Eminent Ascension of the Hunters from Whitechapel
I decided to skip game night this week in lieu of a trip to the NC State Fair with the family, but I still need to catch up on reporting from last week's game night. Since Gwen came up to Burlington for Corinne's 1-year-old checkup, I was actually able to get to the gaming much earlier than normal. Somehow, though, I still didn't play that many more games...
Ascension [BGG]
It's been forever since I've had the chance to play Ascension in a non-iOS format, and I'd never been able to try out the new cards from the Return of the Fallen expansion. But when a few guys were starting up a game not long after I arrived, I sat down and joined in.
I don't remember a lot about how it played out, but I never seemed to be able to get anything coherent started, while Sean did stupid things with a new card that let him buy from the Void. In the end, it was all pretty close, but I still lost.
Time: 68 minutes
Score: Sean 92, Robert* 83, Jay 83, Norton 79
Ratings: Sean 10, Robert ?, Jay ?, Norton 7
I've always liked Ascension. I like the new cards and what they add to the game. But what I don't like is that the game is getting longer. Ascension was so cool because it was pretty consistently a 30-minute game, and I just don't know, regardless of how cool new mechanics and all might be, that I feel like it's worth a 60+ minute investment. We'll see, I suppose, and since it's a perennial opener for the group, I may not get much more chance to play it anyway.
Letters from Whitechapel [BGG]
So, then we got to the real meat of the evening, our Game of the Month!, Letters from Whitechapel. Keith wanted another go at being the serial-killing monster, and we were joined by fellow investigators Josh, Kenny, and Sean.
As we got started on the first night, things looked pretty bad for the good guys. We got exactly one freaking clue in the whole round, and since it was something like 6 moves before he got home, it didn't do much at all to narrow down our search parameters.
But then as bad as night 1 was, night 2 was the complete opposite. We were all over Keith like white on rice, figuring out all but 2 or so of his moves. And the biggest point of information was that he was exactly 2 moves away from location 50!
CSI: Whitechapel
On night 3, we mostly just staked out the area surrounding #50, eventually catching up with him and arresting him just a spot or two away. As it turned out, 50 actually was his home, and he had moved off and then back onto it in the previous round to divert us. It was pretty cool.
Time: 83 minutes
Score: Investigators (Josh, Kenny, Sean* & Norton) - Win (night 3); Jack (Keith) - Lose
Ratings: Josh 9, Kenny 9, Sean 8, Norton 9.5, Keith 9
Well, while Keith didn't win, he did make it one night further than on his last attempt. In three games as Jack, he was caught on the 1st night, then the 2nd night, and now on the 3rd. In two more games, he might win!
I don't know that I have a lot more to add to what I said last week, though, so go back and check that out if you didn't catch it the first time.
Shadow Hunters [BGG]
In the vein of Halloweeny games, we next jumped into a game of Shadow Hunters. A few of us had never played, so Chris gave us the lowdown and got us started. I was a Hunter, and on the very first turn, I drew the green card that basically said "Show me your card". I therefore handed it to Chris and found out from the get-go that he was my mortal enemy.
But the rest of the game was still quite enjoyable. James was the other Shadow player (the Vampire), and he revealed himself pretty early in order to benefit from his special power (which let him regain life when he dealt damage). But it also made him a big target, and he was the first to die. Before the end of the game, I had it pretty much figured out that Chip was the other Hunter, but I didn't know whether Adam or Alton (obviously neutral) was trying to help or hurt us.
Chris finally knocked me out (after we had been trying to get at each other all game long), but Chip was able to finish him off soon after to win us the game.
Time: 33 minutes
Score: Hunters (Chip*, Norton* & Adam) - Win; Shadows (Chris, James* & Alton) - Lose
Ratings: Chip 8, Norton 7.5, Adam 7, Chris 8, James 7, Alton 8
I originally rated Shadow Hunters a 7, but the more I've thought about it, the more I liked the experience. It definitely plays out like (as Chris described to us) the love child of Bang and Werewolf. You still have some player elimination, but the game is really quick and didn't seem to overstay its welcome at all. While I think that the card I drew first round is probably a mistake, the rest of the green cards formed a really cool mechanic that you could use to help figure out which role people had. But with the Unknown (Chris' shadow character, who could lie when answering the green-card questions) in play, you couldn't ever be that certain about what information you got (unless, of course, you got the card I drew and he had to show it to you).
So, it's not my favorite game or anything, but I'd definitely be up for playing this a few more times to get a better idea about it.
Eminent Domain [BGG]
Finally, after months and months of waiting and some questionable decisions on the part of Tasty Minstrel games (selling it at GenCon before preorders had been sent), I got my Kickstarted copy of Eminent Domain in the mail a couple of weeks ago. In reading the rules, it seemed very straightforward, and was very happy to get it to the table with Adam, Alton and Chip last week.
Adam and Alton went pretty heavily for Military strength, while Chip and I focused more on Colonizing. I was then trying to acquire technologies and develop a resource trading engine as well... and it was at least 3 or 4 (or even more) turns away from being functional when the game ended. No surprise then, that the more focused and efficient strategy won, with Alton edging out Adam for the win.
Time: 60 minutes
Score: Adam* 22, Alton* 18, Chip* 14, Norton* 14
Ratings: Adam 8.5, Alton 7, Chip 8, Norton 8
I've only played once, but I really liked Eminent Domain so far. I have some questions and predictions about how it may develop as I play it more, but I think I'll keep all that to myself. Instead, let me just say how totally refreshing this was as an entry in the "deckbuilding" genre. If anything, I would almost hesitate to call it a deckbuilding game, because it's more of a "deck-learning" game in the way it plays out.
If you're not familiar with the basics of the game, the way it works is that every turn, you choose one of the cards available in the middle of the board. Sort of like Puerto Rico or Race for the Galaxy, you then get to perform the action indicated on the card, and may add more copies of that card from your hand to improve the action (like to look through more planets, get more military power, or produce more goods). Other players then also get the chance to perform that action as well (if they have cards in their hands that match it, anyway). But then, the way you "build" your deck is that the action card you chose at the beginning of the turn is added to your discard pile along with all the other cards you played from your hand.
So, in effect, your deck "learns" and gets better at doing the things you do most. But unlike a traditional deckbuilder, the decisions you make about "buying" cards is not as one-dimensional. In addition to considering the card mix of your deck, you also have to factor in the actual action you're going to take on your turn and what you think other players might be doing (that you could leech off of if you've got the proper cards). I just forsee a lot of tactical and strategic depth in Eminent Domain, and really hope to give it a lot of play in the near future.
Other Games PlayedAgricola
Time: 106 minutes
Score: Chris 48, Alton 38, Chip 36, James 36, Adam 30
Ratings: Chris 9.5, Alton 10, Chip 8, James 9, Adam 9
Ascension
Time: 53 minutes
Score: Chris 92, Matt 74, Alton 70, Rory 64, James 63
Ratings: Chris 10, Matt 10, Alton 10, Rory "Fun", James 8
Memoir '44Time: 60 minutes
Score: Alton 6, Rory 0
Ratings: Alton 10, Rory 10
Witch's Brew
Time: 33 minutes
Score: James 23, Keith 21, Chris 18, Matt* 15, Alton 15
Ratings: James 8, Keith 8, Chris 8.5, Matt 8, Alton 9
Keith and Kenny also played a game of Battletech using the Quick Strike rules. For more about that, check out Kenny's blog, The Lead Cotillion.
* First play for that Person
Posted by Chris Norwood at 10/20/2011 12:46 PM 
Categories: Game of the month, Gaming Weblog, Hypermind BoardGamers
Tags: Ascension Letters from Whitechapel Shadow Hunters Eminent Domain
Categories: Game of the month, Gaming Weblog, Hypermind BoardGamers
Tags: Ascension Letters from Whitechapel Shadow Hunters Eminent Domain
Thanks for pushing The Lead Cotillion, every little bit helps! And your pics look a LOT better than my cellphone cam 'recon shots' do. I was a bit nervous they'd make my very primitive paint jobs look terrible, but I think they come out OK, considering.
Now we just have to get you to play some minis games....
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Eeek, I take that back - downloading those pix to put them in my blog I saw them at full size, and it looks like I painted those minis with a roller.
This, kids, is a good example of why painting like mine is called 'tabletop standard' - because it looks passable if you're a nearsighted old person, looking down at a table about 3' below your line of sight. In the harsh light of digital close-up? Significantly less so.
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No way. I thought they looked pretty good, really. There's nothing wrong with them at all; you're being too hard on yourself.
I think I'd really like to get into a minis game or two, but time and money are so tight right now. Maybe sometime...
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The fact that "show me your card" is the only one of its kind in the Hermit deck makes it fine IMO. As you mentioned, it's only real purpose is being a "silver bullet" for the Unknown, which might not even be in the game -- and even if it is, you still have to correctly choose which opponent has it. Learning that, say, Chip was a fellow Hunter instead would have made it much less useful.
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