-
Sharon Khan
United Kingdom
Shefford
Bedfordshire
Games, games and more games!
-
This month it was a record-breaking heatwave day, but I was still going to get my gaming fix in - getting the gaming session, while my husband took the kids out to a climbing area and a picnic. We arrived quite early, so there were just the 4 of us for the first game, and Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer was the filler of choice while waiting for others to arrive. I was still trying to make a non-military strategy work for me (it never seems to!), so went that way, but my right-hand neighbour seemed to be doing it better! Meanwhile Martin to my left went military - and more military - and more military! At the end of the game his deck consisted of pretty much the entire Heavy Infantry deck (we only had two left!!), and only 3 other cards - one of them a Void card to thin his deck!
There were a few more gamers arriving by now, so after a drinks and snacks run we split into three tables. I was left with four gamers, one of whom had to leave in 20 minutes to meet his parents, so suggested Race for the Galaxy as a quick filler. One of the four said he had to check his email, so would do that rather than play and would be back by the time we finished, but the other three of us sat down to play it. I think James and I surprised Richard by our speed of play though - we're used to a very fast-moving Race for the Galaxy, and with no goals, and he was amazed when he looked at his watch at the end to find it had taken just 12 minutes to play - he couldn't believe that was possible!!
Then we had a long pause, while we played the "What to play next?" game. We were waiting for Mike to return from checking his email, but more players kept arriving, and every time a group settled on a game, another player would walk in and mess it up! Eventually we put Captain Jack's Gold on the table, and found 4 for it, and let the others sort themselves out! We had a rather long confused rules explanation, thanks to the translation being rather a work in progress, and no-one knowing the game, but once we started playing it all turned out to be very intuitive in fact, and captured the pirate feel quite well - especially when Mike went very aggressive and started boarding everyone's boats as soon as they had any cargo!! I meanwhile had a bit of a stowaway problem! It was quite fun anyway, although not exactly deep strategy!
It was just five minutes to lunchtime when we finished, so I suggested The Bucket King - one of my favourite fillers. I had a really odd starting hand - 7 red cards, and two other suits split 3/2. Luckily for me, my right-hand neighbour seemed to be short in the same suits, so my pyramid stayed relatively intact, just losing the odd bucket from the top. Meanwhile both me and my right hand neighbour starting with red every time we lost a bucket was having a rather bad effect on the next two players round the table, as both had red buckets rather low in their pyramid, and not quite such strong red hands as us! Their habit of always playing green rapidly knocked out the next player round from them - he seemed to have no greens at all!!
After a very yummy lunch, we then played a filler while waiting for other two finish eating - another Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, 3 player. One player, playing military but also with a lot of cash in his deck, got a ridiculous amount of card draw, adn finished the game very quickly when three turns in succession he draw most of his deck, getting about 8 cash/military and over 10 of the other each turn! Meanwhile the other two of us would plonk down a hand of 5 cards and do something useless like beat up a cultist or buy a Mystic! Bit of a walkover!
My last game of the session was Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game, which I asked a friend to bring along so I could play. Four of us sat down to play it, while various other played the "What to play next?" game around us. Sadly the "What to play next?" game didn't work too well, and left two players out of a game, one of whom preferred to watch us than play 2 player. In the end two players stepped out of our game and let them take over instead, and played a different game 2 player. It was an intersting game - trying to find a Mysterious Room and defeat the monster in it. I was the Cleric, but rather than keeping with my party and healing them, I did have an apparently annoying tendency to wander off and explore, and they were desperately trying to chase after me to be healed! Eventually they all caught me up, stood in a nice crowd to get my +2 AC bonus if they were on the same tile as me, and I walked into the middle of them, and drew an Encounter card that turned me into a Cave Bear, that immediately attacked all of them!!! Oops! The next turn we discovered the Mysterious Chamber and the monster within - who didn't look too bad, and I remember saying "This is going quite well for once". Unfortunately when we killed him, he turned in to an enraged upgraded monster, who did either 2 or 3 damage to all adjacent when he attacked, and flung them two tiles away. At the same time we also discovered some monsters to liked to explore for us, so monsters were appearing from all directions! Then just to top it all off, a Rolling Boulder trap went off on top of us (all standing in a crowd under it, of course!), doing 2 damage to everyone instantly. It wasn't much longer before we were all lying down unconscious, and no amount of healing surges could save us!
My husband turned up just after we finished, so that was the end of my Gradpad gaming session - I went home and enjoyed an evening outside in weather that was definitely not normal for October!!
|
|
