I know it’s not as if this blog has a huge readership that I can afford to have some go away and read something else. But I have to say the following. I don’t want to spoil the Rise of Fenris campaign for anyone.
SPOILER ALERT! The following post contains spoilers for the Rise of Fenris campaign for Scythe. If you haven’t played the expansion and wish to avoid any spoilers you may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.
Right if you are still here and read previous posts in this campaign log,I think it’s a log, you know what’s coming up next.
It was unlikely that Ben was going to turn up. His major life event was having complications. So I set up for three players but had Ben’s stuff to hand if he felt able to come along.
Sadly
Episode 7
The special setup rules for this episode saw the twelfth encounter token being used. This went on the factory space.
We also used the side of the Triumph Track not used in episode 2. Which meant this time it was…
This also meant we could have Rivals in this game too!
Setting up rivals was simple you “…declare “rivals” by placing 1 or more of your stars on other players’ home bases. You may place up to 4 of your stars this way, and you may place multiple stars on the same home base. All players do this simultaneously.”
I placed 2 stars on both Jeff and Shane’s home bases. Sharing the “love”.
This meant while Jeff and Shane had one of my stars on their home base they were a rival. Which also meant if I defeated them in combat I’d not only place one of those stars on the triumph but also get $5. The draw back for me was I could only place these stars on the triumph track by winning a combat.
Our goals were to win the game or find Tesla.
To find Tesla one player had to collect five encounter tokens (the number required changes with the player count).
The question I had was if I the Fenris player found Tesla did that mean he had been recaptured?
Our faction/player board match ups for this episode were as follows after randomly drawing the player boards.
- Vesna & Voltan/Mechanical (Cyan) – Jeff
- Rusviet Union/Innovative (Red) – Shane
- Fenris/Patriotic (Orange) – Me
Once again we were given the option to use the Wind Gambit expansion, and the Backup Plan resolution tile. So naturally they were going to be in play.
Opening turns saw us utilising our infrastructure mods to get that initial boost. I obviously unlocked my mech leap ability, and built my windmill, and doubled my initial produce action. Followed by an early recruit to get me three combat cards.
Naturally I wanted to get a good hand of combat cards to go with the soon to be unlocked death ray (ULAH!).
I did get the eight combat cards star on the Triumph track, and was now ready to start being aggressive and winning those combats.
Whilst I was doing all this slowly Jeff and Shane were getting encounter tokens.
I needed to start moving and getting rid of those influence tokens.
Slowly I started placing them around the board to try and slow down the other two. Whilst doing so I was able to win a combat or two and gather an encounter token or two.
Then I got my dream encounter card. I had just won a combat against Shane, and got $5 for my spoils. So I had the money (I did anyway) to pay for the option to copy an opponent’s faction ability for the rest of the game. This was in addition to my own.
As you can see I did a short Instagram video of my reaction to getting the Rusviet faction ability.
How how I miss this ability. It was time to abuse the move action to get out my remaining influence tokens.
If I hadn’t tied up four of my stars for rivals and combat I had got to the point where I had five stars out, and a possibility to get a sixth out without combat. However I had no option but to build up some bolster points to attack the weakest of my opponents to get that final star out.
With a 5 value combat card in hand, I got a single bolster point more than Shane. It was all I needed. Getting to this point had been costly. I had lost a combat against both of them. I had been hoping to keep their stars on the Triumph track to a lower count.
The end of the game was triggered. Then that Backup Plan resolution tile bit me in the butt. I hadn’t won. However that extra round enabled Shane and Jeff to knock me off two tiles and reduce my final score.
However I earnt enough to buy a mod at the end. Which was the important bit.
I also had three wild card stars to use on the triumph log. So I was able to complete more columns and rows putting me in a good end of game position for episode 8.
Ok Jeff has been winning the battles (well most of them) but the war/campaign is won at the end of episode 8.
Tesla wasn’t found. So we still got to open the last box, revealing a rather cool Tesla mini. But boy is he pissed apparently that we didn’t.
I can’t wait until our final game and find out what Tesla brings to the game.