Yesterday was meant to be a day off, with some gaming arranged for the evening.
But things change, and I ended up in work for three hours making sure we had enough people in store.
The important thing is that the gaming went ahead.
For me it was an evening of new to me games with great company.
Our first game was Jonathan’s copy of Sushi Roll, the dice version of Sushi Go!
After playing this game I was left feeling a little indifferent. Even now the next day having slept on it I still feel that way.
The original game Sushi Go! Isn’t the heaviest of games. The follow up Sushi Go! Party could be a bit more challenging depending on the menu you chose to play.
I had a pleasant time playing the game. I didn’t hate it.
But I’m just thinking why? Why did they feel that Sushi Go! needed a dice version?
Somehow they created a game that feels lighter than the original card game! Does it play quicker? Maybe, it’s close I think.
I got why they did Party. It added more variety, different styles, level of play.
The reason for this puzzles me.
I’d play it again. But I’d rather the card versions.
Jonathan won by the way!
Our second and last game of the evening was Colin’s copy of the sci-fi space themed version (follow up?) of Survive: Escape from Atlantis, Survive: Space Attack!
I really like the original version. There are not many intentionally mean games out there. Being mean to other players is baked into the game, it’s in its DNA.
Survive: Space Attack! brings that DNA to space with a couple of twists.
The first being the laser cannons and the four tiles they go on. Being on one of those tiles allows you to shoot one of the aliens and get control of that alien! Which takes it off the board, and then at the start of a future turn allows you to place it on an empty space tile of your choosing.
Also the end game trigger of the exploding reactor tile is one of the four tiles the laser cannons are on. So Space Attack lasts a little bit longer turn wise.
Fighters, single seat space ships are the dolphins of this version with the added power of being able to shoot aliens.
This next one could be house ruled in the original game, but you get a victory point for each corner you have managed to get at least one survivor to.
There is another side to the board used for challenges. But didn’t get a chance to look into that.
I really like this series of games and you get most out of it leaning into the mean side of it, playing the wounded innocent one when some-one reciprocates and kills one of your survivors.
We had a blast playing this. Charlene didn’t get any survivors to safety. But that might have been to inconveniently placed aliens by yours truly blocking her.
Somehow through all the chaos and screwing each other over Jonathan won!
It was a fun midweek gaming session. A big thank you to Jonathan, Charlene and Colin for coming along and making it so.
Compared to the previous game there was much more conflict going on. This was mainly due to the early conflict cards giving a victory point to the winner. Something we didn’t see in the previous game. The conflict cards giving control to one of the three city spaces along with the victory point also came up, along with the later cards being worth two victory points. You really couldn’t ignore combat in this game.
I was playing the Baron for the first time. I do like the choosing two factions ability he has. It’s a hard decision to make. I chose the Spacing Guild as one of them. The thinking was once triggered it’d help me get two influence on the track and open up the second space on the shipping track.
I ended up buying mainly emperor related cards in the trade row. These were giving me card draw. I was getting turns where I was drawing two or three extra cards.
Luckily I drew an intrigue card that allowed me to buy a dreadnaught for three solari early on. This helped greatly in those all important battles at the end of the round.
My purchase of my third agent was delayed by a round when Charlene took the space I needed on the shipping track as my first turn. But that’s the point of worker placement mechanics.
I triggered the end of the game with two rounds to spare by winning a combat worth two victory points.
Final scores
Four of my victory points were from the influence track plus an alliance, I bought one with an intrigue card, plus I got one from an endgame intrigue card. The rest of my victory points came from combat.
It was a good evening gaming. I just need to try and swap shifts so I can make the next one.
It really was great to play 7 Wonders Duel again. It’s still got the magic. But like the many fantastic two player games that I own it just doesn’t get the love it deserves. Mainly because not a lot of two player gaming gets to take place.
History and the bgstat app will record that I won with a scientific victory in the third age. What it won’t show is if it had gone the distance Nathan was in a much stronger position than me to claim a points victory.
After a break it was time to introduce Nathan to an uncooperative boardgame!
Yep Portal the uncooperative cake acquisition boardgame was going to test the father son bonds!
This is a great two player game, that I really do need to try at the higher player counts.
However in this game there was a lot of incinerating each other’s cake. With the last few turns getting very tactical. It looked like I was going to win by a single slice of cake. In fact the only slice of cake that would be left on the board. However in a last desperate move Nathan managed to force a tie by incinerating his and my last pieces of cake at the same time.
Which meant the game went to the tiebreaker, and having the most test subjects on the board meant I was able to claim victory.
After a home made sweet and sour pork for tea, and some episodes of South Park it was time to visit a galaxy far, far away, and play Star Wars Outer Rim with the Unfinished Business expansion.
As the embedded Instagram picture I shared below shows the game is a bit of a table hog. Especially on Nath’s table. We’d never have got a third or even fourth player round the table.
We cherry picked the bits from Unfinished Business that we’d add to the core game. The bits that made the cut were the core worlds, and ambitions. In a two player game I didn’t see much point playing with favours.
Below you can see which characters we chose to play and the ambitions.
Jyn managed to buy a YT-1300, which had a couple of mods that gave me a critical hit in combat, plus one that meant my opponents also rolled one less die.
With out those two mods I wouldn’t have been able to take on the empire patrols to enable me to attempt my final ambition condition.
Thanks to Nathan channelling his inner Jonathan for his dice rolls, whilst he was trying to do his final ambition and failing (several times) I was able to swoop in and grab victory by completing mine. I was greatly helped by Nathan rolling for the Empire.
You’ve probably guessed I won. Ten fame points and a completed ambition board.
With a weeks holiday ahead of me I took the opportunity to visit Nathan for a couple of days.
I arrived Monday afternoon managing to avoid any of the usual traffic jam points like the M25.
The evening saw me attempting to teach Nathan how to play Brazil Imperial to very limited success.
The map I chose was an official from the publisher that I got off the bgg page for the game.
It looked an interesting two player map with the island in the middle. The chances of combat were low for this map, which I thought was perfect for a learning game. One less thing to have to absorb.
Nathan was finding it hard to follow what was going on.
I don’t think it helped with Nathan’s focus that he had consumed approximately three quarters of a bottle of 1800 tequila.
So we gave up after an hour or so of play. He wasn’t enjoying it.
There was no point playing another game so we had a film night instead watching The Batman. I’m not sure I like the look of The Riddler in the movie. But it’s a pretty solid Batman effort with a focus more on the detective side of the character. Which I like. After all he is the worlds greatest detective!
Tuesday saw Alien Fate of the Nostromo hit the table for a learning game.
I had bought this for Nathan’s birthday after he had said he regretted not getting it on his recent holiday in the US.
Wow! I love that when you open up the box you are confronted by a hissing Jonesy. It’s a lovely bit of art that does take you a little by surprise.
I played Ripley with Nathan playing Dallas.
Being brave souls we also played with Ash. Which is meant to add a further complication to the game.
I really do like the art on the player boards. It really captures the characters from the movie. The publisher could have easily gone the movie stills route. But I’m glad they didn’t. This art looks so much better.
The miniatures in the game look very nice detail wise. Just a shame they are made from a very soft plastic. Maybe a better quality would have pushed up the final cost of the game. Let’s face it, as boardgames go this is not an expensive game. There is a mass market feel to it.
It’s also a big shame that Ash isn’t also a miniature instead of the standee.
I’m not sure if we misplayed a rule or two. But this felt suspiciously easy to win. Maybe we got lucky with the mission cards we drew for the game.
It’s just weird having played other Co-ops which even on their easy settings seemed more challenging.
Of cause it could be as the designer of the game Scott Rogers said we just got real lucky. Sometimes it happens.
Our three objectives for the game and the final mission.
We had fun playing the game. I liked the basic crafting mechanic. It definitely felt like Alien. Liked the fact when you encountered the alien you take a moral hit and run away. The encounter tiles added to the suspense, and making it feel like the movie.
Later on I introduced Nathan to the flip and write Welcome to the Moon. So you know what is coming now.
The following post may or may not contain spoilers for the Welcome to the Moon campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one if you plan to play the campaign and want to experience it’s twists and turns as surprises for yourself. REMEMBER you have been warned.
As I was setting up the game I noticed on the first adventures player board that there is a Dalek that looks like it might be trying to get on the rocket!
How did I not notice this before!
Nathan noticed it straight away.
What a bloody cool little easter egg to include.
The Dalek
I decided we would work our way through the campaign. So instead of reading all the text I summarised the story so far for Nathan.
We then played Adventure 1 which obviously we chose a different route to the other campaign. Once again I was the captain for our initial efforts.
This route had us remove the number 7 card from the game, plus we are able to choose the mission cards for each adventure.
Mission cards for adventure 1 (top) and adventure 2 (bottom)
Nathan won the first adventure to become the captain for adventure 2.
Just like our experiences in the other campaign play through, this second adventure caught Nathan unawares. He too had been lulled into that false sense of security and “simplicity” of the first adventure.
All of a sudden the complexity level was dialled up a few notches.
I think Nathan didn’t enjoy this adventure as much because of this.
Our twist in adventure 2 was that we could circle plants on any of the orbiting stations regardless of where we wrote the number.
Adventure 2 Chapter path taken: 148,79,106,92
Our evening was finished off with another movie night, this time we watched the Nicolas Cage move The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
A movie in which he plays himself! Who then gets roped in by the CIA to help rescue a kidnapped girl. It’s not a bad film. The de-aging of Cage is a bit ropey. Definitely one of his better recent efforts.
This is the first in a series of posts that will cover my first time playing through the campaign side of the flip and write Welcome to the Moon.
Although I’m sure if I play through the campaign on subsequent occasions I’ll blog about them also.
I’m going to try and theme the blog post titles with an appropriate inspired book/movie/song title/lyric that reflects the overall theme of that campaign game just played. Which may or not be harder than I think.
At the end of the campaign I’ll have a final post ranking the adventure sheets. Which is something I’ve seen one or two YouTube content creators do, so why shouldn’t I?
None of my coverage of this campaign will involve the Astra Solo mode that Welcome to the Moon has. As long suffering readers of this blog well know I don’t play solo. All the games will be two or more players.
Naturally these posts will all start the same with the all too familiar and totally necessary warning for those that have not played the campaign and want to remain pleasantly surprised as they play the campaign themselves. After all I don’t want to ruin anyones enjoyment of the game.
So here we go for the first time in these posts…
The following post may or may not contain spoilers for the Welcome to the Moon campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one if you plan to play the campaign and want to experience it’s twists and turns as surprises for yourself. REMEMBER you have been warned.
Before playing Welcome to the Moon I’d never played any of the previous Welcome to… games. That’s despite claiming to be a roll/flip and write fan. So you could argue that there is a gap in my roll/flip and write education.
To aid playing the game I created a couple of player aids. One based on the faq for the game, and another based on pages 5 and 6 of the rulebook that summarises a game turn and actions that can be taken. I thought it’d be handy to have the later with multiple players. These were both laminated.
I also printed out a copy of the last page of the campaign book which is the dashboard used to record scores during the campaign. I’m going to do this for each campaign and keep them as some sort of record!
This was a four player play through of the campaign. The group was made up of a varied range of experience to roll/flip and writes, and the Welcome to… games. This range from never played a roll/flip and write, to some experience, to experienced fans of the genre. Only one of us (Charlene) had played a Welcome to… game before.
Now with that bit of business out of the way.
Welcome to my first play through of the Welcome to the Moon campaign. Starting with…
ADVENTURE #1: THE LAUNCH
Captain: Me
I’m old enough to have fond memories of watching “classic” sci-fi movies from the 50’s and 60’s such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, and When Worlds Collide as a kid at every chance I had when they appeared on the tv schedule during the 70’s and 80’s.
The later of those “classics” seems very apt for the theme of Welcome to the Moon. Imminent disaster awaiting the earth, mankind looking to the stars for its survival.
The art, and aesthetic of the game gives off that retro sci-fi vibe of those movies. I love it.
Before we even start playing we had to make a decision. Did we want to play the introductory campaign and it’s gentle introduction to the eight adventures and the story, or jump right in with the second campaign and a recap of the story so far? It should be noted the introductory campaign adds no special rules or additional content. Changes to the game based on choices made only start to happen from the second campaign onwards.
We decided to jump right in to the deep end and start off with the second campaign.
The drawback of doing this is a bit of exposition covering the events that would have taken place if we had played through the introductory campaign.
It was interesting plot wise that time travel was introduced to take us back to the start as if nothing had happened. The story did briefly touch on that time travel paradox of changing the future. But it was dismissed in a sentence.
However I did feel this was a lot to read out aloud. But that’s the drawback of story based campaigns.
I liked this introductory adventure, where the aim was to launch your rocket.
Our choices added an extra two floors to the rocket.
This was the perfect adventure for players new to the genre and the Welcome to… games to start with.
Mechanically this adventure was fairly simple. It did have a limited bit of player interaction when sabotage effects were activated forcing system errors onto the other players. There is a little combo action that can take place. But not to the level of Three Sisters.
Otherwise this adventure gets players used to the flow of a Welcome to… game. The action symbols govern where you write the numbers on your rocket, and have no other effect.
Charlene triggered the end of the game by launching her rocket.
Chapter path taken: 109, 147,12,7,62,148
Missions:
Number the 3 Astronaut & Water floors completely.
Number the Energy floor completely.
Have 5 System Error boxes circled and not crossed off.
Winner: Charlene
ADVENTURE #2: THE JOURNEY
Captain: Charlene
The second adventure sees us having narrowly escaped Earth, flying our rocket ships to the moon.
The first adventure was very deceptive and lulled you into a false sense of security.
It did feel like a big jump in complexity. I think our noob to the genre felt that they were suddenly in the deep end of the pool and out of their depth.
All of a sudden being first to complete something on the board mattered (excluding missions). It gave you a better bonus or multiplier than the others.
This adventure saw an event card shuffled into one of the three starship decks. When drawn the event would trigger.
Sadly when the event did occur I mucked it up. Focussing on achieving a mission objective whilst screwing myself over and forcing a system error on my next turn.
System errors bought the game to an end, and Charlene won again.
Chapter path taken: 177,34,92
Missions:
Circle a multiplier bonus for 3 different space stations with the robots.
Using the energy, create on your trajectory 2 zones of 6 numbered spaces.
Circle 6 water tanks.
Winner: Charlene
ADVENTURE #3: THE COLONY
Captain: Charlene
In this adventure we were building the first lunar colony on the moon.
Once again a decision added a modification to the player board. This time the lower quadrant of the board was replaced and the first person completing it getting a choice of ten victory points or an additional star.
There was definitely a soduku feel to the mechanisms of this adventure. Our noob player found this adventure much easier than the previous one.
In addition to the system errors giving you negative points at the end, using a planning action would also do the same.
I did feel playing this adventure I hadn’t done enough to get the resources to make effective use of the multipliers I had unlocked.
Once again a system error bought the game to a halt. However this time I was able to win the game, and get an extra star for having completed the quadrant first.
Chapter path taken: 111,15
Missions:
Number all the buildings in 3 vertical columns.
Using the robots, connect the tunnel network to the observatory in the top right corner of your sheet.
Circle all the water tanks in 2 quarters.
Winner: Me
ADVENTURE #4: THE MINE
Captain: Me
The fourth adventure has our colony on the moon mining it for resources.
We found the rules for this adventure a little confusing initially. Which I think added a little to the feeling of it being more complex than the previous adventure.
Once again an event card was added to one of the three starship decks. But this one added an interesting twist.
When it triggered it cut down the number of starship decks from three to two. Still the same number of cards, just less choices each turn. You’d be surprised how big a difference that makes.
Like the previous two adventures system errors triggered the end game.
Like the previous adventure I won.
Chapter path taken: 139,80,82
Missions:
In the mine, complete 5 extraction columns.
Upgrade or activate a total of 6 factories, either main or secondary.
Circle 5 waters in the mine, whether they are extracted or not.
Winner: Me
Final dashboard at end of session and half way point in campaign
Some final thoughts…
My earlier expectations were we might get the first couple of adventures played, and then play something else.
It was a pleasant surprise that we played the first four adventures of the campaign.
I like that the campaign cards are a mix of dry erase cards, and cards you mix into the starship deck. The dry erase cards modify the player boards. Which adds a cool bit of variety.
However with four adventures left it feels like we have hardly scratched the surface of the cards used with the starship deck. I think we have used three cards so far!
I like how event cards trigger complications during an adventure.
It’s very cool each adventure can be explained in a couple of pages. However on at least one occasion I think there could have been a bit more clarity if more space had been used.
Although each adventure uses the same core mechanic, it’s amazing how they all feel different with just a couple of rule changes.
I’m looking forward to playing the remaining four adventures of the campaign.
Friday evening was another really well attended club night.
It saw the return of a missed member, new members attending for the first time, and regular faces.
If the head count was accurate then there were seventeen like minded individuals gathered round tables, rolling dice, playing cards, and exploiting any misplay made by others.
Surely it won’t be long before we break into twenty plus members attending a club night.
You already know that Gavin and I have entered into a deal that sees me exchange hard earned mullah for his copy of Marvel Champions.
My first game of the evening was the latest Stonemaier Games release, the tenth anniversary co-op micro game for two players, Smitten, with Jonathan.
The art on one of the Smitten cards reminded me of a card in MtG. A quick search found the card I’d been thinking of, it was Arcane Flight. Take a look at the two cards side by side below, what do you think?
Am I the only one that sees a similarity?
The game does play really fast. And very quick to learn.
I love the limited communication you are allowed.
I was definitely getting some The Mind vibes whilst playing Smitten.
For me this is another great example of what can be achieved with just eighteen cards, like Love Letter.
Smitten might have just become my go to two player filler game.
Jonathan and I failed. But we enjoyed ourselves.
My second, but the others I was playing with first game of the evening, was Wingspan.
I used the official app for the final scoring instead of the supplied score pad. Probably the first time in actual anger.
It worked well, very little overhead in using, with the only setup being selecting which expansions if any you are using, and player names.
I really like that quick setup and straight into using.
It didn’t change the final result with me coming in last.
My final game of the evening was a couple of games of Sushi Go! Party.
Because we were all experienced gamers we went with “gamie” oriented menus.
Game 1 Menu
Game 2 Menu
These were fun.
I love how the different menus just shake things up depending on what sort of game you want, or who you are playing with.
If you just look at the wins and losses, then the evenings gaming was a bad day at the office.
But that doesn’t tell the full story.
I had a great evening gaming with friends, did and saw some cool turns.
And that’s the more important thing. Winning is just icing on the cake.
Last night it was that time once again for Fenland Gamers to meet up and play some games.
I’d been lucky with my shift for the day with it finishing at 6pm. Which meant I was going straight from work to the club night. But also I wouldn’t be missing the evening of gaming.
Club night would mark the start of four days off. I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off the much needed r&r.
This was another really well attended evening with seventeen folks turning up. Which included four new faces.
Charlene and myself played Tapestry with three of them.
This wasn’t my copy of the game so we were playing with only the Arts and Architecture expansion. The cards were also unsleeved. Oh the horror of naked cards!
My Leaders were conquering artists. Sadly I got my butt handed to me, the sixty point victory point starting position for The Chosen was too much. But I did get my personal best five player score!
Our second game of the evening was the WotC “filler” card game Dungeon Mayhem.
This is a really fun card game. It’s quick and easy to play.
However it does have one “mechanic“ in it that I really dislike. That may not be a strong enough description but it’ll do for now.
That “mechanic” is the physical activity. For example I had a card in my deck that required players to perform a little dance. Charlene had one that required players to give her praise.
Why? It’s not fun!
But despite that major drawback it is a fun game. And even with players getting knocked out they are still semi involved in the game play.
This will have to join the rotation of games going into the game bag for club nights.
With the game of Dungeon Mayhem I completed one of my gaming challenges for the year.
Yep I’ve played forty new to me games this year so far.
I still find it hard to believe that I’ve played that many new to me games.
As it stands at the moment approximately two thirds of the games I’ve played this year have been new to me.
With roughly forty five percent of those new to me games being games owned by others.
Don’t hold me to those percentages I’ve spitballed those figures as rough guesstimates, they may vary by a percent or two if I actually calculated them. But they are close enough.
Using the 3×3 functionality of the bgstat you can see what those forty games were below.
I’m not going to increase the challenge even with three months of the year left.
But it will be very interesting to see how many new to me games I actually do end up playing at the end of the year.
The drawback of my new role is that my days off each week move around. So it’s not guaranteed I am off at the weekend or even our fortnightly club meet-ups.
What this means is I am more reliant on ad-hoc gaming sessions and peoples availability mid-week than ever to get any gaming it.
Luckily Thursday evening Marcin, Charlene, and Julie were free to play a game of Brazil Imperium.
Who played who in Brazil Imperium
Once again I went with some synergy with my era cards. Once again it was paintings that was the linking factor.
Whilst the others went after resources or built as their first actions I went after a painting. Particularly as the one I grabbed allowed me to use gold cards as science tokens, followed a couple of turns later by grabbing a painting that allowed me to use wool as gold.
So for much of the early game I felt I was playing catch up to the others as I kind of started setting up a paintings engine in my early turns that would give me early access to science, and worked towards my objectives.
It felt very explosive once I did start building and expanding my empire.
Marcin was the first to complete the first era and the second. However I wasn’t far behind completing my first two era objectives.
However my early investment in the painting engine paid off and I was in a great position to complete my third era objective and trigger the end of the game.
After all the tallying was done Marcin’s more aggressive building snagged him a comprehensive victory.
Having chosen a four player map that was in the middle for the chance of conflict between players, there was no conflict. The opportunities were there. Particularly against my empire as it was fairly late compared to the others that I had my monarch out, or built up my forces for my final era objective.
Final Brazil Imperium scores
It had seemed a good idea to game Thursday evening. But as I woke up Friday morning at ten past four the next morning to get ready for work it seemed less so.
The plus point for my tired body was my shift was only five hours.
However my other brilliant idea a couple of days earlier was to arrange a session to play Twilight Imperium if it arrived in time that evening.
Luckily my optimism was well placed and Twilight Imperium did arrive whilst I was at work. So the gaming session could go ahead.
I spent a therapeutic half hour sleeving the cards in Twilight Inscription. Luckily I had just enough. But it was close. Damn close.
The rest of the afternoon before the session was spent watching YouTube rules videos for the game, reading the rules, and dozing off. Yep I was apparently tired!
For some reason I had got it in my head that Twilight Inscription played between one and four players.
But it does not.
Twilight Inscription actually plays up to eight players!
Who played which faction
Which kinda makes sense considering the game it’s meant to be based on also plays that many.
However! I don’t think I’ll ever play with more than four players just on a practical level.
This game is a space hog.
My mind boggles at the size table you’d need for that player count. There is no way everyone would see the Mecatol board and the four objective cards. However I can see this working as a remote play game if everyone playing has a copy.
On the 6ft by 2.5ft table we were on it would have been snug with a fourth player but possible.
Twilight Inscription is both a flip and write AND a roll and write. It makes great use of both. You work through the event deck that gives you resources in an expansion event or triggers a warfare or political event. Plus during the expansion event you also roll the dice to get further resources to use. I quite like this combo, it works really well here.
Let’s address the elephant in the room about Twilight Inscription. This is not a cut down version of Twilight Imperium. It really is it’s own thing set in the Twilight Imperium universe.
It does have a 4X feel, after all each of the four player boards is one of those X’s. However the only real player interaction comes in the form of the voting and warfare.
Component wise it knocks it out of the park. The dice are large chunky affairs that feel really nice to roll. But you do need big hands to roll all six at once. The chalk pens I like. You do need a cloth to clean the boards with at the end. It is a pain to use the erasers on the ends of the supplied pens. But the chalk pens don’t smudge once dry on the board. Which is really important in the game as you play the game moving between the various player boards.
Political cards we voted on
Compared to other roll and writes Twilight Imperium takes a lot of setup. You are constructing the event deck, shuffling the artifact deck, randomly selecting objectives and political cards, choosing a faction to play.
Objectives we could claim
For me I did feel I was empire building, exploring the stars and battling my neighbours. So I think the theme came through.
If you don’t ever play eight players then selecting player boards randomly, and using the unique side of each board, with one of the 24 factions. Then there is an incredible amount of variety each game. With no two games being the same from a player setup side of things.
The political and objective decks are very small, and would have been nice to have more cards for these. I can see these feeling very tired very quickly. The event deck could have done with having more cards too.
I don’t really think I can give advice on how to play this after a single game and how badly I did.
I got my arsed kicked royally in this first game as the scores below show. But I still had a blast playing the game.
Final Twilight Inscription Scores
My run of “great” decisions continues today with an afternoon of D&D before doing a seven hour shift!
Not our usual (post lockdowns) numbers with only seven attending.
But then again with her majesty the Queen passing away the previous day and the new King, King Charles III making his first official broadcast to the nation at 6pm.
Was it any real surprise? Even the numbers in the bar area were down (considerably) and no food as they decided to close for the night as a sign of respect.
The positive side of all this was I got to play some games with Jonathan.
We started off playing a quick game of Riverside. I’m still really liking this roll and write.
Our second game of the evening was a three player game of Santorini New York.
Chris our third player hadn’t played the game before so we started off with the recommended role cards for new players to the game (see below).
Recommended role cards for new players
Our first game saw Jonathan eliminated from the game with all his workers removed from the board. I won that game. It felt like a double win with Jonathan being knocked out like that.
The next game saw a determined Jonathan wanting to redeem himself. Which he did by winning.
Our third and final game I decided to shake things up a little and select new role cards for the game (see below).
Role cards used in our final game
I chose roles that looked interesting and fun to play.
Which they were.
Chris won this last game.
I really do like Santorini New York as that multiplayer version of the original game. However the rulebook does leave a lot to be desired especially on clarifying what is classified as an unoccupied space.
Santorini New York
Our final game of the evening was Sushi Go Party!
We went with the “Party Sampler” menu.
Sushi Go Party! Menu played
Obviously we played over the standard three rounds.
I fell behind the other two during the first round trying to play the long game with the green tea ice cream. Hoping to make up any short fall in the final scoring with them.
Alas that was not the case, the gap was too much. Chris ran away with the victory.
Who Won What Game
Yes it wasn’t an evening of heavier games. But they were fun games that we played. And just important we had a good time.
Last night saw three of us compete for the playmat from the first organised play kit of season 1, plus a promo Freddy Usher vampire card.
For this “tournament” we used the new Prague City Deck from the Heart of Europe expansion.
We were using the tournament rules scoring for our games (see below).
Scoring from VtM Tournament Rules
The winner would be the player with the highest score at the end of the evening.
I know Diego and myself were playing our own created decks. I think Marcin said he was also using a deck he created.
Below are our chosen leaders for the evening.
Our leaders for the evening
Our first player was chosen randomly using the bgstat at the start of each game. Naturally for the first game we would also be placing our “Haven, starting vampire (Leader), and Agenda face down. Only after each player has placed these 3 cards are all starting vampires and Havens revealed. Agendas remain face down until a player chooses to flip theirs face up.” VtM Tournament Rules
Game 1
Rivalries: Diego was mine, Marcin was Diego’s, and I was Marcin’s.
Wow the City deck was so mean this first game.
After two rounds all four of the Second Inquisition Team-X Operatives were out in the street. That’s two aggregated damage, discarding a card , plus! losing a prestige point each turn.
Not only that but hardly any mortals, vagrants or citizens came out. It was event after event!
We were finding it hard to build up cards in our hands, and thus options on our turns.
Sometimes this sort of thing happens in games like this. You just don’t draw the cards you need. In our case it was the City deck doing its worst. It could easily have been not drawing the cards we needed from our libraries (as well).
You just have to accept this sort of thing happens. Get through the game, and cling on to the hope that the cards will be kinder next game. Although sometimes the cards do really hate you and don’t improve.
Whilst both Diego and Marcin had revealed their agenda cards I hadn’t. Mine was a mystery to them. Although Diego suspected he knew what it was.
This was a slow game thanks to the mean street.
No mortals or citizens meant I wasn’t burning them and able to create wraiths. The couple that did appear got turned into retainers by the other two.
I wasn’t hitting my mill cards.
I had plenty of prestige thanks to the couple of high blood potency valued cards in Diego’s library. So I was in a good place on that front.
Eventually after the constant Second Inquisition battering we were taking Diego was able to deliver a knock out blow to Marcin’s only remaining vampire and get the win.
I never revealed my agenda. The mystery carried over into our next game.
Game 2
Rivalries: Marcin was mine, I was Diego’s, and Diego was Marcin’s.
This was a much quicker game.
Diego had a good start from the off. The street was a bit kinder to us.
I was able to create a wraith on my leader. But thanks to Diego that didn’t last long to have any effect.
But in reality I wasn’t able to get my pieces into place to put my game plan into action. Diego wasn’t allowing me the time.
Marcin wasn’t able to stop Diego delivering the knockout blow to me.
It was back to back wins for Diego and a commanding lead.
I still hadn’t revealed my agenda in this game.
Game 3
Rivalries: Marcin was mine, I was Diego’s, and Diego was Marcin’s.
This game took much longer to play than the previous one.
I needed to slow Diego down. So some of my early turns involved playing cards that in reality should have been played on my rival. But they had the desired effect.
We did get an early Second Inquisition that was joined by a second. But Diego took one out. Otherwise the street was fairly kind.
There was even a nice number of mortal and citizens building up in the burn pile.
Mid game Marcin had Diego on the ropes. Barely holding on. Victory was looking imminent for him. My earlier actions to slow Diego down had been too effective!
I needed to intervene.
Ok what I did was something I was going to be doing eventually. It just had to be sooner than I wanted. I had wanted to play a ritual or two to take advantage of the pile of bodies in the burn pile, and increase my havens secrecy. But keeping Diego alive was more important.
My intervention emptied Marcin’s hand of cards, stopped him playing particular cards. Just making it harder for him to attack Diego, and if he did so not do lots of damage.
It worked.
Diego was able to hang on in there, stabilise and build up again.
Whilst Diego and Marcin traded blows, my mill plan kicked in on Marcin.
I had a handful of cards. Lots of options.
Diego was going in for the kill on Marcin.
Luckily pointing out that Diego’s attacking party wasn’t as boosted as he had hoped meant Marcin’s last vampire survived by a single blood.
Which is how that surviving vampire was left at the end of Marcin’s turn after the Second Inquisition had done their one point of aggregated damage.
Being the opportunist I am I had a chance to grab victory by a knock out! I know, not my battle plan. But still never look a gift horse in the mouth. And it would have been rude not to take advantage of Diego’s hard work.
So in a rare move for me I moved into the street and did a mental attack on Marcin’s vampire to deliver the knock out blow, and grab victory.
Guess what? I still hadn’t revealed my agenda.
At the end of the evening and three games, once all the dust had settled, points tallied up, the victor and winner of the OP Kit 1.1 Playmat was Diego. However with there only being three of us we all got a promo Freddy Usher vampire card.
Final scores per game, agenda points in brackets
This was a fun evening of playing Rivals. I think we had everything you could see in an evening.
