Falling behind (7 wonders, Robo-rally, I'm the boss!, King of Tokyo, Diamant, El Grande, Cosmic Encounter)

I haven't been updating this regularly, but for the sake of posterity I'm going to record the games played in the last two weeks.

Honestly, it kills me to let the triumphant return of El Grande to the WAGS table pass without more comment, but so it goes. For the record, Shemp and I tied.

(stealth update)
Just wanted to comment on El Grande. If El Grande shows it's age at all, it's in downtime. Between turns, players are not involved in any way and this is something that more recent games have largely eliminated. Still, the gameplay remains extremely engaging for me. There's a simplicity to the process. Many of today's games,as fun as they are, appear to me to be a) variations on "cards with text that breaks rules" or "creatures with powers", or b) "games with so much going on that optimal play is not possible without AP". In the first case, the gameplay itself is usually not particularly interesting... The fun is in finding and creating combos between cards. In b) for many sessions there is no knowing whether the challenge is just doing better than the other guy at understanding the system. You're not necessarily just playing against other players, you are also just struggling to understand the games space. Many games appear interesting, but it's only an illusion because once you become familiar with what is going on and understand the good and bad moves are, you realize the choices are actually pretty obvious and it becomes dull. Anyway, in my mind El Grande is not one of those games. The interface is easy but the choices are always difficult. Great game.

Another kick at the can (Dominion x2, Panic Station, King of Tokyo)

The Wags group welcomed this week a new player, ececec. Unfortunately I arrived late and missed the two opening games of Dominion (with various expansions thrown in). All I know is that ececec beat Kozure bay single point in the last game.

We set up Panic Station. Ececec wanted to give it a try and I think we all wanted to give it another shot as well. Since last week's game, I realized a few things... First, the game DOES have a backstory that makes sense of a few of the game's odd mechanics. Apparently, the aliens are immune to traditional bullets so the players are searching for bullets specially developed by the decimated inhabitants of the ship to combat the aliens. Secondly, the androids are linked to the human's psychi so that's why they both get infected simultaneously. Whatever.

This session was not like the earlier sessions. Shemp was the infected one, but he decided to lay low for a while. So much so that I literally had no idea who I couldn't trust and just one turn before I thought I could win the game for the humans no one else was infected (and as far as I could tell, no attempts had been made either). I started looking around the table in case the host card has been accidentally left out of the game.

I then committed a grave error. I ended my turn in the hive, with all the gas cans I needed, but without any actions left to actually burn the hive. In swoops Shemp. I deflect the infection with a gas can, but then have only two left. Over in the other corner of the map, ececec does a heat scan and it's revealed that I am still human. He then trades a gas can with my android. On his turn, Kozure does the same. My turn again, oops! Let's move the critters and sure enough 4 of them come into the hive (1 in 4 chance of that happening!) and my human is pulverized. We then spend a few rounds coordinating a run by Kozure and Ececec to get my gas cans and burn the hive while avoiding the swarms and Shemp. A well placed grenade thinned the swarm nicely, and Kozure succeeded in putting the hive to the torch.

Again, I had fun,despite the somewhat clunky rules and thematic oddness/ blandness. It does keep you guessing, and it's pretty challenging for both the humans and the infected. I think it would play better with more players, and I look forward to trying it again.

We then finished with a session of Kings of Tokyo. Ececec picked up on it quickly, and luckily didn't seem too bothered when he was eliminated mid game. Kozure's mekadragon, equipped with those damned Wings and Acid breath destroyed us all.

It's just about a perfect game for what it is.

Shempuzelan TV is more entertaining than Easylander jousting (Civilization, King of Tokyo)

We played another three player session of the new Sid Meier's Civilization. It was Kozure, Shemp and I as Russia, Egyptians and Americans (respectively).

I was flailing around, not really having much success getting a strategy going (poor choices in city locations meant that the available resources were a touch thin). I purchased the Hanging gardens early so my military was easy to come by, so I went that way. Kozure had quite a productive empire, but also his military was surpassing me in technology. Shemp, meanwhile, was racing after a cultural victory.

Since no one had ever come close to wining with culture, it was not a threat we saw coming. Suddenly, Shemp was on the verge of winning! Kozure and I tried to stop him but Shemp was generating culture points too quickly. A last ditch attempt to thwart him was interrupted by his cultural superiority (he proposed we watched tv, when all we could offer was offer Jousting).

Anyway, Shemp won!

We ended off with another game of King of Tokyo. This one is getting lots of play in and out of WAGS.

Ketchup (Vikings, China, Clans, King of Tokyo, TransEuropa)

We thought we'd be five players this week, but then, before I knew it, we were back to three.

Pablo, Shemp and I gathered around a large bag of games. Our dictator was absent, but ordered us to play a very specific sequence of games in his absence. Then, the sequence was revoked. In our confusion, we ignored all instructions and chose to play a large number of short games so that Pablo could rip through his unplayed list that much faster.

We started with Vikings, which is a game I like very much. It packs a lot of game in a small package. Unlike a lot of games that try to insert a random factor in the hopes of making each game "different", Vikings succeeds at forcing you to consider each new round carefully once the tiles and Viking combinations are out. I was rocking this game, and built a very efficient set of manned islands. I started the evening with a win.

We followed with China. Another game that feels like a big game in a slim package, China never fails to conclude in approximately 1/2 hour and still provide a nice strategic experience. Shemp was gunning for me, and prevented me from completing any chains but a misunderstanding of the rules regarding emissaries caused him to fail his blocking strategies there. Pablo did manage a long chain, but ultimately I had enough majorities to pull win #2.

Clans followed. In my mind, anyone who enjoys China should also enjoy Clans. The games are completely different from a gameplay perspective, but they have a similar strategic weight, play length and semi-abstract nature. I goofed a few too many times during the game, and ultimately kept setting up the wrong colours. Shemp dominated this one.

Next up was King of Tokyo, the first repeat play for Pablo. I went first, and snagged the tentacles. Shemp stayed in Tokyo most of the game, but I was rolling lots of 3s and made it to 15 points without spending much time in the city. Shemp knocked us down with the -5 vp card but it wasn't enough... I used the tentacles to steal the jet pack from Shemp, forcing him to step down and I gathered the last few points required for the win. Pablo was yearning for hearts throughout the game but he couldn't roll them to save his life. On the other hand, he managed huge smack downs of 5 attacks on at let two occasions... This is a very fun game that achieves exactly was it's going for. Bravo.

Lastly, we played TransEuropa. In our first round, Pablo, in his first time ever playing the game, ended while Shemp still needed 8 links and I needed 5! Shemp managed to hang on a few rounds with his 3 lives before succumbing. In the last round, Pablo and I ended up tying so it was a shared victory for the final game of the evening.

The King with Wings (Roma/ Roma 2: The Arena x2, Lords of Vegas, King of Tokyo x2)

Kozure, Shemp and I gathered this week to play an evening of Vegas games. It didn't work out due to a lack of available time, but what can you do.

Roma/ Roma 2: The Arena

As Kozure was in charge of his lads that evening, Shemp and I played two rounds of Roma. We pitted the two decks against each other to see how that went. We'll certainly have to play several more times to really know if one is stronger than the other, but it certainly seems to me that the original Roma is a swingier deck, with more opportunity to score big points when things work and potential to get none at all if things don't. Roma 2 seems smoother, with better odds of getting useful cards but a slower overall pace.

In our first game, I was getting creamed because I couldn't get any VP generation going. I was down to one vp if i'm not mistaken. Luckily, Shemp lost all ability to roll the dice he needed, consistently failing rolls that had a 5 in 6 chance of working. I didn't lose that last point and in fact landed two forums and started reaping the rewards. A few short rounds later I bounced back and won the game. I did realize one thing, though... Once the opponent is close to winning, getting VPs can be a bad move if it ends the game before you have more than the othe player. It was necessary to bleed out VPs from Shemp before claiming them. Tricky.

Our second game was more even, and I don't remember who won.

Still enjoying this two player game. Long live Herr Feld!

Lords of Vegas

With the kids in bed, we started our game of Lords of Vegas. As the game developed, a few patterns emerged...

1) I once again started growing a large casino in the big center-left block. I seem to do this every game.
2) Kozure once again received a disproportionate amount of disjointed properties.
3) I got into a war over a casino with Kozure. Normally, this happens between me and Shemp. Although in the end I managed to wrest control from Kozure and end the game with two decent casinos, the constant re-rolling of the casino dice drained both our money and made it hard to stay competitive with Shemp.

There wasn't a huge amount of trading this game. Not sure why... The opportunities seemed harder to find (though Shemp tried his best!).

Shemp won by quite a large margin. Kozure and I were in a tight race for second.

King of Tokyo

Tom Vassel and Michael Barnes have both recently talked up King of Tokyo and so when I saw it I thought i'd give it a try. It's a very simple and mostly silly game about competing monsters trying to destroy Tokyo and each other. Although there aren't a ton of games with this theme, it's also not really particularly original. What sets this game apart is the simplicity and focus of the design. You are either a creature in Tokyo, dealing damage to all the monsters outside of Tokyo OR you are a creature outside of Tokyo dealing damage to the monster currently in Tokyo. Since the monster inside Tokyo cannot heal, it creates a natural cycle of monsters entering Tokyo, trying to stay as long as possible, and then leaving to lick it's wounds. The game is won by either accumulating 20vps or being last monster standing. It's a dice rolling game where you can either roll wounds, healing, VPs or victory points. Each player rolls three times, hoping to get dice in the combination they are trying to achieve, yada, yada, yada. A deck of cards representing upgrades spices things up as players can save up energy to purchase them and slowly transform their creature from, for example, a simple giant dinosaur to A GIANT DINOSAUR WITH TWO HEADS, WINGS AND ALIEN METABOLISM!!!. It's easy to teach, it's short and a lot of fun to play. Big thumbs up from me and easily the best boardgames Richard Garfield has done since Robo-rally.

In our first session, Shemp dominated Tokyo for nearly the whole game because he managed to snag the "wings" upgrade early, which allowed him to spend energy to ignore damage. I think Kozure won the second game, but I'm not sure.