Suddenly, no gaming.

So, on Wednesday, it was just too important to watch the Lost season finale with Kristin. And my re-entry into Wed. night at CHG was postponed again.

I did get in some gaming on, I think, thursday. In the morning, I checked out the free download version of Reiner Knizia's samurai. It's got a nice little tutorial, and a good interface. The AI's arne't great players, but it's a really nice way to learn the game if you haven't played before, and it's fun to play against the bots a few times. That afternoon, I headed over to Jerod's with Nexus Ops and RK's Samurai. We decided to play the latter.

We blew through two quick games. I really like the depth and tension this game provides, especially in the quick play time. The learning curve isn't too steep, either. Once you've played a few turns, you should have it, and certainly by your second game you will really know what's going on. I think I prefer to play the game with random tile selection, as opposed to picking. I guess that adds more strategy, but it gives an even greater advantage to the experienced player and adds, albeit only a little, more time to the game. I won both of the games, I think primarily due to a nice, balanced flow of fast tiles that let me make impact moves at a good pace. The trophy switch is a shocking tile, and the ronin is, of course, something you really have to watch out for. If you get no fast tiles, it's hard to really make an impact. On the other hand, if you get too many, you can be robbed of the ability to have really efficient/effective turns. I don't think that's really a problem with the game, though - on the rare occasions when it happens, you can play yourself out of it in a turn or so. I'm really happy with this game for two or three (where it fills a nice space), but with four the board starts to get pretty chaotic, and you lose a lot of control.

I'll wait a little longer for Nexus Ops to hit the table...

GG, GL