I was hoping to get this report written a little earlier, but I've had some distractions competing for my attention and energy over the last day or so.  One distraction is my amazing little girl, who has had a cold pretty much all week that has made getting her to sleep and keeping her that way a significant challenge for Gwen and me.  The only upside of her being sick is that with grandparents keeping her, Gwen and I didn't have to do the hand-off thing on Tuesday, which let me get to game night an hour or so early.

Steam: Rails to Riches

Soon after I arrived, Alton, Josh, Britt and I pulled out our Game of the Month!, Steam: Rails to Riches.  Britt suggested that we try out the "Standard" game, which I've been wanting to do anyway.  Since we all had at least a game or two under our belts, everyone agreed with the suggestion, so we reviewed the differences between Base and Standard games and then got down to it!

Everybody played it pretty safe in the first turn, taking either $15 or $20 when buying capital.  I think that I won the first turn-order auction, taking the Locomotive action.  For some reason, no one took the Build Track First action, so I got to do that as well and claimed what I thought was the best spot on the board - connecting Düsseldorf to Mönchengladbach via another little town.  Alton started in the southwest corner of the board, Josh claimed the northwest corner, and then Britt had to get all up in my bid'ness by connecting the exact same two cities that I did.  He shoulda known better, 'cause I brought my mad auction and track-building skills to bear and beat him to the punch in connecting to the cities in the northeast region of the board.


The board in the middle of turn 4 - I'm blue, Alton is yellow, Josh is green, and Britt is nekkid.
In the midgame, Josh tried to insinuate himself into the central cities, but I thwarted his plan at least a little by building a loop that used some of the connections he needed.  But that wasn't the only ugliness in our game.  Several times, players would build just one or two sections of track just to screw over another player, even to the point of never intending to complete a link to anywhere.  It was freaking awesome! 

The game was really tight for the most part.  Urbanization and/or City Growth were taken every turn, and we ran out of extra supply cubes on turn 7.  If any action was under-used, it was probably Locomotive (even though Alton used it a few times late in the game).  The German map is pretty interesting in that all the centralized cities are yellow and purple, while the red and blue ones are on the fringes.  With the way the goods cubes came out, there was almost no way to send red cubes for any significant profit, while we were fighting over yellow and purple like rabid dogs.  I probably got the best of the goods movement for most of the game, but Britt came on like gangbusters in the last turn or two, clawing his way out of last place.  In the end, though, my focus on building links helped me to maintain my lead over Josh and take the win.

Time: 108 minutes
Score: Me 47, Josh 44, Britt 40, Alton 35
Ratings: Me 9, Josh 8.5, Britt 8, Alton 8.5


The end of the game.
Let me start my analysis by saying that the standard game is way better than the base game.  Now, I liked the base game just fine, and I thought that the dual function of the action tiles (both for action and turn order) was pretty clever.  But I also saw last week how getting stuck late in the order (especially in the first turn or two) really limited my options in future turns.  In the standard game, however, your choices are never truly limited.  I don't know if the "Buy Capital" phase in Steam is somehow kinder than that of Age of Steam, but it didn't seem to be a really big deal at all for us, and the auction for turn order each turn was just brilliant.  Most of the rest of gameplay was pretty much the same, but I did also like that you had to pay upkeep for your locomotive level.

I'm really loving Steam so far.  It's a heavy game with lots of player interaction, but it also keeps up a really high fun factor for me.  Since buying capital has a distinct lack of granularity (because you have to buy it in increments of $5), it doesn't seem that important to really calculate how much you'll need to the last dollar, which does a lot to prevent it from becoming an opportunity for analysis paralysis.  Similarly, building track and moving goods both require elements of forward planning and flexible opportunism, because you're never sure exactly what other players are going to do.  And you can't become too myopic in focusing only on your own network, because especially in the late game, you need to look for opportunities to move goods from almost anywhere that can give you a benefit. 

It's very cool, and I was actually giddy with excitement throughout most of this session, so I definitely look forward to getting this to the table again next week!

BattleLore

I toted BattleLore (and I do mean, all of BattleLore... that has been released so far anyway) along with me this week because a person or two had voiced some interest about it over the last week or two.  After brushing up on the rules over the last few days, I was really wanting to get it to the table, and again Britt joined me in pushing to play it.  Josh and Brad, both new to the game, signed up as well and we set up for an Epic game using one of the "Uneasy Alliance" scenarios.  As always with BattleLore, setup time is the biggest drawback, but it wasn't too bad with all four of us helping out. 


Britt and Brad worked together controlling the Pennant forces, while Josh and I controlled the units with Standards.  The whole premise behind "Uneasy Alliance" games is that you both have your individual forces that you control.  You mostly control just your own dudes, but you can also activate your partner's units at double the cost (for 2 orders).  Alliances work together to defeat the other side, but in the end, the player on the winning side with the most individual trophies is the overall winner.  Just like in normal Epic games, you can play 2 section cards each turn (one from you hand and another from a shared hand of three cards) unless you use a Tactics card. 

So anyway, the game was pretty close for a while.  We pushed forward with our left flank, but then Britt and Brad hit back and evened things out there.  They got a little loose on their left (our right) flank, and we managed to pick up a trophy or two, but then we took a risk with some cavalry and took a bit hit because of it.  As we neared the endgame, Britt made a move where he shifted units from the center to his right, reinforcing his strength there and allowing Brad to push forward and hit us really hard.  There was maybe a glimmer of us coming back, but our opponent's resolve and the fate of the dice were against us.  Brad officially "won", but they definitely played more as a team, and Britt's supportive actions had a lot to do with the outcome.

Time: 97 minutes
Score: Brad 5, Britt 4, Me 4, Josh 2
Ratings: Brad 8, Britt 9, Me 9, Josh?
   
It was really nice to play BattleLore again.  But game night doesn't seem to be the right place for it.  It's just too hard to set up and explain (especially for multiplayer games) for the time period that we have.  It's something that you really need to set up and play multiple games in one session, so maybe now with my new game room, I'll have a better chance of doing stuff like that.

Witch's Brew

By the time we put everyting away, it was getting late.  To finish the evening, some of us pulled out Witch's Brew (which had already been played once this evening by a different collection of people).  Kenny looked like he was running away with it early on, brewing potions left and right.  But Steve concentrated early on getting potion vials and then picked up more of the higher-score potions lateer on to slide past Kenny for the win.

Time: 30 minutes
Score: Steve 29, Kenny 23, Me 21, Alton 17
Ratings: Steve 9, Kenny 10, Me 9, Alton 9

While it's certianly better with the full 5 players, Witch's Brew is still a lot of fun with 4.  I've liked the game since I first played it, but I have to say that all of our apprection for it is on the rise.  I wonder if it might even make a good Game of the Month! sometime soon (like for October, since good Halloween-ish games are hard to come by).


Other Games Played

FITS
Time: 22 and 25 minutes
Game 1: Chris 13, Steve 13
Game 2: Chris 20, Steve 7
Ratings: Chris 7.5, Steve 7

Race for the Galaxy
Time: 26, 33, 28, 36 and 25 minutes
Game 1: Chris 52, Steve 33
Game 2: Alton 52, Chris 31, Steve, Ken 22
Game 3: Steve 41, Chris 38, Alton 25, Ken 22
Game 4: Chris 70, Ken 52, Ken 44, Alton 38
Game 5: Chris 45, Steve 41, Alton 30, Ken 18
Ratings: Chris 10, Alton 10, Steve 8, Ken 8

Witch's Brew
Time: 30 minutes
Score: Chris 19 (+), Ian 19, Brad 18, Steve 16
Ratings: Chris 9, Ian 10, Brad 8, Steve 9