by Sharon Khan
I missed the April 2013 Gradpad for an ice hockey match, but was back this month, and for the whole day. We arrived at the start as usual, and we were looking for a filler to start with as others arrived. Tim suggested King of Tokyo and, on opening Paul's copy, I discovered he'd bought the expansion! It was interested to try it, but everyone's keen enough to "Power Up" made for a very slow game, as people were trying to roll hearts instead of claws, and it was quite easy to stay in Tokyo without being attacked for a whole round even! Eventually I bought some power ups that made me more aggressive, as well as powering up with an aggressive power up card (I was Meka Dragon), and finished off one player very quickly, and nearly took out a second. However, then Tim got to 20 points and won, having been quietly building them up all game!Next I was desperate to try the new Flash Point: Fire Rescue expansion (Urban Structures) with Paul. We tried the terraced house board, and had two players new to the game join us. Despite that we worked as a good team, and carefully kept the fire under control, while Douglas with his super-speed, and medic Jessica retrieved all the victims. A surprisingly easy win, but some nice tweaks due to the new map.
Then Jessica said that Paul had brought a new dungeon crawler to try, but knew I wasn't that keen on dungeon crawlers, or in fact new games right now - then I realised the game in question was Dorn, which I own and have played several times and enjoy with the right group (with the wrong one it turns into a four hour AP nightmare!). I explained the rules, but I think I did slightly misplay a few (timing issues on playing cards), which may have affected the game slightly. Anyway, the result wasn't in doubt from fairly on. The heroes made the mistake of splitting up, and I attacked Paul's heroes with all my monsters and took him out straight away. There was then a mad scramble for the other players nearby to take out enough of my monsters for me not to be able to repeat the incident, but it wasn't long before I'd taken out another hero. With only three heroes, and still hordes of monsters on the board I think we were all pretty sure I'd won, and sure enough I was rapidly able to take out two more heroes. Douglas made a suicide run opening the gate with the last hero to finish the game, and was wiped out. End of game, and in just under an hour - just the way I like it!
After lunch I moved groups, and started a game of Macao which, bizarrely, I hadn't played for months and then this was the second time in a week! I got out to an early VP lead with my cards, but had very few end-game points, while Ray was considerably behind all game, but with a large amount of end-game points. Pete however was victorious in the end, with Douglas, new to the game, just behind him. Douglas in particular had built up a very impressive array of cards - take a cube here, a cash there, convert this to that, pay this to do that, get a VP from that - so his turns required some time, and several pairs of hands to keep them moving speedily!!!
We then replaced Douglas with Colin, as Key Market started on a nearby table and Douglas was keen to try it, while Colin, having played it a few times before and not really enjoyed it, was more than happy to switch out. We pulled out Puerto Rico, and a 5 player asked if he could join us as we were setting up, needing a rules explanation (long time since I've given that for Puerto Rico!). It was quite an interesting game. Ray went tobacco early, while I went for coffee, and for a long time we were the only ones in cash crops, which gave us a distinct cash advantage. Meanwhile Pete and Colin were going for a very mega-corn shipping game, with the difference that Pete was also managing some trading with his large market, while Colin was very cash poor. Brett, new to the game, had experimented with various things, and come up with a reasonable shipping strategy, but also getting some cash from trading. Towards end game the roles were almost predictable round the table - Pete taking Craftsman, Colin shipping, as it was too painful for him if he didn't, Pete dumping his corn on a wharf, Colin in a boat, and Ray and I filling the other boats with our variety of goods. I had a harbour which was netting me lots of shipping points, as well as having the best cash position, although I never manned my last large building, and that was enough for the win, but Pete wasn't far behind.
I then asked if everyone would be happy to play The Princes of Florence, as it's a favourite of mine that I struggle to play at home as my husband isn't that keen, and it's also best with 5. I drew second position, which gave me the advantage on putting works on, and also got two jesters early on, with 1000 or 1100 seeming to be the going rate! Two other players competed for the building strategy, with the predictable resut of neither of them doing that well on it. My two early jesters, plus lots of recruiment cards, meant that my basic was way higher than anyone else's, and a nice mix of cards and appropriate buildings etc meant that I did every work I owned bar one for its maximum. Other bought bonus cards to win the odd 3 point bonus off me, but I got several over the game. I also managed a prestige card at end-game, which pulled me ahead for the win, with Brett, new to the game, in second, but everyone very close in points.
Pete and Ray left at this point, but Paul had been hovering for a game, spotting that we were about to finish, so we were now 4. I had brought Medina to play, so asked if they were happy to try that. It was new to them both, although Colin knew it. I expained the rules, and they both said it seemed quite simple - although they rapidly revised that opinion partway through the game, when they realised that although the rules were simple, the strategies weren't so simple! Coin got an amazing orange building, with the marketplace running right round it, as well as a number of wall and building bonus tiles, and those together decided the winner. I managed to get two nearby buildings that got me some bonuses for second, but just didn't have the same number of bonus tiles to go with it.
After that Paul suggested we try the other Flash Point: Fire Rescue Urban Strcutres board, and this turned out to be very addictive, and has put the expansion straight on my buy list. The extra twist of putting elevators in the middle of the board, and all the extra cubes going on the board from partition walls, even with teh abillity to remove them, totally defeated us, and we played it three times in a row trying to win the game, with varying success from obvious losses, to near wins. I think the ideas in this particular expansion are great, and am very keen to get it myself so I can explore this map fully, and find a strategy to win it more often! Unfortunately it currently appears to be out of stock everywhere, but hopefully it'll find its way back to stores sometime soon.
We then gained a few players for the usual end-of-evening lighter games. We started with another King of Tokyo game, again suggested by Tim. This time there was a bit more attacking, with three of going out fairly quickly due to some aggressive claw dice rolling. Robin, Colin and Tim were left in to fight it out between them, and Robin ended up victorious. A couple of players then left, and Adam joined us, and I suggested The Bucket King, which is one of my favourite fillers.
We then finished with Dixit Odyssey, which had some new twists upon Dixit that I hadn't come across before. With just 5 the removing an item aspect probably wasn't necessary but did add some more to the game. I managed to win, by guessing the right answer almost every time - which was odd, as I'm usually terrible at this game. We had a very amusing first card too, as I went for "Fee Fie Fo Fum" as my clue - for anyone English this was fairly obviously referring to the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk (actually it was a large plant that looked like a beanstalk), but to the German player it just sounded like complete gibberish and made no sense at all - after that we were all more careful to use phrases that weren't so obviously culture dependent!!