We had a couple of new people show up this week for game night, and one of them mentioned how he had been following this blog and still been unable to figure out exactly where and when game night was.  That's just a terrible shame, so let me make it clear.  My group, the Hypermind BoardGamers, meets every Tuesday night from about 5pm or a little after (whenever people start showing up after work) until about midnight.  Hypermind is the FLGS in Burlington, North Carolina, and you can find it on google maps here.

We're an open group, and anyone is welcome to visit or join.  If you're anything close to local (because we have members that come from as far away as Raleigh and Winston Salem), come on and check it out!

And, of course, you can always check out our guild on BGG for more information. 

No Thanks! [GeekDo]

I had a game of Castle Ravenloft scheduled for 7pm, but one of the players was still missing and another was tied up in a game of Ra, so a few others joined me for a couple hands of No Thanks!  It's a great game, and I won, so it was double great!

Time: 14 minutes (for 2 hands)
Score: Me 46, David 55, Sceadeau 78, Michelle 99, Cody* 109
Ratings: Me 8, David 7.5, Sceadeau ?, Michelle 7, Cody 8

Castle Ravenloft [GeekDo]

Eventualy, we figured out that the missing person wasn't coming (poor Tom...), but Shawn and I picked up three others and jumped into the Daylight Assault scenario, which has the heroes invade the castle trying to collect and escape with 12 treasures, hopefully before sunset when everything goes to pot.  Sceadeau, Cody, and Shawn were all new to the game, but it's really not that hard to figure out (unless the rulebook is your only resource, of course).  

We started pretty strong, with heroes exploring the area around the start tile, but keeping mostly together.  The monsters dried up pretty quickly sticking together, and since the only consistent way to pick up treasure is to defeat monsters, we started going off in different directions.  Of course, I then got in some trouble when I ran into a nest of nasty beasts (both from exploring and a couple of encounter cards) and didn't have much backup available.

But then, we had an encounter that let us pull everyone together in another whole area of the dungeon.  Most of us did so, but again, the monsters there were dispatched pretty quickly and things slowed down.  At some point in here, the timer reached sunset, so we began to draw and extra Encounter card every turn.  It didn't exactly "hit the fan", but we ran through our huge stack of experience rather quickly cancelling one card after another that we felt would be a little too terrible.

In the end, I managed to collect the 12th "permanant" treasure using my Sneak Attack on a Gargoyle, and in the next round, we all escaped to freedom and victory!      

Time: 125 minutes
Score: Valiant Heroes (Cody* the Fighter, Kenny the Wizard, Sceadeau* the Cleric, Shawn* the Ranger, and GamerChris the Rogue) - Win, Castle Ravenloft (and all its treasures) - Lose
Ratings: Cody 7, Kenny 8, Sceadeau 5, Shawn 8, Me 7.5


For the first half hour or so, everyone was having a good time and making positive comments about the game.  But this particular scenario is pretty hard to accomplish, since so many of the treasure cards are Blessings or Fortunes (which go away automatically), it took killing a lot of monsters to finally collect 12 items that we could carry out of the castle.  In fact, we ended up reshuffling the monster deck and starting through it again.  So, onviously, the game drug on for quite a bit after that first euphoric 30 minutes. 

If anything, that's the big flaw I've seen in Castle Ravenloft so far.  I can see it being played (depending on the scenario and players) in an hour or less, but most of my games have gone over that mark by some varying amount.  And while the mechanics of exploration and monster placement work pretty well, there's not a ton of variety in how it all works from turn to turn, so it can get to feeling very "samey" later on in a game.  I look forward to some of the later scenarios that use a more varied method for monster placement (where you use tokens that might give 0,1,2 or 3 monsters on a tile, as well as possibly the "boss" monster).

We also had some discussion about potential "best" strategy throughout our play.  More than anything, and especially in regards to this scenario, we decided that you have to keep exploring on every possible turn.  Getting a lot of monsters on the board can be bad, but they're usually not any worse than the Encounter cards that are drawn in their stead, and monsters are the only real pathway to treasure and experience, so having a lot of them available is almost always good.

One final note about another missed rule, though.  I just noticed that (in one line of one sidebar in the rulebook) it says to discard a monster card if you already have one of the monster card in front of you.  I can see how having one person "control" more than one of the same monster might be confusing for some people, but I don't know it that'd be true in my group, so I may or may not try to enforce that in the future.  


Cyclades [GeekDo]

Since Castle Ravenloft had taken almost twice as long as I was hoping it would, I wanted to get into something else as quickly as possible.  I wanted to get in another play of the Game of the Month! as well, so I pulled out Cyclades and tried to find some players.  David just loves the game, so he was in immediately, and I finally convinces the Ellis brothers (James and Tommy) to give it a try as well.

Almost from the very beginning, David made some absolutely amazing moves with Poseidon and Ares, and ended up (in seemingly no time) controlling 5 islands with a total income of something like 9 gold.  I was afraid of him running away with the game at that point, so I did just a bit of obviating to make sure that Tommy and James understood what was happening.  Within a couple of turns, we had attacked him mercilessly in a number of different ways to undermine his power. 

One attack that I thought was particularly crafty involved me winning Ares on one turn.  The problem was that I didn't have any ships in position to make an attack, so David felt pretty safe.  I, however, recruited Polyphemus, a mythical creature that pushes ships away from a particular island, to move one of my ships away from a point where it couldn't do anything (because he had taken away the island it was originally attached to) into a spot between my island and one that David had left defenseless.


The next person to rise up and threaten victory was Tommy, who had laid low and continued over and over to win Athena.  He had already put together one metropolis using four philosophers, and he was (at this point) holding two more along with a huge pile of money behind his screen.  We rallied again, however, first using a creature to steal one of his philosophers and then taking away his second island, giving him no where to put another building.

But David wasn't done for quite yet.  After we set him back, he continued to build up his forces and gather money, and on the last turn, he used Poseidon to set up two attacks on islands that each contained a metropolis.  I however, had different plans.

I was definitely trying to keep from looking like much of a threat for most of the game.  I built some buildings and collected a couple of philosophers, but never got a metropolis on the board up to this point.  I had managed to keep up a decent income most of the time, though, and while i never held the ridiculous 20+ gold that some others had from time to time, I usually had 11-15 available when I needed it.  So on the last turn, I managed to win Athena for a steal and buy up the last two philosophers I needed for my first metropolis.  Unfortunately, the building I needed for my second one was a port.  I was just about to end my turn and wait for my chance to win on the next, but I took one last look at the creatures available and realized that the win was staring me in the face.  I quickly built another university, then recruited the freaking cyclops (which let me change it into a port), build my last metropolis, and won!

Time: 65 minutes
Score: Me - Win; David, James* & Tommy* - Lose
Ratings: Me 7.5, David 10, James 8, Tommy 8

I continue to be ambivalent about Cyclades.  I had a really nice time playing (and finally winning) this time, but it also played out similarly to most other sessions that I've had with it.  Someone would get close to winning, so we'd beat them down, opening the door for someone else to almost win, who'd we also beat down, and then finally, aided by crazy use of mythical beasts flying all over the board, someone would pull a fast one and win.  It's pretty tense and exciting, and definitely requires some clever planning and flexability in dealing with the unexpected, so I should really like it. 

But maybe, once again, it's the timing of the game that is strange.  You have this slow, careful building phase of the game that is very measured and plotting, followed by crazy wild swings of power aided with game-changing (breaking?) semi-random cards, leading eventually a winner who probably did the best job navigating through the whole deal.  Maybe I just need to deal with my expectations/initial impression of the game and give in to the fun that it offers.   


I won (playing green)!!!

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer [GeekDo]

I had heard some really good buzz about Ascension coming out of GenCon, and over the last week or so, it's hit our gaming group pretty hard.  Unfortunately, most of its play has been before I get there or on Saturdays, so I hadn't seen it in person yet.

After Cyclades, it was getting late, but I asked Sceadeau (our newest member, who runs a game group in Greensboro as well) if he would be willing to teach and play another game of it.  He loves the game (and knows the designers through history on the Magic Pro Tour), so he was happy to do so.

I sort of fell into a construct-heavy strategy because on the first turn I picked up the Mechana dude that gives VP for each type of construct you have in play.  And overall, it worked out pretty well, as I was able to get decent cards in my deck and take out several monsters to rack up 75 points in my first play.  Sceadeau was doing crazy stuff all over the place, though, like putting cards on top of his deck and then drawing them and then playing them to do even more crazy stuff, so he still won.  But that's a good thing, because he should beat the crap out of me my first time playing. 

Time: 34 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 81, Me* 75, Alton 58
Ratings: Sceadeau 9, Me 8, Alton 8

Initially, I was still a little skeptical, but the more I've thought about it, the more I like the game.  It's certainly more "random" than Dominion, but that also makes it quicker to set up and play, and produces a slightly lighter game experience.  And one of the things that I've had issues with Dominion over is how the games can drag as you start to use more complicated cards.  Maybe again it's just my unreasonable expectations, but Dominion sort of promised to be a quick, deck-building card game, and for me at least, it doesn't really fit that bill.  Perhaps Ascension is the game that I've been looking for.

I could talk more about my impressions of Ascension, but it was only one play, and I don't want to be all ridiculous about it.  So just stay tuned for more plays in the near future. 

Other Games Played

Ascension: CotG
Time: 32, 35, ? and ? minutes
Game 1: Sceadeau 65, Cody* 60, Mark 59
Game 2: James* 54, Chris 51, Graham 50, Tommy* 50
Game 3: Sceadeau 91, Cody 68
Game 4: Sceadeau 93, Graham 72, Cody 66
Ratings: Sceadeau 9, James 9, Chris 9.5, Graham 8.5, Cody 9, Tommy 10, Mark 8

Chaos Marauders
Time: 40 minutes
Score: Keith* 860, Matt* 250, Brad* 80, Ken 50
Ratings: Keith 6, Matt 7.5, Brad 6, Ken 6

Cyclades
Time: 63 minutes
Score: Graham - Win; Chris, Keith & Brad* - Lose
Ratings: Graham 8, Chris 8.5, Keith 8, Brad 8

Egizia
Time: 81 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 135, Alton* 103, Michelle* 92
Ratings: Sceadeau 9.5, Alton 8.5, Michelle 7.5

Ra
Time: 47 minutes
Score: Mark 43, Ken 38, Chris 36, Alton 35, Shawn 23 
Ratings: Mark 9, Ken 7.5, Chris 8.5, Alton 9.5, Shawn 9

The Settlers of Catan (with Fishermen)
Time: 65 minutes
Score: Alton 12, Mark 12 (and the boot), David 9, Michelle 5, Tommy 4, & James is a big quitter
Ratings: Alton 10, Mark 9.5, David 10, Michelle 10, Tommy 9, James - Still a big old crybaby quitter

Tribune
Time: 52 minutes
Score: Michelle 4 (30), Alton 5 (28), David 3, Brad 1, Keith 0
Ratings: Michelle 10, Alton 9.5, David 9, Brad 7, Keith 7

Zombiegeddon
Time: 37 minutes
Score: Alton 103, Chris 95, Mark 81, Shawn* 73
Ratings: Alton 8, Chris 7.5, Mark 8, Shawn 7.5

* First play for that Person