Game Night at Lee’s: Volldampf, Niagara, Vegas Showdown, Cranium Hoopla
Monday, September 25th

I’ve become more and more focused on gaming, especially board gaming, over the past couple years. These recent weeks, since we’ve moved to North Carolina, have only heightened that focus, as I continue to meet new gamers and explore new games. Despite being pretty short of cash, I’ve somehow managed to acquire some new games recently. I didn’t get out for any gaming activities last week, but, over the weekend, while spending quiet time around the house with Kristin, I managed to teach myself Euro Rails and Volldampf (both from eBay), as well as Vegas Showdown (TRU sale). I’ve also recently acquired Detroit Cleveland Grand Prix and 1870. Both of these came from Amazon, at 50% off with free shipping. I don’t think 1870 will hit the table real soon, but I was happy to add a representative of that series of rail games to my collection.

With all these new games to possibly play, and not having done any gaming in the past week or so, I was pretty anxious for Game Night at Lee’s to roll around. I packed up my box, with Volldampf, Funny Friends, Santiago, and Vegas Showdown, and waited for Chris, who had generously agreed to drive.

Chris was pretty interested in Volldampf, as he’s a fan of Martin Wallace and Age of Steam. We made our way down to RTP, to pick up Lori, Chris’s girlfriend, and chatted about acquiring games on eBay. I only ended up getting Volldampf because I miss-entered my maximum bid, neglecting to put in a decimal, and bid $3,879.00 on it, rather than $38.79. In the end, I ended up paying about $48 for it, I think, which, I guess, is lucky. I got a good game, and wasn’t completely financially wiped out…

We got to Lee’s, and groups started dividing up. Chris wanted to play Volldampf, so it was on the table right away. Unfortunately, only Chris, Lori, and myself ended up playing, while most others played Barbarossa. It seemed this crowd was not heavy on strategy game lovers. Next time, I’ll have to bring something lighter.

Volldampf

Chris and Lori had both played Age of Steam, so the explanation was pretty quick, as the games have some similar mechanics. I had done a full solo of the game, but was glad I’d printed out new rules from the ‘geek and browsed them during the car ride down – there were some corrections, and an important tidbit I’d missed. I was also happy to have found downloadable English-language versions of the event cards. I printed a deck and sleaved them – they were very helpful. I need to make sure I get that guy a gg tip!

In V. you bid for turn order, in a similar fashion to AoS. The winner gets first choice of a set of face-up track cards, as well as first chance to build and ship goods cubes. Event cards are a nice catchup mechanism, given to the player in last place, or to someone who misses a goods cube move. I won the first auction, and took the one set of cards that would provide stuff to ship on turn one. Chris and Lori took the other two, we all built in different areas, and I was the only one who ended up with any income.

They caught up fairly quickly, though. I managed to stay in the lead for a couple turns, but while I was building solo, they were building into each other, and scoring off of each other’s moves. A turning point came when Chris used an event card to block a big, six point goods cube move, which was subsequently moved “out from under” me. This really slowed me down, and allowed Lori to pass me. Things were looking pretty tight, but some lucky cards came up, and I managed to win them. I think Chris and Lori felt that bidding for turn order had been too high early, and basically let me have them. I got a nice long network, and made some big cube shipments over the last couple of turns to catch up, and pass, Lori, which is how it ended.

The game was quite fast. I might say, given the basic similarities to AoS(and our subsequent assumptions), that it went very quickly. On reflection, though, this is a quite different game. It seems to me that the way the board is constructed, and the way the card comes out, this game might be much more about getting involved with other peoples’ networks, and utilizing negotiation skills to make things work for you. In AoS you really want to build a big network for yourself, but, the way the cards come out, that’s much less likely in V., making negotiation and sharing much more of a focus.

The other group was done, and Chris was wanting to get Niagara on the table. He had the expansion, but most of the people who were going to play hadn’t played the basic game, so we stuck with that. It was only my second play, so I was fine with that. We moved over to the couches, while the other table busted out, I think, Things in a Box.

Niagara

I’ve been trying to get away from my green pieces fixation (it was actually causing me to make errors in the games in which I ended up not being green), and ended up playing red for the second time tonight. The table was myself, Lee (the host), Lee’s friend (whose name, I think, was Spencer), Lori, and Chris. I was in the third seat to start.

I opened with a cloud, looking to get it out of my hand while both of my boats were off the river. I also just like to see the water move more. Second turn, I used a one to get my boat off the dock, wanting to save the bigger ones for more impact with two boats. Chris and Lee were picking up gems.

In the next couple turns, Chris grabbed a lot of purple gems, and got in a position to win. I was sitting on three different colored gems. I went for the two other colors, hoping someone could stop him, and open the door for me. Lori managed a steal from Chris, sacrificing one of her boats in the process. I got my gems, and headed back up river. I got in a position to win, but then Lee managed a steal from me. Chris got the last gem he needed, but, apparently, didn’t have the right card left to get to the dock. Nobody was paying attention to Lee, and it was a big surprise to us all when he delivered a gem and said “I win,” showing us four clear gems!

I think Niagara is fine. It seems to get a lot of knocks from people who think it’s too light. While I feel there’s not a lot of control, especially with five players, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. This is a nice, fairly light game, that is fun for non-gamers, looks cool, and provides some opportunities (card counting, planning ahead) for the thinking gamer to stretch out her grey matter.

There was a migration toward the other table, on which Pit was getting set up. We had more than the max number for stock trading, so another game had to be put forward. I pulled out Vegas Showdown, wanting to get another new acquisition on the table. Chris and Lori were up for it, and happy to stay in the couch area. Somewhat unhappily, nobody seemed interested in leaving the big table to join us for this (or, apparently, any other) game, so we ended up playing just the three of us again.

Vegas Showdown

Red again! V.S. hasn’t been in the blog before, so I’ll give a little description. It’s one of the newer Avalon Hill games, and does a pretty good job of being an American Euro. The players take the roles of a group of mega-wealthy people who have decided to have a competition involving who can have the most popular hotel/casino in Vegas. You participate in an auction for tiles that represent hotel/casino features like slots, lounges, and restaurants, and then place them strategically on your player board, which has limited space. There are a variety of special scoring opportunities. The game ends when a player fills her board, or when a type of tile can’t be replaced. Most “fame” points wins.

The explanation for this was a little longer, as it’s not overly similar to any one particular game that the three of us knew. This one also suffered a little more than Volldampf from “teacher advantage” – In the end, Lori and Chris were a little surprised by the game end (they were focusing on the other game end condition). Also, I think just having had the experience of putting the tiles on the player boards, and seeing them, was a big advantage for me here.

Early bidding saw competition for slots, which I won and probably overpaid for. Early lounges and Restaurants were constructed by Chris and Lori. As the game progressed, some nice tiles came out quickly. Chris picked up fancy restaurants and fancy slots that he couldn’t play, saving them for later. When they did come out, they gave him a big bump. I outbid Lori on a high-roller’s room, which would have given her a huge hike in income, and I didn’t feel I could let her have it cheaply. Unfortunately, it ended up being a bit of a drag for me, as the next table games tiles proved to be pretty far away, due to cards and the luck of the stack.

I grabbed the lion’s share of the “diamond” bonus tiles, and a card giving me points for them came up. I also got a really lucky draw when the space-age sports book came up. I had to pay a ton for it, but it let me get to within one tile of filling up my board, and it gave me a load of points. Chris let me have it, I think, because he knew if he got it, then he would be paying a lot of money for something he couldn’t play, and then I would just take the other sports book, which was up. As it was, I grabbed a slot to kill the game, and won handily. Chris and Lori were pretty close to each other, a ways behind.

This was pretty fun with three. You could almost always get something useful. I think I’d like it a bit more with four or five, as the competition for tiles would make it a lot more tense, and the publicity action would become more important. I would call this a big success for the designer, although I’m not sure if it’s sales will match Hasbro’s expectations.

Lee and Nate were the only ones left at the other table, and they were playing set. Nate wanted to get Cranium Hoopla going, which Lee and Lori were also enthusiastic about. It was way past my bedtime, and I was pretty tired, so I sat out and just watched. They had a pretty fun game, the pinnacle of which was Nate trying to convey “milky way” through charades, with Lee’s running chatter guesses working up to the phrase “…looking in space… milking… milking a cow… milking in space.” You had to be there. Actually, watching the group electronic word games at TBGT, and this, have made me want to dedicate some time to “party”-style games. I’m taking suggestions, if you’ve got any…

GG, GL
JW