4/19 Descent The Half-way Point!
Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition (Chris, Emily, Keith, Kyle)
We've made it to the interlude! After I (the overlord) was soundly defeated in the intro, First Blood, A Fat Goblin, The Cardinal's Plight, and having won (a little too easily) on Castle Daerion (before FAQ V2 was posted) we moved on to the Interlude 1, The Shadow Vault which is mandated as the heroes had a 2-1 record in the regular quests. At this point Leoric (Kyle), Grisban (Chris), Tomble (Jamar) and Andira Runehand (Emily) are working together well and all were pretty well overpowered for Act I monsters. The last character I was really able to knock around, Leoric, is now in possession of Heavy Armor and the Staff of Light relic from our last encounter. The Interlude, The Shadow Vault, is another race to the finish on a board much larger/longer than anything we've seen so far. Once again, due to the cold war threat of Kyle's blast power, I chose larger creatures - the Giants with reach, the Shadow Dragons (of course) and the Manticore who are able to pierce X with a surge and can double attack. I was able to slow them up early, causing some damage to the party. Early on Tomble discovered a secret passage, the first to come up so far from the Lair of the Wyrm expansion. It seemed fun, though Chris, who was taking over for Jamar on Tomble was hesitant to explore due to the number of turns it would take to clear the room. But since it was the first, and the party was taking damage, but not in dire straits, he plunged ahead. The room took (I think) six or so turns to complete which was a significant portion of the quest. He managed to clear the room, attacking and killing the monsters that appeared on the turn they appeared, and never really dealing with any major threats. So he emerged from the room, reward in hand, a one time use card that allows him to stop one overlord card effect. Meanwhile, due to Grisban's low awareness, the party chose to go around the river's edge rather than swim through the stream. At that point I was within a couple damage points of downing Andira, the casket bearer so she lateraled it off to Grisban. They ground along, taking damage until they reached the stream at which point the casket was lateraled again to Tomble who had been MIA, but reappeared just in time to fling himself off the waterfall, landing safely beneath. The horde of monsters followed suit, flinging themselves over the edge in a desperate scramble to stop Tomble from reaching the exit. Unfortunately I hadn't the foresight to clog up the exit before Tomble arrived, so within a couple of turns he made his way to the edge of the exit tile. The hero blockade had turned into a hero chase - and then Tomble stopped allowing Grisban one last moment to snatch a treasure they had left behind near the river's edge. So the heroes were again victorious, this time taking a Shadow Rune as a reward. I look forward to the first Act II quest which should be my best chance to win, provided the quest is evenly balanced. The biggest difference from Act I to Act II seems to be the addition of a yellow attack die to the monster rolls.
Meanwhile, Chris has brought the idea a couple of times of changing up his hero for Act II. I had originally wanted to play as is for continuity, but we do have a rather lot of heroes, and as Kyle said, we're playing for fun - if Chris is bored with Grisban, why not.
Then...
4/25 Work!
Snake Oil (6 players) Yet another Apples to Apples variant, and one that blows it out of the water. Each player has
Zombie Dice (6 players) A blah filler - sure it moves quick, and technically you could say there is some strategy in knowing how many dice of each color were left, but it is a really basic push your luck game with not enough strategy for my liking. (See Love Letter below for what a good filler should be.)
Cosmic Encounter (4 players) I introduced the game to three new players, all of whom are excited to play again. Win! I chose the assassin, the player to my left chose an alien with quite circumstantial abilities that didn't come up (don't recall), the player across from me, the alien that can turn any encounter into a chance encounter (pick a hand, if the token is in it, the attacker wins), the and the player on my right, the glutton. The glutton was able to get a flare that allowed him to force a redraw of the destiny deck once per encounter. My power was fun, forcing people to leave extra ships on their colonized planets since I could pick off a ship per turn, twice causing players to lose a colonized planet. I raced to an early lead, getting to four before making my biggest blunder. The Glutton chose to ally with me on defense and I tanked the encounter by playing a negotiate in order to take two compensation cards. The compensation was not great, and I had forgotten the Glutton had drawn a ton of defender rewards earlier on and likely could have helped me win the encounter. The glutton had the best combo of abilities and on his turn we were unable to stop him from colonizing his fifth planet.
4/26 Chris' Birthday!!!
For Chris' birthday we threw a BBQ potluck and boardgame extravaganza. As the man of honor he got to choose a game he had been wanting to play for a while - the original Merchant of Venus which he had of course updated with his own rule modifications.
Love Letter (Emily, Josh, Keith, Kyle) - I see why this one shot up the hotness list so quickly! This is the opposite of Zombie Dice on the spectrum of filler in that it offers lots of strategy and a little bluffing while still being quick to play and easy enough to pick up after one three minute round. I highly recommend picking it up. Kyle jumped into an early lead, taking the first two rounds by means of assassination and naming the princess who I had looked at in Josh's hand, and he had subsequently traded with me. Then Josh took a couple, holding the princess a total of three times and winning twice. Then Emily went on a card naming tear to eliminate two of us, and won a round. I finally won my first round, and Kyle won a third at which point we called it to move on to Chris' birthday game, Merchant of Venus.
King of Tokyo + Power Up! (Brandi, Cristian, Dan, Donnie, Jamar, Jen) Shots edition! The house rule on this one is that if you leave Tokyo you must take a shot, if you die, you take two. Since Jen doesn't drink, Jamar had to take her shots for her. Since he was her designated driver, she had to carefully choose her strategy. Dice love Jen, she evolved three times in her first three turns. One of her evolutions gave her a target token which rotated around the table and caused the player holding it to take an extra damage. Dan died very early on, but had bought the two headed creature - allowing him to regenerate. Brandi killed Jamar on accident. He was at one health and she had a card dealing damage to all other players, even those not in Tokyo - rolling a paw while trying to heal on her third roll. After a drought on heart roles for all players, Jen, in Tokyo rolled four paws, killing Cristian and Brandi (who had the target token) and bringing everyone to their knees. Donnie was able to eliminate Jen leaving Donnie and Dan to duke it out. It was a race for victory points, with Donnie getting there first.
The Resistance: Avalon (Brandi, Cristian, Dan, Donnie, Jamar, Jen) Cristian, using his evil Sauron eye CORRECTLY pegged Brandi and Donnie as spies immediately, but wasn't able to peg Emily as she was on her phone and he doesn't know her that well. The good guys were able win three of the first four missions. Fortunately the minions were observant and through process of elimination they were able to assassinate Merlin. Cristian and Jamar seemed convinced Emily was good eliminating them from contention. Whenever Jen was asked who to put on a team she always chose correctly for the good guys, and finally was caught making frantic eye contact with Jamar and Cristian, so the Minions were able to have a come from behind victory.
Merchant of Venus (Chris, Josh, Keith, Kyle) The game went about four and a half hours with three all new players. We played standard rules, up to 2000 galactic credits, but with a bunch of component modifications. Finding the original tech and equipment a bit dull, Chris added a bit of spice to them, mostly I think by adding various types of shields or lasers. I haven't played the base game so it's hard to know what was original and what was changed, but this version seemed to add a lot more variability on a players turn. Except for the play time I enjoyed the game a lot. It offers a great deal of strategy, and each player can hone their own play style based on the tech they get. Kyle was able to race around the board thanks to having tech that allowed him to bypass all yellow AND red spots, PLUS he had a ship that allowed him to roll four dice. Fortunately early this was balanced out as he was therefor only able to carry one good. He wasn't able to recover fast enough - upgrading his ship to carry two goods in time and finished in last. Josh went the real-estate investor route, piling on deed after deed. I believe he had a shield of a certain color, and moved fairly efficiently, finishing in third. I had a foil which allowed me to land on planets for free and more importantly a hyperspace jump tech which allowed me to jump to any hyper-gate on the board if the number matched a die I had rolled. It proved effective enough, especially later in the game to get me the second place finish... which means of course, Chris finished first. His victory was undoubtedly due to playing efficiently. His main tech ability allowed him to peek at one hidden token on the board per turn. He used it quite wisely and took the victory. I'll happily play this game again. It is thematic, strategic and most importantly, fun!
Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition (Chris, Emily, Keith, Kyle)
We've made it to the interlude! After I (the overlord) was soundly defeated in the intro, First Blood, A Fat Goblin, The Cardinal's Plight, and having won (a little too easily) on Castle Daerion (before FAQ V2 was posted) we moved on to the Interlude 1, The Shadow Vault which is mandated as the heroes had a 2-1 record in the regular quests. At this point Leoric (Kyle), Grisban (Chris), Tomble (Jamar) and Andira Runehand (Emily) are working together well and all were pretty well overpowered for Act I monsters. The last character I was really able to knock around, Leoric, is now in possession of Heavy Armor and the Staff of Light relic from our last encounter. The Interlude, The Shadow Vault, is another race to the finish on a board much larger/longer than anything we've seen so far. Once again, due to the cold war threat of Kyle's blast power, I chose larger creatures - the Giants with reach, the Shadow Dragons (of course) and the Manticore who are able to pierce X with a surge and can double attack. I was able to slow them up early, causing some damage to the party. Early on Tomble discovered a secret passage, the first to come up so far from the Lair of the Wyrm expansion. It seemed fun, though Chris, who was taking over for Jamar on Tomble was hesitant to explore due to the number of turns it would take to clear the room. But since it was the first, and the party was taking damage, but not in dire straits, he plunged ahead. The room took (I think) six or so turns to complete which was a significant portion of the quest. He managed to clear the room, attacking and killing the monsters that appeared on the turn they appeared, and never really dealing with any major threats. So he emerged from the room, reward in hand, a one time use card that allows him to stop one overlord card effect. Meanwhile, due to Grisban's low awareness, the party chose to go around the river's edge rather than swim through the stream. At that point I was within a couple damage points of downing Andira, the casket bearer so she lateraled it off to Grisban. They ground along, taking damage until they reached the stream at which point the casket was lateraled again to Tomble who had been MIA, but reappeared just in time to fling himself off the waterfall, landing safely beneath. The horde of monsters followed suit, flinging themselves over the edge in a desperate scramble to stop Tomble from reaching the exit. Unfortunately I hadn't the foresight to clog up the exit before Tomble arrived, so within a couple of turns he made his way to the edge of the exit tile. The hero blockade had turned into a hero chase - and then Tomble stopped allowing Grisban one last moment to snatch a treasure they had left behind near the river's edge. So the heroes were again victorious, this time taking a Shadow Rune as a reward. I look forward to the first Act II quest which should be my best chance to win, provided the quest is evenly balanced. The biggest difference from Act I to Act II seems to be the addition of a yellow attack die to the monster rolls.
Meanwhile, Chris has brought the idea a couple of times of changing up his hero for Act II. I had originally wanted to play as is for continuity, but we do have a rather lot of heroes, and as Kyle said, we're playing for fun - if Chris is bored with Grisban, why not.
Then...
4/25 Work!
Snake Oil (6 players) Yet another Apples to Apples variant, and one that blows it out of the water. Each player has
Zombie Dice (6 players) A blah filler - sure it moves quick, and technically you could say there is some strategy in knowing how many dice of each color were left, but it is a really basic push your luck game with not enough strategy for my liking. (See Love Letter below for what a good filler should be.)
Cosmic Encounter (4 players) I introduced the game to three new players, all of whom are excited to play again. Win! I chose the assassin, the player to my left chose an alien with quite circumstantial abilities that didn't come up (don't recall), the player across from me, the alien that can turn any encounter into a chance encounter (pick a hand, if the token is in it, the attacker wins), the and the player on my right, the glutton. The glutton was able to get a flare that allowed him to force a redraw of the destiny deck once per encounter. My power was fun, forcing people to leave extra ships on their colonized planets since I could pick off a ship per turn, twice causing players to lose a colonized planet. I raced to an early lead, getting to four before making my biggest blunder. The Glutton chose to ally with me on defense and I tanked the encounter by playing a negotiate in order to take two compensation cards. The compensation was not great, and I had forgotten the Glutton had drawn a ton of defender rewards earlier on and likely could have helped me win the encounter. The glutton had the best combo of abilities and on his turn we were unable to stop him from colonizing his fifth planet.
4/26 Chris' Birthday!!!
For Chris' birthday we threw a BBQ potluck and boardgame extravaganza. As the man of honor he got to choose a game he had been wanting to play for a while - the original Merchant of Venus which he had of course updated with his own rule modifications.
Love Letter (Emily, Josh, Keith, Kyle) - I see why this one shot up the hotness list so quickly! This is the opposite of Zombie Dice on the spectrum of filler in that it offers lots of strategy and a little bluffing while still being quick to play and easy enough to pick up after one three minute round. I highly recommend picking it up. Kyle jumped into an early lead, taking the first two rounds by means of assassination and naming the princess who I had looked at in Josh's hand, and he had subsequently traded with me. Then Josh took a couple, holding the princess a total of three times and winning twice. Then Emily went on a card naming tear to eliminate two of us, and won a round. I finally won my first round, and Kyle won a third at which point we called it to move on to Chris' birthday game, Merchant of Venus.
King of Tokyo + Power Up! (Brandi, Cristian, Dan, Donnie, Jamar, Jen) Shots edition! The house rule on this one is that if you leave Tokyo you must take a shot, if you die, you take two. Since Jen doesn't drink, Jamar had to take her shots for her. Since he was her designated driver, she had to carefully choose her strategy. Dice love Jen, she evolved three times in her first three turns. One of her evolutions gave her a target token which rotated around the table and caused the player holding it to take an extra damage. Dan died very early on, but had bought the two headed creature - allowing him to regenerate. Brandi killed Jamar on accident. He was at one health and she had a card dealing damage to all other players, even those not in Tokyo - rolling a paw while trying to heal on her third roll. After a drought on heart roles for all players, Jen, in Tokyo rolled four paws, killing Cristian and Brandi (who had the target token) and bringing everyone to their knees. Donnie was able to eliminate Jen leaving Donnie and Dan to duke it out. It was a race for victory points, with Donnie getting there first.
The Resistance: Avalon (Brandi, Cristian, Dan, Donnie, Jamar, Jen) Cristian, using his evil Sauron eye CORRECTLY pegged Brandi and Donnie as spies immediately, but wasn't able to peg Emily as she was on her phone and he doesn't know her that well. The good guys were able win three of the first four missions. Fortunately the minions were observant and through process of elimination they were able to assassinate Merlin. Cristian and Jamar seemed convinced Emily was good eliminating them from contention. Whenever Jen was asked who to put on a team she always chose correctly for the good guys, and finally was caught making frantic eye contact with Jamar and Cristian, so the Minions were able to have a come from behind victory.
Merchant of Venus (Chris, Josh, Keith, Kyle) The game went about four and a half hours with three all new players. We played standard rules, up to 2000 galactic credits, but with a bunch of component modifications. Finding the original tech and equipment a bit dull, Chris added a bit of spice to them, mostly I think by adding various types of shields or lasers. I haven't played the base game so it's hard to know what was original and what was changed, but this version seemed to add a lot more variability on a players turn. Except for the play time I enjoyed the game a lot. It offers a great deal of strategy, and each player can hone their own play style based on the tech they get. Kyle was able to race around the board thanks to having tech that allowed him to bypass all yellow AND red spots, PLUS he had a ship that allowed him to roll four dice. Fortunately early this was balanced out as he was therefor only able to carry one good. He wasn't able to recover fast enough - upgrading his ship to carry two goods in time and finished in last. Josh went the real-estate investor route, piling on deed after deed. I believe he had a shield of a certain color, and moved fairly efficiently, finishing in third. I had a foil which allowed me to land on planets for free and more importantly a hyperspace jump tech which allowed me to jump to any hyper-gate on the board if the number matched a die I had rolled. It proved effective enough, especially later in the game to get me the second place finish... which means of course, Chris finished first. His victory was undoubtedly due to playing efficiently. His main tech ability allowed him to peek at one hidden token on the board per turn. He used it quite wisely and took the victory. I'll happily play this game again. It is thematic, strategic and most importantly, fun!