Shempuzelans are GREAT!

Last night the impossible happened.

Hell froze over.

Pigs Flew.

The Shempuzelans and the Easylanders buried the hatchet.

At a critical point in last night's game of Lord of the Rings Risk, they came to an agreement to not repeat old mistakes... to avoid fighting each other ceaselessly and recklessly... to instead form a pact and unleash a power heretofore unknown upon the the others (who routinely benefit from our squabling). Kozure and Luch's response? Ummm, they formed a pact too. No matter! Luch's forces wer already nearly decimated. Victory was at hand for the Shempo-Easy alliance!

However, luck being such an important part of this game, the tides didn't turn evenly. While both the Easylanders and Shempuzelans rolled over their hapless opponents (Luch was eliminated entirely on the second last round), Kozure, with the last turn of the game, piled up his forces for ONE LAST MARCH. Sadly for the Shempuzelans, it was horribly effective. They lost 50% of their territory, and dropped to 3rd place because of it.

Will the alliance hold next week, or was it just a flash in the pan? We'll see next week.

In less dramatic news, we also played a game of Carcassone, with the River AND the King and Scout AND the Inns and Cathedrals expansions. Both made a significant difference in the game, although I would say our strategies didn't totally reflect that. In further plays, we would probably try harder to take the new elements into account (for example, even though it was known that whomever had the King at the end of the game received 1 point for each completed city, many 2 tile cities were constructed). The robber changed hands frequently throughout the game, but the King was mine for 99% of it, until LUCH STOLE IT FROM ME ON HIS LAST TURN BY DRAWING A HIGHLY IMPROBABLE TILE. Of course, I can't be too surprised... I was holding the king on a measly 4 tile city I built very early on! Still, the turn of events cost me the game, and landed me in third. Tili got caught up building large cities which couldn't be finished in time (one had a cathedral, giving her no points for her efforts).

All in all, I liked how the expansion affected the game. It's interesting how the rules changes are minimal, but the strategies can become very different. It's also interesting how difficult in can be to complete large cities in a 5 player game (since there are 4 players trying to keep you from finishing anything substantial).
My only complaint would be that it seems a little long... It might make sense to take away a number of random tiles equal to the number added in by the expansions.

Kozure won that one... He stayed ahead by consistently scoring points (although never huge amounts) while still placing enough farmers to not get beat at the endgame (neither Luch's King nor Shemp's Robber were enough to give them the lead, but it seems that these would often otherwise determine the game winner)

I think I might lower my LOTR Risk score somewhat, it's a bit TOO random.

Return of the King

This Wednesday we played two games which look similar on the surface, but are substantially different in practice... El Grande and Risk (Lord of the Rings Edition).

First up was El Grande. Frankly, I'm surprised at how long it's been since we've played this one. It' s probably my favorite game, yet there has been a constant flow of new games, or games I'd like a second crack at, keeping this one off the radar for a while. Either way, I'm happy we played it! The game started with Shemp letting us all know that he had been on the 'Geek, and come up with a new strategery to try out. OF course, that's all it took for us all to target him as the leader! Unfortunately, it was to no avail... in the end he won by ONE POINT. I say that with all caps because I was the one who came in second... Always nice to see a photo finish.

Second was RISK, Lord of the Rings Edition. All of us had played standard RISK before except for Shemp. After a brief recap, and an overview of the considerable changes specific to this edition, we got going. True, this is still RISK... and the game is therefore somewhat "simple" in concept and execution compared to most of our other "big" boardgames (think El Grande, Ideology, Civilization, etc), but the changes bring enough to the table to make this a pretty fun game. The movement of the ring eliminates the original's two biggest flaws... player elimination and eternal game length; the leaders, Keeps, places of power and missions add depth and strategy options completely missing in the original; the instants and events add a fun level of surprise; and finally the board and pieces are pretty attractive.
The game saw me and Shemp as good while Kozure and Luch were evil. It's a shame that this distinction has nothing to do with the game other than inital placement (and a few card mechanics). Having the good somehow work together, somehow related to the movement of the ring, might have brought the game closer to the actual theme. As it is, me and Shemp started doing what we do best... fighting each other (in the North-West) at the expense of either of our chances. Meanwhile, Kozure and Luch were amassing armies and territories to the East. Kozure was dragged into a few fights he didn't do to well in (the dice were not his friends this night), leaving Luch and his massive hordes with total control of two regions and a runaway win by the time the ringbearers made it off the map.

I had a great time, and I have to say that I was very surprised to get a whole game of Risk in after El Grande while still being out by 11pm!

Note to self: Saying "Really?!!! You're going to do that? Are you sure?" never actually deters a player from making a good move against me.

RISK (Lord of the Rings edition): 7

Easy