More Solo Ghost Stories...
I just finished up another 3 games of solo Ghost Stories. The first was on "normal" difficulty, and for the other two I stepped it up to Nightmare level. The cool thing was that I managed to win the normal and one of the nightmare games!
To be honest, I did cheat a bit, but just in the setup. Wanting to see if the game could really be beaten with any consistency, I chose the positions and powers of the four boards. I personally played the blue Taoist with the "Second Wind" power, which let me either perform 2 exorcisms or use a village tile twice in a turn. To my left was the red board with the flying ability, across from me was the green board with the "Strength of a Mountain" (extra Tao die and no curse rolling), and to my right was the yellow board with the "Enfeeblement Mantra" power.
In the first game, I never had more than 1 village tile haunted, and had little trouble at all finishing off the incarnation of Wu-Feng on the first turn it came out.
Then I stepped up the difficulty, adding in 3 incarnations to the ghost deck, and promptly got my butt handed to me just after the first incarnation appeared (very appropriately, it was the "Hope Killer"). And then in my final try, I chewed through the Howling Nightmare, Hope Killer, and finally the Bone Cracker to get the win!
While specific priorities fluctuated greatly depending on tha current situation, some of the "tricks" I used a lot included:
- Instead of placing haunters/big threats on the corners as I had before, I instead placed low-resistance ghosts there for easy double exorcisms
- To get both buddha statues with my "Second Wind" power as often as I could, then on the next turn exorcise both ghosts in the corners and place the buddhas there
- Going to the Herbalist Shop as often as I could to roll twice for Tao tokens (again, with the "Second Wind" power)
- Using the Pavilion of the Heavenly Winds to move a ghost to a buddha (thus killing it) and myself (which is acceptable only in the solo game) to the Herbalist Shop to use my second village tile activation to get more tokens
There were more shenanigans that I used a few times, but it's late and I can't remember them. The takeaway message here, especially with those of you frustrated with Ghost Stories, is that it can be done! And I think that the next time we play at game night, we're going to choose our boards and powers until we get our strategery down a little better.
Posted by Chris Norwood at 1/10/2009 2:07 AM 
Categories: Solo Gaming, Gaming Weblog
Tags: Ghost Stories
Categories: Solo Gaming, Gaming Weblog
Tags: Ghost Stories
Hey, those were MY dwarves!
And yeah, being stuck with the North Men and Dwarves basically meant I just had Rohan, who start out with Orthnac right on their doorstep breathing heavily through their filthy Uruk-Hai mouths/snouts. Having to nudge the FPP into War status to get anything done was a pain, and it was almost impossible for me to distinguish my non-dwarf figures from any of Britt's, leading to much confusion.
The inexperience came into play when we didn't rush to get Gandalf the White and/or Aragorn out there ASAP to give us some much-needed extra dice (and man, we COULD HAVE had Gandalf upgraded, but I took Strider to his death instead). We were on the back foot and tried to compensate, which left the Fellowship neglected -- which in turn allowed you guys the luxury of not needing to set aside dice for hunting. I definitely see how the FPP have to play differently, but overall I didn't really care for most of the (dice-based, obv) mechanics. I am not a wargamer by any means!
That being said, I wouldn't be completely adverse to giving WotR another shot... although you would need to make a very compelling argument over just about any other game we had available to us that day.
As for BSG, I probably could have won if I had revealed myself a turn or two earlier, but there was never really a good opportunity to do so. Boomer's best ability is to dictate the top card of the Crisis deck, but being obvious about it is a one-way trip to the Brig... which is where I spent several key turns after the Sleeper Agent Phase, thanks to her drawback. Although in retrospect, I should've set up Britt with a suckass Crisis anyway, as by the time he would have found out about it it would have been your non-Brig-tossing Adama's turn. It was a nail-biter, though.
Ghosts Stories... is Ghost Stories. I haven't completely given up on it yet, but those dice need to be exorcised more than Wu Feng does!
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I'm still pretty new to WotR, but I think that I have a pretty decent understanding of how to play the FP. I also found this article over on BGG, which gives a good introduction into using them. As it points out, knowing the cards is pretty important. Play again as the SP and see if you like it better!
The other thing is that I think Saruman is always considered a Sauron Minion, even in a 4-player game. Ownership in the partner game is a very fuzzy thing to me, but if that was true then it would have made it easier for you to get Gandalf the White into play (and to use the Ent cards, which are often the key to defeating Isengard).
As far as BSG goes, I want to be the Cylon sometime just to feel what that is like (since you've had all the fun so far!). I guess I should choose Baltar or Boomer next time I play to maximize my chances!
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Although both times now I've had the Cylon card dealt to me during the Sleeper Agent phase. It's weird to be cooperating for the first half of the game and then trying to do your best to undo all of that work.
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There's a similar variant in Shadows Over Camelot where the loyalty cards aren't dealt until after the 3rd turn, which kind of makes it harder to figure out the traitor(s) while also giving a bit of a headstart to the loyal knights.
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