Friday at Rick's, Saturday at Snoozefest's: Vinci, Robo Rally, Winds of Plunder, Leaping Lemmings

Friday, May 18th

I made it over to Rick's a bit late, and the tables were all full with games going on. Munchkin, Carcassonne, and a Pulsipher Prototype were on the tables. It looked like the prototype would be done soon, so I sat around and watched a bit. Soon, three more gamers showed up, wanting to play Vinci. So, we pulled it out, started to set up, and were joined by Rick when his game ended.

I like most things about Vinci. The Euro/abstract-historical/conflict without war kind of feel, play time, etc.. The lesson I felt I learned last time is that one doesn't want to be in front. I had no worries this time, as I grabbed a very modest, unthreatening starting civ. I can't remember the course of the game, but do know that the player to my right jumped out ahead, and then at various times the heat was diverted by players getting big vp jumps from mining, currency, and Rick's rapid expansion into a bunch of territory vacated when a couple players declined while his current civ had lots of dudes and weapons. Barbarian revolutionaries put the player to my right back in threatening position, and I was able to establish a fair-sized civ far away, in the South-west, and then move into the North with ports. I got slammed by the player to my left, who also triggered the game end, but he couldn't take me out entirely. Rick went through the various scenarios for the final turn, and we determined that nobody could prevent me from achieving the highest score. The way it worked out, I won with Rick only one point behind.

A few other games had broken up, and six of us sat down for Robo Rally, which is always a favorite at Rick's. My options were pretty unexciting - one gave me the ability to take damage to have some move options (I discarded this to prevent dmg), and another allowed me to bring back an archive at full health (I managed not to die in this game). Even though I didn't die, there was a lot of death, and most of us were moving pretty slow. I was third to the first flag, and then only two spaces away from the second, when Matt hit the third and won. A good, fun game, with lots of laughs.

Saturday, March 19th

I made the drive out to Snoozefest's looking forward to an afternoon of interesting gaming. I was hoping to play Midgard, as well as Colosseum, which I know he has a copy of. When I got there, though, Ravindra, Mary, Brian, and Sarah had all been playing Tichu, which they decided to finish. So, Rick, Bob, Greg, and myself sat down to Rick's copy of Winds of Plunder.

WoP is a GMT game with a pirate theme, which is really a Euro that fits pleasantly into their line, with it's nice looking world map. It has a hard cardboard board, which is not too common in my experience with their games. The components, in general, are very nice.

The game is aptly named. Each turn, players bid for wind direction. They then move, with the highest bidder determining who will go first. A player has three actions, which they may take before or after moving. When moving the players go from port to port, plundering items such as victory points, treasure maps, provisions, crew, and weapons. It's also possible to board and plunder the ship of an opponent who has fewer weapons than you. Having the most crew/weapons/provisions gives you a card with a special ability.

The game seemed quite well balanced. I decided to focus on weapon dominance, and boarding my opponents. This earned me few friends, and I had quite a few negative action cards played on me. I also scored smaller vp chips when moving into ports. However, I was able to achieve suppremacy in each type of resource, and hence had several bonuses. Despite the bonuses, the other players' grabbing of treasure maps and high vp ports kept me in the basement almost the whole game. I stayed close, though, and surged forward in the end-game scoring, to win the game, over Rick, by a point. This was a fun game, with a good group. I liked that it was really hard to tell who would win, until the very end. It was also nice that the leader-bashing mechanics keep the game close, and picking on someone with boarding (I boarded Greg several times) doesn't really take them out of the game.

We were done, but the other game was still going, so we agreed to play another game Rick had brought, his own Leaping Lemmings, which will soon go up on the GMT p500.

Leaping Lemmings is a fun sort of Euro-esque game that is themed after the legendary lemming tendency to follow each other, in a sort of herd, off cliffs, to their deaths. Each player has a group of little leapers that they try to navigate past the dangerous eagles, hovering over the landscape, to the edge of the cliff, which, once reached, they leap off of for vp. Players can also earn vp by grabbing food, which can have vp or special action abilities.

The game played pretty quickly. Fun and light, there are nice decisions about blocking opponents, pushing your luck, and strategies to maximize the chance for your lemmings to make it across the board. There's also a time factor, as the game has a definite end, so one has to rush a bit. We all managed to pick up some food, and get some lemmings off the cliff (although I think at least twice as many lemmings were eaten by eagles). In the end, we had a good time with this little filler game.

After that, I was hoping to still have time to play Midgard before I had to leave to come home and pick up Kristin to go to the Railhawks game. Unfortunately for me, Mary really wanted to run the "swap meet" portion of the afternoon. I hadn't brought anything to trade, as I wasn't sure whether I would be there when it happened, and I also didn't think anyone would want any of my games that I don't want. Consequently, my day was basically over. I talked to Sarah, Ravindra, and Rick for a while, and then took off for the drive back to Durham.

It was a pretty good weekend of gaming, and now I have lots of games to learn, as I acquired several new ones this week. I'll put in a good word here for the people at Thoughthammer.com - my order from them arrived quickly, and well packaged, with the games in very good shape. With a big discount and free shipping for my (17 lbs) order, it's tough for me to think about doing business with other online retailers (although they don't seem to have much in the way of real "imports").

GG, GL

JW