Wednesday Night at Critical Hit
Princes of Florence
I bought PoF a few weeks ago, and Tim bought it right after we had a chance to play it with Jerod. Since then, I think I've played it once, and Tim hasn't been able to get it on the table. However, there's been a lot of interest, and Jerod made a good scheduling move getting on the board.
When I got there at six, I was a little hungry, but Chris was there with Tim's board and three other players, ready to go, so I sat down to play. Another player showed up, and Jerod abdicated his seat. Another interested party came in the form of Eric, who spends a lot of time in the store, and I gave up my seat. I figured I could get dinner, and another game would start soon. Plus, I like to take every chance to get new players into games, as it increases the chance of being able to find opponents.
After a quick run to Hardee's, I experienced a little frustration. Dan wasn't playing, as he wanted to scout Tim and Dave's Blood Bowl Quarter-final match. Jerod was willing to play, but nobody else. A couple people were trying to get Betrayal at House on the Hill going, and that proved to be the more popular option. So, I waited an hour and a half for the first game to finish, to get in on the second.
Chris won the first game, and we had more than enough interest for the second, including one of the players who'd played with Chris. I ended up being in the second seat. I like the fifth seat in a five player, as you have the chance to rush a work for a quick three points, but I like the second seat even better. Since there are six extra profession cards, you are guaranteed to get a second, which is actually a pretty big advantage (as Chris pointed out, half a jester for 300). Things started off pretty well, with really high bidding for jesters (1500, 1500, 1400 over the first three turns), and some other stuff going pretty cheap. I think I got a recruiting card for 200, and there were multiple 200 cost prestige cards. I decided to take the path of least resistance, bidding jesters up, and then folding, and then taking whatever I could get for a couple or three hundred. I messed up and rushed a work on turn two, knowing I could get twelve and thinking people were unlikely to pass me later. However, that wasn't the case, and I was left kicking myself staring at another profession that shared a building, meaning I'd want to build it anyway, and, hence, I would have made four more off the card, as well as bonus points, on the next turn, probably. I held off building until I got a builder for 400, and had strong turns for the last four rounds. I got a couple lucky bonus cards, and definitely a lucky pull on my prestige card, pulling plus 8 for all three freedoms when I had already purchased them... It was a pretty good, tight game, but then the third and fourth seat players sort of decided they'd had enough of thinking, and just built their last works for all prestige, leaving them with no money to spend. They then, for the last two turns, lost prestige for money to buy things for small gains. They definitely would have done a little better if they'd just planned ahead and kept a couple hundred in ducats. Steve, to my right, in the first seat, pulled a couple decent bonus cards. Going into the last round, things were pretty close, but I had two bonus cards and two professions. Steve made a big work of value 30, but with two jesters and six professions, I was able to make two of twenty, and, then, with a five bonus and a six bonus, pump one of them up to 31. This put me well in the lead. With the prestige card in hand, I had it locked, as Chris was too far behind for his smaller prestige cards to close the gap. So, I think it finished me, Chris, Steve, and then the fourth and third seats, whose names I didn't catch, unfortunately.
This solidified my admiration for Princes. I like it better with five than with the three that we originally played it with. It's certainly a different game with three, with a lot less pressure to go into bidding wars. I don't think that's necessarily bad, though - you just have a little more room to explore a strategy. It's certainly somewhat more friendly with fewer players.
Well, the wedding is looming, so there's probably not going to be too much gaming coming up. Scratch that. As I write this, I remember that I have a playtest report for Tide of Iron due on Monday, and that Kurt and I are playing Hammer of the Scots that night, and that I have my "bachelor game night" on Thursday... I hope I have some time to write!
GG, GL
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Saturday Game Day
Saturday was a full day. I woke up and made my way to Willow Creek park for an hour and a half of soccer. Muggy and hot, I was happy to be spending the rest of my day relaxing. After that, it was World Cup time. In group E action, Ghana took down Czech Republic 2-0 in an exciting game that was good news for the USA. After that, it was the rollercoaster USA/Italy match, with three players sent off, ending in a 1-1 tie. It's honestly better than I expected going into the game, but I really felt the USA could have had all three points. Stupid plays, especially by Mastroeni, to get sent off, and then the coach not using the last substitution. It just boggles my mind.
Anyway, after the matches were over, it was time to head across town for some games. Chris & Edie's monthly game day had been underway for 3 hours or so by the time I got there, and things were in full swing. The turnout was a little light, only 11 gamers present before I got there. There was 6 player Bohnanza in the dining room, and 5 player Carcassonne in the kitchen. I knew a couple people were interested in Nexus Ops, so I went back over the rules while I waited for the games to finish.
I've had NO for a while, but haven't played it. I spent last GenCon running Avalon Hill board games for Passtimes Events, and I'd taught the game numerous times there, but never played. I subsequently picked it up, and have been waiting for a while to get it on the table. It's a neat little game with cool (if somewhat impractical) pieces, a direct descendent of the MB Gamemaster series, mingled with some common designer game principles. It takes the dice, little plastic figs, and some combat elements (single round, unit iniative order) from MB, but puts it into a nice framework of short playing time, variable board setup, changing victory conditions, and victory point accumulation as a victory condition. The premise is that you are mining corporations in the future, fighting over a rare energy-producing mineral called rubium. To do so, you enlist the native lifeforms to fight for you. You get cool little bright, semi-transparent gamepieces, which are sometimes a little hard to distinguish.
It didn't take too long for Bohnanza to finish, and I got Nexus OPs set up for Chris, Mark, Tony, and myself. When the province developing in the kitchen finished, we got started, with the remaining players moving into hotel management with a game of Acquire in the kitchen.
Mark was first. He really made it pay, showing the advantage that is the tradeoff for the low starting money, by taking the monolith first and holding it uncontested for three turns of extra energize cards. At first I thought I hit a few too many unit tiles during exploration, but the mines ended up being pretty decently spread out. In the early game, we all filled out our territory, and made some minor squabbles over mines. In addition, people started to feel out the Secret Mission cards, and adjust their plans accordingly.
Tony and I launched consecutive attacks to dislodge Mark from the monolith, feeling that he had gained a huge advantage, and we couldn't afford to leave him there. I got to hold onto it for two turns, and then lost out to Chris, who stayed there for the remainder of the game. The Energize cards started flying, combining with Secret Missions to build blocks of victory points. I benefited from a combination of cards that let me move four fungoids between two fungal forests, as well as Secret Mission cards that gave me points for winning a battle in a fungus forest and controlling more of them than any other player. I hit a couple big turns of victory point building, and got to 11, with the closest other player at 7. At this point, there wasn't too much the other players could do if they didn't have vp explosions of their own, as all I had to do was win one fight on my turn. Chris pressured, slaughtering quite a few of my units, but I was able to put together a big force of crystallines to win a battle in a crystal spire, to finish the game.
Everyone seemed to have a good time (I certainly enjoyed it), and Tony and Mark both commented that this was a game they liked enough to buy. Even Chris sounded like he was thinking of picking it up, as he thought he could play 2-player with Annie. Maybe we'll get another play next month. I'm anxious to get a couple more looks at this game. I'm wondering how similar the early game will be every time, and how often the person that wins will just be the one who draws the best Secret Mission cards. Regardless, I really like the cards, as they add an element of uncertainty to the game, as well as the opportunity for big, game-finishing moves.
Acquire finished just before us, and several of the players left. Nate had arrived in the mean time, and we were left with four (Chris, Eric, Nate, and myself) for Power Grid. This game was on the Italy map, excluding the Northernmost and Northeasternmost sections. Chris had some poker chips on hand to mark off the unused cities, a trick I might have to try out next time I play.
I've never won PG, in probably 5-6 plays, and was trying to come up with something different. Unfortunately, it had been so long since I played that I was having a hard time remembering how the game went. I did know that I usually bought the four plant to start, so I decided to splurge, buy a bigger plant, and try to start making money from two cities early. This seemed like a mistake, as it put me in a bad position buying resrouces and building early in the game.
I built last, and with Eric going North, Chris South, and Nate just under Eric, my choices weren't that great. I could go down in the toe of the boot, and risk being cut off by Chris, or into the middle, where the connection fees were high, or up North, risking direct competition. I decided for the North, as I figured I could get an outlet, and probably get to at least six cities in Stage one.
The early game looked good for Chris. He was expending unchallenged in the South, and looked to have closed off the toe of the boot. Eric, Nate, and myself were running into each other a little. In the third turn, I held my building to get a better build order in the next turn, and it payed off, as I was able to build in two cities, closing down Eric quite a bit. The turn after, Chris and I got to six cities, with Eric and Nate stuck on five.
Some power plants get removed at random for this map, and there is less coal. Oddly, as the game went on, a lot of coal plants came up. In a bit of a mis-bid, I ended up getting a four-power wind plant to go with a 5 coal. Coal was a big problem, with, at times, three of us going for large amounts of it. I grabbed an oil plant, and was the only one in that for a while. Between oil and wind, I was able to proceed relatively cheaply, despite needing to buy coal.
We only had one turn of stage 2 stall, and Chris built to seven to force the progress, as he thought that Nate would build through him later in the round. This wasn't too hot for me at that point, as I was building after everyone. Fortunately, Nate and Eric weren't able to build too many places, so I had a couple cities I could expand into. After a couple turns of steady building, three of us got to 13 cities, while I think Chris was still at 11. I held up again, needing to get buying order for resources the next turn, as coal had completely run out, and I wouldn't be able to power if I couldn't buy (and two other players had big coal plants still). In power plant bidding the next turn, I screwed up and started bidding on a five wind against Nate. During bidding, I stopped to look at the board, and realized the only way I could really expect to win was by getting a seven plant to replace my four. The problem was, there was only one seven on the board, and it was the coal. That would put me at five coal, which would be more than what was actually available that turn, and there was only one unrevealed plant left. I decided that I had to gamble that that was a plant I could win with, and left off the bidding. In an amazing stroke of luck, that last plant was the seven garbage, the perfect draw. I ended up getting it for cost, as Chris was the only bidder left, and he couldn't afford to spend money on it, and didn't really want it. I had a lot of money saved up, from going ahead on plants early, and then not having competed for plants too much, and I was able to expand to 17 cities that turn, and power them, giving me the win. Everyone else tied at 16, and, taking the money tie-breaker into account, it was Chris, then Eric, then Nate.
It was a gripping conclusion to a competitive, well-thought out game (not necessarily on my part), and a fine end to the evening. Looking back, it was a scary game, with me in a bad buying position for several turns. I think the big difference is picking key turns in which you need to go first, and making moves to get there - in other words, trying to feel out the tempo of the game. Also, of course, I just would not have won if the right power plant had not come up (or, if I had not gambled, and had kept bidding against Nate). This was a really good group to play a long, considered game with, and that made it extra enjoyable. It's always a breath of fresh air to have the opportunity to play games with the people who come to Chris and Edie's game days. They're an admirable group of gamers.
With a long day past, and a great night of gaming done, I packed up my gear and headed for home, thinking about getting up early to watch Japan/Croatia, and then, of course, BRASIL!
GG, GL
Saturday was a full day. I woke up and made my way to Willow Creek park for an hour and a half of soccer. Muggy and hot, I was happy to be spending the rest of my day relaxing. After that, it was World Cup time. In group E action, Ghana took down Czech Republic 2-0 in an exciting game that was good news for the USA. After that, it was the rollercoaster USA/Italy match, with three players sent off, ending in a 1-1 tie. It's honestly better than I expected going into the game, but I really felt the USA could have had all three points. Stupid plays, especially by Mastroeni, to get sent off, and then the coach not using the last substitution. It just boggles my mind.
Anyway, after the matches were over, it was time to head across town for some games. Chris & Edie's monthly game day had been underway for 3 hours or so by the time I got there, and things were in full swing. The turnout was a little light, only 11 gamers present before I got there. There was 6 player Bohnanza in the dining room, and 5 player Carcassonne in the kitchen. I knew a couple people were interested in Nexus Ops, so I went back over the rules while I waited for the games to finish.
I've had NO for a while, but haven't played it. I spent last GenCon running Avalon Hill board games for Passtimes Events, and I'd taught the game numerous times there, but never played. I subsequently picked it up, and have been waiting for a while to get it on the table. It's a neat little game with cool (if somewhat impractical) pieces, a direct descendent of the MB Gamemaster series, mingled with some common designer game principles. It takes the dice, little plastic figs, and some combat elements (single round, unit iniative order) from MB, but puts it into a nice framework of short playing time, variable board setup, changing victory conditions, and victory point accumulation as a victory condition. The premise is that you are mining corporations in the future, fighting over a rare energy-producing mineral called rubium. To do so, you enlist the native lifeforms to fight for you. You get cool little bright, semi-transparent gamepieces, which are sometimes a little hard to distinguish.
It didn't take too long for Bohnanza to finish, and I got Nexus OPs set up for Chris, Mark, Tony, and myself. When the province developing in the kitchen finished, we got started, with the remaining players moving into hotel management with a game of Acquire in the kitchen.
Mark was first. He really made it pay, showing the advantage that is the tradeoff for the low starting money, by taking the monolith first and holding it uncontested for three turns of extra energize cards. At first I thought I hit a few too many unit tiles during exploration, but the mines ended up being pretty decently spread out. In the early game, we all filled out our territory, and made some minor squabbles over mines. In addition, people started to feel out the Secret Mission cards, and adjust their plans accordingly.
Tony and I launched consecutive attacks to dislodge Mark from the monolith, feeling that he had gained a huge advantage, and we couldn't afford to leave him there. I got to hold onto it for two turns, and then lost out to Chris, who stayed there for the remainder of the game. The Energize cards started flying, combining with Secret Missions to build blocks of victory points. I benefited from a combination of cards that let me move four fungoids between two fungal forests, as well as Secret Mission cards that gave me points for winning a battle in a fungus forest and controlling more of them than any other player. I hit a couple big turns of victory point building, and got to 11, with the closest other player at 7. At this point, there wasn't too much the other players could do if they didn't have vp explosions of their own, as all I had to do was win one fight on my turn. Chris pressured, slaughtering quite a few of my units, but I was able to put together a big force of crystallines to win a battle in a crystal spire, to finish the game.
Everyone seemed to have a good time (I certainly enjoyed it), and Tony and Mark both commented that this was a game they liked enough to buy. Even Chris sounded like he was thinking of picking it up, as he thought he could play 2-player with Annie. Maybe we'll get another play next month. I'm anxious to get a couple more looks at this game. I'm wondering how similar the early game will be every time, and how often the person that wins will just be the one who draws the best Secret Mission cards. Regardless, I really like the cards, as they add an element of uncertainty to the game, as well as the opportunity for big, game-finishing moves.
Acquire finished just before us, and several of the players left. Nate had arrived in the mean time, and we were left with four (Chris, Eric, Nate, and myself) for Power Grid. This game was on the Italy map, excluding the Northernmost and Northeasternmost sections. Chris had some poker chips on hand to mark off the unused cities, a trick I might have to try out next time I play.
I've never won PG, in probably 5-6 plays, and was trying to come up with something different. Unfortunately, it had been so long since I played that I was having a hard time remembering how the game went. I did know that I usually bought the four plant to start, so I decided to splurge, buy a bigger plant, and try to start making money from two cities early. This seemed like a mistake, as it put me in a bad position buying resrouces and building early in the game.
I built last, and with Eric going North, Chris South, and Nate just under Eric, my choices weren't that great. I could go down in the toe of the boot, and risk being cut off by Chris, or into the middle, where the connection fees were high, or up North, risking direct competition. I decided for the North, as I figured I could get an outlet, and probably get to at least six cities in Stage one.
The early game looked good for Chris. He was expending unchallenged in the South, and looked to have closed off the toe of the boot. Eric, Nate, and myself were running into each other a little. In the third turn, I held my building to get a better build order in the next turn, and it payed off, as I was able to build in two cities, closing down Eric quite a bit. The turn after, Chris and I got to six cities, with Eric and Nate stuck on five.
Some power plants get removed at random for this map, and there is less coal. Oddly, as the game went on, a lot of coal plants came up. In a bit of a mis-bid, I ended up getting a four-power wind plant to go with a 5 coal. Coal was a big problem, with, at times, three of us going for large amounts of it. I grabbed an oil plant, and was the only one in that for a while. Between oil and wind, I was able to proceed relatively cheaply, despite needing to buy coal.
We only had one turn of stage 2 stall, and Chris built to seven to force the progress, as he thought that Nate would build through him later in the round. This wasn't too hot for me at that point, as I was building after everyone. Fortunately, Nate and Eric weren't able to build too many places, so I had a couple cities I could expand into. After a couple turns of steady building, three of us got to 13 cities, while I think Chris was still at 11. I held up again, needing to get buying order for resources the next turn, as coal had completely run out, and I wouldn't be able to power if I couldn't buy (and two other players had big coal plants still). In power plant bidding the next turn, I screwed up and started bidding on a five wind against Nate. During bidding, I stopped to look at the board, and realized the only way I could really expect to win was by getting a seven plant to replace my four. The problem was, there was only one seven on the board, and it was the coal. That would put me at five coal, which would be more than what was actually available that turn, and there was only one unrevealed plant left. I decided that I had to gamble that that was a plant I could win with, and left off the bidding. In an amazing stroke of luck, that last plant was the seven garbage, the perfect draw. I ended up getting it for cost, as Chris was the only bidder left, and he couldn't afford to spend money on it, and didn't really want it. I had a lot of money saved up, from going ahead on plants early, and then not having competed for plants too much, and I was able to expand to 17 cities that turn, and power them, giving me the win. Everyone else tied at 16, and, taking the money tie-breaker into account, it was Chris, then Eric, then Nate.
It was a gripping conclusion to a competitive, well-thought out game (not necessarily on my part), and a fine end to the evening. Looking back, it was a scary game, with me in a bad buying position for several turns. I think the big difference is picking key turns in which you need to go first, and making moves to get there - in other words, trying to feel out the tempo of the game. Also, of course, I just would not have won if the right power plant had not come up (or, if I had not gambled, and had kept bidding against Nate). This was a really good group to play a long, considered game with, and that made it extra enjoyable. It's always a breath of fresh air to have the opportunity to play games with the people who come to Chris and Edie's game days. They're an admirable group of gamers.
With a long day past, and a great night of gaming done, I packed up my gear and headed for home, thinking about getting up early to watch Japan/Croatia, and then, of course, BRASIL!
GG, GL
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Wednesday night at CHG
I don't even know what the game was supposed to be last night. I got a call early in the evening from Dan, saying that they were planning on playing the SJG classic Illuminati, and I was more than happy to jump in.
I have fond memories of Illuminati from High School and College. I remember it as a classic, but haven't played it in years. Unfortunately, my impressions of the game from this play were that if I were to introduce this game some experienced modern gamers who'd never played it, they'd say: "was this playtested?" Honestly, the victory conditions for the factions are totally unbalanced. I was the Network, and, actually, the special ability of this faction is about as big of a benefit to the person sitting to your left as it is to you. That person happened to be Drew, with the Bavarian Illuminati, who had a pretty good victory condition.
Other than that, I don't really want to write too much about this game. We played for a couple hours, during which there were the usual funny comments about stuff like: Oh look, the tobacco and liquor companies control the Republicans, etc.. Unforunately, one of the players got inordinately pissed that someone had jumped in on contesting one of his group takeover attempts, and decided basically to not engage in earnestly playing or participating in conversation. This really killed whatever fun there was to be had from this game, and I quickly decided it wasn't worth playing, and let Tim win. Good job Tim, for speaking your mind and telling it like it is, and playing the Gnomes well.
-One caveat for this post is that I have just finished with the informal wine tasting for my wedding, which is all described in my Myspace blog (hopefully this is legible)-
GG, GL
I don't even know what the game was supposed to be last night. I got a call early in the evening from Dan, saying that they were planning on playing the SJG classic Illuminati, and I was more than happy to jump in.
I have fond memories of Illuminati from High School and College. I remember it as a classic, but haven't played it in years. Unfortunately, my impressions of the game from this play were that if I were to introduce this game some experienced modern gamers who'd never played it, they'd say: "was this playtested?" Honestly, the victory conditions for the factions are totally unbalanced. I was the Network, and, actually, the special ability of this faction is about as big of a benefit to the person sitting to your left as it is to you. That person happened to be Drew, with the Bavarian Illuminati, who had a pretty good victory condition.
Other than that, I don't really want to write too much about this game. We played for a couple hours, during which there were the usual funny comments about stuff like: Oh look, the tobacco and liquor companies control the Republicans, etc.. Unforunately, one of the players got inordinately pissed that someone had jumped in on contesting one of his group takeover attempts, and decided basically to not engage in earnestly playing or participating in conversation. This really killed whatever fun there was to be had from this game, and I quickly decided it wasn't worth playing, and let Tim win. Good job Tim, for speaking your mind and telling it like it is, and playing the Gnomes well.
-One caveat for this post is that I have just finished with the informal wine tasting for my wedding, which is all described in my Myspace blog (hopefully this is legible)-
GG, GL
Monday, June 12, 2006
An evening at Kurt's
A couple times lately, when games have been brought up in conversation - namely Commands and Colors Ancients and Nexus Ops - Kurt has said "I'll play that with you." After Shogun on Saturday, we finally had a chat about setting down a time to get together, and after some BGG messages, we were scheduled to go for tonight at six.
I grabbed a quick bite to eat and pulled up just in time. Kurt had the C&C scenario we were going to play about half set up. We finished the set up, Kurt went over the rules for me, and we got going. C&C is a wargame that uses little wooden blocks with stickers to represent the units. It takes a second to get familiar with which units the pictures correspond to, but once you get it down you're good to go. There are simple movement rules that revolve around drawing cards that allow you to move different numbers of troops in different areas. Combat revolves around rolling dice, a differing number depending on whether the unit is light, medium, or heavy, and trying to roll the color of the unit you are attacking. Leaders make a big difference, too, helping the units to hit and giving them resistance from being forced to retreat (which can actually be bad).
We played the Crimissos River, 341 BC, with Kurt lining up the Carthaginians, and myself the Syracusans. His side had a numerical unit advantage of 13-9, but several (I think six) of his units were stuck on his left flank on the wrong side of a river. My advantage was more heavy infantry units, an additional leader, and starting with a united line in the center, facing off against his light infantry.
I started out, moving my troops forward, trying to get my heavies engaged. I also had only one card to move units on the right, so I felt I needed to move them over to the center. This went in with my overall strategy, though, as I wanted to move over to the left a little, and then around, pushing him back and toward the river. I pulled a couple lucky cards to start, letting me move four units each time, helping me to bring my heavies up. as I closed, though, his light troops just kept evading and falling back, taking casualties along the way, but surviving. I whittled away at them, while Kurt tried to bring his medium infantry on his left into play. I drew three cards that let me move on the left flank, which let me pull my cavalry and my leader units up and around, pinning his units back against the board edge and the river, and finishing them off for the victory. It ended up with me winning five banners and Kurt two.
The first game went pretty quick, and we both enjoyed it, so we tried another. This time, it was the Ticinus River, 218 BC. Kurt was Carthaginians again, and I was Romans this time. His side had the advantage of being all cavalry, having lots of heavy units (to my none), two more leaders, and an extra command (card). One thing I actually liked a lot about this game is that the scenarios seem fairly asymmetrical, and you have to spend some time coming up with a strategy that will give you the best chance, and then hope for good cards. This time, I thought, for some reason, that I needed to open up the line of light infantry in the center to get the medium cavalry through. This was a total mistake, though, as there's no way that the Romans should want to throw their light cav against the Carthaginians heavies. I think what you want to do is to evaluate your cards, pick a side, and try to swing you cav around to challeng his lights on one flank, avoiding his heavy cav in the center if at all possible, perhaps trying to slow him down by cutting off his corners with your infantry units, which have four blocks. I did not figure this out quick enough, though, and suffered for it. Once I managed to half-reset myself and get my cavalry and leader around on my right, I did OK, taking a couple banners and damaging a few more units. While I was doing that, Kurt's Heavies and lights with leaders were chopping up my other troops, and he won 6-2.
This was another quick game, so we decided to play a third, but something different this time. We thought about Nexus Ops, but then decided to play something quick and light, and Kurt pulled out Attika, which I hadn't played.
This game was pretty fast and simple. It's a little game about building stuff in the ancient world, that has a real simple "tech tree," and rewards you for building in groups. You draw cards for resources and build chains of buildings that benefit from being down the line from eachother on the tree. You try to be the first to either connect the temples together with your buildings, or build all the buildings. We both started off fairly well, cutting each other off from being able to connect to the temples. I had a bit of an advantage on buildings, as I was able to draw more in sequence, I think. I also just drew more of them. I had a total brainfart about two thirds of the way through the game, and just started drawing buildings when I absolutely needed to (and could) block Kurt off on a new tile he had placed. After I drew and placed, Kurt just kind of looked at me and said "what are you doing?" and then, very politely, allowed me to shuffle the buildings back in and build the stuff I had. At this point, I was spread to wide to win by connecting, but I had a big lead on buildings. I ended up drawing and playing out far quicker than Kurt, even though I drew seven mountain resources in a row... The victory really belongs to him, since I wasn't paying attention, but we wanted to see how it would play out. One thing I didn't do at all in this game was pay attention to what was on his card that he had available to build - I pretty much just played solitaire, trying to pick actions that would let me build efficiently. There's not a lot of player interaction in this game, but you definitely have to pay attention to what the other person is doing (at least more than I did tonight).
After Attika, it was getting kind of late, and so we called it a night. I really had a nice time, and I'm very happy to have had a chance to play these two games. It really reinforced my desire to pick up a copy of C&C, as it was a fun, quick wargame with a lot of replayability that could satisfy a gaming niche that I really don't have anything for right now. On the other hand, Attika doesn't make it onto the buy que, as it was just a little too light, and short of interaction. I think it's a fun game for a random play, and it might be worth a try for more players, but it doesn't seem to do anything that games I have already don't. Hopefully, I'll have more chances to help Kurt explore his substantial game collection in the weeks to come. I wonder if he owns Hammer of the Scotts?
GG, GL
A couple times lately, when games have been brought up in conversation - namely Commands and Colors Ancients and Nexus Ops - Kurt has said "I'll play that with you." After Shogun on Saturday, we finally had a chat about setting down a time to get together, and after some BGG messages, we were scheduled to go for tonight at six.
I grabbed a quick bite to eat and pulled up just in time. Kurt had the C&C scenario we were going to play about half set up. We finished the set up, Kurt went over the rules for me, and we got going. C&C is a wargame that uses little wooden blocks with stickers to represent the units. It takes a second to get familiar with which units the pictures correspond to, but once you get it down you're good to go. There are simple movement rules that revolve around drawing cards that allow you to move different numbers of troops in different areas. Combat revolves around rolling dice, a differing number depending on whether the unit is light, medium, or heavy, and trying to roll the color of the unit you are attacking. Leaders make a big difference, too, helping the units to hit and giving them resistance from being forced to retreat (which can actually be bad).
We played the Crimissos River, 341 BC, with Kurt lining up the Carthaginians, and myself the Syracusans. His side had a numerical unit advantage of 13-9, but several (I think six) of his units were stuck on his left flank on the wrong side of a river. My advantage was more heavy infantry units, an additional leader, and starting with a united line in the center, facing off against his light infantry.
I started out, moving my troops forward, trying to get my heavies engaged. I also had only one card to move units on the right, so I felt I needed to move them over to the center. This went in with my overall strategy, though, as I wanted to move over to the left a little, and then around, pushing him back and toward the river. I pulled a couple lucky cards to start, letting me move four units each time, helping me to bring my heavies up. as I closed, though, his light troops just kept evading and falling back, taking casualties along the way, but surviving. I whittled away at them, while Kurt tried to bring his medium infantry on his left into play. I drew three cards that let me move on the left flank, which let me pull my cavalry and my leader units up and around, pinning his units back against the board edge and the river, and finishing them off for the victory. It ended up with me winning five banners and Kurt two.
The first game went pretty quick, and we both enjoyed it, so we tried another. This time, it was the Ticinus River, 218 BC. Kurt was Carthaginians again, and I was Romans this time. His side had the advantage of being all cavalry, having lots of heavy units (to my none), two more leaders, and an extra command (card). One thing I actually liked a lot about this game is that the scenarios seem fairly asymmetrical, and you have to spend some time coming up with a strategy that will give you the best chance, and then hope for good cards. This time, I thought, for some reason, that I needed to open up the line of light infantry in the center to get the medium cavalry through. This was a total mistake, though, as there's no way that the Romans should want to throw their light cav against the Carthaginians heavies. I think what you want to do is to evaluate your cards, pick a side, and try to swing you cav around to challeng his lights on one flank, avoiding his heavy cav in the center if at all possible, perhaps trying to slow him down by cutting off his corners with your infantry units, which have four blocks. I did not figure this out quick enough, though, and suffered for it. Once I managed to half-reset myself and get my cavalry and leader around on my right, I did OK, taking a couple banners and damaging a few more units. While I was doing that, Kurt's Heavies and lights with leaders were chopping up my other troops, and he won 6-2.
This was another quick game, so we decided to play a third, but something different this time. We thought about Nexus Ops, but then decided to play something quick and light, and Kurt pulled out Attika, which I hadn't played.
This game was pretty fast and simple. It's a little game about building stuff in the ancient world, that has a real simple "tech tree," and rewards you for building in groups. You draw cards for resources and build chains of buildings that benefit from being down the line from eachother on the tree. You try to be the first to either connect the temples together with your buildings, or build all the buildings. We both started off fairly well, cutting each other off from being able to connect to the temples. I had a bit of an advantage on buildings, as I was able to draw more in sequence, I think. I also just drew more of them. I had a total brainfart about two thirds of the way through the game, and just started drawing buildings when I absolutely needed to (and could) block Kurt off on a new tile he had placed. After I drew and placed, Kurt just kind of looked at me and said "what are you doing?" and then, very politely, allowed me to shuffle the buildings back in and build the stuff I had. At this point, I was spread to wide to win by connecting, but I had a big lead on buildings. I ended up drawing and playing out far quicker than Kurt, even though I drew seven mountain resources in a row... The victory really belongs to him, since I wasn't paying attention, but we wanted to see how it would play out. One thing I didn't do at all in this game was pay attention to what was on his card that he had available to build - I pretty much just played solitaire, trying to pick actions that would let me build efficiently. There's not a lot of player interaction in this game, but you definitely have to pay attention to what the other person is doing (at least more than I did tonight).
After Attika, it was getting kind of late, and so we called it a night. I really had a nice time, and I'm very happy to have had a chance to play these two games. It really reinforced my desire to pick up a copy of C&C, as it was a fun, quick wargame with a lot of replayability that could satisfy a gaming niche that I really don't have anything for right now. On the other hand, Attika doesn't make it onto the buy que, as it was just a little too light, and short of interaction. I think it's a fun game for a random play, and it might be worth a try for more players, but it doesn't seem to do anything that games I have already don't. Hopefully, I'll have more chances to help Kurt explore his substantial game collection in the weeks to come. I wonder if he owns Hammer of the Scotts?
GG, GL
Sunday, June 11, 2006
AGOT draft at CHG
The World Cup is great. That said, I missed some good stuff to go play Shogun yesterday. Today, I had to leave off the Mexico/Iran game, which was shaping up pretty well, to go to the belated banquet for the soccer team I coach. That ran long, and missed me the whole first half of Portugal/Angola, too. So, I decided to miss the rest and go draft at Critical Hit.
There were a lot of people there when I got there. It looked like ten, with a table of six and one of four. Then, Chad got there, so Jerod drafted and made it two six person tables. We split up, and did one draft with a song of twilight pack, and one with double song of night. I was in the double night draft, as I need more cards from the set, not having purchased any packs.
I first picked a Wildling Scout, shipping a Shadow Play, among other things. I noticed some Baratheon getting passed my way, and picked most of it up. The SP got back to me, and things were decided. As the draft went on, it became clear that I was the only one in Bara, and I got a lot of decent in-house stuff, but nothing really exciting. In the end, I had my first single-house draft deck, with a good curve and plenty of dudes. Unfortunately, I didn't pick up anything that could be called a bomb. I did get four of the location that gives -1/+1, as well as the Martell army that lets you draw a card every time it's strength is increased or decreased. I also played the giant targ army that gives -4, and the little Targ guy that gives +1/destroy an attachment. I had two Shadow Plays, two of the event that kills a doomed guy, and the event that switches power from one character to a character with higher str.
Round 1 - Jeremiah
This wasn't the best 1st round pairing, as, honestly, Jeremiah and I would probably have expected to face each other in the final of this draft. Jeremiah had complained about his deck a little, and he was in Martell/Lannister. Right off the bat, he played an Others plot, and I knew he had picked up the Winter Has Come that went around. He also played the event that kneels a two strength guy, and you can return when you play an Others plot. Thankfully, he forgot to return it a couple times. He had a pretty slow start, and I did too. He blew his Winter pretty early, we both built up a little, he blew his Wildfire Assault, then I blew mine (on the fifth plot), and then things started getting crappy. He laid down harrenhall, with not quite enough influence. He killed one of my wildlings with the seven cost army that does that. He drew more influence, and started killing stuff with Harrenhall. He drew a Student of Subtlety, Lancer, Small paul, and several good attachments. However, we'd used up a lot of time with the slow buildup/multiple resets in the early game. As time ran out, and we entered the last turn, it looked like we were headed for a draw. However, I actually still had a chance. I had Shadow play, four influence, the event that steals power, and a veteran builder, which I'd been sitting on. That really probably translated to six power, plus the four I could have gained from challenges, and the five I already had, and that could have been game. However, I was thinking I was going to take another route to try for the stall, and didn't take the student quickly enough (and, actually, I also had one of those Magic flashback moments, when you think that your opponent can use all his effects in response to yours, when, in fact, he can't). So, I ended up getting only seven power and ending at twelve. Jeremiah was a little freaked out when we went through that last turn as, until I started playing out my cards, he thought it was just over.
Well, the next round, we paired the winners (Tom and Nick) together, and Jeremiah and I against the losers (Angie and Dave). I ended up drawing Angie. She was running Martell and Stark. Between early claim, Wildling Scout, and Fallen Brother, I kept her board pretty clear, and climbed steadily to victory. Angie played fine, but didn't really have any tricks that would get her back in the game after I got the advantage. I ended the game in marshalling, getting two power from veteran builder and another two stealing renown from her Shackled Defender (it had an attachment on it) with the merchant captain or whatever his name is.
Third round, we had to roll off for Jeremiah and I again, and he ended up getting Nick, who was 2-0, while I got Tom, who was 1-1. This pretty much guaranteed I couldn't do better than second, as I'd be out on tie breakers if Jeremiah won. Tom had Stark Greyjoy. This game was similar to the last, with me getting a military advantage on Tom early. He started to come back with a deadly Stark army and a decent size Greyjoy unique, but my strength alterers came into play to help me out. It's a little strange - I'm not used to going to only fifteen power and it kind of sneaks up on you!
In the end, Jeremiah won and I did end up in second. Unfortunately, the only card in the draft I really wanted, and SoN Others plot, Jeremiah took (once again taking the card I wanted, you dog!). I ended up with a Coldhands, Winter has Come, and a couple other cards that aren't, obviously, memorable. Overall, it was a decent time, and a pretty relaxing afternoon. The game with Jeremiah really taught me a little something about planning ahead in the turn, and going over all the options, before letting anything go.
GG, GL
The World Cup is great. That said, I missed some good stuff to go play Shogun yesterday. Today, I had to leave off the Mexico/Iran game, which was shaping up pretty well, to go to the belated banquet for the soccer team I coach. That ran long, and missed me the whole first half of Portugal/Angola, too. So, I decided to miss the rest and go draft at Critical Hit.
There were a lot of people there when I got there. It looked like ten, with a table of six and one of four. Then, Chad got there, so Jerod drafted and made it two six person tables. We split up, and did one draft with a song of twilight pack, and one with double song of night. I was in the double night draft, as I need more cards from the set, not having purchased any packs.
I first picked a Wildling Scout, shipping a Shadow Play, among other things. I noticed some Baratheon getting passed my way, and picked most of it up. The SP got back to me, and things were decided. As the draft went on, it became clear that I was the only one in Bara, and I got a lot of decent in-house stuff, but nothing really exciting. In the end, I had my first single-house draft deck, with a good curve and plenty of dudes. Unfortunately, I didn't pick up anything that could be called a bomb. I did get four of the location that gives -1/+1, as well as the Martell army that lets you draw a card every time it's strength is increased or decreased. I also played the giant targ army that gives -4, and the little Targ guy that gives +1/destroy an attachment. I had two Shadow Plays, two of the event that kills a doomed guy, and the event that switches power from one character to a character with higher str.
Round 1 - Jeremiah
This wasn't the best 1st round pairing, as, honestly, Jeremiah and I would probably have expected to face each other in the final of this draft. Jeremiah had complained about his deck a little, and he was in Martell/Lannister. Right off the bat, he played an Others plot, and I knew he had picked up the Winter Has Come that went around. He also played the event that kneels a two strength guy, and you can return when you play an Others plot. Thankfully, he forgot to return it a couple times. He had a pretty slow start, and I did too. He blew his Winter pretty early, we both built up a little, he blew his Wildfire Assault, then I blew mine (on the fifth plot), and then things started getting crappy. He laid down harrenhall, with not quite enough influence. He killed one of my wildlings with the seven cost army that does that. He drew more influence, and started killing stuff with Harrenhall. He drew a Student of Subtlety, Lancer, Small paul, and several good attachments. However, we'd used up a lot of time with the slow buildup/multiple resets in the early game. As time ran out, and we entered the last turn, it looked like we were headed for a draw. However, I actually still had a chance. I had Shadow play, four influence, the event that steals power, and a veteran builder, which I'd been sitting on. That really probably translated to six power, plus the four I could have gained from challenges, and the five I already had, and that could have been game. However, I was thinking I was going to take another route to try for the stall, and didn't take the student quickly enough (and, actually, I also had one of those Magic flashback moments, when you think that your opponent can use all his effects in response to yours, when, in fact, he can't). So, I ended up getting only seven power and ending at twelve. Jeremiah was a little freaked out when we went through that last turn as, until I started playing out my cards, he thought it was just over.
Well, the next round, we paired the winners (Tom and Nick) together, and Jeremiah and I against the losers (Angie and Dave). I ended up drawing Angie. She was running Martell and Stark. Between early claim, Wildling Scout, and Fallen Brother, I kept her board pretty clear, and climbed steadily to victory. Angie played fine, but didn't really have any tricks that would get her back in the game after I got the advantage. I ended the game in marshalling, getting two power from veteran builder and another two stealing renown from her Shackled Defender (it had an attachment on it) with the merchant captain or whatever his name is.
Third round, we had to roll off for Jeremiah and I again, and he ended up getting Nick, who was 2-0, while I got Tom, who was 1-1. This pretty much guaranteed I couldn't do better than second, as I'd be out on tie breakers if Jeremiah won. Tom had Stark Greyjoy. This game was similar to the last, with me getting a military advantage on Tom early. He started to come back with a deadly Stark army and a decent size Greyjoy unique, but my strength alterers came into play to help me out. It's a little strange - I'm not used to going to only fifteen power and it kind of sneaks up on you!
In the end, Jeremiah won and I did end up in second. Unfortunately, the only card in the draft I really wanted, and SoN Others plot, Jeremiah took (once again taking the card I wanted, you dog!). I ended up with a Coldhands, Winter has Come, and a couple other cards that aren't, obviously, memorable. Overall, it was a decent time, and a pretty relaxing afternoon. The game with Jeremiah really taught me a little something about planning ahead in the turn, and going over all the options, before letting anything go.
GG, GL
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Shogun Saturday
I've had a mild Shogun jones in the back of my head for quite some time. Seeing Tony's copy at one of the games days kind of brought it to the fore. I'd been toying with the idea of trying to get some guys together to play when I got an invite from Chris to come play at his place. It appeared that he had been grabbed by the nostalgia ninja also.
After an impressive array of e-mails and e-vites (Chris is pretty good at taking the reins organizing these things) the idea coalesced into a group of nine players meeting at Chris's house for an afternoon of MB Gamemastery. We convened around eleven, and split into a four player and a five player.
I ended up getting to crack the old copy of Shogun that I traded from CL several years ago. I was at the four player table, with Gare, Kurt, and Bart (sp?-honestly, I hadn't met him before, and I'm not sure I'm remembering his name correctly...). It was a good group of gamers, and I was feeling optimistic about the session ahead (about the social/fun aspect anyway - I wasn't too confident about the game, as I know Gare and Kurt are formidable opponents, and Bart looked pretty serious).
Our setup was decent, with fairly well defined areas of control for each of us, if we only would solidify them... Kurt was on one side of the board, and Gare on the other (in the islands), with Bart in the middle on Kurt's side, and me in the middle on Gare's side. It looked to me like Bart and I were in trouble, so we kind of circumstantially aggreed to avoid attacking each other at the beginning, so that we wouldn't have to fight a two front war. We mostly spent the first turn consolidating territory. One odd thing was that everyone built a castle on the first turn, except me. Even odder was that Gare chose to put his on the mainland, at the rear of the area that looked like what I needed to work to control. This meant that I had to put a lot of work into taking the fortress on my first turn, if I wanted to solidify things, which, of course, I did. A few turns later Gare, who had never played before, lamented that he should have put the fortress on his island.
The second turn things started to get interesting, with Kurt and Bart really going at it on their front. I was still really trying to consolidate some territory, after spending resources on taking Gare's fortress on the first turn. Things really got going in the middle, with Bart losing two armies and Kurt losing one. On my side, Gare moved an army up into the middle of my territory, and another up into the western (southern?) part. I eliminated the latter army.
The third turn, I think, Bart lost his last army in an attack on one of Kurt's. I'm not sure, but I think he might have decided his chances were slim, and he'd rather get off the table. Either that, or he thought he could only win with a big gamble right there. Anyway, that changed the game. Gare and I made an agreement to shift our focus toward Kurt, who had inherited all of Bart's territories and units. I took one army north, to attack from the sea, another south, to do the same thing on the other side, and left the other in place in the middle, as it was behind Gare's. Gare moved his army forward, through my territory and into Kurt's.
The next turn, Kurt took the first sword and ninja, and eliminated the army Gare had moved toward his territory. At this point, Gare seemed to have a change of heart about ganging up on Kurt, and decided to attack my rear rather than taking his army around by sea. I was in a position to hustle most of my armies back, though, and shifted my focus to wiping out Gare's last army. I moved all three of mine to positions that would allow me to pin his in place. Gare tried to assassinate one of the Daimyos, but failed. My revenge attempt failed as well.
The next turn, realising the opportunity to end the game was in front of me, I spent three to take the first sword, bought some units and hired some ronin. Kurt outbid me on the ninja, though, so I had to split the ronin up between the two armies that would definitely attack Gare's this round. As expected, Kurt used the ninja to assassinate the Daimyo, and succeeded. That left it to the other army, and it's ronin, versus Gare's army and it's fortress. A pretty even fight, I think. I rolled terribly with first round ranged, not hitting once in six chances. I had better luck with my ground troups, though, hitting with six out of eight. We kept at it for a couple rounds, until it ws just his Daimyo vs. my Daimyo and a swordsman, and my Daimyo cut his down. Inheriting his territories gave me about 43, I think, and we called the game.
Overall, it was a great day. Excellent hosting by Chris and Edie including tasty cheese sanwiches. Kurt brought Japanese beer to add flavor. I've never had Sapporo before, and I really liked it. We had a nice table of friendly, thoughtful gamers to play with, and the tense conclusion really added something, especially for me, of course, pulling out the win. Like any game with elimination, I felt a little bad for the guys that got taken out of the game(s) early. In the end, though, I think I agree with the idea that, although these long, elimination wargames aren't for every night, they provide an exciting and engagin alternative experience that can be enjoyed on a semi-regular basis. Now, I'm really encouraged to redouble my efforts to get Warrior Knights on the table...
GG, GL
I've had a mild Shogun jones in the back of my head for quite some time. Seeing Tony's copy at one of the games days kind of brought it to the fore. I'd been toying with the idea of trying to get some guys together to play when I got an invite from Chris to come play at his place. It appeared that he had been grabbed by the nostalgia ninja also.
After an impressive array of e-mails and e-vites (Chris is pretty good at taking the reins organizing these things) the idea coalesced into a group of nine players meeting at Chris's house for an afternoon of MB Gamemastery. We convened around eleven, and split into a four player and a five player.
I ended up getting to crack the old copy of Shogun that I traded from CL several years ago. I was at the four player table, with Gare, Kurt, and Bart (sp?-honestly, I hadn't met him before, and I'm not sure I'm remembering his name correctly...). It was a good group of gamers, and I was feeling optimistic about the session ahead (about the social/fun aspect anyway - I wasn't too confident about the game, as I know Gare and Kurt are formidable opponents, and Bart looked pretty serious).
Our setup was decent, with fairly well defined areas of control for each of us, if we only would solidify them... Kurt was on one side of the board, and Gare on the other (in the islands), with Bart in the middle on Kurt's side, and me in the middle on Gare's side. It looked to me like Bart and I were in trouble, so we kind of circumstantially aggreed to avoid attacking each other at the beginning, so that we wouldn't have to fight a two front war. We mostly spent the first turn consolidating territory. One odd thing was that everyone built a castle on the first turn, except me. Even odder was that Gare chose to put his on the mainland, at the rear of the area that looked like what I needed to work to control. This meant that I had to put a lot of work into taking the fortress on my first turn, if I wanted to solidify things, which, of course, I did. A few turns later Gare, who had never played before, lamented that he should have put the fortress on his island.
The second turn things started to get interesting, with Kurt and Bart really going at it on their front. I was still really trying to consolidate some territory, after spending resources on taking Gare's fortress on the first turn. Things really got going in the middle, with Bart losing two armies and Kurt losing one. On my side, Gare moved an army up into the middle of my territory, and another up into the western (southern?) part. I eliminated the latter army.
The third turn, I think, Bart lost his last army in an attack on one of Kurt's. I'm not sure, but I think he might have decided his chances were slim, and he'd rather get off the table. Either that, or he thought he could only win with a big gamble right there. Anyway, that changed the game. Gare and I made an agreement to shift our focus toward Kurt, who had inherited all of Bart's territories and units. I took one army north, to attack from the sea, another south, to do the same thing on the other side, and left the other in place in the middle, as it was behind Gare's. Gare moved his army forward, through my territory and into Kurt's.
The next turn, Kurt took the first sword and ninja, and eliminated the army Gare had moved toward his territory. At this point, Gare seemed to have a change of heart about ganging up on Kurt, and decided to attack my rear rather than taking his army around by sea. I was in a position to hustle most of my armies back, though, and shifted my focus to wiping out Gare's last army. I moved all three of mine to positions that would allow me to pin his in place. Gare tried to assassinate one of the Daimyos, but failed. My revenge attempt failed as well.
The next turn, realising the opportunity to end the game was in front of me, I spent three to take the first sword, bought some units and hired some ronin. Kurt outbid me on the ninja, though, so I had to split the ronin up between the two armies that would definitely attack Gare's this round. As expected, Kurt used the ninja to assassinate the Daimyo, and succeeded. That left it to the other army, and it's ronin, versus Gare's army and it's fortress. A pretty even fight, I think. I rolled terribly with first round ranged, not hitting once in six chances. I had better luck with my ground troups, though, hitting with six out of eight. We kept at it for a couple rounds, until it ws just his Daimyo vs. my Daimyo and a swordsman, and my Daimyo cut his down. Inheriting his territories gave me about 43, I think, and we called the game.
Overall, it was a great day. Excellent hosting by Chris and Edie including tasty cheese sanwiches. Kurt brought Japanese beer to add flavor. I've never had Sapporo before, and I really liked it. We had a nice table of friendly, thoughtful gamers to play with, and the tense conclusion really added something, especially for me, of course, pulling out the win. Like any game with elimination, I felt a little bad for the guys that got taken out of the game(s) early. In the end, though, I think I agree with the idea that, although these long, elimination wargames aren't for every night, they provide an exciting and engagin alternative experience that can be enjoyed on a semi-regular basis. Now, I'm really encouraged to redouble my efforts to get Warrior Knights on the table...
GG, GL
Friday Night Poker at Dan and Tim's
The Coralville crew have graciously invited me to play poker on several occasions. I finally had a night I could make it, and I'm not sure how many more chances I'll get to hang with those guys, so I decided to go. It was also a nice chance to run out the set of poker chips I bought on ebay, which I haven't used yet. I'm pretty terrible at poker, and I wasn't sure who would be there, so I was a little worried that I might be home early. That wouldn't have been too much of a bad thing, either, as Kristin and I were planning on watching England vs. Paraguay the next morning.
Well, there was a pretty big crowd. Twelve people to start. Dan made some tasty punch, which was deceptively strong. I put down my twenty bucks and was sat at a table with Josh, Tim, Eric, and Noah (later on we were joined by Peter). This was a nice, casual, conversational table, and we had a fairly good time for two and a half or three hours. The other table had Andy and Dan, and so was very loud, and, apparently, having lots of fun.
Pretty much all my experience from poker is with no limit hold 'em, and Friday's game was limit, which is very very different. I tried to learn a little something about betting strategy, but really all I could come up with is that you should play a hand that has a chance of becoming something, and then get out if it doesn't hit. For a quarter, people weren't getting out of hands, and good starting hands have a totally different expectation. I definitely messed up a couple times, especially folding too early. There were hands that I didn't think I had the odds on, and if we were playing no limit I wouldn't have... but for fifty cents I really should have stuck around. I went up two or three bucks in the first ten hands or so, and then hit a steady, slow, battling decline for the next few hours. A little after eleven, I was down to a little over ten, and we had a weird hand where Josh started to muck my cards and his, while I was still in, and then, when I protested, he realized one of Peter's cards had gotten mixed in... It's not really anything that's a big deal, but it's just one of those things that my card game annoyance muscels start to tighten on, as it's the sort of situation where, in Magic, you start to think someone's cheating. I'm not trying to say that in this situation Josh was cheating, in fact, I'm absolutely positive he wasn't. What I'm trying to chronicle, I guess, is my tendency to get my head a little worked up/annoyed, if even mostly subconsciously, when situations like this arise. That the pump was primed, so to speak, for me to get a little angry. Right after that, I had a pretty good hand, Ace Queen, and pre-flop raised. Josh was in on the ante, and stayed in. I bet to open each round, and he called, but never raised. The flop, turn, and river were all non-face cards. When we showed our hands, it turned out Josh had stayed in with Jack deuce, pairing the two on the flop. I was pretty amazed that he had continued to bet with that hand, and said "I guess your two beats me." Honestly, I just kind of figured he had something better. Josh then decided to give me a lecture, which, if I correctly understood the words coming out of his mouth, basically amounted to the idea that in limit hold-em', people will stay in with anything, so you should expect to get beat by everything. I don't know, perhaps I just don't get it, but it didn't make any sense to me, and I told him so, but he wouldn't drop it. I was getting angry, at this point, and told him so. The next hand, I got Ace Jack, didn't hit a flop, and folded, as I was so frustrated. I can recognize when I'm tilting, so I took the opportunity to take off. When I left, Eric was winning big at our table, and Noah was just hanging on, with the other three doing all right. They were just about to combine tables, and I'm anxious to hear how it turned out.
I ended up leaving with eight bucks, and maybe a little more knowledge about limit hold-'em. It's so unfortunate that I got pissed off and left angry, because it really put a damper on an otherwise quite enjoyable evening.
GG, GL
The Coralville crew have graciously invited me to play poker on several occasions. I finally had a night I could make it, and I'm not sure how many more chances I'll get to hang with those guys, so I decided to go. It was also a nice chance to run out the set of poker chips I bought on ebay, which I haven't used yet. I'm pretty terrible at poker, and I wasn't sure who would be there, so I was a little worried that I might be home early. That wouldn't have been too much of a bad thing, either, as Kristin and I were planning on watching England vs. Paraguay the next morning.
Well, there was a pretty big crowd. Twelve people to start. Dan made some tasty punch, which was deceptively strong. I put down my twenty bucks and was sat at a table with Josh, Tim, Eric, and Noah (later on we were joined by Peter). This was a nice, casual, conversational table, and we had a fairly good time for two and a half or three hours. The other table had Andy and Dan, and so was very loud, and, apparently, having lots of fun.
Pretty much all my experience from poker is with no limit hold 'em, and Friday's game was limit, which is very very different. I tried to learn a little something about betting strategy, but really all I could come up with is that you should play a hand that has a chance of becoming something, and then get out if it doesn't hit. For a quarter, people weren't getting out of hands, and good starting hands have a totally different expectation. I definitely messed up a couple times, especially folding too early. There were hands that I didn't think I had the odds on, and if we were playing no limit I wouldn't have... but for fifty cents I really should have stuck around. I went up two or three bucks in the first ten hands or so, and then hit a steady, slow, battling decline for the next few hours. A little after eleven, I was down to a little over ten, and we had a weird hand where Josh started to muck my cards and his, while I was still in, and then, when I protested, he realized one of Peter's cards had gotten mixed in... It's not really anything that's a big deal, but it's just one of those things that my card game annoyance muscels start to tighten on, as it's the sort of situation where, in Magic, you start to think someone's cheating. I'm not trying to say that in this situation Josh was cheating, in fact, I'm absolutely positive he wasn't. What I'm trying to chronicle, I guess, is my tendency to get my head a little worked up/annoyed, if even mostly subconsciously, when situations like this arise. That the pump was primed, so to speak, for me to get a little angry. Right after that, I had a pretty good hand, Ace Queen, and pre-flop raised. Josh was in on the ante, and stayed in. I bet to open each round, and he called, but never raised. The flop, turn, and river were all non-face cards. When we showed our hands, it turned out Josh had stayed in with Jack deuce, pairing the two on the flop. I was pretty amazed that he had continued to bet with that hand, and said "I guess your two beats me." Honestly, I just kind of figured he had something better. Josh then decided to give me a lecture, which, if I correctly understood the words coming out of his mouth, basically amounted to the idea that in limit hold-em', people will stay in with anything, so you should expect to get beat by everything. I don't know, perhaps I just don't get it, but it didn't make any sense to me, and I told him so, but he wouldn't drop it. I was getting angry, at this point, and told him so. The next hand, I got Ace Jack, didn't hit a flop, and folded, as I was so frustrated. I can recognize when I'm tilting, so I took the opportunity to take off. When I left, Eric was winning big at our table, and Noah was just hanging on, with the other three doing all right. They were just about to combine tables, and I'm anxious to hear how it turned out.
I ended up leaving with eight bucks, and maybe a little more knowledge about limit hold-'em. It's so unfortunate that I got pissed off and left angry, because it really put a damper on an otherwise quite enjoyable evening.
GG, GL
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Spielbyweb, Magic: the Gathering
I finished my first two-player game of Reef Encounter on spielbyweb.com. I liked it a lot. It has a great element of forward planning that I missed playing on the table top. Having played once in real life was a huge advantage, though, as I think my opponent struggled with assessing the manipulation of the coral strength tiles. I ended up winning in a bit of a landslide, but I'm not sure how much attention he was really paying. This makes me feel I understand and like the game quite a bit better, but I'm no closer to buying it, as playing online seems so much superior... maybe down the road sometime.
Bill has apparently decided that the Magic drafts at the store are not competitive enough, and invited a group of us to come and draft on our own, in order to better prepare people for nationals, or something. It ended up being myself, Bill, Mech, Tyler, Pete, Scott, Blake, and Gary. I was being fed by Blake and passing to Bill. This was only my second time drafting this block with all three sets (I drafted triple Ravnica once and RRG twice). I am still not too familiar with the cards, as I don't play so much, but I guess I was invited on the strength of my past accomplishments.
Right off the bat I wasn't sure what to take, and I admit I probably took the wrong card first pick, an instant that is like basilisk/regenerate in one that can be played with black or green. After that, I took a green/white guildmage and the black/green one. I was a little worried about going g/b/w, though, as I'd only have one guild left, and there would be a pack I could only take mono-colored cards out of, unless I splashed a fourth color. I dabbled in blue a little, just in case. Of course, that meant I'd be in two guilds in the third pack... I still haven't got this figured out! So, if this is making any sense, I tried to stick mainly with green and white, but took some black and blue figuring they would work into the mix somewhere. In the end, I was a little shy on removal, but had a solid three color deck whichever way I went. I was quite short of mana fixers, so I couldn't really go four color. I ended up w/g/u. I played the blue for the graft/flying guy and the 4/3 flyer that can forecast to draw cards. When I took it, I forgot that forecast works only during your upkeep... I had plenty of creatures, and some fair non-creature spells, but I wish I would have gotten one or two bounce spells.
Round one - Tyler
Tyler was playing pretty much the same as me, except four color with plenty of black. He had a bunch of mana fixing lands, though, which made it easy for him to do. Game one he mulliganed into a one land hand and kept it. He didn't draw more mana and I smashed him. Game two, I drew way too many land and he smashed me over time. Game three I started OK and ran into a land clump, if I remember right.
Round two - Andy
Andy is a young man who took over playing the deck that Scott drafted when Scott had to leave. He was a pretty decent player, although he kept switching around the cards he had in his hand and the lands he had in play, which always makes me nervous. I'm sure there wasn't anything shady here, but too much movement always makes me think there's some sleight of hand going on. Paranoia, I guess. I honestly don't remember too much about these games. They lasted a long time, and were pretty close. I won the first game, then he won the second. The second game was very interesting, he alpha-struck for the win, I played a damage prevention spell and lived, but he had a guy to play that could take out two of mine, so I could only get him to two. Game three was mostly in my favor and I won.
Third round - Blake
I wish I had better stuff to say about these games, but I didn't take notes. I beat Blake in two games. His deck had lots of removal, which just didn't show up for him. I was able to put a lot of pressure on him with flyers, and then the guildmages were a real pain in his ass in the late game. I ended up having three of them, and, given the mana, could create token guys, put boost tokens on guys, and move them around. I had a couple graft guys, too, and the sorcery that puts x tokens on x guys.
All of my opponents were cureous and skillful players. Not too bad of an event, although there were still the obligatory people standing around acting amazed at the cards that were being passed in the draft, etc.. I don't think I'll be getting too heavily back into this scene.
So, I ended up 2-1, in third place, behing Mech and Tyler. I ended up with a shock land and some random junk. It was a pretty good night, and reminded me a little of all the nights we spent drafting in Jerod's basement. Even Gary was there!
GG, GL
I finished my first two-player game of Reef Encounter on spielbyweb.com. I liked it a lot. It has a great element of forward planning that I missed playing on the table top. Having played once in real life was a huge advantage, though, as I think my opponent struggled with assessing the manipulation of the coral strength tiles. I ended up winning in a bit of a landslide, but I'm not sure how much attention he was really paying. This makes me feel I understand and like the game quite a bit better, but I'm no closer to buying it, as playing online seems so much superior... maybe down the road sometime.
Bill has apparently decided that the Magic drafts at the store are not competitive enough, and invited a group of us to come and draft on our own, in order to better prepare people for nationals, or something. It ended up being myself, Bill, Mech, Tyler, Pete, Scott, Blake, and Gary. I was being fed by Blake and passing to Bill. This was only my second time drafting this block with all three sets (I drafted triple Ravnica once and RRG twice). I am still not too familiar with the cards, as I don't play so much, but I guess I was invited on the strength of my past accomplishments.
Right off the bat I wasn't sure what to take, and I admit I probably took the wrong card first pick, an instant that is like basilisk/regenerate in one that can be played with black or green. After that, I took a green/white guildmage and the black/green one. I was a little worried about going g/b/w, though, as I'd only have one guild left, and there would be a pack I could only take mono-colored cards out of, unless I splashed a fourth color. I dabbled in blue a little, just in case. Of course, that meant I'd be in two guilds in the third pack... I still haven't got this figured out! So, if this is making any sense, I tried to stick mainly with green and white, but took some black and blue figuring they would work into the mix somewhere. In the end, I was a little shy on removal, but had a solid three color deck whichever way I went. I was quite short of mana fixers, so I couldn't really go four color. I ended up w/g/u. I played the blue for the graft/flying guy and the 4/3 flyer that can forecast to draw cards. When I took it, I forgot that forecast works only during your upkeep... I had plenty of creatures, and some fair non-creature spells, but I wish I would have gotten one or two bounce spells.
Round one - Tyler
Tyler was playing pretty much the same as me, except four color with plenty of black. He had a bunch of mana fixing lands, though, which made it easy for him to do. Game one he mulliganed into a one land hand and kept it. He didn't draw more mana and I smashed him. Game two, I drew way too many land and he smashed me over time. Game three I started OK and ran into a land clump, if I remember right.
Round two - Andy
Andy is a young man who took over playing the deck that Scott drafted when Scott had to leave. He was a pretty decent player, although he kept switching around the cards he had in his hand and the lands he had in play, which always makes me nervous. I'm sure there wasn't anything shady here, but too much movement always makes me think there's some sleight of hand going on. Paranoia, I guess. I honestly don't remember too much about these games. They lasted a long time, and were pretty close. I won the first game, then he won the second. The second game was very interesting, he alpha-struck for the win, I played a damage prevention spell and lived, but he had a guy to play that could take out two of mine, so I could only get him to two. Game three was mostly in my favor and I won.
Third round - Blake
I wish I had better stuff to say about these games, but I didn't take notes. I beat Blake in two games. His deck had lots of removal, which just didn't show up for him. I was able to put a lot of pressure on him with flyers, and then the guildmages were a real pain in his ass in the late game. I ended up having three of them, and, given the mana, could create token guys, put boost tokens on guys, and move them around. I had a couple graft guys, too, and the sorcery that puts x tokens on x guys.
All of my opponents were cureous and skillful players. Not too bad of an event, although there were still the obligatory people standing around acting amazed at the cards that were being passed in the draft, etc.. I don't think I'll be getting too heavily back into this scene.
So, I ended up 2-1, in third place, behing Mech and Tyler. I ended up with a shock land and some random junk. It was a pretty good night, and reminded me a little of all the nights we spent drafting in Jerod's basement. Even Gary was there!
GG, GL
Sunday, June 04, 2006
A Game of Thrones CCG Regional, Columbia, Missouri - Part Two
"I love it when we do this." - Uttered by Dave, in response to my order at Starbuck's the next morning. Previously, BMT had expressed delight at my "formula" for picking the number of sauce packets I needed at Taco Bell. In this case, he was referring to the multiple instructions that accompany my order at Starbuck's, a concoction refined over months of having the aformentioned establishment right on the way to work, with me too lazy to get going the extra ten or fifteen minutes early that it would take me to regularly patronize one of the other, non-evil empire coffee establishments. For the curious, it's the largest size (I refuse to say "venti," or whatever it is) cafe mocha, made with soy milk, iced, with an extra shot (which makes it a quad), and four pumps of chocolate syrup instead of six (it's too sweet otherwise). I'm getting ahead of myself a little, though.
So, we woke up Saturday morning, not so ready to go. I wasn't sure about my deck, and Jerod had a headache. We grabbed a bit to eat - the hotel had free waffles and danishes, but it was totally crowded down there so I just ate the cherry pop tarts I'd purchased at a gas station the night before. I was totally out of it and needed some caffeine, so we ran over to the B&N in the mall for some Starbucks. While we were getting fueled up, I made a list of the popular deck archetypes, and we tried to guess how many of each type would show up. We thought there would be 18-20 players, and that the majority would play Stark or Baratheon. We were discussing how fast Baratheon could be, and the cards you could use to slow it down, and Jerod and I both thought we needed to be playing 2-3 copies of Bastard. I think we actually guessed a little low on Stark and a little high on Bara, and we thought there might be 0-1 Martell and there ended up being two or three, I think. I was looking at this, and thinking about how my deck might do, and for some reason I just wasn't happy. I started thinking about alternatives. I had previously played Stark a lot, but was unhappy with that and wanted something different, something that would get me out of the way I commonly play.
I had brought some decklists from the net with me. Among them was the list for the Greyjoy deck that Mathlete played in one of the regional events in California. Dave was running a pretty much exact copy of this deck, that our friend Jeremiah had assembled (Jeremiah couldn't come due to other commitments). I decided to start putting together a variant of this, to see if I liked it better. I was also curious about what I would learn from playing a deck designed by someoen else. We took off for the tournament site, with me making a mental catalogue of cards I'd like to have. Looking at the decklist, the deck had two Bastards and two King's Landing Harlot, both good against Bara. It also sported 3 Ten Towers Battlements, excellent against Stark (especially with the 2 copies of Student of Coin).
Upon arriving at the store, we had about an hour and a half. I started putting the deck together. First off, it was 66 cards, and I wanted to cut it down to 60. I rushed to cull it to what I wanted, while Luke found the four cards I needed to borrow from him. I felt a little bad about that, as he was also busy trying to compile a deck for Dobbler, who hadn't brought any cards and had decided he didn't like the deck Luke had stayed up until 2 in the morning the night before to make him. Here's the link to the original post from Mathlete on the AGOT discussion boards, that contains his decklist: http://www.agameofthrones.com/brds/viewtopic.php?t=2011&start=0.
Here's the deck I ended up with:
House: Greyjoy
Agenda: Threat From the East
Plots:
Blockade
Wraiths in the Midst
The Gathering Storm
Whose Name May Not Be Spoken
Benjen's Cache
Winter Has Come
Trading With the Pentoshi
Locations (15)
Kingsroad Farmstead X3
River Rox X3
Island Transport X3
Ten Towers Battlements X3
The Broken Ground X2
Flea Bottom X1
Characters (36)
Vanguard Axeman X3
Sea God's Disciple X3
Deadly Axeman X2
Euron's Servant X2
Skirling Berserker X3
Wildling Emissary X3 (added 1)
Wildling Messenger X3
King's Landing Harlot X2
Band of Free Folk X2
Student of Coin X2
Young Spearwife X2
Frey Lordling X2
Littlefinger
Wildling Scout (added)
Conn Son of Corrat
Fallen Brother (subtracted 1)
Mance Rayder
Samwell Tarly (added)
Roving Pillagers (added)
Events (7)
King Balon's Command X3
Cracks in the Wall X2 (subtracted one)
Massing at Twilight X2
Attachments (2)
Bastard X2
Other than the noted stuff, I dropped Styg, Andryk, 4 locations, and maybe one or two other characters. You can compare Mathlete's decklist through the link.
Round One - Sam (Icyewolf) with Baratheon.
I finished my deck and signed up for the tournament at the last minute. I just managed to finish up and turn in my decklist in time to sit down for the first match. This was a silly game, and perhaps my punishment for ragging on the speed of Bara for the last few weeks. Sam and I both mulliganed, and flopped four. I blockaded, and couldn't really play anything. I did mess up, though. I haven't played Blockade before, and wasn't sure I still got the gold from my Kingsroad Farmstead. It probably didn't matter, but who knows? Sam had some reducers, including the free Asshai guy. He also had the Storms End TG, and an Old Red Priest. Sam played another ORP to soak claim, and put Born to Be King and Chosen By R'hllor on the ORP. My challenges went, and I claimed a power on something. He proceeded to play Baratheon's Charm and wreck me in three challenges, claiming fat power along the way. He played a Blood and Glory, but didn't need it, as he hit 15 after his third challenge. At the rate he was going, he could have claimed 21 power that turn, I think. Sam seemed a nice guy, and it's a pity we didn't have more of a game. After losing on the first turn, I was really in no mood to talk afterwards. So, first round, and I'm out on the first turn. Hm. Not so good. This was an inauspicious start to the day, but I remembered the tournament in Madison when I lost quickly to Emre's Baratheon in the first round, and then fought back to the finals, where, of course, I promptly lost to Emre again...
Second Round - Alex
There I was, facing another Baratheon deck, figuring my day was over. I got a decent start, though, and Alex wasn't going to fast. He got Chosen by R'hllor down on a Lord's Assassin and a Band of Free Folk. I bastarded the Free Folk and attacked. He blanked my Free Folk so he could kill his, keeping the LA. He didn't draw much power rush stuff, or any real control stuff, and I got control of the board through military challenges. I got down double ten towers and double broken ground, and it was just over. I got up feeling a bit better about the day, and also thinking that I was learning to play the deck a bit better.
Round three - Troy
It turns out Troy is from Florida, and flew out her to play because he couldn't make it to the regionals near him. I think he may have had business in the area as well. Troy was playing Stark Armies, and this was not a good matchup for him. He flopped an army, the one cost guy that reduces armies, and a free reducer, I think. I had skirling berserker and some other stuff. I blockaded, and he couldn't play anything. He played the plot that gave him +1 str, and got through the turn still having his army. He played Eddard and a Toll Collector. I killed Eddard with Ten Towers/Broken Ground, the TC with SB, and The army with claim. At that point, he didn't really have anything, and couldn't get back in the game with my location combo. I rolled in 4-5 power a turn and it was over. Troy seemed like a good fellow, and I hope he had a fun trip and learned a lot. He mentioned that we build decks and play a little differently than the people in Florida.
Roud Four - Dan (ccdano)
Dan was playing Greyjoy Night's Watch, which I figured was a pretty bad matchup for me. I was looking at having my Bands of Free Folk be useless, and getting my Wildlings discarded. Both of the above were true. Dan got a low resource draw. He had three locations pretty early, but they were all Minor Fiefdoms, and I got rid of them over time with Euron's Servant. Unfortunately, it wasn't before he could use a Tidal Wave on my TTB. We went back and forth on this one, and it was the best game I'd had to that point for the weekend. Both of us used Fallen Brother to good effect, and I managed to get an advantage with the two claim on Gathering Storm. I think we almost got all the way through plots with this one, but I kept him lite on resources with Cracks in the Wall, etc. and ended up coming out on top. Dan is a good guy, and a credit to the game, and I'm happy he ended up making top 8 in the end.
Round 5 - Kevin (Balon)
Kevin parked his Stark Wot5K across the table from me, and I figured I was in for a test. Thankfully, I had a good draw on Sea God's Disciple, and characters in general, to soak claim. Dan got out a lot of guys, and was winning military challenges. He got out Conn, and had the military locked down, until I drew some stealth. The only problem he had was that he couldn't draw any other icons. He just had a big army of little monocon Stark beaters. I was building up power, too, with uncontested power and intrigue. He got up to ten while I was at 8, but then I hit for power and I don't think he got over 9 again. I wiped the board with Winter Has Come, while he had no cards in hand and no locations on the table, and I had locations, including Broken Ground, four cards in hand, and Disciples in my dead pile. From that point, He couldn't get caught up in time to stop me. I was happy to win and be guaranteed top 8. I'm glad Kevin made it too. Their effort driving to Iowa for our Regional was a big influence on me deciding to come down there.
Top 8
Quarterfinals - vs. Sam (again!)
Well, I thought, maybe we'll have more of a game this time. Sam pointed out that he had alternated win/loss the whole tournament, and that he was due a loss. He told me he hoped I won the tournament, so that he could say he beat the champ. I said, why not hope that you win, and say that you're the champ. He apparently didn't think that would happen. On the flop, he had three reducers (including Frey Lordling I think), Samwell, and Salidor San. I only had 1 reducer, the GJ one that's the worst resource in the deck, and inferior characters. I decided I couldn't Blockade while he had such an advantage, so I played Wraths, hoping to get to Winter Has Come range quickly. However, he did the Blockading for me, freezing up my development. He played a tourney ground and a Servant of R'hllor on Salidor, and won a challenge. I won a couple challenges and said go. Second turn, he used Benjen's Cache. Then, he Massinged. I could have cancelled it with an Axeman, but decided not to, thinking back to the last game when I was hammered by a single Baratheon's Charm. However, I should have done it - he got great cards. Between the Cache, his draw, and the Massing, he ended up putting all three tourney grounds into play that turn, as well as a Chosen by R'hllor on Salidor. This was not looking good. I wrecked a tourney ground with a Pillager and played a TTB. However, with the Chosen on Salidor, I couldn't make him smaller than my guys, so I couldn't win a joust. He came in and played I Am King Here, which I cancelled. Then, he came in three more times (Blood and Glory) with two more I Am King Here's to rack up enough power to win the game before dominance. So, out in a turn the first round, out in a turn and a half in the quarterfinals. I wished Sam luck the rest of the tournament, and went to grab some prize so that we could hit the road. Dave was disappointed to go 2-3, and Jerod was also feeling down at 2-2-1. They decided not to play in the draft due to the high price and the high chance that I would be done quickly and we could get on our way home. For my troubles, I was awarded a few packs of Song of Night, I think four, as well as an old promo Wildling deck. It's always nice to walk away from the tournament with something.
As a side note, I picked up a small game down there to try to make up a little for them not getting enough entries to cover the price of the tournament package. I bought Lupus in Tabula, a Werewolf varient by Mayfair. This is a version by Italian designer Stefano Di Fazi, with Illustration by Gianpaolo Derossi. I chose it over Werewolves of Miller's Crossing and Are You a Werewolf? because the box looked sturdier, the production value looked higher, and it contained some variant cards for different roles that you can add in to spice up the game with more players. Hopefully I'll be able to bust it out the next time I have nine gamers sitting around...
We jumped in Dave's car and got on the road. The way home was uneventful, save a few moments of inspired hilarity and a brief period of bugs hitting our windshield like rain. We talked over the speed of Baratheon, and came to the conclusion that the problem card was Chosen By R'hllor. Without the free standing, it isn't possible to win so many jousts with the same buffed character in one turn. There was also general talk about our decks, gaming, the Iowa City community, etc.
All in all, a fun, whirlwind trip to a nice little tournament. I have to thank the people at VG for being friendly, gracious hosts, and Sam and Dan for doing a lot of the work of running the tournament. I actually wish I could have stayed on Saturday and maybe gone out with some of the guys. I regret not getting to talk to some of the attendees at all. I also was a little sad to make Luke ride home alone, and have to thank him for the ride down, good company, and card loans. I hope that everyone had a good time and got home safely. I like the deck, and think it is decent against the field. I'm glad Mathlete took the time to post it. If I could change anything about the deck, I don't know, I might have tried to add another Bastard. I'd like to play it again, but I'm not sure I'll have a chance. This was very likely my last big tournament, as I'm probably not going to GenCon, and I'm moving to North Carolina this summer, where I don't anticipate continuing to play much.
GG, GL
"I love it when we do this." - Uttered by Dave, in response to my order at Starbuck's the next morning. Previously, BMT had expressed delight at my "formula" for picking the number of sauce packets I needed at Taco Bell. In this case, he was referring to the multiple instructions that accompany my order at Starbuck's, a concoction refined over months of having the aformentioned establishment right on the way to work, with me too lazy to get going the extra ten or fifteen minutes early that it would take me to regularly patronize one of the other, non-evil empire coffee establishments. For the curious, it's the largest size (I refuse to say "venti," or whatever it is) cafe mocha, made with soy milk, iced, with an extra shot (which makes it a quad), and four pumps of chocolate syrup instead of six (it's too sweet otherwise). I'm getting ahead of myself a little, though.
So, we woke up Saturday morning, not so ready to go. I wasn't sure about my deck, and Jerod had a headache. We grabbed a bit to eat - the hotel had free waffles and danishes, but it was totally crowded down there so I just ate the cherry pop tarts I'd purchased at a gas station the night before. I was totally out of it and needed some caffeine, so we ran over to the B&N in the mall for some Starbucks. While we were getting fueled up, I made a list of the popular deck archetypes, and we tried to guess how many of each type would show up. We thought there would be 18-20 players, and that the majority would play Stark or Baratheon. We were discussing how fast Baratheon could be, and the cards you could use to slow it down, and Jerod and I both thought we needed to be playing 2-3 copies of Bastard. I think we actually guessed a little low on Stark and a little high on Bara, and we thought there might be 0-1 Martell and there ended up being two or three, I think. I was looking at this, and thinking about how my deck might do, and for some reason I just wasn't happy. I started thinking about alternatives. I had previously played Stark a lot, but was unhappy with that and wanted something different, something that would get me out of the way I commonly play.
I had brought some decklists from the net with me. Among them was the list for the Greyjoy deck that Mathlete played in one of the regional events in California. Dave was running a pretty much exact copy of this deck, that our friend Jeremiah had assembled (Jeremiah couldn't come due to other commitments). I decided to start putting together a variant of this, to see if I liked it better. I was also curious about what I would learn from playing a deck designed by someoen else. We took off for the tournament site, with me making a mental catalogue of cards I'd like to have. Looking at the decklist, the deck had two Bastards and two King's Landing Harlot, both good against Bara. It also sported 3 Ten Towers Battlements, excellent against Stark (especially with the 2 copies of Student of Coin).
Upon arriving at the store, we had about an hour and a half. I started putting the deck together. First off, it was 66 cards, and I wanted to cut it down to 60. I rushed to cull it to what I wanted, while Luke found the four cards I needed to borrow from him. I felt a little bad about that, as he was also busy trying to compile a deck for Dobbler, who hadn't brought any cards and had decided he didn't like the deck Luke had stayed up until 2 in the morning the night before to make him. Here's the link to the original post from Mathlete on the AGOT discussion boards, that contains his decklist: http://www.agameofthrones.com/brds/viewtopic.php?t=2011&start=0.
Here's the deck I ended up with:
House: Greyjoy
Agenda: Threat From the East
Plots:
Blockade
Wraiths in the Midst
The Gathering Storm
Whose Name May Not Be Spoken
Benjen's Cache
Winter Has Come
Trading With the Pentoshi
Locations (15)
Kingsroad Farmstead X3
River Rox X3
Island Transport X3
Ten Towers Battlements X3
The Broken Ground X2
Flea Bottom X1
Characters (36)
Vanguard Axeman X3
Sea God's Disciple X3
Deadly Axeman X2
Euron's Servant X2
Skirling Berserker X3
Wildling Emissary X3 (added 1)
Wildling Messenger X3
King's Landing Harlot X2
Band of Free Folk X2
Student of Coin X2
Young Spearwife X2
Frey Lordling X2
Littlefinger
Wildling Scout (added)
Conn Son of Corrat
Fallen Brother (subtracted 1)
Mance Rayder
Samwell Tarly (added)
Roving Pillagers (added)
Events (7)
King Balon's Command X3
Cracks in the Wall X2 (subtracted one)
Massing at Twilight X2
Attachments (2)
Bastard X2
Other than the noted stuff, I dropped Styg, Andryk, 4 locations, and maybe one or two other characters. You can compare Mathlete's decklist through the link.
Round One - Sam (Icyewolf) with Baratheon.
I finished my deck and signed up for the tournament at the last minute. I just managed to finish up and turn in my decklist in time to sit down for the first match. This was a silly game, and perhaps my punishment for ragging on the speed of Bara for the last few weeks. Sam and I both mulliganed, and flopped four. I blockaded, and couldn't really play anything. I did mess up, though. I haven't played Blockade before, and wasn't sure I still got the gold from my Kingsroad Farmstead. It probably didn't matter, but who knows? Sam had some reducers, including the free Asshai guy. He also had the Storms End TG, and an Old Red Priest. Sam played another ORP to soak claim, and put Born to Be King and Chosen By R'hllor on the ORP. My challenges went, and I claimed a power on something. He proceeded to play Baratheon's Charm and wreck me in three challenges, claiming fat power along the way. He played a Blood and Glory, but didn't need it, as he hit 15 after his third challenge. At the rate he was going, he could have claimed 21 power that turn, I think. Sam seemed a nice guy, and it's a pity we didn't have more of a game. After losing on the first turn, I was really in no mood to talk afterwards. So, first round, and I'm out on the first turn. Hm. Not so good. This was an inauspicious start to the day, but I remembered the tournament in Madison when I lost quickly to Emre's Baratheon in the first round, and then fought back to the finals, where, of course, I promptly lost to Emre again...
Second Round - Alex
There I was, facing another Baratheon deck, figuring my day was over. I got a decent start, though, and Alex wasn't going to fast. He got Chosen by R'hllor down on a Lord's Assassin and a Band of Free Folk. I bastarded the Free Folk and attacked. He blanked my Free Folk so he could kill his, keeping the LA. He didn't draw much power rush stuff, or any real control stuff, and I got control of the board through military challenges. I got down double ten towers and double broken ground, and it was just over. I got up feeling a bit better about the day, and also thinking that I was learning to play the deck a bit better.
Round three - Troy
It turns out Troy is from Florida, and flew out her to play because he couldn't make it to the regionals near him. I think he may have had business in the area as well. Troy was playing Stark Armies, and this was not a good matchup for him. He flopped an army, the one cost guy that reduces armies, and a free reducer, I think. I had skirling berserker and some other stuff. I blockaded, and he couldn't play anything. He played the plot that gave him +1 str, and got through the turn still having his army. He played Eddard and a Toll Collector. I killed Eddard with Ten Towers/Broken Ground, the TC with SB, and The army with claim. At that point, he didn't really have anything, and couldn't get back in the game with my location combo. I rolled in 4-5 power a turn and it was over. Troy seemed like a good fellow, and I hope he had a fun trip and learned a lot. He mentioned that we build decks and play a little differently than the people in Florida.
Roud Four - Dan (ccdano)
Dan was playing Greyjoy Night's Watch, which I figured was a pretty bad matchup for me. I was looking at having my Bands of Free Folk be useless, and getting my Wildlings discarded. Both of the above were true. Dan got a low resource draw. He had three locations pretty early, but they were all Minor Fiefdoms, and I got rid of them over time with Euron's Servant. Unfortunately, it wasn't before he could use a Tidal Wave on my TTB. We went back and forth on this one, and it was the best game I'd had to that point for the weekend. Both of us used Fallen Brother to good effect, and I managed to get an advantage with the two claim on Gathering Storm. I think we almost got all the way through plots with this one, but I kept him lite on resources with Cracks in the Wall, etc. and ended up coming out on top. Dan is a good guy, and a credit to the game, and I'm happy he ended up making top 8 in the end.
Round 5 - Kevin (Balon)
Kevin parked his Stark Wot5K across the table from me, and I figured I was in for a test. Thankfully, I had a good draw on Sea God's Disciple, and characters in general, to soak claim. Dan got out a lot of guys, and was winning military challenges. He got out Conn, and had the military locked down, until I drew some stealth. The only problem he had was that he couldn't draw any other icons. He just had a big army of little monocon Stark beaters. I was building up power, too, with uncontested power and intrigue. He got up to ten while I was at 8, but then I hit for power and I don't think he got over 9 again. I wiped the board with Winter Has Come, while he had no cards in hand and no locations on the table, and I had locations, including Broken Ground, four cards in hand, and Disciples in my dead pile. From that point, He couldn't get caught up in time to stop me. I was happy to win and be guaranteed top 8. I'm glad Kevin made it too. Their effort driving to Iowa for our Regional was a big influence on me deciding to come down there.
Top 8
Quarterfinals - vs. Sam (again!)
Well, I thought, maybe we'll have more of a game this time. Sam pointed out that he had alternated win/loss the whole tournament, and that he was due a loss. He told me he hoped I won the tournament, so that he could say he beat the champ. I said, why not hope that you win, and say that you're the champ. He apparently didn't think that would happen. On the flop, he had three reducers (including Frey Lordling I think), Samwell, and Salidor San. I only had 1 reducer, the GJ one that's the worst resource in the deck, and inferior characters. I decided I couldn't Blockade while he had such an advantage, so I played Wraths, hoping to get to Winter Has Come range quickly. However, he did the Blockading for me, freezing up my development. He played a tourney ground and a Servant of R'hllor on Salidor, and won a challenge. I won a couple challenges and said go. Second turn, he used Benjen's Cache. Then, he Massinged. I could have cancelled it with an Axeman, but decided not to, thinking back to the last game when I was hammered by a single Baratheon's Charm. However, I should have done it - he got great cards. Between the Cache, his draw, and the Massing, he ended up putting all three tourney grounds into play that turn, as well as a Chosen by R'hllor on Salidor. This was not looking good. I wrecked a tourney ground with a Pillager and played a TTB. However, with the Chosen on Salidor, I couldn't make him smaller than my guys, so I couldn't win a joust. He came in and played I Am King Here, which I cancelled. Then, he came in three more times (Blood and Glory) with two more I Am King Here's to rack up enough power to win the game before dominance. So, out in a turn the first round, out in a turn and a half in the quarterfinals. I wished Sam luck the rest of the tournament, and went to grab some prize so that we could hit the road. Dave was disappointed to go 2-3, and Jerod was also feeling down at 2-2-1. They decided not to play in the draft due to the high price and the high chance that I would be done quickly and we could get on our way home. For my troubles, I was awarded a few packs of Song of Night, I think four, as well as an old promo Wildling deck. It's always nice to walk away from the tournament with something.
As a side note, I picked up a small game down there to try to make up a little for them not getting enough entries to cover the price of the tournament package. I bought Lupus in Tabula, a Werewolf varient by Mayfair. This is a version by Italian designer Stefano Di Fazi, with Illustration by Gianpaolo Derossi. I chose it over Werewolves of Miller's Crossing and Are You a Werewolf? because the box looked sturdier, the production value looked higher, and it contained some variant cards for different roles that you can add in to spice up the game with more players. Hopefully I'll be able to bust it out the next time I have nine gamers sitting around...
We jumped in Dave's car and got on the road. The way home was uneventful, save a few moments of inspired hilarity and a brief period of bugs hitting our windshield like rain. We talked over the speed of Baratheon, and came to the conclusion that the problem card was Chosen By R'hllor. Without the free standing, it isn't possible to win so many jousts with the same buffed character in one turn. There was also general talk about our decks, gaming, the Iowa City community, etc.
All in all, a fun, whirlwind trip to a nice little tournament. I have to thank the people at VG for being friendly, gracious hosts, and Sam and Dan for doing a lot of the work of running the tournament. I actually wish I could have stayed on Saturday and maybe gone out with some of the guys. I regret not getting to talk to some of the attendees at all. I also was a little sad to make Luke ride home alone, and have to thank him for the ride down, good company, and card loans. I hope that everyone had a good time and got home safely. I like the deck, and think it is decent against the field. I'm glad Mathlete took the time to post it. If I could change anything about the deck, I don't know, I might have tried to add another Bastard. I'd like to play it again, but I'm not sure I'll have a chance. This was very likely my last big tournament, as I'm probably not going to GenCon, and I'm moving to North Carolina this summer, where I don't anticipate continuing to play much.
GG, GL
A Game of Thrones Regional: Columbia, Missouri - Part 1
Sorting out trips to gaming events has become a bit of an art - controlled chaos, as people juggle their schedules, budgets, and expectations as the event approaches. I spoke with a few weeks ago about catching a ride down with him, and left it at that. In the intervening weeks, a shifting roster of other interested parties from Iowa coalesced on Friday morning into the final group of Dave T and Jerod.
Dave would drive himself and Jerod down, while I rode with Luke. Dave had to be back sometime Saturday night for an important Sunday event, and I have a lot to work on with the wedding, so it was decided that the three of us would come back that night together, with Luke staying until Sunday. Take off time was scheduled for Friday at 1 pm, so that we could make it down for the booster draft that evening. Kristin dropped me off at the store, ready to go, at 12:30.
Steve, Jerod, Luke, and Gigi were at the store. Steve hadn't eaten lunch yet, so we decided to run down to Subway to grab some grub. The buzz around the store, lately, has been about the aptly named BMT or Big Meaty Treat. With a name like that, I couldn't resist. A few minutes later, Steve and I were chomping on stacks of salami, ham, and cheese, with peppers and garlic spread, when Teagle arrived. The conversation turned, of course, to Teagle himself being a "big meaty treat," or, as it were, a "big meaty Teagle." This led to Dave being referred to as BMT all weekend, which was certainly exponentially funnier for us then than it is to you now...
Lunch consumed, it was time to hit the road. Luke and I headed off down 215, enjoying the beutiful weather and the geeky sounds of MC Chris, whom I've been binging on a bit of late, after seeing him at The House in DeKalb last week. Luke particularly enjoyed (aside from the classic "Fett's Vette," of course) White Kids Love Hip Hop and Geek. We had some laughs, and good discussions about the current state of the game and upcoming card sets. Particularly noteworthy in the light of the upcoming tournament, we discussed the state of Baratheon power rush decks, and debated the merits of having decks that can win that quickly (1st or 2nd turn) in an environment where there are not really a lot of possible answers at that point in the game. We missed a turn, and got a few miles off track, saw a confederate flag flying in a yard in Missouri, and other small adventures. Finally, we pulled into the Valhalla's Gate parking lot in Columbia, apparently about five minutes after Dave and Jerod.
I had been looking forward to visiting the store, as I had managed a small gaming store in Columbia many years ago, and was looking forward to seeing what had become of gaming in the area. VG is really a very nice place, and obviously a real benefit to the gamers in the area. They have a pretty decent stock of boardgames, a fairly extensive rpg area, and quite a bit in the miniatures department. They had an especially extensive selection of Warmachine. They were a little lite in the CCG/CMG deparment, at least in the areas of singles and variety. Things that really shone about the store were the amount of playing space (although most of it was obviously meant for miniatures gaming) and the numerous, friendly staff.
They actually close at 7pm on Fridays, so we waited for two guys to make massive D&D purchases, and for the store to be locked up, and got the draft underway. The decision was made to draft Winter/Winter/SON/SON, as people were anxious to get ahold of new cards. We had 17 people, and only time for three rounds, so we split into two pods. My table was, if I remember correctly, starting with me and running clockwise, Sam, Matt, Jerod, Casey, Kevin, Justin, Thad, and Jeff.
I first picked Northern Heir. I never mind going Stark in draft, although sometimes there's a lot of competition. This pack didn't give me a lot of choices, though. I was quite happy, then, when the second pack came and I saw that Jeff had decided to ship me an Arya's revenge. Oddly, I was a little unhappy, as this pack also had a Northern Champ in it, and I had to send it down the line. Third pick I grabbed a nice Stark army, fourth pick a random neutral character, and fifth pick another Arya's Revenge! Things were shaping up nicely. Noteworthy, though, is that both times I picked an Arya's Revenge I passed a Dothroki Sea. I think, earlier in the draft, I would value DS (can be played out of house, doesn't have a high influence cost) over AR. However, already into Stark, AR was the way to go. In pack two, I honestly can't remember my first pick. I think it was Fallen Brother. I picked up Huntress in the Swamp second, and then took my first real non-Stark card with Warlock's Servitors. This pack wasn't as good, just picking up random filler in Stark, Targ, and neutral, and an out of house Enemy Informer. Third pack I agonized over my first choice, looking at the rare "A Better Offer" and the uncommon "Dreadfort Captain." I ended up taking the out of house attachment, due to rarity and the possible power of controlling someone like Student of Subtlety. I ended up getting a Captain third pick, along with a second pick Shackled Defender. Things went OK the rest of the pack. Final pack first pick was another agonizing choice, with a great common wight, a very good uncommon Targ character, and the rare Robb's Sworn Swords, a huge army with deadly and renown who can eliminate a neutral character when entering and leaving play. Again, I went with the rare. Other noteworthy pickups included two each of Wolf Stalwart (common, four cost & strenght, str 3 or lower don't count strength) and Dragon Parisan (smaller, targ version, Str 1 don't count).
Overall, the deck was pretty good. Here it is:
Characters (24)
Stark (12)
Robb's Sworn Swords
Northern Heir
Dreadfort Captain
Greywater Watchmen
Greatjohn's Elite
Shackled Defender
Lookout
Wolf Stalwart X 2
Keeper of the New Gods
River Rider
Huntress in the Swamp
Targ (7)
Illyrio's Guard
Quartheen Tax Collector
Warlock's Servitors
Dragon Partisan X2
Eastern Mercenary
Ser Jorah Mormont
Neutral (4)
Mammoth Rampager
Ruthless Defender
Fallen Brother
Crazed Doomsayer
Lannister (1)
Enemy Informer
Events (2)
Arya's Revenge X2
Attachments (1)
A Better Offer
Locations (13)
Eastern Fiefdoms X1 (for influence)
Minor Fiefdom X3
Crossroads X3
Recruiting Hall X3
Recruiting Grounds X3
Plots (5)
Taxation
Counting Coppers
Called by the Gods
Filthy Accusations
Alliance
First Round - They did the pairings at our table randomly, for some reason, while the other table went cross-table, as we normally do in Iowa. I was supposed to play Sam, but he felt bad that he was running the tournament and someone would have to get a bye, so he basically dropped out of the tournament after drafting. I ended up playing Matt, who had been sitting to Sam's left. Matt was apparently a fairly new player, and was playing single house Martell. This is usually a cue that the person is not that good at drafting, as most players are not usually fortunate enough to get the number of in-house/neutral characters necessary to make single house work. However, this wasn't apparently the case here. Matt had a decent start, with a lot of gold off the flop. The first turn, he had two Martell characters, one of them being Arianne. Second turn, I knelt Arianne, but he got out a Dornish Lancer and some fodder, and put +1 str and renown on Arianne, then cancelled my Enemy Informer's attempt to kneel the Lancer. The Lancer also got an attachment that said he could gain a power every time he lost a challenge. Well, the Lancer attacked, Arianne got to stand, and he claimed a bunch of power. Third turn I discarded the attachment on the Lancer with Ser Jorah, but he just played another! I did a military, he copied the ability on the attachment, and I was locked out of the game, as I lost if I won any challenge or lost power. It was frustrating to be done that quickly, but oh well.
Second round - I got paired with Jeff this time. He was sitting to my right, which is not commonly great in draft, as he got to see most of the first pack before I did. Jeff is a really new player, though, and this was a learning experience for him. He was also playing single house. I'm somewhat ashamed that I can't remember what house it was, although I'm pretty sure it was Lannister. Either he or Casey had Lanni, that's for sure. Well, this game, no offence to Jeff, was sort of just going through the motions it seemed, as my deck and draw were better than Jeff's, and he was still learning. We played a nice, friendly, easy-going game, through five or six plots, I think, and I won. We had a little talk after about drafting and deck building, and it became clear that nobody had informed him that he could add 3 each of Minor Fiefdom and Crossroads. He made some adjusments to his deck which, I think, helped out, as he won the next round.
Third round - I got to play Casey, who sat accross from me and hence probably should have been my first round opponent. He was also single house, and this time I really don't remember what house it was. Casey was a somewhat experienced player, who hadn't played in a while, who just came out for the draft. I think he made decent choices, but his deck just didn't show up, and mine did. That's one thing about drafting a lot of characters - you can usually at least play. This was another game that lasted a few plots, but wasn't too much of a game - Casey just didn't get cards. After it was over, we shook hands and chatted about the game and Columbia for a bit. It's too bad he didn't want to play in the constructed event the next day.
In the end, I was 2-1, losing first round, Jerod was 2-1, losing 2nd round, and Dave was 2-1, losing in the last round of the other pod. They had arranged the prize support for one tournament, so they rolled off between people from the different pods for each place, which was kind of weird. In the end, Dave ended up third, Jerdo 5th, and me 7th, I think. In all honesty, the prize support was a little wimpy, too, with not much thrown in aside from what the company sent (I think Boen maybe threw in some stuff from his store). This was especially so in light of the fact that we were charged more than retail ($16) for the packs for the draft. Some places have different philosophies about this sort of thing, though, and not everyone is as generous as Jerod (or, of course, as AJ), who charged only, I think, $12 or $14 for his drafts and threw in product for prizes for everyone.
After the tournament, we needed to find a hotel. We drove out to the place where Lucas was lodging and scored a sweet deal on a smoking room, as they were out of non-smoking. Not having eaten dinner, we decided to run out to Wendy's for some burgers and stop at a gas station for some beers. The Wendy's drive through line was an unbelievable wait, but we had some laughs chatting and listening to MC Chris.
That night, I worked on tuning the Lannister-Greyjoy deck I'd made after our regional. While I did that, the others hung out in Luke's room while Luke built a deck for Dobbler, a guy from Missouri who didn't have any cards. Luke went to drive Dobbler back to the place he was crashing, and Jerod kindly agreed to test against me with his characterlite deck. I had a pretty good start, but I was missing an intrigue icon that would have really helped. I also messed up my order of play in one round, and Jerod won.
We chatted and chuckled for a few minutes like kids at a sleepover and then it was lights out, with the prospect of the big event, last chance for a trophy this season, looming on the morning horizon.
Sorting out trips to gaming events has become a bit of an art - controlled chaos, as people juggle their schedules, budgets, and expectations as the event approaches. I spoke with a few weeks ago about catching a ride down with him, and left it at that. In the intervening weeks, a shifting roster of other interested parties from Iowa coalesced on Friday morning into the final group of Dave T and Jerod.
Dave would drive himself and Jerod down, while I rode with Luke. Dave had to be back sometime Saturday night for an important Sunday event, and I have a lot to work on with the wedding, so it was decided that the three of us would come back that night together, with Luke staying until Sunday. Take off time was scheduled for Friday at 1 pm, so that we could make it down for the booster draft that evening. Kristin dropped me off at the store, ready to go, at 12:30.
Steve, Jerod, Luke, and Gigi were at the store. Steve hadn't eaten lunch yet, so we decided to run down to Subway to grab some grub. The buzz around the store, lately, has been about the aptly named BMT or Big Meaty Treat. With a name like that, I couldn't resist. A few minutes later, Steve and I were chomping on stacks of salami, ham, and cheese, with peppers and garlic spread, when Teagle arrived. The conversation turned, of course, to Teagle himself being a "big meaty treat," or, as it were, a "big meaty Teagle." This led to Dave being referred to as BMT all weekend, which was certainly exponentially funnier for us then than it is to you now...
Lunch consumed, it was time to hit the road. Luke and I headed off down 215, enjoying the beutiful weather and the geeky sounds of MC Chris, whom I've been binging on a bit of late, after seeing him at The House in DeKalb last week. Luke particularly enjoyed (aside from the classic "Fett's Vette," of course) White Kids Love Hip Hop and Geek. We had some laughs, and good discussions about the current state of the game and upcoming card sets. Particularly noteworthy in the light of the upcoming tournament, we discussed the state of Baratheon power rush decks, and debated the merits of having decks that can win that quickly (1st or 2nd turn) in an environment where there are not really a lot of possible answers at that point in the game. We missed a turn, and got a few miles off track, saw a confederate flag flying in a yard in Missouri, and other small adventures. Finally, we pulled into the Valhalla's Gate parking lot in Columbia, apparently about five minutes after Dave and Jerod.
I had been looking forward to visiting the store, as I had managed a small gaming store in Columbia many years ago, and was looking forward to seeing what had become of gaming in the area. VG is really a very nice place, and obviously a real benefit to the gamers in the area. They have a pretty decent stock of boardgames, a fairly extensive rpg area, and quite a bit in the miniatures department. They had an especially extensive selection of Warmachine. They were a little lite in the CCG/CMG deparment, at least in the areas of singles and variety. Things that really shone about the store were the amount of playing space (although most of it was obviously meant for miniatures gaming) and the numerous, friendly staff.
They actually close at 7pm on Fridays, so we waited for two guys to make massive D&D purchases, and for the store to be locked up, and got the draft underway. The decision was made to draft Winter/Winter/SON/SON, as people were anxious to get ahold of new cards. We had 17 people, and only time for three rounds, so we split into two pods. My table was, if I remember correctly, starting with me and running clockwise, Sam, Matt, Jerod, Casey, Kevin, Justin, Thad, and Jeff.
I first picked Northern Heir. I never mind going Stark in draft, although sometimes there's a lot of competition. This pack didn't give me a lot of choices, though. I was quite happy, then, when the second pack came and I saw that Jeff had decided to ship me an Arya's revenge. Oddly, I was a little unhappy, as this pack also had a Northern Champ in it, and I had to send it down the line. Third pick I grabbed a nice Stark army, fourth pick a random neutral character, and fifth pick another Arya's Revenge! Things were shaping up nicely. Noteworthy, though, is that both times I picked an Arya's Revenge I passed a Dothroki Sea. I think, earlier in the draft, I would value DS (can be played out of house, doesn't have a high influence cost) over AR. However, already into Stark, AR was the way to go. In pack two, I honestly can't remember my first pick. I think it was Fallen Brother. I picked up Huntress in the Swamp second, and then took my first real non-Stark card with Warlock's Servitors. This pack wasn't as good, just picking up random filler in Stark, Targ, and neutral, and an out of house Enemy Informer. Third pack I agonized over my first choice, looking at the rare "A Better Offer" and the uncommon "Dreadfort Captain." I ended up taking the out of house attachment, due to rarity and the possible power of controlling someone like Student of Subtlety. I ended up getting a Captain third pick, along with a second pick Shackled Defender. Things went OK the rest of the pack. Final pack first pick was another agonizing choice, with a great common wight, a very good uncommon Targ character, and the rare Robb's Sworn Swords, a huge army with deadly and renown who can eliminate a neutral character when entering and leaving play. Again, I went with the rare. Other noteworthy pickups included two each of Wolf Stalwart (common, four cost & strenght, str 3 or lower don't count strength) and Dragon Parisan (smaller, targ version, Str 1 don't count).
Overall, the deck was pretty good. Here it is:
Characters (24)
Stark (12)
Robb's Sworn Swords
Northern Heir
Dreadfort Captain
Greywater Watchmen
Greatjohn's Elite
Shackled Defender
Lookout
Wolf Stalwart X 2
Keeper of the New Gods
River Rider
Huntress in the Swamp
Targ (7)
Illyrio's Guard
Quartheen Tax Collector
Warlock's Servitors
Dragon Partisan X2
Eastern Mercenary
Ser Jorah Mormont
Neutral (4)
Mammoth Rampager
Ruthless Defender
Fallen Brother
Crazed Doomsayer
Lannister (1)
Enemy Informer
Events (2)
Arya's Revenge X2
Attachments (1)
A Better Offer
Locations (13)
Eastern Fiefdoms X1 (for influence)
Minor Fiefdom X3
Crossroads X3
Recruiting Hall X3
Recruiting Grounds X3
Plots (5)
Taxation
Counting Coppers
Called by the Gods
Filthy Accusations
Alliance
First Round - They did the pairings at our table randomly, for some reason, while the other table went cross-table, as we normally do in Iowa. I was supposed to play Sam, but he felt bad that he was running the tournament and someone would have to get a bye, so he basically dropped out of the tournament after drafting. I ended up playing Matt, who had been sitting to Sam's left. Matt was apparently a fairly new player, and was playing single house Martell. This is usually a cue that the person is not that good at drafting, as most players are not usually fortunate enough to get the number of in-house/neutral characters necessary to make single house work. However, this wasn't apparently the case here. Matt had a decent start, with a lot of gold off the flop. The first turn, he had two Martell characters, one of them being Arianne. Second turn, I knelt Arianne, but he got out a Dornish Lancer and some fodder, and put +1 str and renown on Arianne, then cancelled my Enemy Informer's attempt to kneel the Lancer. The Lancer also got an attachment that said he could gain a power every time he lost a challenge. Well, the Lancer attacked, Arianne got to stand, and he claimed a bunch of power. Third turn I discarded the attachment on the Lancer with Ser Jorah, but he just played another! I did a military, he copied the ability on the attachment, and I was locked out of the game, as I lost if I won any challenge or lost power. It was frustrating to be done that quickly, but oh well.
Second round - I got paired with Jeff this time. He was sitting to my right, which is not commonly great in draft, as he got to see most of the first pack before I did. Jeff is a really new player, though, and this was a learning experience for him. He was also playing single house. I'm somewhat ashamed that I can't remember what house it was, although I'm pretty sure it was Lannister. Either he or Casey had Lanni, that's for sure. Well, this game, no offence to Jeff, was sort of just going through the motions it seemed, as my deck and draw were better than Jeff's, and he was still learning. We played a nice, friendly, easy-going game, through five or six plots, I think, and I won. We had a little talk after about drafting and deck building, and it became clear that nobody had informed him that he could add 3 each of Minor Fiefdom and Crossroads. He made some adjusments to his deck which, I think, helped out, as he won the next round.
Third round - I got to play Casey, who sat accross from me and hence probably should have been my first round opponent. He was also single house, and this time I really don't remember what house it was. Casey was a somewhat experienced player, who hadn't played in a while, who just came out for the draft. I think he made decent choices, but his deck just didn't show up, and mine did. That's one thing about drafting a lot of characters - you can usually at least play. This was another game that lasted a few plots, but wasn't too much of a game - Casey just didn't get cards. After it was over, we shook hands and chatted about the game and Columbia for a bit. It's too bad he didn't want to play in the constructed event the next day.
In the end, I was 2-1, losing first round, Jerod was 2-1, losing 2nd round, and Dave was 2-1, losing in the last round of the other pod. They had arranged the prize support for one tournament, so they rolled off between people from the different pods for each place, which was kind of weird. In the end, Dave ended up third, Jerdo 5th, and me 7th, I think. In all honesty, the prize support was a little wimpy, too, with not much thrown in aside from what the company sent (I think Boen maybe threw in some stuff from his store). This was especially so in light of the fact that we were charged more than retail ($16) for the packs for the draft. Some places have different philosophies about this sort of thing, though, and not everyone is as generous as Jerod (or, of course, as AJ), who charged only, I think, $12 or $14 for his drafts and threw in product for prizes for everyone.
After the tournament, we needed to find a hotel. We drove out to the place where Lucas was lodging and scored a sweet deal on a smoking room, as they were out of non-smoking. Not having eaten dinner, we decided to run out to Wendy's for some burgers and stop at a gas station for some beers. The Wendy's drive through line was an unbelievable wait, but we had some laughs chatting and listening to MC Chris.
That night, I worked on tuning the Lannister-Greyjoy deck I'd made after our regional. While I did that, the others hung out in Luke's room while Luke built a deck for Dobbler, a guy from Missouri who didn't have any cards. Luke went to drive Dobbler back to the place he was crashing, and Jerod kindly agreed to test against me with his characterlite deck. I had a pretty good start, but I was missing an intrigue icon that would have really helped. I also messed up my order of play in one round, and Jerod won.
We chatted and chuckled for a few minutes like kids at a sleepover and then it was lights out, with the prospect of the big event, last chance for a trophy this season, looming on the morning horizon.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Wednesday night at CHG
It's been a hectic week. I haven't been working, as the school year ended and I don't have a summer job yet, but it seems all my mental space is taken up with thoughts about the future. I really haven't managed to accomplish too much, but I've felt pretty frazzled the whole time. One of the biggest things is looking for a job for next yeat - I hate filling out all the background information and such. Teachers have it bad, too. I've never had to jump through more hoops than when looking for teaching jobs. For obvious reasons, I guess, but it's still a pain to have to do it over and over...
Well, I guess what I'm getting at is that it was nice to get out of the house. I spent some time considering which games to take, and ended up filling my box with Princes of Florence, St. Petersburg (which I thought other people might be interested in), Through the Desert (which has been a nice, quick, ender), and Nexus Ops (which still hasn't seen the table). I had a nice dinner with Kristin, another successful variation on her "pasta bake" recipe, and drove over to the store.
I arrived just in time, apparently. There were people playing Magic and Bloodbowl, and an RPG in the back. A few people were just setting up Elasund, and I thought I might be out of luck... But, apparently, the Elasund group had been trying to get a 5th for Santiago, and were happy to set it aside for me to join in. How lucky!
For those of you unfamiliar with Santiago, it's an Amigo game, published in the U.S. by Z-man Games. Here's a link to the boardgamegeek.com page: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/8125. It's a fairly big box game that has strong tile-laying, resource management, and bidding aspects. It's set on the Cape Verde island of Santiago, off the west coast of Africa. The theme involves plantation owners trying to successfully produce their crops, while competing over scarce water. Each turn, the players bid for turn order. On their turn, each player picks a plantation tile (peppers, beans, sugar cane, potatoes, or bananas) and places it on the board. The player who passes first in bidding (or, if nobody passes, the player with the lowest bid) becomes the canal overseer. After the tiles have been placed, players take turns making suggestions about which canal, and hence which plantations, should be watered for the turn. They may offer the overseer financial incentives, either cooperatively or competitively. The canal overseer places the water. Unsupplied plantations suffer drying, which could make them either less valuable or actually useless. The game runs over nine such rounds, and at the end the players recieve money based on the size of their plantations and the number of workers on them, and the player with the most money wins.
I'd played Santiago once before, with Kurt and some others at one of Chris and Edie's famous game days. That day, I found it an interesting game with a lot of player interaction and wonderfully complex bidding elements. We played a game that seemed to revolve around working with majority coalitions to control the water, and I ended up winning that game by one Escudo over Kurt, something like 102-101. Last night's group, composed of Erin, Chris, Gare, Kurt, and myself promised an engaging play.
From the get go, last night's play was different. On the first turn, I ended up taking the overseer. The other four players, rather than trying to work together to get the water pumped in a specific direction, tried to give me as many choices as possible. Chris made a nice move, giving me a cheap option that didn't help anyone else, and the other players underbid for water. I ended up running the water away from them, and cutting down on the scoring right away. This trend continued, as the water stayed pretty limited and players continued to make plays that would promote the drying of someone's crops. There were also a number of blocking plays, as players with a piece they couldn't make a lot out of consistently used them to limit the expandability of specific crops. I was the canal overseer a number of times, and managed to build up a fist full of Escudos, while still getting in on some decent crops. In the end, I had 64 escudos, enough for the win. I can't remember the order of finishing behind me, I think maybe Gare had second but I'm not sure at all. Maybe someone will post to remind me.
After the game, the idea of playing something else was brought up, and I was rather surprised that the consensus was to play Santiago again. I generally enjoy getting to play a game twice in one night - to see the strategy develop, have better plays, etc., however, it seems increasingly rare in a world of large and ever-expanding game collections, with so many games competing for table time. Everyone was ready for another crack, though, and we got going right away.
This time, we used the three palm trees, that provide an extra worker on their spaces. Chris randomized their placement with some dice. We started off much like the last game left off, with people fighting to take the water in different directions, rather than forming larger groups to pool money to bribe the overseer. Chris had an excellent play in the third round, managing to be the overseer without passing, paying one escudo, and then taking a bonus space with a two worker tile. Unfortunately for him, this potentially big play turned sour when he was cut off from increasing the size of the crop (it did only have two open sides when he took it). This was the trend in the mid game - crops were cut off and kept fairly small. I, unfortunately, got six of my workers stuck on very mediocre (4 tile) crops. New crops that were started, though, went much bigger, including bananas, potatoes, and sugar cane. I only managed to get in on the sugar, unfortunately, and, despite some pleasant late game overseeing, I couldn't rack up a lot of points. There were a couple really nice plays made in this game, especially by Gare and Chris, with water bribes that were very nicely calculated to give the best shared advantage to themselves and the overseer. People also really started to get good with tile placement in respect to probable watering, especially Erin, which was one of the factors that one her the game. When the seeds were all gone, Erin was the planter with the most successful harvest, netting 60 escudos. I rolled up my wagon in second with 54, and I think Chris and Gare tied for 3rd with 43. I'm not sure how many Kurt ended up with.
By the time we finished up, it was 9:30 and really too late to start anything else. Everyone else headed for home. I stuck around a little while to talk to Jeremiah about the Game of Thrones CCG. I'm supposed to go to a tournament in Missouri on Friday, but I'm not sure I want to go right now, as I'm so busy and have not had time to play. I guess we'll see what I can get done today (if I can get the dang North Carolina Public Schools application webpage to load!). Overall, it was a great night, and I have to thank Kurt for bringing the game, and everyone for being such a swell group of folks to fight over water with.
GG, GL
It's been a hectic week. I haven't been working, as the school year ended and I don't have a summer job yet, but it seems all my mental space is taken up with thoughts about the future. I really haven't managed to accomplish too much, but I've felt pretty frazzled the whole time. One of the biggest things is looking for a job for next yeat - I hate filling out all the background information and such. Teachers have it bad, too. I've never had to jump through more hoops than when looking for teaching jobs. For obvious reasons, I guess, but it's still a pain to have to do it over and over...
Well, I guess what I'm getting at is that it was nice to get out of the house. I spent some time considering which games to take, and ended up filling my box with Princes of Florence, St. Petersburg (which I thought other people might be interested in), Through the Desert (which has been a nice, quick, ender), and Nexus Ops (which still hasn't seen the table). I had a nice dinner with Kristin, another successful variation on her "pasta bake" recipe, and drove over to the store.
I arrived just in time, apparently. There were people playing Magic and Bloodbowl, and an RPG in the back. A few people were just setting up Elasund, and I thought I might be out of luck... But, apparently, the Elasund group had been trying to get a 5th for Santiago, and were happy to set it aside for me to join in. How lucky!
For those of you unfamiliar with Santiago, it's an Amigo game, published in the U.S. by Z-man Games. Here's a link to the boardgamegeek.com page: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/8125. It's a fairly big box game that has strong tile-laying, resource management, and bidding aspects. It's set on the Cape Verde island of Santiago, off the west coast of Africa. The theme involves plantation owners trying to successfully produce their crops, while competing over scarce water. Each turn, the players bid for turn order. On their turn, each player picks a plantation tile (peppers, beans, sugar cane, potatoes, or bananas) and places it on the board. The player who passes first in bidding (or, if nobody passes, the player with the lowest bid) becomes the canal overseer. After the tiles have been placed, players take turns making suggestions about which canal, and hence which plantations, should be watered for the turn. They may offer the overseer financial incentives, either cooperatively or competitively. The canal overseer places the water. Unsupplied plantations suffer drying, which could make them either less valuable or actually useless. The game runs over nine such rounds, and at the end the players recieve money based on the size of their plantations and the number of workers on them, and the player with the most money wins.
I'd played Santiago once before, with Kurt and some others at one of Chris and Edie's famous game days. That day, I found it an interesting game with a lot of player interaction and wonderfully complex bidding elements. We played a game that seemed to revolve around working with majority coalitions to control the water, and I ended up winning that game by one Escudo over Kurt, something like 102-101. Last night's group, composed of Erin, Chris, Gare, Kurt, and myself promised an engaging play.
From the get go, last night's play was different. On the first turn, I ended up taking the overseer. The other four players, rather than trying to work together to get the water pumped in a specific direction, tried to give me as many choices as possible. Chris made a nice move, giving me a cheap option that didn't help anyone else, and the other players underbid for water. I ended up running the water away from them, and cutting down on the scoring right away. This trend continued, as the water stayed pretty limited and players continued to make plays that would promote the drying of someone's crops. There were also a number of blocking plays, as players with a piece they couldn't make a lot out of consistently used them to limit the expandability of specific crops. I was the canal overseer a number of times, and managed to build up a fist full of Escudos, while still getting in on some decent crops. In the end, I had 64 escudos, enough for the win. I can't remember the order of finishing behind me, I think maybe Gare had second but I'm not sure at all. Maybe someone will post to remind me.
After the game, the idea of playing something else was brought up, and I was rather surprised that the consensus was to play Santiago again. I generally enjoy getting to play a game twice in one night - to see the strategy develop, have better plays, etc., however, it seems increasingly rare in a world of large and ever-expanding game collections, with so many games competing for table time. Everyone was ready for another crack, though, and we got going right away.
This time, we used the three palm trees, that provide an extra worker on their spaces. Chris randomized their placement with some dice. We started off much like the last game left off, with people fighting to take the water in different directions, rather than forming larger groups to pool money to bribe the overseer. Chris had an excellent play in the third round, managing to be the overseer without passing, paying one escudo, and then taking a bonus space with a two worker tile. Unfortunately for him, this potentially big play turned sour when he was cut off from increasing the size of the crop (it did only have two open sides when he took it). This was the trend in the mid game - crops were cut off and kept fairly small. I, unfortunately, got six of my workers stuck on very mediocre (4 tile) crops. New crops that were started, though, went much bigger, including bananas, potatoes, and sugar cane. I only managed to get in on the sugar, unfortunately, and, despite some pleasant late game overseeing, I couldn't rack up a lot of points. There were a couple really nice plays made in this game, especially by Gare and Chris, with water bribes that were very nicely calculated to give the best shared advantage to themselves and the overseer. People also really started to get good with tile placement in respect to probable watering, especially Erin, which was one of the factors that one her the game. When the seeds were all gone, Erin was the planter with the most successful harvest, netting 60 escudos. I rolled up my wagon in second with 54, and I think Chris and Gare tied for 3rd with 43. I'm not sure how many Kurt ended up with.
By the time we finished up, it was 9:30 and really too late to start anything else. Everyone else headed for home. I stuck around a little while to talk to Jeremiah about the Game of Thrones CCG. I'm supposed to go to a tournament in Missouri on Friday, but I'm not sure I want to go right now, as I'm so busy and have not had time to play. I guess we'll see what I can get done today (if I can get the dang North Carolina Public Schools application webpage to load!). Overall, it was a great night, and I have to thank Kurt for bringing the game, and everyone for being such a swell group of folks to fight over water with.
GG, GL
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