Games Day at Dave's: Robo Rally, Samurai, El Grande

December 2nd

I've settled into a couple of regular, monthly gaming events since I came down to NC, and Dave's is one of them. I really look forward to gaming with this group. It's a nice size (7-10), and everyone is generally friendly and interested in strategy games. I'd like to get in the habit of visiting a local gaming store, but All Fun N Games just seems a little too far away on a Thursday night, and I haven't been too tempted to return to Sci Fi Genre Mondays. Even though my Monday night soccer practice has ended, I guess coaching wrestling has lessened my ability to game on weeknights. I had really hoped that, by now, I'd have settled into a regular schedule of gaming.

Games are important to me. I really enjoy the mental activity, as well as the socialization. However, somehow, the hobby still maintains an aura of triviality when I'm trying to prioritize activities. It would certainly be different if Kristin played. With her rigorous grading responsibilities, we really have to take advantage of the time she's able to relax a little. If she gamed, well, that would move gaming up the scale considerably. Since she doesn't, It really limits my availability. Of course, work gets in the way too! With this in mind, I'd really like to get into a weekly groove that both of us could expect. The way things have gone here, with me travelling to people's game nights, which are usually monthly, I presume it would look like this: One week at Rick's, one week at Dave's, one week at AFnG, and one week at Larry's. Possibly, an event of my own, either at home or at Broad Street Cafe, would replace one of the last two. I'd like to run a monthly invitational day for a lot of the classic/longer play games that I own, that don't see the table much. I'm sure I've expressed that before...

On to the day at Dave's:

Robo Rally

I was late to arrive. I'm still getting used to the area, and some construction forced me into an alternate route. With my mind on other things, I took some wrong-turns executing my new plan, and ended up quite late. Thankfully, I got there just as Rick was entering the final part of his explanation of the Robo Rally rules, and I'm pretty familiar with the game. It's funny, to me - this game, that I consider a classic, had only been played by 3/7 (I think) of our group of gamers. I guess it's just a testament to the number and variety of great board games on the market.

I sarted off with the "revive without damage" add-on, which I joked would be worthless to me, as I wouldn't die. Chris had the valuable "crab-walk" add-on, and Shanthi had the cool big gun, the recoil of which can give you extra "back-up" moves. We played four flags on two boards. It ended up being a little crowded with seven. In particular, the second flag proved a sticking point, surrounded by a pit, with multiple nearby conveyers, pushers, and flamers. I was in good position to hit the flag first to third, but then Keith pushed me off the conveyor and messed up my program. I also got shot up pretty bad, and decided to power down carrying four damage. Unfortunately, my program got messed up again, and I ended up powered down IN a flamer, which hit me for four on my down turn. I crawled out and PD'd again, this time to worse results - pushed into a pit! So, my add-on came in handy after all.

After revival, I got bashed around and shot up and killed again, as I tried to approach the flag from the wrong direction. On the third try I finally got the second flag, while the leaders were hitting the third. I decided to race it out instead of going after the leaders. I might have done the latter, except that we had several new players and the game was really running a bit long for my taste, and I wanted it to end. I made my way toward flag three, as several others were shot-up badly and/or killed. Keith, the first to hit flag two, was in a bad way, on his last life, stalled in PD and getting shot up en route to flag 3. Chris had managed to stay clear of the action, and made it out of flag 3 in style. Leaving us in a cloud of exhaust and fragmented laser crossfire, he got good cards and raced to flag 4 essentially uncontested and claimed a deserved win in a well-played (by him) game.

Nobody was ready for another seven-player marathon, so we split into groups of three and four. The four group consisted of people who wanted to play Lowenhertz. I wouldn't have minded playing again, but since they already had three who were very interested, and Chris needed to teach, I sat out. Lori and Rick and I went through the available games, and decided on Samurai.

Samurai

I've played this game several times, to mixed results (regarding my personal success, not enjoyment). Lori had played before, but Rick hadn't, so we went over the rules quickly and got going. We used random tile draw, which I prefer, especially with new players. I drew a few things early that I'd prefer to draw late, including my tile switch, my ronin, my recycling tile, and my 2 strength navy. This resulted in me jumping out to an early lead, with six trophies compared to two each for my opponents. However, using the tiles for bigger moves in the North had resulted in me not developing presence in the South. At that point, almost any move I would make in a developed area would result in an easy capture for either of my opponents. On the other hand, the game was far enough along that any placement on the third island, which contained only religion and politics, might be wasted as the game would probably end on agriculture. I went with placing my samurai on the island, alone, where they never captured me a piece. Lori and Rick caught up and passed me, and, when the game ended, although I had more pieces than Rick, I didn't have a single majority and finished in third, with Lori winning on a strong rice majority and the largest number of pieces tiebreaker. Good, fun, medium-weight thinking, and still one of my favorites. Lesson learnedv - be certain to get spread out, and save those free tiles for really big moves!

El Grande

There were a bunch of games on the table from before, and when someone suggested El Grande, I certainly didn't hesitate to agree. I haven't played this in a while, and have been wanting to run it. I've never played with three, so this was new to me. I was suspicious it might not work, wondering that there might be too much space on the board.

I shouldn't have worried. The game played out very well, everyone vying for influence on as many fronts as possible. I got myself spread out early, content to get a caballero in every available province. Lori and Rick were pipelining caballeros to the table, upping their presence on the board. I was slower, opting to take an intrigue card on the second turn, to set up scoring opportunities. I moved some of Lori's men out of her home territory, and put mine in, then, as I was going last, I guaranteed myself first chance at the King in the next (last before scoring) round. That let me move the King away before anyone could move in, locking the territory (as well as my home territory) for me, and dealing a pretty big blow to Lori, from which I never recovered. I think I messed up a little doing this. It biased Lori against me for the rest of the game, and my execution of the maneuver kept me from doing the same thing to Rick later - I moved Lori's pieces into Rick's home space, trying to start an escalation battle between them (it was the most valuable start space - 7 to Lori's 6 and my 5). This ended up backfiring as I couldn't take the space by moving Rick's caballeros out and mine in - Lori would still have a lot. Also, it made it one of the most populated spaces when that scoring card came around.

In the second round, I played essentially the same, using an intrigue card to set up scoring opportunities, and then working to grab the King on the last turn. Unfortunately, Rick played his 13 for first, but he didn't take the king, preferring, I think, as scoring opportunity. This let me make some decent scores with relatively small presence, again. At this point, I had pulled a pretty sizeable lead of 16 points or so over Rick, and maybe an additional 8-10 over Lori.

The superior numbers they had on the board started to pay off in the third round, as I was unable for contest for several of the bonus scoring cards that came up, including the 6/7, which gave them both points, as well as the most caballeros in region(s), which gave them both a pile. Rick caught up with, and passed me, on the second bonus score. Fortunately, in the final scoring round, my positioning and constant pre-scoring possession of the King paid off again, and I managed to overtake Rick ftw.

I really enjoyed both of these games, and had a fun afternoon. It was great to be able to play long games, for several hours, with no worries about getting up for work the next day. I would have stayed, and played a couple more games, but it seemed like a good night to head home early and get some dinner out with Kristin. After some nice chatting about games and life, I did just that, and had a great, relaxing evening to cap off a full day.

GG, GL,
JW