played uncharacteristically, with me going after military and eschewing science, Shemp doing science and Kozure competing with me in military. It's one of those games where you are rewarded for not doing what the others do, but at the same time once begone down a path it's hard to change it.
With no one else going after science, Shemp managed to accumulate quite a bit. It,s hard to beat an unopposed science strategy.... Shemp won.
Alien frontiers
Shemp hadn't played this yet, but it,s rather simple so it didn't take too long. Alien frontiers has been a bit of a disappointment for me.... I enjoy it, but not overly. I hadn't yet played it with more than two, and the added interaction and blocking was welcome, but the downtime that comes with it was not so great. In this session I felt that the interplay on the planet was somewhat missing, though. In my last game with Kozure, we had taken advantage of the alien tech cards and their abilities to move space colonies around on the planet and this had added substantially to the game in my opinion. This session, we were mostly just placing them and leaving them be.
Anyway, Kozure managed to win this one. I was in the running, and Shemp was going the "tech king" route which probably would have payed dividends if the game had a lasted a little longer.
Vikings
Tonight was also our second session of Vikings and WAGS. I had been looking forward to playing this again because I had enjoyed the design. Shemp has built his collection out of games that are simple yet engaging straight euros (Carcassonne, Acquire, Transamerica, Santiago, etc). There is a nice mix of straightforward design and tough decisions that makes it a light puzzly auction game.
This one came down to the wire. Kozure and I were tied on points, but he had more left over coins for the win. Shemp looked like he was running away with it at the beginning, but this is one of those games that leaves much of the points for endgame bonuses so it can be unpredictable.
7 wonders
Another game of 7 Wonders. This is consistently enjoyable and I don't see that changing. I might sleeve the cards, because they are starting to show wear ( a problem in hidden card selection games!). We all played uncharacteristically, with me going after military and eschewing science, Shemp doing science and Kozure competing with me in military. It's one of those games where you are rewarded for not doing what the others do, but at the same time once begone down a path it's hard to change it.
With no one else going after science, Shemp managed to accumulate quite a bit. It,s hard to beat an unopposed science strategy.... Shemp won.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
What's that, rustling in the bushes? (Alien Frontiers, Guerilla
It was Kozure's pick this week and he selected a 20 year old Avalon Hill game called Guerilla. As we waited around for the group to be ready to start. we also had a chance to play a two player game of my new copy of Alien Frontiers.
Alien Frontiers
The Boardgame industry appears to have gone through a slump recently as far as interesting new games are concerned. This time last year I would have struggled to name 5 new games that interested me, and for most of this year the situation was the same (this explains why we have actually been playing our back catalogue recently!). Suddenly, though, a number of games are being released which have picked my interest. One of these was Alien Frontiers.
Alien Frontiers is a dice rolling and placing game similar to "To Court the King" or (apparently) "Kingsburg". Each player is given 8 colony tokens and must attempt to make as many VPs as possible, mostly by placing colonies on the planet. On a turn, players roll the dice they have (their "ships") and place the dice according to the space they are trying to activate. For example, it's possible to gather ore or fuel, to learn an alien technology, etc. Learning the alien techs allows players to manipulate their dice, and gaining dominance in an area gives game changing bonuses as well.
To Court the King ultimately fell flat for me, but so far Alien Frontiers has been quite fun. Dice allocation games are not my favorite, but this one I have enjoyed. At first, I felt the game was fun but lacked a certain dynamic necessary to push it over the top. Now, I've played a few more games with my son and we are starting to use the second type of action available on the alien tech cards: when players discard it and a player can move colonies around, exchange, them, etc. Suddenly the game becomes much more interactive and interesting. A fun game, and unique in my collection.
Guerrilla
This is a card game attempting to recreate guerrilla warfare between government and rebels. Unlike many wargame recreations, Guerilla features a couple of game mechanics which makes for a very interesting game without relying on the theme. Before getting into the specifics of the game, it's important to understand at it's heart this is a simple game that involves playing cards that represent government or rebel units to your tableau and using them to attack other players. It's also necessary to understand that all players may control units from both sides and that a player's actual loyalties are secret. There are three possible loyalties: To the government, to the rebels and to no one (meaning that you benefit from having the war and therefore want neither to gain a clear advantage). The mechanic which really makes the game is that as players conduct attacks on other players, the winner of the battle scores points AND the faction of the winning units score the same amount of points. This is important because at the end of the game, if your faction isn't leading (or if the spread in points is too large if you are the mercenaries) your points are HALVED. This means that you will sometimes plan attacks that fail simply so that the faction you want to win gains points. Aside from the units, there are various buildings which grant special powers and VPs to the owner, cards that can be played for "take that" style effects (cutting off supply, assassinations, air raids, etc). The cards are thematic without being overly complex, and the rebels and government factions get different cards which each give them their own feel. It's a well executed combat/ take that style game which is made much more interesting by it's innovative scoring system (not bad for a 20 year old game!).
My main complaints are 1) it's way to long for what it is. The deck should definitely be pruned before we play next. 2) Once you start falling behind, it's hard to get back in... and kinda boring as you watch the others do stuff while you wait. Solving #1 also happens to alleviate #2 so it's not that big of a deal to get over these issues.
As mentioned above, despite my strong start as the government I was beaten down and never really made it back. Some assassinations, cut supplies and a few bad die rolls took me out of contention about midway through the game and I floundered afterwards, knowing it was impossible for me to be a contender. I can point to many errors I made, however, so I'm not blaming the game for my poor showing. I'm sure our next session will be even more fun now that we understand how it works.
Vive la révolution!
Alien Frontiers
The Boardgame industry appears to have gone through a slump recently as far as interesting new games are concerned. This time last year I would have struggled to name 5 new games that interested me, and for most of this year the situation was the same (this explains why we have actually been playing our back catalogue recently!). Suddenly, though, a number of games are being released which have picked my interest. One of these was Alien Frontiers.
Alien Frontiers is a dice rolling and placing game similar to "To Court the King" or (apparently) "Kingsburg". Each player is given 8 colony tokens and must attempt to make as many VPs as possible, mostly by placing colonies on the planet. On a turn, players roll the dice they have (their "ships") and place the dice according to the space they are trying to activate. For example, it's possible to gather ore or fuel, to learn an alien technology, etc. Learning the alien techs allows players to manipulate their dice, and gaining dominance in an area gives game changing bonuses as well.
To Court the King ultimately fell flat for me, but so far Alien Frontiers has been quite fun. Dice allocation games are not my favorite, but this one I have enjoyed. At first, I felt the game was fun but lacked a certain dynamic necessary to push it over the top. Now, I've played a few more games with my son and we are starting to use the second type of action available on the alien tech cards: when players discard it and a player can move colonies around, exchange, them, etc. Suddenly the game becomes much more interactive and interesting. A fun game, and unique in my collection.
Guerrilla
This is a card game attempting to recreate guerrilla warfare between government and rebels. Unlike many wargame recreations, Guerilla features a couple of game mechanics which makes for a very interesting game without relying on the theme. Before getting into the specifics of the game, it's important to understand at it's heart this is a simple game that involves playing cards that represent government or rebel units to your tableau and using them to attack other players. It's also necessary to understand that all players may control units from both sides and that a player's actual loyalties are secret. There are three possible loyalties: To the government, to the rebels and to no one (meaning that you benefit from having the war and therefore want neither to gain a clear advantage). The mechanic which really makes the game is that as players conduct attacks on other players, the winner of the battle scores points AND the faction of the winning units score the same amount of points. This is important because at the end of the game, if your faction isn't leading (or if the spread in points is too large if you are the mercenaries) your points are HALVED. This means that you will sometimes plan attacks that fail simply so that the faction you want to win gains points. Aside from the units, there are various buildings which grant special powers and VPs to the owner, cards that can be played for "take that" style effects (cutting off supply, assassinations, air raids, etc). The cards are thematic without being overly complex, and the rebels and government factions get different cards which each give them their own feel. It's a well executed combat/ take that style game which is made much more interesting by it's innovative scoring system (not bad for a 20 year old game!).
My main complaints are 1) it's way to long for what it is. The deck should definitely be pruned before we play next. 2) Once you start falling behind, it's hard to get back in... and kinda boring as you watch the others do stuff while you wait. Solving #1 also happens to alleviate #2 so it's not that big of a deal to get over these issues.
As mentioned above, despite my strong start as the government I was beaten down and never really made it back. Some assassinations, cut supplies and a few bad die rolls took me out of contention about midway through the game and I floundered afterwards, knowing it was impossible for me to be a contender. I can point to many errors I made, however, so I'm not blaming the game for my poor showing. I'm sure our next session will be even more fun now that we understand how it works.
Vive la révolution!
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