This week, it was three days of semi-out-of-town training and a 3-year-old birthday party (and a lot of hyphens, apparently) that made me so late in getting to this report.  But last Tuesday night was yet another excellent evening of modern boardgames, started off by a couple games of...

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer [BGG]

Shawn is all obsessed with Ascension right now (almost unnaturally so, in fact, which makes it a good thing that all his cards are protected with the "official" Ascension sleeves), so I was glad to join him in playing it this week.  In our first game (also including Matt, local CCG'er and occasional game-night attendee), I saw both of them going for buying power, so I started picking up Heavy Infantry and stabbing demons in the face.  With Shawn buying big cards all over the place, it was pretty close, but I managed to end the game before my lead evaporated completely, and I pulled out the win.

Brad then joined us as we started over, but this time there was a clear runaway leader.  Matt managed to buy into the Mechana construct engine early, and when he picked up both the Hedron Link Device and Hedron Cannon, it was pretty much over.  By the end of the game, he had about as many points sitting on the table as I had in my whole deck. 


Time: 23 and ?? minutes
Game 1: Me 68, Shawn 61, Matt 56
Game 2: Matt 84, Shawn 56, Me 49, Brad 46
Ratings: Me 8, Matt 10, Shawn 10, Brad 7

I really like Ascension, and I'm really looking forward to what the expansion promises to do to it.  I also liked the quality of the official card sleeves, and may have to invest in them at some point.  The penny sleeves I have on my set right now are terrible, and I need to take them off whether or not I replace them with something better. 

Factory Fun [BGG]

I've only played this a couple of times before, but since I won my second game, I was forced to play with the "expert" side of my factory.  I still managed to do pretty well, only avoiding a machine on one turn and investing in a metric crap ton of pipe to connect my machines, and thought that I may have had a shot at the win.

That was, of course, before Sceadeau racked up his incredible 90 points in bonuses, broke the score track (as in, he scored 5 points more than the track could handle), and beat us all like rented mules.



Sceadeau's ridiculous score...
Time: 25 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 110, Me ("Norton") 82, Chris 81, Brad 69, Chip 33
Ratings: Sceadeau ?, Me 8, Chris 9, Brad 7, Chip 8

Factory Fun (not to be confused with the Play-doh Fun Factory, of course), is getting better and better for me.  It survived being Game of the Month! (which sometimes plays games out or makes us realize that it's really not that good) and continues to be a go-to filler for our group.  It's a great mix of speedy pattern recognition followed then by adaptive spatial reckoning, and more than anything else, it's completely different from anything else that I play regularly.  I'm really glad that it continues to exist in the collective consciousness of the group, and would play it almost any time.        

Oh, and by the way, I've developed a bit of a nickname around the game group.  If you remember back a few weeks ago, we had a local news crew come by and do a little spot on our group and the store.  I was interviewed, except that the reporter dude got my name wrong and called me Chris "Norton" instead of my real name, Norwood.  Well, now it's like a freaking episode of the Honeymooners around the store every week, with people calling me "Norton" all over the place and even writing it on the report sheets.  So, in the spirit of fun, you may begin to see me refer to myself as Norton from time to time as well.  Just keep up and try not to get confused.

Il Principe [BGG]

Il Principe is a game that I played for the first time about 3 years ago.  And then for some reason (most likely, just the fact that there are so many games to play), I never got it back to the table.  I've brought it along to game night a few times, but never really pushed for it.  But this week, when we were all sort of floundering around trying to decide what to play next, Chip (who played in that game 26 months ago) suggested that we go with it.

I fumbled over the rules a bit, mostly because Il Principe is one of those games where everything is sort of interdependent.  You play cards to the table to claim cities, but then keep those cards face up to claim the roles, which give you special powers and score points when other people claim more cities.  I think that I'd do a much better job of it now, so maybe I'll get another chance to play before another 3 years go by.

As far as the actual game goes, it went pretty well.  Everyone stayed pretty much knotted together all game long, but then Chip managed to pull ahead in the area-majority scoring in the very end.  It actually seemed like the game was going to end really quickly, but then the last few turns developed siginificantly, and by the time the endgame was triggered, the game had matured nicely. 

Time: 66 minutes
Score: Chip 47, Brad* 43, "Norton" 42, Sceadeau* 37, Kenny* 35 
Ratings: Chip 7.5, Brad 7, "Norton" 7.5, Sceadeau ?, Kenny 7


The worst thing about Il Principe is its terrible production quality.  It's got this big, rectangular box, but the board itself doesn't even fold in half.  So the box should have either been half as big, or even better, the board should have been 2-4 times as large as it was, which would have been a lot better for actually seeing who was where both on the map and on the odd little score track around the outside.

We all agreed that the game sorely needed some little wooden cubes instead of the little chits that came with it.  So I've already scavanged six different colors from a "classic" version of Risk that I picked up cheap a few years back, and I'm ready to try it again to see if it plays any better with more functional components.

Fresco [BGG]

The evening was getting away from us, but finally we found ourselves with just 4 people who were ready to play the Game of the Month!  Kenny actually hadn't had the chance to play Fresco yet, so we had to begin with an explanation of the basic rules and all three expansions, which I now consider necessary for anything other than family play. 

There's not really a lot to say about a game of Fresco, though.  The definitive point in the game was on the penultimate turn, when I managed to spend every single paint cube I had collected to complete 3 fresco tiles and earn 52 points in the process.  Even though I limped my way through the last turn mostly just collecting money while Chip came on like gangbusters, I was still able to keep some distance and win the game.


Chip, Kenny, and Sceadeau lose to me in Fresco...
Time: 63 minutes
Score: "Norton" 116, Chip 109, Sceadeau 92, Kenny* 58
Ratings: "Norton" 8, Chip 7.5, Sceadeau 8, Kenny 7.5

I don't know that there's much to say other than I'm still liking Fresco quite a bit.  Again, it seems like the expansions make the game more about timing and tactical efficiency than any real strategic consideration, but I don't know that it bothers me too much.  It's still very dynamic and interactive, which keeps it pretty fresh most of the time.  I'm pretty sure that I'll write a review for it in a week or two, so that's probably enough for right now.

Other Games Played

Alhambra
Time: 45 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 98, Chip 87, Chris* 83, Kenny* 79, James 61 
Ratings: Sceadeau 8, Chip 7.5, Chris 8, Kenny 7, James 7

Ascension: CotG
Time: 20, 38, 45, 40 & ?? minutes
Game 1: Sceadeau 67, James 62, Chris 57
Game 2: Chris 72, Sceadeau 61, James 49
Game 3: Joe* 54, Shawn 52, Matt 45
Game 4: Joe 72, Shawn 68, Matt 61
Game 5: Shawn 63, Matt 54, Kenny 52
Ratings: Sceadeau ?, Chris 10, James 10, Joe 9, Shawn 10, Matt 10, Kenny ?

Cities
Time: ??
Score: Shawn 51, Joe* 48, Matt* 47
Ratings: Shawn 9, Joe 6.5, Matt 7

The Golden City
Time: 35 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 95, Kenny* 65, Chris 62, James* 51
Ratings: Sceadeau 8, Kenny 8, Chris 8, James 7

Tsuro
Time: 16 minutes
Score: James & Shawn* - Win; Chris, Kenny*, Sceadeau & Matt* - Lose
Ratings: All 7's

* First play for that Person