Once again, I find myself woefully behind in my blogging.  Thankfully, this interruption in your regularly scheduled broadcast is due to actually playing games a lot over the last couple of weeks.  Between last week's game night, MACE, and then this Tuesday as well, I've had 29 plays of 18 different games!  MACE was totally incredible (probably my best year ever), and I plan on doing at least a handful of posts about all that I did and experienced there.  But to start with, let me catch up on last week's regular game night for the Hypermind BoardGamers...

Tribune: Primus Inter Pares

Finally, Tribune has taken its rightful spot as our Game of the Month!  We didn't make the decision until the last minute, so I hadn't decided on a musical theme quite yet, but that didn't stop Alton, Chip, James and me from getting some serious Roman action.  We've used the victory point variant the last few times we've played, so we decided to back up and use one of the victory condition cards this time instead.  We went with Pecunia Non Olet, which requires an obligatory 30 Denarii to complete.

It's been too long for me to remember a lot of details, but may it suffice to say that I sucked royally.  I vaguely recollect not having a very focused plan, and despite the game going an almost unprecedented 6 turns, I couldn't manage to cobble together 30 denarii for my 4th victory condition.  Alton, however, swept along and completed 2 conditions on the last turn to end up with 5 total, scored more VP as well, and took the win.

Time: 63 minutes
Score: Alton 5 (39VP), Chip 4 (31VP), James3, Me 3
Ratings:  Alton 9, Chip 9, James 8, Me 9

Tribune is in my top 10 for a reason, which would be that it's freaking incredible!  It's quick, strategic, requires flexability, has player interaction, and ties it all together with a nice, applied theme.  The only regret that I may have about it being GotM! in November is that the expansion is due to come out in English next month.  Of course, that'll just be a good reason to play it more later!


Roll Through the Ages

Our "tradition" (by which I mean, "we did it once a couple of years ago") has been to make the Games Magazine Game of the Year our Game of the Month! for December.  In 2007, it was Pillars of the Earth.  But last year, it was Tzaar, so we ditched the tradition and went with Dominion instead.  This year, Small World is the winner, but we've already had it as Game of the Month! (back in May.) However, after analyzing all of the other sub-categories, we've pretty much decided to go with the "Best New Family Game" winner, Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age, as our December choice.  Just to make sure, though, I thought it would be nice for more than one or two of us to actually give it a try first.

So, the four of us pulled out my relatively shiny, new copy and gave it a go.  I went for cities first, then developed the quarry, and used a full set of stone to power my way into an Empire and won handily.  Since it only took about 35 minutes, we fliped over our score sheets and started over.  In the second game, things were a lot closer, but I again managed to max out of cities and build the Empire to edge Chris out for another victory.

Time: 35 and 37 minutes
Game 1: Me 23, Alton 13, Chris 9, James 6
Game 2: Me 20, Chris 17, Alton 11, James 4
Ratings:  Me 8, Chris 8.5, Alton 8.5, James 8

It's pretty obvious that we liked the game.  What really sets Roll Through the Ages apart from other dice games is that there really is no inherent "best" face on the dice.  While there may certainly be a result that would be better for a player on any particular turn, all of them have definite uses that are pretty well balanced overall.  And on top of that, there really seems to be an option for true decision-making and leeway for some strategic choice.  It's a solid multiplayer game (even though there is a bit of a downtime problem in having pretty much nothing to do when you're not rolling the dice), and really shines in solo play.  I'm certainly looking forward to this being GotM! in December! 


Bang!

At this point, we had seven gamers looking for fun, and lately, Bang! seems to fit the bill for both requirements.  In our first game, I pulled the role of renegade for the first time.  I did my best to play the part of faithful deputy, but it was all for naught because the Sheriff was surrounded by outlaws from the beginning and eventually fell in a hail of their flyin' lead.

I was a deputy when we reshuffled and started over, and things went very similarly.  The only saving grace was that Alton's dementia must have kicked up a bit and he decided to attack me for some reason rather than the Sheriff (which was a bit weird since he was an outlaw).  But even with that distraction, the outlaws managed to off the lawman again and took the day.

Time: 45 and 28 minutes
Game 1: Outlaws (Chip, Brad, and Kenny) - Win; Sheriff (James), Deputies (Alton and Brett), and Renegade (Me) - Lose
Game 2: Outlaws (Alton, Chip, and James) - Win; Sheriff (Brett), Deputies (Brad and Me), and Renegade (Kenny) - Lose
Ratings:  chip 8, Brad 9, Alton 9, Brett 8.5, James 10, Kenny 9, Me 7.5

Obviously, I am the biggest "hold out" when it comes to the Bang! bandwagon.  But over the last month or so when it's seen more play, my opinion of it has certainly gone up.  The game could certainly use a healthy tweak or two here and there, and I definitely think that it's weighted towards favoring the Outlaws, but none of those shortcomings seem to matter much when you're laughing yourself silly over all the crazy stuff that happens during the game.  And I know that I've ranted a time or two recently against games that require you to "bring your own fun" to the experience, but I defnitely think that Bang!, if nothing else, does a great job of establishing a theme and a mood, and then encourages the players to run with it from there.  The only thing that keeps me from rating it better is that if you run into a crowd that doesn't get into the mood, then the game gets boring and runs too long very easily. 


Unspeakable Words 

I was a little disappointed that I didn't get the chance to play this sometime in October (what with all the gaming that I missed).  So I toted it along last week and actually managed to get it to the table as our closer.  Kenny beat us around in both games, finishing at exactly 100 points in each while still holding 2-3 sanity tokens.  The luck of the elder gods was with him and the dice, and apparently he is most brushed up on knowledge that no man is meant to know (which, surprisingly, has something to do with how many angles you use).  

Time: 21 and 19 minutes
Game 1: Ken 100, Alton 93, Me 89, Brad (Insane)
Game 2: Ken 100, Brad 91, Alton (Utterly Nuts), Me (Loony Tunes)
Ratings:  Ken 9, Alton 8, Brad 8, Me 7

When it comes to word-building games, Unspeakable Words is definitely one of my favorites.  It moves very quickly and has a nice push-your-luck element in the tension between scoring more points and needing to roll above that number.  And for as "tacked-on" as the theme is, the presence of the little Cthulhu sanity tokens and the silly artwork on the cards seems just perfect to keep the game and players from taking the whole thing too seriously.  I'm not crazy about this whole genre of game, but if I'm going to play something like this, I'd rather it be with a dose of fun and silly.



Other Games Played

Race for the Galaxy
Time: 27 and 27 minutes
Game 1: Mark 49, Alton 47, Chris 47, James 43, Ken 25
Game 2: Mark 48, Alton 43, Chip 33, James 32, Chris 26, Ken 23
Ratings:  Mark 10, Alton 10, Chris 10, Chip 8, James 10, Ken 9

Dixit
Time: 26 minutes
Score: Chris 37, Mark 30, Brad 28, Ken 21
Ratings:  Chris 8.5, Mark 7.5, Brad 8, Ken 9

Unspeakable Words
Time: 17 minutes
Score: Ken 100, Brad 79, Chris (Totally Gone!), Mark (Nuts-o!)
Ratings:  Ken 9, Brad 8, Chris 7.5, Mark 8

Lost Worlds
Time: 41 minutes for 5 games
Session 1: Alton - 2 wins, Chris 1 win
Session 2:  Ken - 2 wins, Chris - 0 wins
Ratings:  Alton 9, Ken 9, Chris 8.5

Tower of Babel
Time: 40 minutes
Score: Chip 91, Brad 80, Ken 68
Ratings:  Chip 8, Brad 7, Ken 8

Pick Picknic
Time: ?
Score: Ken 54, Brad 49, Chip 40
Ratings:  Ken 8, Brad 8, Chip 7.5