With a snappy post title like the above I bet you guessed I’m down visiting Nath. Which means Father/Son gaming (well when he’s not working).

Our scarce time together means we have to have to be “selective” in what we play. No epic marathon games here. We are talking a maximum of an hour to play. So I’d bought Imperial Settlers, Roll for the Galaxy, Run Fight or Die, 7 Wonders Duel, Epic, Magic duel decks, Qwixx and Star Wars Timelines, with me.

While Nath was working Kate popped round with a spare house key for me to use. In return I introduced her to Pokemon Go (we even visited a couple of local poke-stops), followed by teaching her Qwixx.

Qwixx is proving a great popular gateway game! It really has been enjoyed by everyone I’ve shown it to. Kate was no exception. I should point out Kate is not a gamer, Nath taught her Star Realms once. But that is about it as her experience of “modern” hobby gaming goes.

After playing our introductory game of Qwixx, Kate asked if she could borrow it over night. That’s a “I like this” if ever I saw/heard one. And yes I let Kate borrow Qwixx.

After Nath got back from work, and we scoffed some food, Nath’s copy of Star Realms hit the table. We were playing basically everything that had been released thrown into one deck – excluding the majority of the year one promos (but the Hero Realms Kickstarter is closing that gap).

Our first game was a fairly easy victory for Nath. Nothing memorable about except he kicked my butt.

Game two saw my come back. One of my gambits allowed me to get rid of my vipers on turn one, so I was just drawing econ cards.

I had a nice bases strategy going. I had two copies of one of the Colony Wars Trade Federation bases that each gave me two gold to spend each turn. However get a third base out with them and each gave me four authority and allowed me to draw a card. Tie this in with an Embassy Yacht you can be drawing four cards on a turn, plus getting eleven authority, and six gold to spend! That’s insane!!! And I got that combo firing more than once during our game.

In the end I was in the eighties for my authority when I destroyed Nath to go even on wins.

A tie breaker was needed.

It all started so well. Nath had the black market gambit card which gave him exclusive buys at a reduced cost. Boy did that work for him. It kept filling up with one cost cards, which meant they were free! I just thought “great, keeping spamming your deck with cheap cards, that will water his deck down nicely.”

It wasn’t long before I had Nath on the ropes and down to seven authority. My bases were doing a good job protecting me, I was keeping his bases out of play, my authority was in the sixties. It was looking good. If only I had been able to deliver that killing blow of seven authority, but the cards had decided against that.

In fact the cards had then decided to be kind to Nath, his authority crept up, while mine plummeted down. In the end Nath was able to destroy my galactic empire. But it had been an epic struggle. My bases and outposts had posed a formidable wall that had held off the onslaught for a long time. But once they crumbled it was over.

That victory gave Nath the over all win also, beating me 2-1.

After that draining third match we had a short break. A break really was needed.

Time to teach 7 Wonders Duel. We know what I think of this game, but would Nath enjoy it?

We used the suggested starting wonders for a first game. It made sense, Nath wouldn’t know what is good or bad in a draft.

Our first game actually went to points. The first time I’ve had a game get to this. It actually finished pretty close really, with me winning 52 points against Nath’s 46 points.

“Can we play again?” Nath asked. Wow a sure sign he liked it I think.

Some games just turn on one moment in time during the game. Our second game had such a moment. In the second age I was three points of being defeated by Nath with a war victory. Two cards left, the last one being a war card that I couldn’t stop Nath getting. If he got it, game over.

I had the wonder that allowed me to install a card from the discard pile for free when completed. Early in the round Nath had discarded my glass production card and I’d been planning to use this wonder to fish that back. But now I had to complete it and hope I could find a solution to save my skin in the discard pile. As luck would have it there was. A two shield thingy war card was in the pile. I installed that, moved the counter back two spaces. That was all I needed to do, I couldn’t die now when Nath took the remaining card.

From there Nath wasn’t able to recover in the final age. A points victory for me was assured.

“Another game?” I’m beginning to think Nath likes the game as much as I do.

Our third game saw me win with a scientific victory. Nath hadn’t spotted I had built up a nice collection in the first age. At the end of the second age I was one science symbol away from victory. I had no other plan, if it went to points I’d lose, and Nath was pushing a military win.

I dealt out the cards for the third age, the final science card I needed was in the first row dealt, so would be reached last. More than enough war cards were coming out to Nath’s delight.

The last two cards were placed. One of the the science cards I needed was one of the two cards. But who was going first? It was my choice being the weaker military side. Oh I think I’ll go first then. Science wins!

Phew that could so easily have gone Nath’s way. Luck if the draw again!

Nath wanted to play again, boy is he living this game. Sadly it was late now and being an old man I was really tired. So we called it a night there.

But some great memorable games played this evening.