I walked in about 6:30 to find Mark demonstrating Le Passe Trappe. Essentially an elastic two inches up from the back of a frame that you pull disks back upon and fling through a mouse hole set up in the middle of the board. I couldn't help think it was pretty much Gnip Gnop...
Except there was only one hole and not three... and there were discs instead of balls.... and the disks were the same color instead of different colors... and you shot them like a bow instead of hitting levers... Hmmmm maybe it wasn't like Gnip Gnop... Ran had expressed interest in Louix XIV so that is the first game that we pulled out. Ran, Ed, ??? and I fired it up (See how bad with names I am Ran? I even had you tell me last night and I STILL forget). I went through a quick explanation of the rules and we were off. I think I did a good job of explaining the traps in this game because in the end it was pretty close between all involved (unlike how I did in a game we played later). This game is VERY unforgiving and if you don't keep up on the missions you are simply going to lose - simple as that. I also explained how important going last was and they picked up on that quickly. In the end Ran ended up completing 6 missions to our 5 each - that that was enough to win him the game. I enjoy PLAYING the game but I don't know that I enjoy scoring it in the end. It can quite often come down to the random bonus of having the most of a shield type if everyone has the same number of missions complete. That is a totally Random, uncontrollable item. We waited for the other group to finish up Galaxy Trucker but in the end didn't really even need to because we ended up playing with the same group of people anyway. Except for Andrew swapped out for ??? who had to take off. Next came "In the Year of the Dragon". Ran was kind enought to push it since I had owned it for over a year and had never gotten the chance to actually play it. I though I had heard that it was designed by the same guy that did Notre Dame and I have since confirmed this. He pretty much extracted the rat track and made it into an entire game. Turn after turn of disaster management simply trying to survive. I felt I had done a really good job of mitigating as I usually only lost about 1 person per disaster and usually it was pulling out someone that I no longer needed. In the end however I think this game comes down to taking a big hit somewhere so that you can invest in something else more powerful as I played a mediochre game - avoiding disaster but never really getting LARGE points during the scoring. Ran and Andrew were doing that and in the end Andrew pulled out the win due to having so many workers (8 - where Ran and I only had 5 each I believe). Ed - well - he decided workers weren't all they were cracked up to be so he had all but one of them slaughtered at the end of the game :) The next game I will simply call, "Matt's humiliation" - others would probably call it Vikings. This is kind of a bidding game, mixed with Carcassonne and a rat track. There were two key components of this game I did not grasp however until it was far too late: 1) How important a boatsman is. 2) Just how poorly an idiot can do. Essentially two things hurt me BAD. The first is that due to the fates I was never able to grab boatsmen and due to this issue was never able to move my people onto islands. We were three sets of tiles in when this all clicked into place - Ed and Ran had people all over their islands and I had TWO. 8 people sitting on the shores picking their noses and not a soul to take them ANYWHERE. While Ran and Ed were bringing in gold and victory points I would bring in 6 gold (from my two tax collectors or whatever they are called) and that was it. Each bidding round found me with a mere 6 gold which wasn't enough to buy the warriors or boatsmen I needed and I would then be down to taking whatever the wheel would offer for free. And that wheel ALSO would not cooperate. Final Score had Ran winning in the upper 50s or early 60s, Ed behind by just a few points. Oh - my score? lets just say I got one point more than zero. On Apr 4, 8:34 am, "M. Crane" <[email protected]> wrote: > Two lines uttered during Galaxy Trucker: > > "I didn't know this was a team game" > > and > > "Quit helping Johnston, he's smarter than me already!" > > On Apr 3, 10:16 pm, "M. Crane" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Here is my sketchy session report. Please add details as necessary: > > > I showed up around 6pm, and watched a guy set up Axis and Allies > > Deluxe while another group played Axis and Allies: Minis, Naval > > edition. > > > People showed up and played a little Le Passe Trappe but I don't think > > anyone was overwhelmed by it. Also, I am unbeatable by any living > > mortal. I also brought Stock Car Championship Racing, but forgot the > > rules so I left it in the car. > > > Marc Johnston and I conned Jeremy into playing Galaxy Trucker, and > > right then NatDay showed up and they explained the rules. Marc > > suggested we skip the basic game (mistake for me, not for Marc) and we > > were off. I built a crappy ship and died on the first turn. During > > the second round I had a great ship, and a mediocre ship on the third > > round. The final score was something like Jeremy: 1 billion vps, and > > I came in last. It's a really good looking game, feels creative, and > > I look forward to playing it again. > > > I was ready to take off around 8:45 and attempt to score some wife > > victory points because I will be at my first conference priesthood > > meeting with my son (12) tomorrow, but Jeremy brought out Snow Tails > > and I couldn't resist. We played a simple map, as opposed to the tree- > > studded nightmare that was brought out last time. I think we finished > > in 30 minutes. Final score: Jeremy ahead by a billion spaces, and > > Marc Johnston who was struggling throughout the race STOLE SECOND > > PLACE FROM ME ON THE LAST TURN WITH TWO FIVE CARDS. Snow Tails is a > > must buy for me now, a fun racing game with interesting choices that > > plays in less than an hour. > > > Everyone else played Louis XIV and In The Year of the Dragon--I will > > let them fill in the vital details. > > > Oh, and I was jealous of Jeremy's Google-android phone, with its GPS- > > enabled apps. I hid my Ipod Touch in shame.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "utah county boardgamers association" group. 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