As we were wrapping up our session of Diaspora, others started to show up for Tom's Big Ole' Game Day as well.  The day was supposed to be more about Big Boardgames, after all, so we eventually got started with that sort of thing. 

Fillers

Throughout the day, however I got in a couple of filler games as well.  We started with a 6-player game of Chronicle while waiting for everyone to arrive, and then I used 7 Wonders to fill in time between a couple of bigger games.  I still love Chronicle, but have yet to win (or even do well at all, really), and I don't think that 6-players is really all that great a way to play.  But in 7 Wonders, I went with blue and purple scoring and pulled out the victory.  I had fun with both, but in comparing them, I think that Chronicle may actually have more depth of choice.  7 Wonders can be a blast as well, but I may just prefer Chronicle in the grand scheme of things.  There's certainly a lot less setup and more decision points anyway...


Does winning really count if this is your competition?
Fury of Dracula

My favorite long-form boardgame is definitely Fury of Dracula, which was sitting at #7 on my top100 list the last time I revised it.  And since I had a new baby in October, I didn't have the chance to play it around Halloween time (which is usually a good opportunity for me to pull it out).  I was therefore really interested in getting it to the table on Big 'Ole Game Day!  Thankfully, when I mentioned it during the inevitable period of everyone standing around asking "What do y'all want to play?", I had four others (Tom, Barry, Terry, and Kenny) all interested in joining me for a romp around Europe, trying to stop me before I could bring an undead armageddon down upon the the unwitting world.

After the hunters set up, I sort of decided to be a little bold and (in the spirit of the game's title) furious by planning an attack on Mina Harker.  Since she counts as having already been bitten prior to the game start, biting her just once again in battle defeats her and would score me 2 of the 6 vampire points I needed to win.  Unfortunately, she (and by "she", I mean Tom) stumbled onto my path a bit too early, before night had even fallen.  She didn't have the equipment to really harm me, but pretty soon all the other hunters were closing in on me and I had to retreat to the sea. 


The hunters chase me into the sea at Amsterdam...
Next, I employed one of my favorite ploys, which is to land at the island of Cagliari and spend three turns there: first disembarking, then hiding, and finally feeding as well.  Chris Ingersoll (a frequent opponent of mine) would have sniffed it out immediately, but this group of new hunters were pretty thrown off by it at least until I was ready to leave.  I then moved on to eastern Europe, evading the hunters as my first vampire bride matured (giving me 2 points).  

Eventually, the hunters caught up to me as I approached the Black sea, but then I was handed the Evasion card  (which lets Dracula move anywhere on the board) and was able to start fresh with a little extra breathing room (if Dracula really even needs to breathe, of course).  Mostly because it was on the opposite corner of the board, I decided to make a quick tour of the British Isles with this new-found freedom.  The very first thing I did was to lay down another new vampire, knowing that if it matured, I'd get the last two points I needed to win the game.  The hunters had Jonathan Harker as an ally, however, which caused the last position in my track to be revealed, allowing Kenny to use one point of their resolve to teleport there and deal with her just before she could finish developing.  He then walked through the rest of the hidden locations, making sure I hadn't spawned any other progeny.


Freaking Lord Godalming!

Still, though, after another dawn had passed, I found myself only one point from winning.  If I could survive just one more day, victory would be mine!  Travelling again by sea, I landed in the Bay of Biscay and moved around Spain for a few turns, trying to keep the clock running (since time doesn't advance while Dracula is at sea).  I could have headed back to sea in the Mediterranean one turn earlier, but felt pretty safe holding a card that would cause a hunter entering my city to discard all their items and an encounter that would make them discard their event cards.  Plus, only one hunter was in range of me, and they'd have to make a good guess to find me.

Well, Terry, playing that one hunter close enough to me to matter, guessed right and joined me in Alicante.  And then when I played my event card, someone was holding a Good Luck card to cancel it.  And just for good measure, they even had a card to cancel the encounter that would have robbed him of the extra event cards.  To top it off, on that turn they had also switched Allies to Sister Agatha, which causes Dracula to lose 2 blood when using claws or escaping.  And since it was still day and I only had claws, an escape, and dodge, I was pretty screwed.  After taking holy water to the face, I tried and tried to get away a couple of times, bleeding myself in the process, only to take a stupid freaking stake to the heart right on the eve of my glorious victory!  

Unlife is so freaking unfair...      


It's a crappy picture, but you can see Dracula being acosted by Dr. Seward up at the top of the board.  I lost every single die roll in the combat and had to bleed myself just to try and run away. What a disturbing turn of events...

I had a really great time, once again, with Fury of Dracula.  It's maybe a little too long for what it is, but personally, I stay really engaged and excited the whole time.  There's so much tension in the game, with Dracula always feeling like the hunters are closing in on him and the hunters always feeling like Dracula is just a step or two ahead.  It's not a game you want to play every week or anything, but when you've got a good 3 hours or so, it's hard to beat for me.

Nightfall

I finished off the night by introducing Nightfall to Tom and Terry (wow, I just realized how close that is to the classic animated cat-and-mouse team of Tom & Jerry... which is just the sort of randomly distracting but also somewhat entertaining thoughts that often invade my brain, by the way).  After just one previous play, I really had the rules pretty well under control and (in my opinion, anyway) gave a rather efficient rules teach.

The game itself went pretty smoothly as well.  I always feel like typical deckbuilding games drag a little bit, but I didn't time the game so I'm not sure exactly how long it lasted.  Our turns weren't taking all that long, though, and everyone was putting together chains on their and other players' turns, so I think that we all had a good handle even on how to play with at least some proficiency.  In the end, I had just a wound or two more than Terry, who won the game, while Tom took one big hit near the end that knocked him out of contention. 


Again, I had a good time with Nightfall, but I'm not really blown away by it.  But just to be fair, I haven't really been blown away by any deckbuilding game with the obvious exception of Ascension (which is meant to be quicker and more efficient).  Nightfall definitely has another layer or two of tactical considerations than something like Dominion(with the chaining of cards and deciding which opponent to target with attacks and effects), but still feels very similar while playing.  Maybe even moreso than Dominion, you're going to look at the cards available in the archives at the beginning of the game and develop your strategy, and as much as you can, not stray from it all game long.  

But I do like the theme (since it reminds me of playing World of Darkness RPG's from the 90's), and I think that the direct interaction of the game is a nice addition to the deckbuilding genre.  I own it, of course, and still plan on trying to introduce it to more people and getting it back to the table pretty frequently.

Wrap-Up

It was getting sort of late, so I headed home even though a game of Railways of the World was just getting started.  I hate that I didn't get to play any games with so many of the other participants (since there were something like 12 or 13 of us), but I had a great time with all the games I played.  Now I just can't wait for Indie-Pendence Day in July, which will be focused on playing lots of cool indie/storygame RPG's!

Scenes of Big 'Ole Game Day...