Since others were still prepping for our big overlord game of Memoir '44, I jumped into a game of Taluva in the meantime.  Unfortunately, I sat down to Sceadeau's left, and since he's the only other player with even more experience with the game than me, he was able to screw me over just enough times to take me out of the game.  In fact, my very first settlement was rendered completely useless on turn 2 (a hazard of going last I suppose), so I was a turn or two behind all game long.

Adam was doing pretty well, but made a rookie mistake in spreading out a little too fast, and by the end of the game didn't have the huts he needed to stay alive.

The game ended when we ran out of tiles, and Sceadeau won because he had been able to place two of his temples (and had the tower tiebreaker as well, if anyone else had done the same).

Time: 38 minutes
Score: Sceadeau - Win (most temples built), Shawn - 2nd, Adam and Me - tied for 3rd
Ratings: Sceadeau 8.25, Shawn 9, Adam 6.5, Me 8

Taluva is probably my favorite tile-laying game, and I just never seem to get tired of it.  I don't need to go on about it, though, because you can always check out the review I wrote of it after it was our Game of the Month!


Adam's yellow horde can be seen up front, and my isolated and worthless white hut can be seen just behind to the right.

While I was out, the other guys went and made Memoir '44 the Game of the Month! for November.  With it being a mostly 2-player game and all, I was a bit wary about it, but I also wanted to try and do all that I could to make it a success.  When this Overlord game was pitched to me, I gladly jumped in and took my role as left flank commander on the German side.

We were playing on the Tigers in the Snow scenario board, and I was lucky enough (due completely to random dice rolls and not any wily shenanigans) to be the person actually in control of the Tigers!  Shawn was across from me, and as soon as I had the chance, I had my heavily-armored tanks rolling up into and chewing up his infantry.  On the far other side of the board, the Soviet tanks piloted by Matt were doing a similar job against Chip's German infantry (even though they had to cross the frozen river, losing only one tank in the process).  Chip couldn't roll well at all, and had to keep falling back to stay alive.  

Kenny was the head honcho/General-dude for the Soviets, while Britt was my lord high commander... Field Marshall... whatever.  All they did was pass cards along to those of us actually sitting at the table each turn, but they seemed to have a lot of fun with it.  Charles (on the other side) and Alton (on my side) faced off in the center, and seemed to be a lot more tit-for-tat than either side.  

My only trouble was Shawn's artillery, which was extremely hard for me to hit being all hidden in the woods.  Meanwhile, the Tigers were extremely durable, with him having to confirm any hits by re-rolling the dice and getting a grenade result.  I only lost one Tiger all game long, and once I wiped out the far left, I was able to bring up some regular armored units and roll us to the incredibly close victory. 


Shawn's opinion of the Tigers' ability to shrug off damage, and then the last kill that sealed the win.

Time: 102 minutes
Score: Germans (Britt, Chip, Alton & Me) 13, Soviets (Kenny, Shawn*, Charles* & Matt*) 12
Ratings: Britt 7.5, Chip 7.5, Alton 8.5, Me 7, Kenny 9, Shawn 8, Charles 8, Matt 8.5


I have pretty limited experience with Memoir '44, and this was my very first time playing Overlord.  And for the most part, it was fun.  This format definitely brings in another level of strategy and teamwork to the game, but it also introduces a lot more downtime and overall length.  I sat and unboxed my brand-new copy of Space Hulk: Death Angel (thanks again Kenny for the cool "new baby" present!) and started reading the rules, and it still didn't really affect my ability to play or pay attention to what was happening.  And while I can see the attraction of being in the Overlord role for each side, I don't know that the 10 seconds of actual play each turn would be enough to satisfy me. 

But for its grand scale and "big event" feel, Overlord still worked pretty well.  And obvously, the scenario and our play of it was incredibly close.  On the last turn, the Soviets had a chance (albeit a rather small one) of winning, and almost pulled it off anyway (if not for a retreat rolled that helped us reposition one unit into a more favorable spot).  But while I'd be open to playing another Overlord game at some point, I think that I'd rather get in some 1:1 play in the coming weeks to test Memoir '44 more in it's intended scope. 

Usually, I love to play lots of Halloween-themed games all October long, and often pick up a few new games each year along those lines as well.  Since I was out of comission most of October, Zombie State was the only haloweeny-related impulse-buy this year.  I had heard some decent reviews about it (so I figured that it wouldn't be total crap), but it was the theme that made my decision almost regardless of anything else about it.

So anyway, it wasn't hard for me to find 4 other people to join me in this maiden voyage of my copy, even though I warned that it would be a 2-3 hour game.  We sort of picked our countries based on where we sat down, and I explained the rules as best I could (given that I'd only read them myself).  The game itself isn't all that difficult to understand, and most of the complexity comes from the tech tree and the wrinkles it can add.

But anyway, from the get-go I was totally screwed.  After the initial outbreaks, I lost one of my production centers, and in the zombie phase of turn 2, I lost die rolls causing zombies from two other players to move into my area rather than into one of their territories.  I made some questionable decisions early as well, focusing on trying to fight off zombies for a couple of turns rather than diving straight into maximum research, but I don't think that I really had a chance after the massive influx of zeds I suffered on turn 2.   

Others faired a lot better, and even though he was overrun with zombies as well, Kenny managed to keep his head above water due to a well-developed string of technologies.  It was still a losing battle, though, and he (playing Europe), Chip (playing Africa) and I (playing Asia) were pretty consumed by the end of the game.  Meanwhile, I don't know what kind of shenanigans they were pulling off, but the Americas were looking pretty darn good.  Tom (North America) had some trouble and lost a couple of regions completely, but managed to get things back on track pretty well, at least until Charles nuked the west coast from Mexico.  

Charles (South/Central America) was, on the other hand, almost untouched.  Again, I was sort of lost in my own concerns during the early game and so I didn't see exactly how he got them under control, but he kept order later in the game through some advanced military and using the Pheromones tech, which kept his military alive even when fighting the zombies.  He reclaimed a lot of people using the cure, and wielded his nuclear arsenal with gleeful impunity.  He almost achieved the auto-victory (if not for some ill-timed outbreaks), and in the end, it wasn't even close.


Time: 145 minutes
Score: Charles* 41, Tom* 26, Chip* 22, Kenny* 21, Me* 15
Ratings: Charles 7.5, Tom 7, Chip 7, Kenny 7, Me 7.5

We had a lot of fun with Zombie State.  Heck, I was totally screwed, but I had a great time.  In fact, I thought that the ratings were a bit low for how much people seemed to enjoy it.  But then again, the game did last about 2 and a half hours, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Personally, I thought that the game did exactly what I wanted it to do.  It was a great mix of a totally Ameritrash theme and components with some really nice Euro-inspired mechanics (like totally deterministic combat, for example), and I had a great time with it.  The tech tree provides a lot of room for experimentation with strategy, while the randomness of the outbreaks and event deck will keep it fresh every time.  And even though the game lasted a little while, I didn't really feel like it overstayed its welcome.  If anything, it seemed to accelerate towards the end and ended rather appropriately.   

The use of action points ("freedom" points) slowed things down a little, but since very little could be changed by a previous player's actions, all the players should decide at the same time what they want to do and then just take turns actually playing out their choices.  In repeated plays, I think that game would speed up even more, especially with people already being familiar with what the different technologies do.  

So anyway, I'll try to get it back to the table soon, just to make sure that my impressions hold up.   

Top finish off the evening, Kenny and Tom joined me for a quick game of Parade.  It was a little crazy, but the parade got up to a whopping 15 cards at one point.  I thought I was doing pretty well, but I got stuck with a value 9 card and had no chance to win its color majority (mostly due to Kenny's intentional effort).  Parade is a lot of fun, and definitely in the same sort of excellent filler tradition as fellow Z-Man small box game, No Thanks!

Time: 22 minutes
Score: Kenny 13, Me 22, Tom 42
Ratings: Kenny 7.5, Me 7.5, Tom 7.5

It was a great game night.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be able to make it this week.  But I should be able to make MACE this coming weekend (for Saturday anyway), so I'll hopefully get some coverage done about it soon as well.