Struggle of the White Elephant Lords
Last week was a bit of a special episode of the Hypermind Boardgamers for me, mostly because a few of us had set up a game of Struggle of Empires ahead of time. So I only brought 2 or 3 other games with me (which may be a record all-time low) and didn't get in a lot of other gaming...
White Elephant [BGG]
While the other Empire Strugglers were still wrapping up other games, I did manage to get in another play of White Elephant. Unlike last week, I actually managed to get one gift for each person on my list, but one of them was really low, so I still lost. But I don't need to write much more here about it, because I just posted my full review...
Time: 9 minutes
Score: Stacy 24, Sean* 22, Brad* 21, Norton 19
Ratings: Stacy 8, Sean 7, Brad 7, Norton 8
Struggle of Empires [BGG]
Once again, I've let time get away from me, and now I have to try and recount events from a game I played a week ago. I really wish I had taken more pictures to help jog my memory, but as it is, I'll just have to hit on some of the high points of what happened. Struggle of Empires is, of course, a fantastic Martin Wallace game about the wars that raged between the European powers in the colonial period of the 18th century. But as new players often find out the hard way, it's not really a war game at all.
Probably the coolest thing about the game is that at the beginning of each of its 3 wars, players have an auction to determine turn order and who will be their allies. Basically, when you make a bid, you make a proposal placing one power in the "A" alliance box and another in the "B" alliance box. Other players then accept your proposal or raise the bid to make a new one. After one auction closes and the 2 powers involved are locked into alliances (and turn order, since the first powers placed in alliances go 1st and 2nd), another auction is started involving 2 new powers, and this is repeated until all powers are on one alliance or the other. The effect is that throughout that war, players may only attack the control markers of those not in their alliance, so it will dramatically affect the options you have on your turn, especially as the game nears its end.
We actually had 5 players involved in this game: Britt playing the French, Kenny playing the Russians, Josh playing the United Provinces, Keith playing the British Empire, and me playing the Austrians. Five may actually be the optimal number of players for the game, because while you may get a little more interaction with 6 or 7, the game also takes a lot longer, and with 5 you are assured to have unbalanced alliances (3 powers in one and 2 in the other), which always seems to stir up more trouble.
While I can't remember for the life of me who exactly was in my alliance for the first war, I know that I bid to be 1st in turn order. So on my first turn, I immediately turned to the abominable institution of slavery to gain a control marker in the Caribbean. After that, though, my first war went pretty much to pot. I made a few really big mistakes (mostly from being really rusty on the rules and basic strategy), and the dice were truly unkind to me. But the dice weren't kind to much of anyone all game long, so it more or less evened out. Our luck was so bad that by the end, we were all joking that going into a battle at +2 strength was somehow cursed, since it didn't seem that anyone with even that sort of an advantage had ever come out victorious.
In scoring the first war, Britt jumped out to a commanding lead, but I had somehow managed to salvage second place. And then in that next alliance auction, he managed to get on the same team with Kenny and me. We immediately set to work figuring out our alliance name, and exuberantly settled on Team Lazerrr! (a thoroughly ridiculous and irrelevant name for an alliance from the 18th century, but which held enough silly momentum to carry over into the third war as well). Despite being unable to attack him directly, I actually managed to make up some ground in the second war by continuing to extend my influence in the new world, firming up my control of the Ottoman Empire, and sharing control of Central Europe with Kenny alone. I didn't necessarily have the ultimate majority in a whole lot of places, but I shared it a lot and got in on secondary scoring in several territories.
Everyone defended their holdings in the German States except me (white)...
Probably the biggest boon to my cause was the fact that Britt drew a huge target on his back when he jumped out to the big lead. So despite the fact that I had undefended control markers in Africa (allowing me to resort to slavery at least another 2 or 3 times in the game) and the German States (which is always a hotbed of contention), no one really bothered with them until the very end of the game. But by then, I had invested quite a few armies to Germany and actually managed to conquer some of the native peoples to claim a second control marker and take the lead there.
After the final score tally, Britt was still a couple of points ahead of me, but he had the most Unrest (which I had worked hard to limit and remove thru the game), which caused him to lose 7 points and hand me the victory.
Europe near the end of the game...
Time: 200 minutes
Score: Norton 97, Britt 92, Keith* 80, Kenny 59, Josh 41
Ratings: Norton 9, Britt 9, Keith 8, Kenny 8, Josh 8.5
Britt, Josh, Kenny & Keith eventually all yielded to the superiority of my Austrian empire!
Wow... yeah. It's really easy to forget exactly how good Struggle of Empires really is. I tend to get a little distracted and put off by its length (which isn't all that bad, really) and forget about how rich and deep and entertaining it can be. There's such a big learning curve related to all the improvement tiles and strategy and tactics of the game, and I really need to play it more. I just wish that I was able to get to game night earlier so that I could reliably play a game as big as this and still have room for the GotM! without staying until nearly 2am, as we did when we then played...
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game [BGG]
Even though it was pretty darn late, I still wanted to get in a game of the Lord of the Rings LCG, our current Game of the Month! Kenny and Keith joined me to try and tackle the third quest (Escape from Dol Guldur), and this time to do it correctly with all the errata and proper rules included. We all played preconstructed decks that we hadn't used very much, but we're probably the three people with the most experience with the game, so we knew the basic strategy and function of each.
Almost from the get-go, we all predicted doom and gloom. More than once, someone made the comment that if we lost quickly, we might be able to get in another game. But then, bit by bit and turn by turn, we kept ourselves alive and plodding along. Before we knew
it, we had rescued our imprisoned hero (can't remember which one right now) and were facing a freaking Nazgul.Since I was playing the Tactics deck and had a pretty buffed up Gimli (with a Dwarven Axe, Citadel Plate, and a ton of damage counters), I chose to engage it. On the first turn, I chump-blocked with something, and thankfully, it was dealt a card with no shadow effect. On the next turn, I played Quick Strike on Gimli and smacked the Nazgul for a total of 8 damage (one less than I needed to kill it) prior to combat.
But the coolest moment in the game was when I realized that I also had a meager little Gondorian Spearman in play, which only has one defense and one hit point, but deals one damage to the attacking creature as soon as it blocks. So in a moment very reminiscent of Eowyn's victory over the Witch King, my Spearman stood firm against the Ringwraith and slew it, ensuring our eventual victory!
Time: 87 minutes
Score: Heroes of Light (Keith - Lore, Kenny - Spirit, & Norton - Tactics) - Win (137 pts); Escape from Dol Guldur - Lose
Ratings: Keith 9, Kenny 8.5, Norton 9
Again, I don't really need to say much about this either, 'cause I just wrote a review about it too!
And now that I've got two base sets of the game, I think that I'm going to build some custom decks for next week to see how they might work in a multiplayer game. But I'm still enjoying the game a ton, and really can't wait for the freaking first Adventure Pack!!!
Other Games Played
Ascension (with Return of the Fallen expansion)
Time: 60 minutesScore: Shawn 89, Brad D 80, Chris A 74, Chris 72, Britt 65
Ratings: Shawn 10, Brad D 9.5, Chris A ?, Chris 10, Britt 7.5
Blood Bowl
Time: 174 minutes
Score: Josh 1, Kenny 1
Ratings: Josh 7.5, Kenny 7
Dixit
Time: 31 minutes
Score: Chip 34, Brad 32, Stacy 30, Chris 29, Shawn 24
Ratings: Chip 7, Brad 9, Stacy 8, Chris 8.5, Shawn 9
Endeavor
Time: 50 minutes
Score: Keith 52, Chip 51, Adam 49
Ratings: Keith 8, Chip 8, Adam 8
Lord of the Rings LCG
Time: 65 minutes
Score: Heroes of Light (Chip - Tactics, Chris - Leadership & Stacy - Lore) - Win (131 points); Passage Through Mirkwood - Lose
Ratings: Chip 7, Chris 7, Stacy 7
Macao
Time: 85 and 90 minutes
Game 1: Sceadeau 89, Ian 87, Matt 84, Adam 56
Game 2: Sceadeau 85, Ian 71+, Matt 71, Adam 52
Ratings: Sceadeau 10, Ian 11, Matt 10, Adam 10
Resident Evil
Time: 90 minutes
Score: Sean 21, Brad 17, Stacy 7
Ratings: Sean 10, Brad 8, Stacy 8
Small World Underground
Time: 66 minutes
Score: Britt 110, Brad* 99, Shawn*97, Chris 87
Ratings: Britt 7.5, Brad 8, Shawn 7.5, Chris 8
Through the Ages
Time: 180 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 248, Ian 89, Matt (conceded)
Ratings: Sceadeau 9, Ian 6, Matt 8.5
* First play for that Person
Posted by Chris Norwood at 7/20/2011 12:45 PM 
Categories: Game of the month, Gaming Weblog, Hypermind BoardGamers
Tags: Struggle of Empires Lord of the Rings LCG White Elephant
Categories: Game of the month, Gaming Weblog, Hypermind BoardGamers
Tags: Struggle of Empires Lord of the Rings LCG White Elephant
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