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Steve Berger
United Kingdom
Borough Green
Kent
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Well, it has been a few weeks since I’ve blogged about games, mostly because when I set out to create this, it wasn’t with the intention of writing for the sake of it – I wanted something relevant to say. So, another month ends, and June, as it has been for the last few years, was quite an important gaming month for me, containing the UK games expo.
So what came out of June for me? Well, to start with I’ve looked at my games played, and I’ve managed to notch up 37 plays, spanning 19 different games, with 9 of these being new games. Of the 19 games I played, 14 of them are owned by me. Right, enough numbers.
Game Of The Month, & Session Report
So the best game played this month? Well, that was a real favourite of mine, Game Of Thrones. This came out at the Ashford group a couple of weeks back, at the request of two of the gamers in the group. We’d tried this about a year ago, and because I hadn’t played it before, and got a few of the rules wrong, it had been a complete disaster. That previous game ended when, whilst checking end conditions, we suddenly realised that House Baratheon (Simon) had enough of the Cities/Strongholds to claim the victory, so we finished after maybe an hour of confused play. Part of the problem had been that the Westeros Deck didn’t provide the chance to take power tokens, but the bidding using these (the Clash Of Kings Card) kept coming up. Also, although I’d read the rules through a few times, I hadn’t understood how they were going to work in practice, and had completely failed to comprehend the relevance of Support. When we finished that game, the next day I opened the rulebook again, and took another good look at it. Everything then made sense, and the light came on. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, it was too late by then to get the game back on the table with that particular group.
With the superb tv series refreshing everyone’s interest, and with the game gaining cult status as well, it was a lot easier to get this one played. This time out I was ready, having refreshed the rules, read through a couple of sessions, and just generally got some ideas to pass on to the group regarding strategy. We set the board out on a good sized playing area, dished out the Houses, and set to work. Despite warning the others that allegiances were a good idea, only myself as Stark and Sam as Greyjoy actually agreed on an allegiance. Lannister and Tyrell had some early scuffles, and Greyjoy then made the most of these, taking both home cities by about the fourth turn. The battles were especially vicious, with casualties galore, so we were all running with fairly stripped down armies. Everybody had plenty of power tokens, and we had some bids so roles were changing hands fairly frequently. What we didn’t have until about round 5 though was mustering, so everyone was down to their last few units, and getting nervous about fighting.
Once the initial land grab was done, Baratheon and Stark were looking best placed simply because both houses had stayed out of the fighting. The Mustering came out, and the game changed – with a lot more units to use on the board, everyone became a lot more aware of how many Cities and Strongholds were being held. Almost all players were on 5, and I could see that within a few moves, and by turning against Greyjoy, I’d be able to take the win. With a real sense of guilt, I turned on Sam, and, combined with a retreat into an unprotected City, I took the win in round 6. We had all experienced some heart racing moments, and the tension was sky high for the last three turns. Whilst not a difficult game to understand, it is a very tense game to play. I can see it being requested again, although probably not for a month or so, but this session has renewed my belief in this game as being one of the best in my collection. Just as a side note, one of these sold for £90 on ebay this week. I’m surprised that Fantasy Flight haven’t re-printed this, but I’m sure that will be something to do with licensing. It doesn’t seem that long ago that there were a fair amount of these on the shelves.
A very direct and appropriate criticism of this game relates to the Westeros Cards, and it can be frustrating, and potentially ruin the game. Without too much difficulty, each deck could be shuffled into an order that would kill the game off, and with the Winter Is Coming Card this could provide an endless cycle of misery. The answer is fairly obvious though, and that is to balance the Cards into groups, and shuffle them within those groups. There is already a good suggestion for this on BGG anyway, and I feel this makes the game both more reliable and far more tactical.
Other Old Games Played
Of the other games that weren’t new to me, I played the following:
4 games of Once Upon A Time with my daughter – we use this as a replacement to me reading to her at bedtime. She is 11 now, and so likes to read by herself, but enjoys the company at the end of the day. Once Upon A Time is the perfect answer to this for us. We can make up a story together, but within the game format. It encourages us both to use our imaginations, and is a wonderful way for her to end the day, and to focus on something outside of the daily worries of an 11 year old girl. I’ve been making the game slightly more complicated the more we play it, and have implemented some of the rules that we were fairly lax on originally – each card must be played as part of a separate sentence (she would often play four cards in one sentence) and you pick up a card when you are interrupted. We also play with the same amount of cards in hand, although I let her choose from numerous ending cards, and I only take 1. We don’t interrupt for pauses, or for mistakes.
Whilst at the games expo, in the evening we played 2 games of 7 Wonders. I’d only played this twice before as a 7, and was keen to try it with a smaller number of players. I enjoy Fairy Tale, and feel it works well with 3 and 4, so was hopeful of getting a much better impression of 7 Wonders from playing with more. These 2 games didn’t help me learn to love 7 Wonders at all. I won the first one, took a very similar approach to the second, and lost, probably because Andre and Simon knew exactly what I was going to do. The problem I have with 7 Wonders is that it feels like a card version of a much bigger game, as if a 2 hour board game had been condensed into a 15 minute Card game, and everything that had made it deep and involving has been sucked out of it. Roll Through The Ages leaves me with a similar feeling. So I don’t understand the fuss behind 7 Wonders really – I can see why people play it, but I don’t see why it gets rated so highly. I only rate games I own, or have owned, but this would get a 6 for me. I’m actually more likely to play this if it gets released as an app – no shuffling and creating decks, just play.
I played Transamerica twice on BSW late at night, a game of Carolus Magnus and Fearsome Floors on Yucata, a 2 Player game of Game Of Thrones LCG with my 14 year old son Callum (we are yet to have a close game of this – either one of us runs away with it), a game of Talisman with Callum in 90 minutes which was his first, and probably my 50th, give or take. He really enjoyed it, and we finished the game by fighting it out on the Crown. I won because he went to the middle level too early (I did warn him) so lost a few turns getting beaten on whilst I picked up the goodies in the outer ring. The game was pretty quick, because the three cards giving 4 additional craft/strength/life came out within the first 10 minutes of the game. I know he’ll want to play this gain, but he might ask for Prophecy instead.
Finally, of games I’ve played before, we played Incan Gold and Snow Tails at Ashford last Sunday. I took the same approach to both games, losing one, and winning the other. I’ve only ever seen Incan Gold won by taking a gung-ho approach. This, in the last few rounds, won me the game because I managed to take two of the treasures, and a whole pile of gems just before the second matching problem card came out. With Snow Tails, I went for broke with the intention of getting and holding a lead. Simon tried to keep up, and Paul did his own thing, trailing some distance behind us. However, we had designed the track with catching up in mind, putting trees in the middle of a couple of bends, and a long straight at the end. Paul let us carve a path through the trees, and break the speed limit a few times, so we ended up with a hand full of dents (I finished with 4) and he passed us both in the final turn. This actually disproved a theory that has held me back from playing this too much – it is too hard to catch up. Play your own game is the answer there.
Best New Game
So what new games did I play? Well, I picked up Troyes at the expo, and have played this 4 times now; 2 2-players, a 3-player, and a 4-player. Each game has been very different. In the 4-player, we had an awful lot of the combat cards to deal with which really beat up on me. I got far too fixated on my goal of placing workers on cards, and was doing this regardless of the benefit or dice I was rolling. In the last game I played, a 3-player, I put a lot more concentration into making sure that the workers and dice worked together, and did far better as a result.
I like how player interaction is handled in Troyes. I can mess with another Player’s plans, but I can’t completely stop him. I feel Troyes is a better game than Alien Frontiers for this reason – I don’t feel the pressure in Troyes to take aggressive measures towards an opponent. As the game ends after a number of turns rather than when a Player reaches a certain score, there is more emphasis on concentrating on my own success rather than trying to hinder the success of others. They are both good games, but Troyes is the one I’d rather play. I also traded away Stone Age this month – Troyes is the game I was hoping for in Stone Age, and didn’t get, and is the best new game I’ve played this month.
Another game I’ve really enjoyed, although there is a little bit of burn out on it after 6 plays is The Resistance. This is a game for people who know each other well, and is about lying to, and deceiving your friends. I enjoy the logic challenge to it, and the tension it creates. It calls upon a very different set of gaming skills, and takes the best element of the Battlestar Galactica game and distils it into a 10 minute blast. I enjoy the longer game, of BSG, but it is a slower, more subtle development. This is immediate, right from the get go.
Other New Games
Of the other new games, I’ve played three games of Braggart. This is fun, but ultimately is a kids game. Callum and I played 2 games of Rat Hot, which is an interesting, quick 2-player. There is a good balance of decision making on your turn – do I cover for rats coming out, do I go for points, or do I cause problems for my opponent? The more we play this, the better we’ll get at it. I played a shortened game of Nightfall, and it fell below what I was hoping for, mainly because the point of the game is to score against other players. The tough decision is that early attacks are often indiscriminate, and by attacking another player you give them reason to attack you. The mechanic forces this early combat as far as I could work out from our limited play, and this felt a little frustrating. Although, in the game we played as a demo on the AEG booth, one player held the demo up because he had wandered off, so choosing a player to attack wasn’t that difficult. I had this on my wish list, but now I’ll pass.
The success of the expo was our 1 game of Ankh Morpork, a light, fun Martin Wallace game, and it isn’t often you see those four words together in a sentence. The artwork on the version we saw was excellent, the rules were fairly easy to follow, and on the most part it all worked well together. My other play was Star Trek: Expeditions, and I’ve already said enough about that. My final 2 new games were Portobello Market, which was better than I was expecting, being an easy to learn, quick, but tense game with a good level of interaction, and Claustrophobia.
Claustrophobia hit the table 3 times in about two weeks, and proved to be, ultimately, a frustrating game. I know my experience is still limited with this, but it took until the third game to have any success in the first mission. It felt harsh, as the human player. In one game, our second, and on the second turn, I had left the brute one room behind to stop spawning, and had moved the rest of the humans forward together. Callum then rolled the dice to allow him to ignore Humans when spawning, and, as it was the hex room, he spawned four trogs and a demon in there. He rolled for the trogs first, and got four hits, allowing him to roll five dice with the demon. He then rolled another two hits. Brute dead. Game, effectively, over on turn 2, without the brute having made a single attack. The game ended with only 5 new tiles drawn, so only half of the required progress made. Finally, on the third game the humans won, but it was touch and go to say the least, with the two humans that escaped only having 2 dice lines left each. My concern is that the game feels like an ordeal more than a strategic battle game. Maybe some of the later scenarios are better, or maybe we are playing a rule wrong.
Through the June UK maths trade, and the expo, and a couple of ebay purchases, I’ve added something like 15 games to my collection this month. I’ve got a lot to play through, and an ever increasing, and frankly quite embarrassing list of games owned and unplayed. This month saw me trade my first unplayed game, Ants!, which I purchased on ebay. I set the game up, played a few rounds as a solo test run, felt completely uninspired by it, and put it up for trade. It seemed to me to be a poor take on games along the lines of Nexus Ops, and I just felt that there were always going to be other games I’d rather play. I have one game in my collection I gained in June that is now played – I register my online plays against human opponents when the game is completed, and have just finished a game of Campaign Manager 2008. I picked this up from ebay for less than a tenner, and decided the best way to learn it was via Yucata. I’ve just finished a game, and have another on the go, and I’m very impressed with it. I can see that it will have a life span to it, but I’m excited about trying this with Callum, and playing a game in a single session. I don’t have much of an interest in American politics, but love the rhythm of this game, the ebb and flow, the constant push and pull. Drawing a card is a risk – do you do it when you know it is safe, or do you risk playing a card to force your opponent to counter?
I think, ironically following my earlier comments regarding 7 Wonders, but this takes the dilemma I felt in Twilight Struggle, and puts it into a 30 minute frame. Where it improves over 7 Wonders is that it keeps the scale of what it is trying to achieve at a small level and allows a very simple idea to develop. I know what 15 cards are in my deck, and I know what I’ve got to work with. In 7 Wonders, I might know what cards I’ve passed, but I don’t know what will come back to me. I suppose I’m trying to justify my general disinterest towards a game so many others seem to rate so highly, and enjoy.
Highs And Lows
Rounding this off, my top 5 gaming highlights of the month
1. My 5-player Game Of Thrones with a really good group of players. Really enjoyable and tense, with equal amounts of joy and frustration.
2. Ankh-Morpork at the UK Games Expo. Great looking game, simple and enjoyable to play, but with enough depth to ensure it hits the table.
3. Although Troyes was a better game, playing The Resistance has given the Ashford group more laughs than anything we’ve played before. My highlight was Paul and Andre laughing at each other when they opened their eyes in the second game in a row to see they were again both spies.
4. Playing Braggart with my 2 youngest, and smiling throughout as they yell ‘Liar!’ and change those amazing brags into something significantly less brag-worthy, but infinitely more amusing.
5. Discovering Campaign Manager 2008 on yucata, and picking it up on ebay for such a good price (just under half the retail). It has left me wondering if I shouldn’t be looking to pick up 1960.
5 Low points of the month
1. Star Trek: Expeditions. The scoring was nothing more than a joke, but I’ve already said enough about this.
2. A Few Acres Of Snow not being available to buy at the expo, although this is offset by an email from Julia whilst they were in Rhodes confirming I’d pre-ordered a limited edition.
3. An aborted game of Nightfall thanks to two players who muscled in to our demo game, made us wait whilst they wandered off, and then walked out 15 minutes in to the game. Pitiful behaviour, and I really felt for the guy explaining the game who did a pretty good job.
4. Having to wait two weeks to have one of the games I traded for on the June UK Maths trade to arrive. Maybe it is just me, but I ship mine the day after the trade is resolved.
5. Trading Mousquetaires Du Roy. I played it once as a solo, thought it was a total mess, and listed it for trade, but there will always be a part of me that will wonder what could have been. The demo video from Essen made it look so very good, but it just stank like a month old Camembert. Just in a solo game there were times when I had no idea how the cards and game were supposed to combine, and found myself left having to make a ruling on how I would have to apply the card. This first and only game took me a couple of hours to work through, with the musketeers eventually being defeated. I was glad it was over, and put it straight back into the box, fairly sure that I wasn’t going to play it again. Next time I’ll be slightly more cautious about picking games up. I suppose my logic was that all of the Ystari games I’ve owned have been excellent, although the rules translations have been slightly loose at times. The board art and pieces are exceptionally well done, but the game really felt rushed and untested, as if they really needed to have something to release, and this was the closest to being finished.
So this was June for me. Bring on July! And good luck, Andy...
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