by J. R. Tracy
We had eight players tonight for a mix of playtesting and Ameritrash.Richard Garfield's King of Tokyo arrived today so we took it for a quick spin. Each player controls a monster ravaging the hard luck capital of Japan. Players roll six dice to generate victory points, energy, health, or attacks. The dice are marked 1, 2, 3, lightning bolt (energy), heart (health), and claw (attack). To score VPs, you must roll three or more of a kind, so three threes would generate three VPs, three ones only one VP, etc, with each die above three in a set adding a VP. You get two rerolls of any or all your dice. Energy is used to purchase cards which do a variety of things including extra VPs, special attacks, unique abilities, and other interesting things. The monsters are identical in capabilities but the accumulation of persistent cards gradually gives each critter its own character.
Rough night in Roppongi
The key to the game is the 'king of the hill' format - at any given time only one monster is in Tokyo itself; any monster outside of Tokyo can only attack the monster in Tokyo, while that monster in turn attacks all his opponents simultaneously. A monster accrues VPs for hanging on to the city, but it cannot regain health points through die rolls while in town. Whenever an attacking monster scores a hit on the current King of Tokyo, the latter has the option to yield the city to his assailant. Each player starts with ten hit points and must reach twenty VPs to win, so it can be a tough decision whether to stay and suffer another round of attacks or just head for the suburbs to lick your wounds. Play continues until one player reaches twenty VP or is the last monster standing.
In our first game, Nate quickly grabbed the city but was beaten down mercilessly. Meanwhile, my Godzilla had excellent cards and should've stayed outside to win through attrition, but hubris compelled me to try to win in town, and I was felled by Dave's Cyber Rabbit. In the second game, Talley's Alien-esque behemoth was rarely below ten hit points as she just stomped us all into dust. This is a cute, fast little game, excellent for a warmup or a nightcap.
Next up, we played three games of Quarmageddon, the Quarriors expansion. We used all the cards, culling the creatures just used each game so we'd have a fresh set. In the first, my Defenders of the Pale rode to success, while a combination of Hypnotoads and Crystal Hammers did the trick in the second, despite being the only player without a dragon. The third was a much more drawn out affair, as we all struggled to keep our creatures in play to score. Dave was finally able to push across the goal line with a spell-augmented Defender of the Pale. With three players, we played to fifteen rather than twelve VPs, and allowed players to purchase up to two dice if they had the quiddity. Both tweaks made for a better experience than I've had with the game in the past.
Talley searches for a Hag
Scott and Bill ran a four-player session of the latest version of WW2.0. This game saw Germany struggle on land while conducting successful strategic warfare at sea. Meanwhile, the Italians had great success in the Med, turning aside a Taranto-like raid with disastrous consequences for the British. However, this couldn't make up for the Axis struggles ashore, as France ended the war in Europe by capturing the German capital. In the Far East, Japan took most of China, ignoring the Pacific territories. I'm not sure how that tallied up in terms of who won overall, but Scott or Bill can fill in the details.
On to Berlin!
China falls
Our Virgin Queen crew should be wrapping up later in the week - I'll ping them for a report once they finish.
JR