First Thursday night work game group. As with most new board game groups, about half of the 11 attendees had little familiarity with games beyond Taboo, a quarter were in my boat, and the other quarter were Magic, miniature or war gamers. When I arrived a handful of people were playing
Chrononauts, the pre-skin of the Back to the Future card game. In it you play a time traveler who must alter the timeline (a set common grid of cards laid out on the table) to match your objective. You use cards you draw to allow you to do this, each flipped card causing a ripple (other cards to be flipped over). As it contains actual events throughout history I heard awesome lines like, sorry guys, I'm going to have to revive Hitler. Most of the players were new to the game so it seemed a bit longer and dryer than the Back to the Future game, but I'd have to play it to be sure. In the meantime I introduced:
King of Tokyo to two new players. After a brief explanation we were off. They picked it up right away. One game later we stepped it up, introducing the Power Up! evolve decks without a hick-up. In the ratio of money to fun + beginner friendliness you really can't beat this game. They had a great time and were thinking strategically within the first game. Next up we played:
7 Wonders with 7 players, only three of whom had played before. It didn't go a smoothly as King of Tokyo, though a first time player still won, building all of Giza and focusing on a military strategy. I placed second with two complete science sets and an additional two science cards. some people found learning the many symbols challenging, but hopefully we have a few more converts.
Four of the group then drifted off to play some pre-built Magic the Gathering decks while we went back to:
King of Tokyo Three more times in fact! This time we introduced two new players to the game, and again they picked it up without a hitch. There were a couple of memorable plays. The first: I left Tokyo with two health remaining. Pandakai used the opportunity to play his ninja card evolution. He entered Tokyo, took the victory point, dealt me two damage, killing me, then silently left Tokyo. The second was quite impressive. A co-worker, Professor Chaos, or PC for short, purchased a 3 value card everyone else had willingly passed on. If you ended your roll with one of each symbol on each of the six dice, you scored 9 victory points. On the next roll she scored 9. A couple of rolls later, 9 again, plus one VP for entering Tokyo. She was within one paw on the following turn after the FIRST roll, but wasn't able to capitalize. A turn later, having been expelled from Tokyo, she had bought a card which kicked any player she dealt any damage to out of Tokyo. So PC rolled, ONE PAW, Success. Then we looked down and realized she had done it again, one of each die. So technically she had won with 29...
Then Friday!
Star Trek Deck Building Game (Chris, Dennis, Jamar, Jen, Keith) Another deck builder, this time the unique characteristic was the introduction of battles between players which allowed for more interaction than most deck builders. Everyone starts with the same hand of relatively weak cards, and a weak star ship which stays in front of you. They buy from a common pool of nine cards in the center, or from the 1, 2, or 3 level characters (money) up top. Each card has an ability and most have four categories, each assigned a value: Speed, attack, diplomacy and shields. On your turn you resolve your cards and can buy as much as you can afford. You can also perform one search action (discard a card from the pool and replace it) and one explore action. Each of the cards in the explore deck has a point value and the first person to defeat 400 points of this deck wins the game. Explore cards consist of ships which you can fight by comparing attack value and surviving their attack if they shoot first (highest speed shoots first), or if you have enough diplomacy, you can bring the ship into your fleet, upgrade your existing star ship. If you have nothing worth doing, you can "rest" and trash a card from your hand. Battles work well and are quite dynamic in games with five players. The person with the highest speed rating goes first and chooses who to shoot. Each player compares the attach to shield rating and take the damage. Last person standing (or with highest attack rating while standing) is the victor, taking the battle card and the VP's associated with it. Like all games of this type, the drawback is that that there is a ton of downtime between turns unless someone draws a battle card from the explore deck. There are also mission cards in the explore deck which are played for the table to defeat, calling for a hand to match or exceed certain of the four values in order to be defeated. In our game the Remember Me mission was played very early on, causing each player to discard one character before starting their turn until defeated. It slowed an already slow game down considerably. On the positive side, unlike Thunderstone, this game definitely goes long enough to allow for some really cool combos and lets you build your deck into a powerful and satisfying machine. There are plenty of cards that allow you to trash and upgrade, and a real focus of the game is on allowing you to upgrade weak characters into stronger ones. Deck dilution can come in if you lose many battles, both with other players, and with ships in the explore deck. Each loss causes a reshuffle, and an Ensign - or level one buying power character to be added to the deck. Like any deck builder I've played, I wouldn't recommend this game with more than 3 players. It took close to three hours with 5 new players which was far longer than any game of this type should take. Overall the Star Trek theme works well and the various races are well integrated (Ferengi are mischievous, altering other players hands, the Klingon are warriors, etc.) The game is a no-brainer for Star Trek and deck building fans. Stray observation: what the hell is up with the box size on deck builders. Seriously, I know you want to have visibility on the shelf and there are other practical marketing reasons, but what the hell! :)
Alas, it was too late to start another game, though Jamar did mention he wouldn't mind playing Descent again, so I'll see what I can do about scheduling a dedicated Saturday or Sunday group to go exploring.
A couple outside gaming things of note - registered for Strategicon: OrcCon which takes place over President's Day weekend. Also, the Tabletop episode this week featuring the Dragon Age RPG is absolutely hilarious and entertaining. I now have the bug to try an RPG for the first time. Thanks a lot Will WHhheaton...
Chrononauts, the pre-skin of the Back to the Future card game. In it you play a time traveler who must alter the timeline (a set common grid of cards laid out on the table) to match your objective. You use cards you draw to allow you to do this, each flipped card causing a ripple (other cards to be flipped over). As it contains actual events throughout history I heard awesome lines like, sorry guys, I'm going to have to revive Hitler. Most of the players were new to the game so it seemed a bit longer and dryer than the Back to the Future game, but I'd have to play it to be sure. In the meantime I introduced:
King of Tokyo to two new players. After a brief explanation we were off. They picked it up right away. One game later we stepped it up, introducing the Power Up! evolve decks without a hick-up. In the ratio of money to fun + beginner friendliness you really can't beat this game. They had a great time and were thinking strategically within the first game. Next up we played:
7 Wonders with 7 players, only three of whom had played before. It didn't go a smoothly as King of Tokyo, though a first time player still won, building all of Giza and focusing on a military strategy. I placed second with two complete science sets and an additional two science cards. some people found learning the many symbols challenging, but hopefully we have a few more converts.
Four of the group then drifted off to play some pre-built Magic the Gathering decks while we went back to:
King of Tokyo Three more times in fact! This time we introduced two new players to the game, and again they picked it up without a hitch. There were a couple of memorable plays. The first: I left Tokyo with two health remaining. Pandakai used the opportunity to play his ninja card evolution. He entered Tokyo, took the victory point, dealt me two damage, killing me, then silently left Tokyo. The second was quite impressive. A co-worker, Professor Chaos, or PC for short, purchased a 3 value card everyone else had willingly passed on. If you ended your roll with one of each symbol on each of the six dice, you scored 9 victory points. On the next roll she scored 9. A couple of rolls later, 9 again, plus one VP for entering Tokyo. She was within one paw on the following turn after the FIRST roll, but wasn't able to capitalize. A turn later, having been expelled from Tokyo, she had bought a card which kicked any player she dealt any damage to out of Tokyo. So PC rolled, ONE PAW, Success. Then we looked down and realized she had done it again, one of each die. So technically she had won with 29...
Then Friday!
Star Trek Deck Building Game (Chris, Dennis, Jamar, Jen, Keith) Another deck builder, this time the unique characteristic was the introduction of battles between players which allowed for more interaction than most deck builders. Everyone starts with the same hand of relatively weak cards, and a weak star ship which stays in front of you. They buy from a common pool of nine cards in the center, or from the 1, 2, or 3 level characters (money) up top. Each card has an ability and most have four categories, each assigned a value: Speed, attack, diplomacy and shields. On your turn you resolve your cards and can buy as much as you can afford. You can also perform one search action (discard a card from the pool and replace it) and one explore action. Each of the cards in the explore deck has a point value and the first person to defeat 400 points of this deck wins the game. Explore cards consist of ships which you can fight by comparing attack value and surviving their attack if they shoot first (highest speed shoots first), or if you have enough diplomacy, you can bring the ship into your fleet, upgrade your existing star ship. If you have nothing worth doing, you can "rest" and trash a card from your hand. Battles work well and are quite dynamic in games with five players. The person with the highest speed rating goes first and chooses who to shoot. Each player compares the attach to shield rating and take the damage. Last person standing (or with highest attack rating while standing) is the victor, taking the battle card and the VP's associated with it. Like all games of this type, the drawback is that that there is a ton of downtime between turns unless someone draws a battle card from the explore deck. There are also mission cards in the explore deck which are played for the table to defeat, calling for a hand to match or exceed certain of the four values in order to be defeated. In our game the Remember Me mission was played very early on, causing each player to discard one character before starting their turn until defeated. It slowed an already slow game down considerably. On the positive side, unlike Thunderstone, this game definitely goes long enough to allow for some really cool combos and lets you build your deck into a powerful and satisfying machine. There are plenty of cards that allow you to trash and upgrade, and a real focus of the game is on allowing you to upgrade weak characters into stronger ones. Deck dilution can come in if you lose many battles, both with other players, and with ships in the explore deck. Each loss causes a reshuffle, and an Ensign - or level one buying power character to be added to the deck. Like any deck builder I've played, I wouldn't recommend this game with more than 3 players. It took close to three hours with 5 new players which was far longer than any game of this type should take. Overall the Star Trek theme works well and the various races are well integrated (Ferengi are mischievous, altering other players hands, the Klingon are warriors, etc.) The game is a no-brainer for Star Trek and deck building fans. Stray observation: what the hell is up with the box size on deck builders. Seriously, I know you want to have visibility on the shelf and there are other practical marketing reasons, but what the hell! :)
Alas, it was too late to start another game, though Jamar did mention he wouldn't mind playing Descent again, so I'll see what I can do about scheduling a dedicated Saturday or Sunday group to go exploring.
A couple outside gaming things of note - registered for Strategicon: OrcCon which takes place over President's Day weekend. Also, the Tabletop episode this week featuring the Dragon Age RPG is absolutely hilarious and entertaining. I now have the bug to try an RPG for the first time. Thanks a lot Will WHhheaton...