Two weeks has just flown by. Last night saw another club night of gaming on a Friday evening at our fantastic hosts The Luxe Cinema.
Once again the evening was well attended. And that’s despite life forcing two attendees to stay away until they are clean again! So instead of 10 attending we had 8.
I’d spent the afternoon combining the Oceania expansion for Wingspan into my copy of the game, in the hope it might get to the table in the evening.
However I’d forgotten Gavin had wanted to try Dune Imperium which I also had with me. So that once more hit the table. I’m not complaining I love the game. I got to try another leader Helena Richese, which was forced on me because Julie took Duke Leto this time. I do think the next couple of club nights I’ll be leaving the game at home, unless someone asks me to bring it along.
You can see below who played what in this game.
I really liked Helena and her on going ability as it changed drastically how I played the game. Basically I didn’t have to worry about those spaces unless I wanted the mentat. It took the pressure off taking them before anyone else. The signet ring ability was also pretty cool. For me I was pretty restrained in using it to hate remove a card to deny the others. I only did that once to remove a card that when purchased pushed the player up one spot on all the influence tracks.
Like our game of Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, Gavin’s deck hated him! Which tainted his experience a little I think. It’s fair to say that Gavin didn’t enjoy Dune Imperium. Part of that was having to play cards with the relevant symbol on to go to a space. Often there would be a space he’d want to go to but not have the card to do it. I don’t see that as an issue. I’ve experienced it. I had it in the previous games, and I had it in this one. However I looked at what I could do, and tried to use those to set up a big future turn.
I was pretty chuffed that I got both Jessica cards and got to play them together. They combo nicely.
This game went to the last conflict round. Up for grabs were two influence track positions for the winner. This was crucial to my plan. Diego and I were neck and neck. I’d got two intrigue cards that would get me victory points. However I failed on one of them because I was short by 1 persuasion to buy one of the spice must flow cards. That would have nabbed me 2 victory points if I’d had enough!
I did have enough spice to buy the other victory point though.
The crucial part of my plan? Oh that was to win the combat, jump up two spaces on the Fremen influence track and take the Fremen alliance from Diego. Basically forcing a 2 point swing. Diego would lose a point and I’d gain one. That’s how things unfolded. My forces stormed to victory on the combat phase. And the victory was even more sweet having pulled off this point steal.
Whilst basking in the glow of victory we decided to play For Sale.
I hadn’t played For Sale before. So after a quick run through of the rules from Gavin, bidding commenced.
There really isn’t much to the game.
However I enjoyed the bidding round. I like the choices you have to make. Like when to drop out, or do you try and force the price up to drain your opponents of money? I did deliberately start the bidding high on one occasion to drain the others of money. I think that worked this game as I was able to pick up the two highest value cards.
The purchase round was also fun. I liked the playing of cards blind then all revealing at the same time. I think it was easy for me to get the two highest value cards. All I had to do was save the two highest cards for those rounds. I also through away my lowest cards when there was no 0 cost card to get.
Obviously this time these tactics worked for me as I won.
I liked the game. It’s relatively quick to play and teach. Has some decision making to make. It’s fun. A nice filler game.
I finish this post about a great evening gaming (any evening when I win the games I play is great) with a picture of the other table and some photos taken by Jonathan. I’m sure Jonathan will be kind to us and leave a comment sharing which games they played.
Eddie brought along a game that is new to the group, Dungeon Draft. I’d never heard of it. Apparently it is from a small publisher, Upper Deck Entertainment (Legendary being their most well-known game). It was decided that Eddie could teach the game to us.
Now, I’m not a fan of the fantasy theme in games and not all that keen on card drafting, which is the core of the game (no surprises there with a name like Dungeon Draft – the clue’s in the title). However, for the sake of my fellow gamers, I decided to put up with those issues. This was to be a 4-player game with myself, Eddie, Martin and Marcin.
The game is played over four rounds, each player drafting a hand of cards each round and then playing out their hand of cards how they choose. The first drafting round was one of those games where 3 of us didn’t really know what was going on, but when Eddie took his first round turn after the draft we soon realised what we were supposed to be doing. The second round was better, with the subsequent rounds getting more and more intuitive. I managed to somehow win the first game.
Eddie asked that as we were now familiar with the game, if we wanted to have another game. We all said we’d give it another go now we were familiar with what was going on.
I also managed to pull off another win, which is absurd for a first time at playing.
Now for my verdict, taking into account my normal gaming preferences mentioned above. Well, this game was absolutely brilliant! I really, really enjoyed it a lot. It was quick to play and made sense. This would immediately go on my wantlist if it wasn’t for the fact that I would not actually get to play it within my immediate family. As Eddie has a copy at the group I can play his copy with him when he brings it along. I’d be happy to play this again :)
A really good night gaming with excellent company.
Was it just the one game you played twice then?
Oh and thanks for the report from the other table.
Yes, we only played the one game. I was keen to get a new game to the table, Spy Connection, but because Dungeon Draft was so good, I wasn’t disappointed at all.
Interesting I had it down it was a quicker game to play