Dune, with five players

October 29th

I was fortunate enough to get an invite over to David's for a game of Dune. This is something I've wanted to try for a long time, as the comments on BGG are intriguing. I'm not a big fan of the story - I never finished the book (only one attempt to read - when I was about 12), but now I'd like to at least see the movie again.

Dune is an old Avalon Hill classic, out of print since the early eighties, aside from a reprint in French, by Descartes, which I believe is also now out of print and somewhat hard to find. The old AH copies that come up on eby generally go for 40-80 dollars. I've managed to pick up a very slightly incomplete set for $35. This is a quite complicated game, and I don't think I'll explain much of it here. Doing a search for one of the Dune fan sites would give you the best background, if interested.

Today's game was Dan (who brought and explained the game), David (the host), Chris, Lori, and myself. We were one player short, so we left out the Bene Gesserit (sp?). I was the Guild. Basically, the players are trying to control four of the strongholds to win the game. The Fremen have an alternative victory condition, and, if nobody else wins by the end of the 16th turn, the Guild does. Each group has special powers and advantages, and the game has a unique combat system based on commiting and expending forces and leaders of various strengths, using a cool combat wheel.

A worm card, which signals an opportunity to form binding alliances, came up quite early. Since I was the only new player, and only needed to keep others from winning, I sat out of the alliances, hoping the other players would fight between themselves and basically ignore me. This worked, for the most part, although it didn't make for a very exciting game for me. The alliances were Dan (fremen) with Lori (emperor), and David (Harkonnen) with Chris (Paul Muad Dib). I made a few poor decisions in the early game, and then basically sat out and watched for a while. Near the end of the game, I started commiting troups to the board. In the last couple turns, I tried to tie up battles in key spaces to keep people from winning. In the end, neither alliance was able to break through, so I got the game.

This is a long game, and took us almost six hours. I really enjoyed it though, as it presents a lot of different opportunities for decision making, and is thick with theme. I look forward to playing again, with six players, and trying different factions. I think we could certainly make it faster by enforcing the time limit on bidding, and just getting people to play a little quicker. As it was, it was a fine way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

GG, GL
JW