Domain of the Whitechapel Catacombs
Something interesting is happening with this game night report. With my posting of the review for Letters from Whitechapel yesterday, I think that this is the first report I've ever written where I have written full reviews for all the games I played at a game night. Theoretically, that should mean that the report should be pretty short, since I doubt I'll have a lot to add to the reviews (especially since two of them were so recent). But we'll just see, I guess...
Eminent Domain [BGG]
As I walked in, long-time friends Steve and Kenny were just starting up a game of Eminent Domain, Thankfully, I was able to jump in as the 3rd player with minimal disruption. I started off heavily Warfare, but then transitioned into some Produce/Trade action later on, and pulled off a really great Diverse Markets trade in the last turn or two.
That's 8 Influence points worth of trading...
Unfortunately, Steve caught on really quickly and went heavy Warfare and Research. He started to make me nervous when he grabbed the Weapon Emporium, and then it all broke a-loose when he combined that with Specilization to score crazy points. But as some of you may already be shouting at your computer screen, we messed up. Fighters do not count as a Resource type (it says so clearly on the card and the back of the rulebook), so you can't use it with either Diverse Markets or Specilization. He ended up winning, but the game gets the dreaded asterisk...
Time: 74 minutes (including a delay to get me into the game late)
Score: Steve* 42*, , Norton 33, Kenny 24
Ratings: Steve 8, Norton 8, Kenny 8.5
Eminent Domain is a good game (stupid mistakes aside, that is).
Letters from Whitechapel [BGG]
Steve also wanted to try out Letters from Whitechapel after hearing me and Kenny talk so much about it, so our next thing was to set up this deduction masterpiece. Sceadeau had watched us play a week or two ago, and he wanted to try out the role of Jack, so Keith joined Steve, Kenny, and me as the Police to face off against him.
In the first night, we jumped all over him right from the start. We found a number of clues, and even though he then ran away from us and made it back to his hideout, we made the determination that his home must have been 4 moves away from location 51.
We did fairly well on night 2 as well, and when compared to what we learned on night 1, we were able to
triangulate his Hideout location to just a few possible spots.We sort of screwed up on night 3, though, playing a little too defensively and not really learning much about it. So as we planned for night 4, we basically decided to do what we could to blockade the sites we thought most likely to be his hideout and hope for the best. After just a move or two, though, Sceadeau basically stopped the game and said that he couldn't be caught and had won.
When he revealed his hideout and the paths he had taken, he pointed out that we had a made a huge mistake on night 1 that pretty much made it impossible for us to win. When we discovered a clue at location 51, we assumed that it was a later move and that it was 4 moves from his home. But in reality, it was one of his first moves that he had made while just messing around with diversionary tactics early on. He still had a little tension in the next couple of nights in making sure that he didn't do anything that would make us question our completely incorrect conclusion, but otherwise knew that he couldn't lose.
Time: 112 minutes
Score: Sceadeau* (as Jack) - Win; Police (Keith, Kenny, Norton, & Steve*) - Lose
Ratings: Sceadeau 9, Keith 9, Kenny 9, Norton 10, Steve 8
Obviously, I wrote my full review of Letters from Whitechapel after this game had been played, and it didn't affect my thoughts on the game much. It has, however, taught me a lesson as a Police player, and so hopefully I'll play even better in the future.
Catacombs [BGG]
Catacombs is our Game of the Month! for December, and I was glad to take on the role of Overlord in its first play of the month. We were playing with Kenny's copy, and since he has both expansions, I chose to use the Orc Warchief as my Catacomb Lord. The players took the roles of the Paladin (Sceadeau), Thief (Keith), Elf (Chip), and Barbarian (Kenny), so it was mostly original characters plus the mega-tank Paladin.
In the first room or two, I was a little disappointed in how fast they took down my creatures. But I have pretty good flickin' skillz, so I concentrated fire on the Elf and Thief early on, killing both before they reached the healer. They were resurrected heading into the last couple of rooms, but I took them both out once again, then knocked off the Barbarian, and finally eliminated the Paladin to get the win.
Time: 75 minutes
Score: Norton (Overlord - Orc Warchief) - Win; Heroes (Chip, Keith, Kenny, & Sceadeau) - Lose
Ratings: Norton 8, Chip "8", Keith 9, Kenny 8, Sceadeau 8
It's been a while since I wrote my Catacombs review, but I don't think that my opinion has changed much at all about it. I still need to play the expansions a little more before I make up my mind about them, but so far I like what they add to the game (at least in the terms of variety, and probably for new mechanics as well). The thing I really want to see, though, is a "big" expansion that includes 2 or 3 more room boards, so get on that, Sands of Time guys!
Risk: Legacy [BGG
We didn't actually play Risk: Legacy last week, but we did open the box and make the first few choices to start the campaign. Sceadeau bought a couple of copies and was asking for people to buy into it, so Keith, Kenny, Chris, and I jumped at the chance to try it out.
I got to choose the first power for the Imperial Balkanians, which will be the first faction I'll play.
Sceadeau breaking the seal... and then opening it up for the first time.
The first Imperial Balkania power
Before and after of what we did with the unused starting powers
The region cards that we modified with our initial stickers
Other Games Played
Belfort
Time: 71 minutes
Score: Chris 42, Darren* 33, Alton 31, Chip* 29
Ratings: Chris 8.5, Darren ?, Alton 8, Chip* 8
Blood Bowl: Team Manager
Time: 99 minutes
Score: Alton* 59, Sceadeau 44, Kenny* 31, Steve* 25
Ratings: ???
Ninjato
Time: 62 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 119, Chip 104, Keith* 92, Chris 78
Ratings: Sceadeau ?, Chip 7.5, Keith ?, Chris 8.5
Super Dungeon Explore!
Time: 80 minutes
Score: Alton* (Heroes) - Win, Darren* (Monsters) - Lose
Ratings: ???
* First play for that Person
Posted by Chris Norwood at 12/15/2011 12:59 PM 
Categories: Game of the month, Gaming Weblog, Hypermind BoardGamers
Tags: Eminent Domain Catacombs Letters from Whitechapel
Categories: Game of the month, Gaming Weblog, Hypermind BoardGamers
Tags: Eminent Domain Catacombs Letters from Whitechapel
I will be very curious to read your impressions of Risk: Legacy as you run through the course of a game. I have a hard time getting my head around the concept of a game that is indelibly changed with each play. Just seeing the starting power cards ripped up gave me the willies. Destroying pieces in a brand new game that had just been opened! What is the world coming to?
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I'll hopefully get another report up today covering our first 3 games, so stay tuned...
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