It's been a busy week.  Between work, final Christmas shopping (mostly for Gwen, who has been exceptionally difficult to buy for this year) and getting sick over the last few days, I haven't had much left-over attention to devote to this site.  I was so distracted that I even forgot to grab my camera on the way to game night on Tuesday, so this report will be a little more bland and textual than normal.

But despite all these complications, I actually had an absolutely spectacular time at game night this week.  I only played three games, but one is quickly becoming a favorite, and the other two now sit at the tippy-top of my wishlist.  So let me start by getting into...

7 Wonders [BGG]

I walked in, set down my games and literally sat right down to join this game.  Obviously, this has been the "new hotness" ever since it's debut at Essen, and with its domestic release last week, it's now finally available for us to try out. 

We played a couple of rounds in the game, and then had a restart for a couple of reasons.  Unfortunately, I think that I was doing better in the first game than I did in the second.  I got abused militarily in the first two ages, but then had nothing better to do on a few rounds of the third, so I played out two big-dog military buildings and racked up the 10 military points by taking out some revenge on my neighbors.  I tried to put together some green cards, but didn't even see very many in the second and third ages, so it sort of fell apart later on.  In the end, I finished last with a pretty uninspiring 37 points.

Sceadeau, meanwhile, put together a ridiculous number of blue VP cards (religious buildings, maybe?) to get the win.  It's hard to really say what other people specifically did, though, because of the nature of the game. 

Time: 39 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 60, Adam 54, Keith* 52, Shawn 51, Steve* 47, Chris 39, Me* 37
Ratings: Sceadeau 9, Adam 8, Keith 8, Shawn 8, Steve 8, Chris 8.5, Me 8

7 wonders is pretty much exactly what I thought it would be.  I am most impressed that it is able to live up to its promises, providing a relatively deep and interesting play experience for up to 7 people in 30-40 minutes (especially since we were even interrupted by phone calls a time or two).  There's a lot of randomness/chaos (especially in a 7-player game) in the cards you'll see, but you also have a lot of room to make some real, tactical decisions and put together a strategy throughout play.

Oh, and did I mention that it plays up to 7 people in 40 minutes or less? 

I certainly hope that this is added to my collection over the holidays, and look forward to exploring it a lot more with all numbers of players.  And I'm sure that it'll make Game of the Month! soon as well.

Commands & Colors: Napoleonics [ BGG]

This month has also seen the release of both Battle Cry and Commands & Colors: Napoleonics, two games that lie on opposite ends of the complexity continuum for the C&C system.  I've considered buying  Memoir '44 before, and this re-release of Battle Cry sounded very tempting to me as well, but I was most interested in the extra depth that C&C: Napoleonics has promissed to include.  So I called dibs on playing the first game with Kenny once he got his pre-ordered copy all stickered up and ready.

We played the first scenario, with me taking the combined English/Portuguese side against Kenny's French.  The English are better at shooting, which the French are better at melee combat, but the scenario includes a couple of objectives at the corners of the French side to sort of encourage the English to move forward and drive the action a little bit more than they may naturally want to.

I started by getting most of my infantry into the woods, and then decided to use a strategic movement card to push my left flank forward towards one of the objective areas.  In a few turns, I managed to eliminate one of Kenny's units on that side and sit one of my infantry units (with a leader) on the objective.  

From there, we sort of traded a little fire one one flank or the other for a few turns, and I built up some cards that I thought would be able to get me the last few points I needed to win.  But to do that, I had to get Kenny's forces to move up just a little bit to be in range of my guns, so I put a couple of my units into harms way in order to goad him forward.  As it turned out, however, one of the cards didn't work quite as well as I thought it would, and Kenny's attack using combined arms was devastating, and my counterattack was plagued by poor dice rolling.  Kenny was close to victory as well, but I still felt pretty good about my chances since I had a lot of firepower that I could throw at some of his more weakened units on my next turn.

Unfortunately, I didn't get another turn.  On Kenny's last activation of his turn, he threw 4 dice at an infantry unit with 3 blocks remaining in it.  He rolled them, and exactly 3 infantry symbols found their way to the top, killing off the unit and giving Kenny the last trophy he needed for the win. 

Time: 90 minutes
Score: Kenny* 5, Me* 4
Ratings: Kenny 8.5, Me 8

I had a really good time with C&C: Napoleonics.  The added variety and complexity of the specialized units and maneuvers (like squaring up against cavalry) adds a little bit of a learning curve (and some fiddlyness) to the system, but also makes it a lot deeper in the long run.  I've played a lot of BattleLore (which has a decent amount of complexity and depth for different reasons) in the past (and need to in the future as well), but C&C: Napoleonics felt different enough that I think it could definitely find a nice spot in my collection.

I've played C&C: Ancients a time or two, and while it has some of the same ideas as C&C: Napoleonics, the setting felt similar enough to BattleLore (with mostly hand-to-hand combat) that I never felt a great desire to own it.  And while Memoir '44 is significantly different in setting, it's also pretty simple (as a base game at least), and I didn't know that I wanted to invest the money I'd need to make it a deep enough game to interest me in the long run.  But Napoleonics seems to fit the bill for what I'm looking for, so I look forward to playing this a lot more in the future as well.

Hansa Teutonica [ BGG]

I really wanted to get in a game of Hansa Teutonica (since it's the current Game of the Month!), so I was able to wrangle up a group to join me in a 4-player game.  And for a change, I was actually the most experienced player in the game this time.  Tom and Keith were completely new to it, so I also got to practice my rules explanation, which I think went pretty well considering it was the first time I've taught it.

I started off blocking the action-development routes to make people displace met and get some extra cubes on the board (which, if you'll remember, I called the "butthole strategy" last week).  From there, however, I quickly moved more towards collecting bonus tokens and developing a chain of controlled cities.  I'd place a token between two of my cities and then work on picking it up and scoring points as well.  By the end of the game, I had 9 bonus tokens and added a spot in Coellen to my points from cities and offices to win the game.

Keith and Tom did really well in their first game, with Keith maxing out his "bag" action while we were fighting over action development, and then built a nice chain (including connecting Arnheim and Stendal) and increased his key track.  Tom gained control of a few key cities (including the one to increase actions) and got a lot of points from people claiming routes between them.  Adam seemed to fall into the "sophomore slump" that I experienced last game, but I'm sure he'll come out of it next time.

Time: 60 minutes
Score: Me 59, Keith* 36, Tom* 33, Adam 20
Ratings: Me 8.5, Keith 8, Tom 8, Adam 7

Now that I seem to have gotten my feet under me, I can't wait to play Hansa Teutonica again.  I haven't begun to really figure the game out yet or anything, but at least I feel a little more competent after this time.

Other Games Played

7 Wonders
Time: 32 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 70, Adam* 60, Chris* 47, Chris A* 39, Shawn* 30
Ratings: Sceadeau 9, Adam 8, Chris 8.5, Chris A 7.5, Shawn 8

Battle Cry (Mission: 1st Bull Run)
Time: ??, 35 and ?? minutes
Game 1: Kenny* 6, Steve* 4
Game 2: Kenny 6, Chip* 5
Game 3: Kenny 6, Chip 5
Ratings: Kenny 8, Chip 8.5, Steve 8

Hansa Teutonica
Time: 54 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 64, Steve* 37, Chip 36, Chris 34
Ratings: Sceadeau 10. Steve 8, Chip 7.5, Chris 7.5

Homesteaders
Time: ??
Score: Tom 41, Adam 37, Keith 36, Shawn 27
Ratings: Tom 8, Adam 8, Keith 8, Shawn 8

Jump Gate
Time: 22 minutes
Score: Chris 90, Steve* 59
Ratings: Chris 8, Steve 8

Memoir '44
Time: ??
Score: Kenny 5, Shawn* 2
Ratings: Kenny 8.5, Shawn 9

Parade
Time: ?? and 15 minutes
Game 1: Adam* 14, Kenny 19, Shawn 19, Sceadeau - approaching infinity
Game 2: Kenny 15, Tom 36
Ratings: Kenny 7, Tom 7, Adam ??, Shawn ??, Sceadeau ??

* First play for that Person