Cocktail Weenie! Pew Pew! (Way Out West, Small World)

Kozure picked an oldie this week, Way Out West, to accompany one of his trusty standbys... Small World.

Way Out West

Way Out West has the distinction of being one of the very few Worker Placement games that Shemp likes. I made a concerted effort to buy the stage coaches in all the towns as they were available (it mostly worked. Kozure got the one in Abylene). This gave me a substantial amount of income, and counterbalanced the fact that I have a tendency to overspend in this game. Early in the game, Shemp attacked me in Kansas City (shooting pretend guns in the air, yelling "Cocktail Weenie! Pew Pew!". He would go on to repeat this frequently over the course of the evening). He had good odds (5-3, I think). I crushed him, losing only a single cowboy. This, too, would be repeated frequently over the evening. I grabbed my first improbable wanted poster and Shemp licked his wounds.

It's not that I was invincible... against Kozure the odds generally dictated the outcome. With Shemp, however, my dice were ON FIRE. I had a lot of wanted posters.

Shemp did eventually lock down the entirety of Kansas City. In the last round, he stole the majority in San Antonio from me. Kozure held the majority in Abilene. I had a few buildings spread around and some cattle, but my ace in the hole was my majorities in wanted posters and money. When the dust settled, it was a tie between me and Shemp, with Kozure close behind. There is no tie-breaker in WOW, but we awarded the win to Shemp, since the luck I had against him should have put him dead last so he must have been playing "real well-like".

Small World

This session of Small World was characterized by frequent declines. I started with Wealthy Halflings, grabbed the 7 gold and put them in decline in round 2. Shemp had the Stout Dwarves, which also went into decline in round 2 (since he keeps their bonus in decline). Kozure played the Merchant Ghouls(?), and as usual the merchant ability proved lucrative. My Tritons stayed in the West, fearing the spreading horde of Kozure's Commando Skeletons. Shemp had the Flying Giants, but they did not prove as fearsome as when Luch had played them last. I spent my last two turns with the Swamp Sorcerers, but I Shemp went into decline and so I was unable to convert man of his tokens (Kozure came along with his Diplomat Ratmen, but he made the truce with me so no dice there either). I only managed one conversion. Bah.

Small World is a game of maximizing small differences. Kozure made good use of the Merchant ability and also went into decline once less than me and Shemp, and I think this was the recipe for his success. Hard to say for sure, but if there was one power I'd say was slightly out of balance, it would be Merchant. Still, fun game.

I sort dead people (Unpublished prototype, Small World)

It was Kozure's pick this week, and Bharmer came by so we were five. He asked that we try out a new game he's working on and we did. As usual, I was surprised at how good his demos are (both from the standpoint of production quality and design quality). For a game that was essentially untested until we played, it worked well. I don't want to say too much about the game in case it's secret, so I'll move onto the next game we played... Small World.

I started out with Commando Trolls. I started out at the top of the board and spread out to the tops of the mountains there. Since trolls keep their lairs after they go into decline, I knew they might be there for a while. Meanwhile, Luch was making a killing on his flying wizards and was deemed the early leader. I switched to Dragon Master Elves and decided I would milk them until my trolls were thinned out. Lucky for me, the others decided they weren't worth the high cost to destroy and nearly all the trolls made it to the end of the game. Kozure's sorcerers suddenly started sweeping across the board and proved to be quite impossible to stop (they are quite powerful in a 5 player game!). Still, my elves made quite a good match with my trolls and I was earning a consistent 15 points or so per turn... somewhat under the radar too thanks to the nasty sorcerers and Giants and orcs running around.

Luch was responsible for handing out the races throughout the game and also returning the defeated tokens. He sorted dead people.

I thought I had it in the bag, but when the scores were counted the spread was quite narrow. I did win, but only by a few points. I guess my slow start nearly caught up with me!

"Raffi can go to Hell!" (Dominion: Intrigue x 3, Small World)

The blog title has nothing to do with the games we played - it was just a statement that came up at the end of the night after I noticed a Raffi CD on Shemp's table and commented that I used to listen to Raffi when I was a child. He said that he had it on loan from the library, then commented as quoted above. I can't remember the actual quote. He may have used harsher language; "Raffi can go %$@# himself" or similar. Shemp has very specific tastes in music. Apparently Shemp harbours no love for Raffi.

Anyhow, our fearless dictator Shemp decided on a "same as last week" agenda, so we played three games of Dominion: Intrigue and a game of Small World.

I ran away with the first game of Dominion, squeaked the win on the second, and was blown away on the third. We played a random deck in the first game, then used the rulebook-described deck "Secret Schemes" on the second and third.

There are certainly interlocking card combos which can become evident on repeated play. For example, the Swindler can be used to swindle players into losing a copper in exchange for a curse and the Trading Post can be used to cycle curses out of your hand to get silver back. The Minion can be very handy if you're finding your hand stacked with Victory cards.

All three games included the Saboteur, which I used to fairly good effect against the others in the first game, costing Shemp 12 VP and Luch around 6 VP. Consequently I won by a fair margin (54 or something vs. low 30s for the others).

I couldn't get my mojo working in the third and came up with my all time worst score in eight games - 9 VPs. I believe that Shemp won the third game using his newfound strategy of "ignore the shiny card combos".

Our game of Small World was very close. I drew the powerful combo of Alchemist Skeletons early, surprised that it had not been taken (Luch, going first, took Bivouacking Ghouls, and Shemp took some Sorceror combo). As the Alchemist power gives you two points every turn as long as you stay out of decline and the Skeleton race has one of the best staying power of all the races, I did quite well with them. Shemp and Luch were not idle, with Berserking Amazons making an appearance. Flying Orcs did their damage, as did Underground Tritons and Hill Wizards. I switched horses to Fortified Halflings mid-game, then finished with Wealthy Ratmen.

Final scores were 92 for me, 84 for Shemp and 82 to Luch.

I'm still amazed at how quick this game plays. Needs a bidding mechanic for first player, though, I think.

Small Games that Feel Big (Small World, Dominion: Intrigue)

Despite the unfortunate absence of Bharmer and Agent Easy this week, we managed to make it together on a *gasp* Tuesday.

We played two of this year's hot ticket games - Small World and Dominion: Intrigue.

I don't have time to go into a full length rules summary and critique of either, but both games are quick and relatively easy to learn. The kerfuffle on BGG about ambiguous rules in Small World is overblown - the only major rule omission (in my opinion) was the definition of what order you place survivors of attacks (active player first, then left from there). The rest can be worked out with common sense, though the clarification document at BGG does help.

We played Dominion first. I was hoping it would catch on well with our group and by post-game discussion with Luch and Shemp, it's a hit. I was reflecting that it actually combines many of the addictive qualities of CCGs in an even more compressed time-frame - like getting a faster buzz from a drink or *ahem* "pharmaceutical". You get deck-building, deck-optimization, shuffling, card-collection, power-combos (frequently every turn) and a number of other aspects of already addictive CCGs like Magic and Jyhad all rolled into a single 30-40 minute package. It is like a crack version of Magic... can you can make concentrated crack out of crack? Meth? Whatever.

We played two games in two hours, including set-up and rules explanation. Future games should go even more quickly. Our first game was a little extended because although we could have ended it much earlier, no one was quite sure who was winning, so we kept playing a number of turns after somone could have ended it.

Having played Dominion (the "vanilla" base set, that is) on Saturday, it was fresh in my mind for comparison. Base Dominion is faster, but with less choices. Intrigue gives you more choices and more complex card interactions. Both are good on their own merits and it would definitely be good to own both.

A note on teaching Dominion - the suggested "Victory Dance" deck in the Intrigue rulebook is a good teaching deck. However you choose to teach Dominion, try to have a relatively non-punishing deck to teach with - preferably one without curses or too many agonizing decision cards.

The first game was very close: Luch 45 (or was it 47?), Shemp 43 and me with 41. I actually ended it thinking I was ahead. Shemp scored 15 points with Dukes (five duchies times three dukes).

The second game was less close: Luch 63, Kozure 37, Shemp 29. Luch ran away with it after striking the 8 treasure goal line early and snapping up six of the twelve provinces to my three.

Small World is a polished up and tricked-out version of the Vinci rules, (previously discussed) with a cute fantasy theme. I bought it mostly for my high school friends for when we get together monthly, since they tend to prefer conquest-y games. Iwas actually thinking the game would be denser than it turned out, but there's definitely strategy. The reinforcement die does add in a little randomizing spice. The components (as usual from a Days of Wonder published game) are gorgeous, the insert is 90% well done (the unit counter tray could have been done better, counters still flip over and get stuck in the bottom and are subsequently hard to dig out).

Gameplay is fun and quick. We got through rules explanation and a full three player game in 50 minutes. Not as much of a hit as Dominion, but still liked enough.

Both good games in my book - I'm sorry Bharmer and Agent Easy had to miss them.

Next time!