On Sunday Steve, Eric, and I got together for some holiday board games. We started with Race for the Galaxy with the new expansion. Solid game with I think Steve winning. Susanne came by while we finished so I taught her the game quickly while the guys scarfed on home made chili and hot dogs.
The second game had Susanne getting some great cards and she played them well for her first game. In the end it was very close with me eking out a win at the last by one point.
Susanne took off and the three of us played a new game that Eric picked up called Cave Troll, as in "They have a Cave Troll" fame. :) It was a fun little game. I know Eric was hoping for more PvP in the game, but it was still a good, quick played dungeon crawl type. I one our game with a solid lead thanks to Steve and Eric beating each other up.
Rob came by just as we finished and he joined in a game of Agricola. I do enjoy this game, but I need to remember that it doesn't play as fast as I think it does. I had to pack up an bail at 5 and we were only on round 8 or so which was sad, but the guys pressed on with Steve taking the game after Eric gave him a solid run.
On Monday Steve, Susanne and I took to the road and went to the Star Wars in Concert event in Des Monies. The concert was pretty good and they had Anthony Daniels as he narrator. We all enjoyed the show which lasted about 2 1/2 hours or so. The orchestra was very good as were the chosen visuals. Afterwards we met TJ and Casey for dinner at Fong's Pizza which is one of the coolest themed pizza places I've been to. I had a slice of the Thai Pizza that was outstanding. It was good to see TJ and Casey, but they were off to the late version of the show and we all took off shortly after eating.
This month looks to be a grind at work. Most likely traveling every week... Grrrr....
Hope you all get some good gaming in!
jp
Showing posts with label Agricola. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agricola. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Saturday Gaming, Friday Edition
I took some comp time on Friday given all the travel I had been doing. If nothing else I earned a butt load of credit and travel comp time to use the past three weeks.
Steve was between mid shifts so I invited him over for some gaming after he had his sleep. He showed at 2 and we had a chance to play a few games. We started with Song of Blade and Heroes. It was the first time for Steve to play and only my second. He had some painted Gladiator figures from a game that Suzanne got him at GenCon, so I created a gladiator list for him that was pretty nifty. I broke out my GW Dwarves and created one for me.
It was a good solid intro to the game. I had a few extra numbers on Steve, but he had the quality troops. Despite my slow speed, I was able to get up on the hill to move closer to Steve's force, but it was Gladiator Boris' Berserk combined with Reckless that issued first contact. Unfortunately, since he always had to advance, he couldn't get an attack off, allowing the Slayer to hit and take him out early. Additionally the Iron Guard were able to gang up on LeRoy to take him out on turn five or so with a "Gruesome Kill", causing his band to fall back. That is when the tide turned and the remaining gladiators said, "Hey, it is only Dwarves! Come on!"
I moved my Commander too close and he was netted and killed pretty easily. That caused my forces to fall back twice, once from the dead leader and once for being under 50% strength. The band dispersed to the wind and they never recovered. Steve was able to pick off the rest of the band solo fashion, while the gunners tried vainly to pick off approaching forces.
In the end Steve won taking out all the Dwarves. We chatted about the game and both liked the system and may try to set up a campaign with the gang as it seems to play quick and simple.
We then set up a game of Agricola then ran down to Hectors for dinner real quick. Good Mexican food and pretty solid pricing. If I could drink I would have had the Dos Equis Amber, from what I remember of my beer drinking it is yummy. As it was I had two tacos and was pretty full. Steve, The Other Half, and I had a pleasant conversation while waiting and eating.
When we got back to the house we started up Agricola had a few rounds and Paul showed to deliver me a printed copy of the Song of Blades and Heroes series as he has access to some great printers at work that can handle the job effectively. We chatted for 1/2 hour or so then Paul headed down to the Shoppe while Steve and I finished up the game. Steve went with a Occupation and Improvement strategy, trying to leverage all the freebies to get extra resources. I focused on a little of everything, but tried to get the extra actions (babies) as early as I could. With the expansion rules, the new fuel requirements kept playing havok on my wood collection, slowing down my fence building. Steve ran into trouble at the end between feeding his large family or building a stone home. He ended up feeding the family as it looked to be more points then those lost on the home. Final score was 28 to 37 in my favor, with my concentration on card point improvements making the difference.
Good solid afternoon/evening of gaming. Thanks for coming over Steve and hope you made it through the Mid-shift OK!
jp
Off to Lincoln for WM Tournament.
Steve was between mid shifts so I invited him over for some gaming after he had his sleep. He showed at 2 and we had a chance to play a few games. We started with Song of Blade and Heroes. It was the first time for Steve to play and only my second. He had some painted Gladiator figures from a game that Suzanne got him at GenCon, so I created a gladiator list for him that was pretty nifty. I broke out my GW Dwarves and created one for me.
It was a good solid intro to the game. I had a few extra numbers on Steve, but he had the quality troops. Despite my slow speed, I was able to get up on the hill to move closer to Steve's force, but it was Gladiator Boris' Berserk combined with Reckless that issued first contact. Unfortunately, since he always had to advance, he couldn't get an attack off, allowing the Slayer to hit and take him out early. Additionally the Iron Guard were able to gang up on LeRoy to take him out on turn five or so with a "Gruesome Kill", causing his band to fall back. That is when the tide turned and the remaining gladiators said, "Hey, it is only Dwarves! Come on!"
I moved my Commander too close and he was netted and killed pretty easily. That caused my forces to fall back twice, once from the dead leader and once for being under 50% strength. The band dispersed to the wind and they never recovered. Steve was able to pick off the rest of the band solo fashion, while the gunners tried vainly to pick off approaching forces.
In the end Steve won taking out all the Dwarves. We chatted about the game and both liked the system and may try to set up a campaign with the gang as it seems to play quick and simple.
We then set up a game of Agricola then ran down to Hectors for dinner real quick. Good Mexican food and pretty solid pricing. If I could drink I would have had the Dos Equis Amber, from what I remember of my beer drinking it is yummy. As it was I had two tacos and was pretty full. Steve, The Other Half, and I had a pleasant conversation while waiting and eating.
When we got back to the house we started up Agricola had a few rounds and Paul showed to deliver me a printed copy of the Song of Blades and Heroes series as he has access to some great printers at work that can handle the job effectively. We chatted for 1/2 hour or so then Paul headed down to the Shoppe while Steve and I finished up the game. Steve went with a Occupation and Improvement strategy, trying to leverage all the freebies to get extra resources. I focused on a little of everything, but tried to get the extra actions (babies) as early as I could. With the expansion rules, the new fuel requirements kept playing havok on my wood collection, slowing down my fence building. Steve ran into trouble at the end between feeding his large family or building a stone home. He ended up feeding the family as it looked to be more points then those lost on the home. Final score was 28 to 37 in my favor, with my concentration on card point improvements making the difference.
Good solid afternoon/evening of gaming. Thanks for coming over Steve and hope you made it through the Mid-shift OK!
jp
Off to Lincoln for WM Tournament.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday Night Triple Play
I was able to sneak out for some gaming on Tuesday night and had a real good time playing a wide variety of games.
First up The Other Half and I ran some arrends to the doctors and the kitchen counter stores and got some samples. About three or so I made it to Steve/Rob's and started cooking up some chili.
Once that was started, Steve, Susanne, and I played the new expansion for Agricola, Farmers on the Moors. Moors added in some really nice items, taking an already pleasantly complex board game and cranking it up a notch. I really liked the concept of the fuel and how the executed. It provided motivation for conversion from a wood house early, to help pay for future fuel expenditures. Steve took an early lead using his wood hoarding techniques to build a five room house early, but fell into trouble with his massive birthing campaign and had to take a begging card. In the second to last round, I took both birth tiles that allowed me to push ahead of Steve and the actions needed to replace my wood house directly to stone with the conservator. I give the expansion a pretty high rating for the new stuff it adds to the game.
Second game was the next race in the Grand Prix League. We had three new teams show and a return of three teams for a total of six racers on the field. We raced on the Zhuai track that really limited the 6th gear action. I'll post a complete update in a new posting with all the action an current standings in a blatant attempt to get my blog post count up for the month.
The last game was again Steve, Susanne, and myself. I had opened up Dominion as it will be my next unboxing, but I wanted to at least play the game once so I could talk to it more intelligently during the video. I really liked the game and I can see that it will have a high degree of replayability. The player interaction is not high, in fact it can be pretty random given the cards that come up for the kingdom cards, which are chosen at random prior to the game. Once everyone knows the rules, it actually moves along very quickly. Each game will have a slightly different strategy, based upon the cards that are chosen again, but some key things we noticed was that concentrating solely on victory points (VP), which you need to win, diluted your ability to conduct actions, which you need to get VP. Also, concentrating to much on money development at the experience of actions or VP, and not making the switch to a VP build soon enough, put you in a hole when end game was approaching.
Solid night of gaming, with three very different game styles, all good stuff. Thanks for Steve for hosting on such an odd night and for Suzanne for the corn bread muffins.
jp
Games x3 & yummy, yummy chili
Monday, December 14, 2009
Triple Header
On Saturday I got a full day of gaming... It was enough to make any gamer jealous! The day started off with me at the Gym working on the Cross Fit Total. Max weights for back squat, shoulder press, and dead lift. My total was still pretty low and it put me in the beginner category, but that makes since given I just started about a month ago.
Afterwards I met Phillip, Adam, and Dan for our minor little farewell to MkI game. We played a 2K point game with Phillip and I playing against Dan and Adam. Phil had Epic Feorra and Kreoss and I ran Epic Caine and Halley. Not very fluff, but that is OK. Adam had Epic Magnus w/ Bart and Dan had Epic Butcher with Irusk. I got very lucky. By all rights I should have been dead with Haley on turn two from a Obliterator and eCaine on turn three from a supped up Mariner, but Adam's damage dice just couldn't pull it off, leaving each of my casters with ~5 points each. I ended up gatecrashing Bart with eCaine and having a bunch of stuff pick on Magnus. Phillip put alot of effort on eButch and needed eFerrora in the front to finish the brute off. We called the game with Team Adam/Dan only having Irusk left but us needing to wrap up the game. It was a hoot to play, just felt bad that Adam couldn't capitalize on my bad play! Farewell MkI!
Afterwards I purchased a few items. A set of the Italian P40 tanks for the mid war monster tournament for Flames of War in January. I also got the girls their Christmas presents and picked up a pair of board games for myself. I 'hope' to do an unboxing, after my business trip, of Factory Manager and Dominion as well as a detailed review of the game when Steve and I can give the game a go.
I headed over to the 'Man Cave' afterwards and Eric, Mark, Steve, Rob, Kyle, and I played that EPIC board game that had been itching at us. We chose Conquest of the Empire and had a pretty good time. Some really interesting mechanics in the game that I really liked and some that were a bit old... The premise of the game was Caesar had died and each player was attempting to take control of the empire. I really liked the alliance format. The real interesting mechanic that I really thought gave the game a twist was the alliance bidding. You had to form an alliance with half the players on one side and half on the other. You could not attack members in your alliance, but you could choose to lend support to attacks. This would not stop you from stealing influence from your alliance members, but you couldn't go all commando on them. Additionally although the game had huge armies, it wasn't about combat capability, but winning influence and victory points. I was able to gain control of Italia early which allowed be three scoring rounds at the max value, that allowed me to 'recycle' senate votes giving me a prime position to win more votes, especially the ones or additional victory points and chaos reduction. Once I got the solid lead, it was too late for the others to counter to any affect. Here is were the alliances become interesting as I was trying set up players to be on my side that were the biggest threat. The troop and combat roles were a little uninspiring, but like I said, it really wasn't the focus of the game.
Afterwards we introduced Kyle to Agricola on the family setting. It was another good game with each player being within 6 points of each other. I won in the end, but only because I stopped Steve from grabbing enough foods and forcing him to slaughter all his sheep to feed his family.
A great, fun filled day of gaming by any measure.
On Sunday The Other Half and I took the Dog to meet a co-workers dog that will be visiting over Christmas. It was a good encounter with dogs and people all getting along.
Icy as snot out today, and cold, with more cold to follow. I suppose you got to love winter, but I'm not sure why. :)
jp
Game on!
Afterwards I met Phillip, Adam, and Dan for our minor little farewell to MkI game. We played a 2K point game with Phillip and I playing against Dan and Adam. Phil had Epic Feorra and Kreoss and I ran Epic Caine and Halley. Not very fluff, but that is OK. Adam had Epic Magnus w/ Bart and Dan had Epic Butcher with Irusk. I got very lucky. By all rights I should have been dead with Haley on turn two from a Obliterator and eCaine on turn three from a supped up Mariner, but Adam's damage dice just couldn't pull it off, leaving each of my casters with ~5 points each. I ended up gatecrashing Bart with eCaine and having a bunch of stuff pick on Magnus. Phillip put alot of effort on eButch and needed eFerrora in the front to finish the brute off. We called the game with Team Adam/Dan only having Irusk left but us needing to wrap up the game. It was a hoot to play, just felt bad that Adam couldn't capitalize on my bad play! Farewell MkI!
Afterwards I purchased a few items. A set of the Italian P40 tanks for the mid war monster tournament for Flames of War in January. I also got the girls their Christmas presents and picked up a pair of board games for myself. I 'hope' to do an unboxing, after my business trip, of Factory Manager and Dominion as well as a detailed review of the game when Steve and I can give the game a go.
I headed over to the 'Man Cave' afterwards and Eric, Mark, Steve, Rob, Kyle, and I played that EPIC board game that had been itching at us. We chose Conquest of the Empire and had a pretty good time. Some really interesting mechanics in the game that I really liked and some that were a bit old... The premise of the game was Caesar had died and each player was attempting to take control of the empire. I really liked the alliance format. The real interesting mechanic that I really thought gave the game a twist was the alliance bidding. You had to form an alliance with half the players on one side and half on the other. You could not attack members in your alliance, but you could choose to lend support to attacks. This would not stop you from stealing influence from your alliance members, but you couldn't go all commando on them. Additionally although the game had huge armies, it wasn't about combat capability, but winning influence and victory points. I was able to gain control of Italia early which allowed be three scoring rounds at the max value, that allowed me to 'recycle' senate votes giving me a prime position to win more votes, especially the ones or additional victory points and chaos reduction. Once I got the solid lead, it was too late for the others to counter to any affect. Here is were the alliances become interesting as I was trying set up players to be on my side that were the biggest threat. The troop and combat roles were a little uninspiring, but like I said, it really wasn't the focus of the game.
Afterwards we introduced Kyle to Agricola on the family setting. It was another good game with each player being within 6 points of each other. I won in the end, but only because I stopped Steve from grabbing enough foods and forcing him to slaughter all his sheep to feed his family.
A great, fun filled day of gaming by any measure.
On Sunday The Other Half and I took the Dog to meet a co-workers dog that will be visiting over Christmas. It was a good encounter with dogs and people all getting along.
Icy as snot out today, and cold, with more cold to follow. I suppose you got to love winter, but I'm not sure why. :)
jp
Game on!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Saturday Game Action
I got to head over to Steve's a bit early on Saturday to play my last game of the Flames of War Slow grow. It as a good solid game against Steve's Italian Infantry force (1 full platoon with Carri squad in support). I ran the same 600 point list of a L6 HQ (3), 5 L6 platoon, 4 AB-41's, 1 Motorcycle Platoon, and the 20mm AA. Steve used the Infantry to camp on my objective and used the Carri as his assault side. I used my AA on the objective and ran everything else forward. Got some good MG shots on the platoon and assaulted doing well... Except for the 2IC in the Wabbi, that ended up killing four guys + the Company Commander when the L6's finally failed a moral to continue. The Motorcycle Platoon then rolled in, dismounted, and assualted the remaining Infantry platoon, to get to the objective. However, the Carri Squad rolled the AB's and was threating the dug-in AA guns, but just couldn't pull it off. I won, but by an ugly 4-3. It was a solid game and I had a good time playing against Steve as always.
Eric showed up just as we finished and we played tho hands of Race for the Galaxy. Eric was having no luck at all and couldn't get the cards to come out for him. Steve made it a close game on the first one, but I one by a few points with the Galactic Developer. Second game I massed 52 points to Steve's 47 using the Separatist Colony, a solid military build, but the <6> cards for explore bonuses (worth 11 I think) and the development bonus.
We then broke out Agricola which is fast becoming one of my favorite games. Eric and I were running head long with Steve having some resource issues. I played an occupation that limited the player's ability to collect their goods timely which really slowed down their development, allowing me to sprint ahead a bit. With the Sheep Farmer and a fence builder bonus I was able to fill up many spaces, plus the plow allowing me to plow 3:1 actions helped me fill up the board quickly. Close game with me having 38, Eric 32, Steve 9.
Steve's lady friend and her friend came over and we started a game of Talisman. It was the GW 4th edition with the Fantasy Flight add-on. It went pretty well, kind of slower playing then I remember, but I had to bail out near the end as it was getting late.
Solid Saturday of gaming. Good times! :)
jp
Game On!
Eric showed up just as we finished and we played tho hands of Race for the Galaxy. Eric was having no luck at all and couldn't get the cards to come out for him. Steve made it a close game on the first one, but I one by a few points with the Galactic Developer. Second game I massed 52 points to Steve's 47 using the Separatist Colony, a solid military build, but the <6> cards for explore bonuses (worth 11 I think) and the development bonus.
We then broke out Agricola which is fast becoming one of my favorite games. Eric and I were running head long with Steve having some resource issues. I played an occupation that limited the player's ability to collect their goods timely which really slowed down their development, allowing me to sprint ahead a bit. With the Sheep Farmer and a fence builder bonus I was able to fill up many spaces, plus the plow allowing me to plow 3:1 actions helped me fill up the board quickly. Close game with me having 38, Eric 32, Steve 9.
Steve's lady friend and her friend came over and we started a game of Talisman. It was the GW 4th edition with the Fantasy Flight add-on. It went pretty well, kind of slower playing then I remember, but I had to bail out near the end as it was getting late.
Solid Saturday of gaming. Good times! :)
jp
Game On!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Halloween Gaming
Boo!
Steve, Rob and Eric came over for a bit of Halloween gaming last night while I had door duty for the little gobbers coming to the front of Casa Juan. I made a big crockpot of beef stew with beans, carrots, potatoes and The Other Half picked up a nice loaf of asiago cheese bread to go with it.
Steve and Rob made it first about 3ish and we played a game of Shogun. Not the old Milton-Bradley version, but the one that came out a few years ago. It has a unique tower combat system to resolve conflict. Each player in a battle has a number of armies that are represented by cubes. You pick up all the combatants from the table and toss them into the tower that has some plates that make it partially blocked. Which ever force that has more guys come out of the tower wins, but takes extra causalities based on what the looser has come out in the tower as well. Since the cubes may push out some of the armies that were trapped before, you can never be sure how many 'guerrilla' forces are hiding from you in the toss.
Eric showed about the end of Shogun, so we broke Agricola and used the family friendly version for the first round to teach Eric and Rob the basics. That went pretty well with Steve dominating the with 39 some odd points over the rest of us. In the second game we kicked it up a notch and used the full rules with the occupations and minor improvements. This was game was pretty ugly. I got the Sycophant out on turn one which meant that folks had to pay me one food to take one grain, which really slowed down farming until Steve got the grain sack cart out. I ended up with a few large wood pulls and used them to build a five room house with three stables in one turn, then upgraded them to clay. The game ended with Steve having 35, me 36, Eric 19 and Rob 17ish. Good game and I think Eric and Rob enjoyed it as well. Look forward to more in the future.
jp
Mawahahahahaha
Steve, Rob and Eric came over for a bit of Halloween gaming last night while I had door duty for the little gobbers coming to the front of Casa Juan. I made a big crockpot of beef stew with beans, carrots, potatoes and The Other Half picked up a nice loaf of asiago cheese bread to go with it.
Steve and Rob made it first about 3ish and we played a game of Shogun. Not the old Milton-Bradley version, but the one that came out a few years ago. It has a unique tower combat system to resolve conflict. Each player in a battle has a number of armies that are represented by cubes. You pick up all the combatants from the table and toss them into the tower that has some plates that make it partially blocked. Which ever force that has more guys come out of the tower wins, but takes extra causalities based on what the looser has come out in the tower as well. Since the cubes may push out some of the armies that were trapped before, you can never be sure how many 'guerrilla' forces are hiding from you in the toss.
Eric showed about the end of Shogun, so we broke Agricola and used the family friendly version for the first round to teach Eric and Rob the basics. That went pretty well with Steve dominating the with 39 some odd points over the rest of us. In the second game we kicked it up a notch and used the full rules with the occupations and minor improvements. This was game was pretty ugly. I got the Sycophant out on turn one which meant that folks had to pay me one food to take one grain, which really slowed down farming until Steve got the grain sack cart out. I ended up with a few large wood pulls and used them to build a five room house with three stables in one turn, then upgraded them to clay. The game ended with Steve having 35, me 36, Eric 19 and Rob 17ish. Good game and I think Eric and Rob enjoyed it as well. Look forward to more in the future.
jp
Mawahahahahaha
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Saturday Nuke Con Round Up
Ahoy,
I got to spend all day Saturday at Nuke-Con and had a great time. I had signed up to play La Havre and Dominion early at the con. I've been interested in both of these games for some time, but never had chance to play them. Unfortunately, the guy running these games never showed which was the only downside to the day's activities. Luckily I brought Pandemic (with its expansion) and Race for the Galaxy with me. I played two games of the base Pandemic with a nice guy named Jim since he was suppose to play in the La Havre game as well. We cleaned up pretty well on easy, but lost to the game on medium, with the role combination that we ran being the real stickler.
Around 10ish, the time I was suppose to be playing Dominion, Steve volunteered to sit out of the Flames of War tournament as they had an odd number, so we picked up the Pandemic and added the Viral Strains into the deck for a few games then the Mutant Strain for a few more, and finally both on the final game. We had a few players come and go as we played, what was most likely 6 or 7 games. Good times were had by all as we saved the earth about 50% of the time.
At 2pm, I had signed up to play in Bob's White Line Nightmare home brew using the Savage Worlds engine. It was a 'Car Wars' like game where the players had to race around Council Bluffs and got $500 for hitting designated wickets and $100 for every zombie killed. I played 'Big Sam' an obese, but lovable driver of an armored PT Cruiser with a rocket launcher on the roof. It was a fun game, with the mechanics dragging the game just a tad. By 5pm, of the five players, only one had a working car and was racing around backwards trying to not get swarmed by the Zombies. One was just getting pulled out of his pickup, another had wrecked his sports car going too fast around a curve, and myself and one over were racing on foot to the safety zone. Although I ended the game with the lowest cash prizes (my wickets kept being randomly selected at opposite ends of the table... A mechanic I think needs to me adjusted as others got three wickets right in a row), I had a great time... Just wish Sam could run a bit faster. ;)
At 6pm to about 8pm I ran Race for the Galaxy, and unlike other board game runners, I showed! :) First game was with two younger players that had both played before. They had a pretty solid understanding of the game, with only a few minor reminders (like grey planets do not produce goods). The older of the two kids took the first game by 3 VP over mine. The second game Steve joined in as did a new guy Daniel that had just picked up the game, read the rules and played the 2-player vs. his wife. Daniel did a good job of picking up the parts he missed when you just learn via reading and was soon on his way. I won the game with 47 VP with a brown planet build strategy having both of the <6> brown cards allowing me to double dip the planets.
Afterwards, Steve and I broke out his copy of Agricola and played three games of 1v1. Steve won the first two by health margins and I won the third by a few points. I really liked this game a lot. It falls into that pleasantly complex category, especially when we added in the occupations and the minor improvements as those really changed the complexion of the game and your strategic options.
We finished up around midnight, and I packed up my stuff and hit the road. It was a very pleasant day of gaming and I can't wait for next year!
jp
(=| KABOOM! |=)
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