Sunday, February 20, 2011

Winter is Coming

Last night marked the February gathering of the gamers at Border Board Games. It was our usual crew with eight players this week. We immediately split up to start a few four player games. On one side of the hall Beth introduced Carlo to Race for the Galaxy along with Homer and Shannon. While they had many of the fancy bits from the expansions, they opted to keep it simple for Carlo's first go-around. In the end Carlo emerged triumphant with his Alien technology strategy scoring an impressive 37 points in his inaugural game.

Meanwhile, Kim, Alexis, Zeke and I first tackled Forbidden Island. The memory of our first venture there at GtYP haunted three of us while, blessedly, Zeke could harbor no ill-feelings given that this was his first exposure to the game. Though Zeke wanted to start on Elite level, he was talked down from that cliff accepting the pedestrian Normal (though not Novice) level. The Island quickly expressed its displeasure at our arrival with two of the center squares disappearing before we had completed a full round of play. Luckily Zeke's Diver was able to navigate the missing bits.

The Water's Rise cards had an alarming tendency to appear enmasse. The edges of the map quickly peeled away though, somehow, we managed to avoid losing any of the treasure tiles until later in the game. With only one treasure in hand, we managed to amass the necessary treasure cards to recover the last three treasures. While Zeke kept shoring up Fool's Landing, the rest of us scrambled to gather the treasures before the whole thing went to pieces. Alexis' Pilot managed to extricate the weird stone thing literally one turn before the second of the treasure tiles vanished forever beneath the waves. My Engineer gathered the sphinx statue and Kim recovered the holy cup as the tiles between us and Fool's landing submerged. Thanks to a last minute pick-up of an extra helicopter card, we were able to fly Kim's Navigator back to Fool's Landing in the moments before Forbidden Island disappeared forever beneath the waves.

Following our adventures on FI, we then turned to Palazzo. It's a very simple and straightforward palace building game, similar to but considerably less mentally taxing to learn and play than Alhambra. Zeke was again the lone newcomer to the game, everyone else having played it prior. We were all taxed for money throughout with a series of extraordinarily crappy tiles cluttering up the quarries. It's amazing how many single window/door tiles there are and even more so to see them gathered together in a big steaming pile.

In the end Kim's efforts were ultimately doomed by an ill-advised placement of a single story marble structure. While Zeke had the basis of a strong design, his inability to land the upper stories of his brick and sandstone palaces ultimately doomed his efforts. It came down to Alexis and myself. I was able to edge her by a mere three points for the win courtesy of managing to land a fifth story on my marble palace to go with my three story brick endeavour compared to her two four-storey buildings.

Seeing as how no new people had dropped in, we decided to relocate to The Lair to complete our night of gaming. We split off into uneven groups as Kim, Alexis and Beth decided to investigate the nefarious doings aboard the Mystery Express. In the end the game boiled down to a tie between Kim and Alexis so the deciding factor lay in the clues submitted via telegraph earlier in the game. Kim managed more correct early guesses to capture the win. Beth never did say how she did....

At the other table the five guys gathered for a Game of Thrones throw-down. While we all had varying levels of experience with the game, it was clear that we were out of practice. A few rules issues had to be cleared up during play but, on the whole, things went pretty well. Carlo drew first and took Baratheon while Shannon had Stark, Zeke Lannister, Homer Greyjoy and I accepted the mantle of Tyrell. The queer thing about GoT is that there really is no single best starting position even though Baratheon and Stark have perhaps a slightly easier time of it.

Generalizations about GoT are difficult to make. Given that the decisions of your neighbors and opponents will ultimately affect your own decisions, the randomization provided by the cards makes deep planning a hit or miss proposition at best. Carlo early on grabbed King's Landing and, had fortune favored me then, I might have been able to make a play to oust him. Unfortunately, the Muster card arrived too soon and Tyrell was unable to mount an effective offense. Coupled with a lack of muster points and dearth of power points, Tyrell's game was sluggish at best and strangely efficient at other times. Having had my troops cut off from retreat in Stormreach ultimately proved decisive in Baratheon's victory.

Shannon had a pretty clear run in the north as Greyjoy landed in the west forcing Lannister to hold close to home and rarely threaten Baratheon's westward expansion. It was only in the last quarter of the game that Greyjoy mounted a serious threat to Stark landing troops behind Winterfell. Greyjoy, did prove the king maker after a sort. By forcing Tyrell and Lannister to play close to home, as Lannister's loss of Lannisport proved later on, Baratheon was able to consolidate power and reap the benefit of an obscene power token generating engine. Since Stark never rounded the Eyrie, Baratheon had merely to sit and wait with an impressive support network protecting his front ranks.

That power token generation effort also proved critical as Stark and Baratheon negotiated terms for the final disposition of the roles with two rounds left to play. Sadly, Baratheon alone had as many power tokens as Greyjoy, Lannister and Tyrell combined making an attempt to usurp power futile and frustrating. Throw in Stark's collection of 13 tokens in addition to Baratheon's 17 tokens and the western factions were clearly at a disadvantage holding five tokens, six tokens and six tokens respectively.

Seagard proved the single most fought over locale on the map. It was alternately held by Lannister, Greyjoy and Stark. While casualties in the conflict were few, large numbers of troops ended up destroyed when they were unable to flee to a safe location. Seagard also enabled Greyjoy to lure Stark south long enough for a strong raiding party from Greywater Watch to sneak into Winterfell from behind. That same sneakiness would cost Greyjoy dearly as Tyrell, fresh from the capture of Sunspear, mounted a daring commando raid from Highgarden to capture Flint's Finger.

And so ends this report of Border Board Games' February edition. Coming up on Saturday the 26th is the monthly 3.5 edition D&D campaign.