This week's game night started a little strangely.  It actually all began sometime mid-afternoon when Denise (Hypermind's owner) posted something on the internets about a local news channel coming to do a spot on our game group.  They were supposed to arrive at 6:30, which is a good 60-90 minutes before I've been able to make it lately, so I promptly notified the wife.  Thankfully, Gwen let me shove down some quick supper and then head back up to Burlington after bringing the girls home, so I was walking in just as the reporter was interviewing Denise.
 
No sooner had I set down my stack o' games that Denise and the reporter (Tom Britt from Fox 8, for any local folks) were asking me if I'd mind being interviewed as well.  Since I guess I'm pretty used to talking about boardgames and the group (for some reason or other), I agreed.  I think it went okay, and hope that I don't come off as too much a goofus or geek or ignoramus.  

The segment is for a series called "Join the Club", which highlights local clubs that most viewers may not be aware of.  And in fact, Sceadeau's home game group, the Greensboro Greenspielers, was highlighted on the same series a few weeks ago.  Supposedly, our segment will air next Wednesday morning (March 2), and I'll post a link as soon as it's available!     


Denise and the news dudes watch as the Game of the Month!, Factory Fun, is played...
Survive! [BGG]

As they were finishing up their filming, I went ahead and started setting up my little bit of new hotness, Survive: Escape from Atlantis!  As soon as the other game was over and all the media hype had concluded, I immediately had three others jumping at the chance to try it out with me.  I actually ended to playing it twice throughout the evening, and people were still wanting to play it again, so I'll be bringing this with me for a while.  Here's a few pictures from the action:

 
Run for the boats!  Atlantis is sinking!!!


The island starts to fall apart!

   
Aggressive use of sea monsters to block or limit movement...
Time: 51 and 42 minutes
Game 1: Me* 21, Shawn* 18, Chip* 15, Keith* 7
Game 2: Sceadeau 17, Me 10, Ian 8
Ratings: Sceadeau 8, Me 7.5, Shawn 8, Chip 8, Ian 8, Keith 7

I definitely had fun with my first couple of plays with Survive: Escape from Atlantis!  It's absolutely gorgeous, and the only real complaint that I have with it is that the black numbers on the dark blue swimmer-meeples are virtually unreadable (either the numbers or the meeples themselves really needed to be white).

But anyway, the production of the game was otherwise superb.  Included in the game are several variants (most of which I understand were rule changes from the various former editions), and in my second play we used the largest set of variants, which brings in both the dolpheeples (dolphins) and the alternate set of dice.  The extra variety from these changes really added a lot to the game, and I doubt that I will ever play without them again.

The game itself is mostly a take-that, luck-dependent family-style affair, but gamers can certainly enjoy it quite a bit as long as you don't expect too much from it.  The design is 29 years old by this point, and it shows its age a little bit, but for the weight and all the eye candy, there are actually quie a few choices to make throughout play.  I'm really glad that I own it, both as something that I think my family will play for years to come and as a nice little diversion during game nights. 


El Grande [BGG]

Tom made a special request that I bring El Grande this week, and I was more than happy to comply.  Tom, Shawn, and Keith were new, but with my rusty rules-teach and through reading all the action cards clearly each turn, everyone picked up on the game very quickly. 

For my strategy, I tried to work on controlling a lot of the corner areas of the board, which were worth less points but also had a lot less traffic.  I took a commanding lead in the first scoring, which was probably not a good thing at all.  Worse was that Chip (the other experienced player at the table), played an excellent "and me" strategy to be second in a lot of regions and therefore scored something when almost everyone else scored anything.  Despite my best efforts at obviating and possibly even a touch of true whining, no one else would listen as I pointed out how much ground he had covered in closing the gap during the second scoring.  So therefore, at the end of the game he managed to push past me (and everyone else) and win the game by a solid 10 points.
 
Keith made some excellent use of the big alternate scoreboard on New Castille, and along with the King and it being his home region, managed to score 24 points of extra scoring over a couple of rounds to become a contender.  Shawn played a remarkably consistent game as well, and sort of snuck up on me to finish just a point behind me at the end.  I really don't remember what specifically he was doing (other than also contending for New Castille), though.  Tom suffered a lot from putting too many of his eggs in one basket, and despite making a strong run late, still finished in the rear. 

Time: 98 minutes
Score: Chip 105, Me 95, Shawn* 94, Keith* 88, Tom* 69
Ratings: Chip 8.5, Me 8, Shawn 7.5, Keith 8, Tom 8.5


El Grande is such an excellent game.  Not only did it practically invent the area majority scoring mechanic, but I also just love how Kramer and Ulrich worked so hard on balancing out the power and action cards.  The action cards can still be pretty swingy and random at times, but there's always this internal balance in them between their effect and the number of cubes you place on the board, and even more so, in the power cards between their value and the number of cubes that they will activate.  It certainly adds another layer to your decisions when you can consider not only what is best for you on a turn, but also make some educated guesses about what others will do based on the number of cubes they have available and what their board position looks like.

Out game lasted right at 100 minutes, and I'd say that El Grande is almost perfect at that length.  Much more and it starts to drag (as did one or two of my early plays of it), but there's enough going on and turns are quick enough that around the 90-minute range is really satisfying. 

It's certainly a game that I want to play even more, so I'll definitely try to keep bringing it from time to time. 

Hansa Teutonica [BGG]

I then jumped at the chance to get in a game of Hansa Teutonica, since it's been a couple of months since my last play.  It was the first time I'd actually played on the 2-3 player board, so I was a little off-kilter.  Worse than that, Sceadeau screwed me over all game long (which I'll get into later), so I ended finishing in a distant last place, some 61 freaking points behind the winner.   

I never take pictures of Hansa Teutonica, though, since I'm always so engaged and it moves so fast, though.  Sorry...

Time: 38 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 77, Ian 25, Me 15
Ratings: Sceadeau 10, Ian 9, Me 8 (for this play of the 3-player game)

So how did this travesty occur?  We sort of figured out that the 3-player game can be completely and utterly broken.  And by "we", I mostly mean Sceadau, even though I was involved much in the same way that a murder victim is involved in solving their own crime as they are watching the serial killer string their entrails around the room just before closing their eyes for the last time.

But anyway, Sceadeau was the first person to get to 3 actions.  He had placed two cubes on the route to Gottingen (the action-increasing city) on his first turn, so on his second, he displaced me (since I obviously blocked) and claimed the route to get his 3rd action.  I knew that I didn't want him to have 50% more actions for the whole game, so on my next turn, I obviously claimed two of the spots with my cubes.  What we discovered, though, was that once someone has this advantage, they can always block by displacing two cubes, even if they have to "bag" first to get the cubes they need.  

So then, of course, I went and started trying to claim the route containing the "remove 3 cubes" bonus marker to get him out of the way, but guess what... He could block that too!  As long as I kept trying to screw with Sceadeau, he was able to block me wherever I went.  We didn't exactly do scientific testing or anything, but we did play it out a little after the game, and I think that the game is truly broken in this context, and that it would take both other players working together, and one actually making moves that would not help them personally at all (to displace the leader and then move their cubes away) in order for it to be possible to break this cycle.  We did have a third player, Ian, but he was still pretty new to the game and did other stuff all game long, letting me bury myself in last place as I continued to get in Sceadeau's way.

After getting reamed all game long, I'd say that my impression of the 3-player game is a little tarnished.  I still love Hansa Teutonica for the most part, though, and now just want to either play fairly on the 4-5 player map or have the chance to pass on my pain to someone else in a 3-player game.    

Man Bites Dog [BGG]

Man, this is a totally random but oddly entertaining game.  Here's one for you to grow on:


Time: 17 minutes
Score: Keith* 555, Me 535, Chip* 495, Tom* 465
Ratings: Keith 7, Me 6, Chip 7, Tom 7


Other Games Played

Escalation
Time: 27 minutes (for 5 hands)
Score: Sceadeau 64, Alex* 66, Ian* 67, Chris 69
Ratings: Chris 7

Factory Fun
Time: 30 minutes
Score: Chris 85, Chip 70, Sceadeau 69, Ian 61, Shawn 57 
Ratings: Chris 8.5, Chip 8, Sceadeau7

Fresco
Time: 58 minutes
Score: Sceadeau* 70, Chris 67, Ian* 65, Alex* 47
Ratings: Chris 8

Homesteaders
Time: 69 minutes
Score: Chip 48, Keith 46, Tom 22 
Ratings: Chip 8, Tom 8

Stone Age
Time: 46 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 248, Chris 166, Ian 159
Ratings: Chris 8

Witch's Brew
Time: 30 minutes
Score: Sceadeau* 34, Chris 19, Alex* 18, Ian* 16
Ratings: Chris 9

* First play for that Person