Border Board Games welcomed its newest guest Jason on Saturday night. It was a small group of seven but it afforded us sufficient players to engage in a couple of seven player games before dividing up for two tables to end the evening.
Seven Wonders was first to hit the table. It was the first time for both Jason and Shannon but the game play is fairly intuitive and easy to pick up.Zeke's military might and a good collection of non-scientific cards enabled him to build a strong foundation in spite of the lack of paper. Shannon's military might also peaked enabling him to score consistent victories against both Homer and Jason. In the end Shannon claimed victory by a single point outscoring Zeke 51-50.
We next moved on to Citadels. As is often the case, I floundered ineffectually watching as thieves made off with my hard earned butterscotch (or is that supposed to be gold or buttons?)and my thieves routinely returned empty handed. Jason made good use of the warlord early to build up his stockpile of butterscotch but cleverly avoided choosing the role in the late game thereby avoiding assault from both the Assassin and Thief. He quickly rushed ahead and completed his eight districts. Though I, as Warlord, could have destroyed one of his districts, it simply would have prolonged the game without giving me any real advantage. Jason's advantage in districts and bonus points enabled him to handily win the game.
To finish off the evening we split into two tables for games of Ghost Stories and Cargo Noir. Beth, Jason, Homer and Shannon tackled the world of seedy dealings on the docks. Though unable to watch much of the game save for the last round, one glance at Shannon's tableau to spy the Cronies told me all I needed to know. In our, albeit limited experience, the Cronies seems to end up in the winning players hand every time. His collection of goods in the final rounds further allowed him to purchase the militia and guide him to a convincing victory.
Rob brought along Ghost Stories and, for whatever reason, I was feeling masochistic that night. I've never won at Ghost Stories before and had never actually lived long enough to see Wu-Feng either. Despite being uncommonly difficult it is one of those peculiar games that makes you want to play one more time to see if things might turn out differently. We played the three-player option with Zeke using Yellow, Rob was red and I was blue. The fourth player was green which gave us special tokens allowing us to use green's curse die denial or bonus fourth fight die. It would prove to be pivotal.
We managed quite well at first despite the blue board filling up with alarming speed. I lost a few Qi but I was able to recover somewhat by defeating Qi/Yin-Yang token ghosts later on. To start the game Zeke and Rob moved to battle the surprisingly weak ghosts that first emerged. Meanwhile i sat in the Buddha shrine dropping Buddha bombs from the corner of Yellow and Green. Some quick steps over to the move player/move ghost village square helped send some of the nastiest ghosts screaming into hell without triggering their defeat conditions (though forgoing the spoils as well).
The stack of dead ghosts that accumulated off board was reminiscent of the results from Pac Man's stomach pumping. An impressive collection of ghost meat attested to our fighting prowess (though luck probably played a major role as well) though we burned through tokens at an alarming rate. Suddenly haunter ghosts started coming out in rapid succession. The fact that they followed ghost-calling cards didn't help our situation. We suddenly went from reasonably clear boards to overflowing and taking damage.
With the Buddha bombs no longer a viable tactic (there were no empty spaces to place them), it came down to hard grinds and picking off ghosts that threatened the next Taoist in line. Just as the Wu-Feng card appeared it looked like we had things well in hand. Zeke's special token knocked Wu-Feng down a peg and our Zen color token was black. Rob had two black tokens already in hand so it looked like all he needed was to roll a single black to secure the win. Suddenly a haunter wiped out the Zen token (and our second village square). Rob needed to roll three black for the win. Using his Green power token he added the fourth die. If he failed, he would die on his next turn. If he failed, neither Zeke nor I stood a chance as I did have my Green power token, and neither of us had any fight tokens or our Yin-Yang tokens to fall back on. Zeke would have needed to roll four black to win and I would have needed to roll four black on only three dice.
Rob did it and we won. It was Rob's second ever victory and the first for Zeke and I. As Rob said during the post victory lull, it was a cinematic victory of the highest order. One last, desperate battle before the forces of evil destroyed the village. There is a certain satisfaction that comes from finally winning at a game you've never ever been able to even see victory in before.
Showing posts with label Ghost Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ghost Stories. Show all posts
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
A Night of Ghosts and Gallactica
Jan 15th's Border Board Games was a quiet one with Bethany, Richard, Rob, Angela, and Carlo attending. Carlo arrived just as the game, Ghost Stories, was getting started. Richard and Bethany had played Ghost Stories before and had wanted to try again. Rob and Angela brought their copy and provided the opportunity to try this difficult game.
Ghost Stories is a cooperative 4-player game where you each control a monk (or what I call a ninja since each player token looks like a ninja) where you try to keep a village from becoming haunted and making all the inhabitants run away in fear. There are nine tiles you can move your ninja to and each tile allows your ninja to do a special action. Each ninja also has his own special power than can be used on his own turn.
When it is your turn, you draw a ghost card and place it on the board. Some ghosts are difficult to defeat, some not so difficult, and some add 'haunters' to the board. If a haunter reaches the board's edge, a tile is turned over and becomes inactive. If there tiles are turned over, the village has become haunted and the players lose. I'm not sure of other losing conditions.
On your turn, you can move one space and then take an action, either using the tile's action or fighting a ghost. Since a lot of ghosts come out, it seems ninjas spend most of the time fighting ghosts and not using the tiles' powers.
We were able to fend of ghosts pretty well but in the end, three tiles had been turned over and we ended up losing the game before even seeing the big bad ghost to even try to defeat him.
After Ghost Stories, we broke out Battlestar Gallactica complete with all the expansions. Everyone except Angela had played before. Bethany accused Rob of being a cylon even before loyalty cards were dealt. Bethany played Tory as president, Richard played Felix, Rob played Helo as Admiral, Angela played Apollo, and Carlo was Galen. It was tough determining who the trader or traders were although, as the game got near the end, it was suspected that Rob was a cylon. Carlo suggested that Rob/Helo be put in the airlock and Bethany/Tory felt that was an excellent idea. The skill check didn't pass and Rob/Helo remained alive. It was curious that there were about half the cards in favor of airlocking Rob and about half that weren't which made me (Bethany) suspect there was another trader but not sure who.
Rob/Helo then revealed himself as a cylon (see! Bethany was right!)and he tried to work his evil powers to bring the Gallactica down. And then shortly after, at Rob's urging, Angela revealed herself as a cylon too! But it was too late and Gallactica managed to jump to Kobol.
This game of Gallactica seemed a bit unusual in that Gallactica's resources didn't drain as quickly as they normally seem to, therefore, the game was in favor of the humans. We didn't play for 11 hours although I'm sure Carlo would have been happy if we did.
Ghost Stories is a cooperative 4-player game where you each control a monk (or what I call a ninja since each player token looks like a ninja) where you try to keep a village from becoming haunted and making all the inhabitants run away in fear. There are nine tiles you can move your ninja to and each tile allows your ninja to do a special action. Each ninja also has his own special power than can be used on his own turn.
When it is your turn, you draw a ghost card and place it on the board. Some ghosts are difficult to defeat, some not so difficult, and some add 'haunters' to the board. If a haunter reaches the board's edge, a tile is turned over and becomes inactive. If there tiles are turned over, the village has become haunted and the players lose. I'm not sure of other losing conditions.
On your turn, you can move one space and then take an action, either using the tile's action or fighting a ghost. Since a lot of ghosts come out, it seems ninjas spend most of the time fighting ghosts and not using the tiles' powers.
We were able to fend of ghosts pretty well but in the end, three tiles had been turned over and we ended up losing the game before even seeing the big bad ghost to even try to defeat him.
After Ghost Stories, we broke out Battlestar Gallactica complete with all the expansions. Everyone except Angela had played before. Bethany accused Rob of being a cylon even before loyalty cards were dealt. Bethany played Tory as president, Richard played Felix, Rob played Helo as Admiral, Angela played Apollo, and Carlo was Galen. It was tough determining who the trader or traders were although, as the game got near the end, it was suspected that Rob was a cylon. Carlo suggested that Rob/Helo be put in the airlock and Bethany/Tory felt that was an excellent idea. The skill check didn't pass and Rob/Helo remained alive. It was curious that there were about half the cards in favor of airlocking Rob and about half that weren't which made me (Bethany) suspect there was another trader but not sure who.
Rob/Helo then revealed himself as a cylon (see! Bethany was right!)and he tried to work his evil powers to bring the Gallactica down. And then shortly after, at Rob's urging, Angela revealed herself as a cylon too! But it was too late and Gallactica managed to jump to Kobol.
This game of Gallactica seemed a bit unusual in that Gallactica's resources didn't drain as quickly as they normally seem to, therefore, the game was in favor of the humans. We didn't play for 11 hours although I'm sure Carlo would have been happy if we did.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Reflections on death and undeath
Border Board games hosted its monthly gamefest on Saturday, October 16. With All Hallows Eve only a few short weeks away it seemed the perfect time to break out some of our favorite monster themed games. Hitting the table on Saturday were Arkham Horror, two sessions of Last Night on Earth, Ghost Stories, Bang! and a game of chess that, oddly enough, never seemed to get started.
First to hit the table was a rousing game of Arkham Horror. Though the new characters were introduced from the Dunwich expansion, the game was otherwise a standard AH scenario with Azathoth as the primary horror. Josh, Homer, Ken, Beth and I tackled the growing horror with a surprisingly effective group of characters. I chose Mandy Thompson the researcher. I generally prefer characters with fairly balanced stamina and sanity and her re-roll power proved very important throughout the game. Homer picked up Sister Mary , Ken chose the archaeologist Monterey Jack, Beth played newspaperman Darrell Simmons while Josh ruled the world with Ashcan Pete.
Ashcan Pete turned out to be almost godlike in his foraging. His ability to rummage through the trash earned him a slew of useful items as well as a retainer to write a book for "Ole Misk," the title of which is probably something like Living on the Edge of Sanity and Society. Whatever it's name it afforded Pete the only source of income he ever derived in the game. Likewise Monterey Jack was a monster killing machine. In spite of his low sanity, nothing seemed to disturb Jack as he slashed and shot his way through ten monsters over the course of the game.
Speaking of money, Mandy had absolutely no qualms about some shading dealings that netted her a cool $8. After falling a dollar short of buying two potent weapons (the magical Lamp of Alhazred and a rifle) she decided the risk of jail was minor compared to the gains. While the good Sister never seemed to get any money she enjoyed sufficient success that she still managed to travel to distant, terrible planets and emerge intact or largely intact at least.
In many ways this was as atypical a session of AH as I have ever played. The investigators seemed largely able to gather what they needed, some of the Mythos cards actually proved beneficial and the trips through the outer realms went pretty smoothly without the usual "A Monster Appears!" actions being drawn. We also managed to draw a disproportionate number of cultist, zombie and ghoul tiles as well as a fistful of Byakhee, Mi-Go and the odd Elder Thing. The one Cthonian that appeared was destroyed by Mandy's Dread Curse of Azathoth and the twin Hounds of Tindalos were nullified by virtue of closing the last gate right after they appeared.
After saving Arkham and post Great War New England we decided to switch things up a bit. By this time Rob and Angela had arrived and struggled through a game of Ghost Stories. The game lived up to its billing as one tough mutha co-op game. I think they were good and ready for a Wild West shoot out. Though only Beth, Homer and I had played Bang! before, it is a delightfully easy game to teach.
Josh had the misfortune of pissing off Deputy Homer, his seatmate to the right and the Renegade was the first to fall in a hail of bullets. The constant attacks by Indians and the rattle of Gatling guns only seemed to weaken the outlaws. Sheriff Rob was never put in much danger as the game progressed. Deputies Homer and Ken seemed willing to antagonize the outlaws and, admittedly, I probably focused too much attention on Ken. It's hard to forgive a guy who hands you a stick of dynamite.
Outlaw Beth, the only known outlaw as she took the only shot at the sheriff, was gunned down by Indians after enduring repeated attacks from Outlaw Angela. I didn't fare much better finally getting plugged by the lawmen after a game-long blood feud with Ken. In the end Outlaw Angela was outgunned and out manned. Both deputies and the sheriff took pot shots, occasionally wasting bullets on her empty whiskey barrel, but ultimately emerging triumphant.
In the last gaming session of the night we pulled out two copies of Last Night on Earth and had two four-player throw-downs with the Escape in the Truck scenario. Shannon and Ken were the zombies squared off against heroes Rob and Josh at one table while Angela and I ushered forth our legion of undeath against heroes Beth and Homer. At both tables the heroes struggled to gain ground in a pretty unforgiving scenario.
That is the one problem with LNoE. Some of the search scenarios appear to be heavily skewed in the zombies' favor. Certainly there are multiple copies of useful cards buried in the hero deck but the right combo of zombie cards can effectively shut off the heroes from the very items they need. Our zombies overran Sally, who had found the keys, in the gym. Automatically one set of keys was lost to the heroes. It was further compounded when we played a zombie card that then removed the keys from the game!
The same sort of misfortunes were happening at the other table, based on the gloating of the zombies and the sullen expressions worn by the heroes. In the end, despite finding the gasoline, Beth and Homer were unable to get back to the truck before the scenario timer ran out. A search through the hero deck revealed that the keys were so deeply buried that it likely would have required an extra ten to twelve turns of searching to uncover them. Even the helpful "Just What I Needed!" card was at least eight to ten cards down.
I guess it was appropriate that since the forces of good triumphed in Arkham and the Good Guys won the Wild West the zombies would triumph in the end as the night wound down into the witching hour. "All it takes for evil to triumph is for heroes to find lighters but no dynamite."
First to hit the table was a rousing game of Arkham Horror. Though the new characters were introduced from the Dunwich expansion, the game was otherwise a standard AH scenario with Azathoth as the primary horror. Josh, Homer, Ken, Beth and I tackled the growing horror with a surprisingly effective group of characters. I chose Mandy Thompson the researcher. I generally prefer characters with fairly balanced stamina and sanity and her re-roll power proved very important throughout the game. Homer picked up Sister Mary , Ken chose the archaeologist Monterey Jack, Beth played newspaperman Darrell Simmons while Josh ruled the world with Ashcan Pete.
Ashcan Pete turned out to be almost godlike in his foraging. His ability to rummage through the trash earned him a slew of useful items as well as a retainer to write a book for "Ole Misk," the title of which is probably something like Living on the Edge of Sanity and Society. Whatever it's name it afforded Pete the only source of income he ever derived in the game. Likewise Monterey Jack was a monster killing machine. In spite of his low sanity, nothing seemed to disturb Jack as he slashed and shot his way through ten monsters over the course of the game.
Speaking of money, Mandy had absolutely no qualms about some shading dealings that netted her a cool $8. After falling a dollar short of buying two potent weapons (the magical Lamp of Alhazred and a rifle) she decided the risk of jail was minor compared to the gains. While the good Sister never seemed to get any money she enjoyed sufficient success that she still managed to travel to distant, terrible planets and emerge intact or largely intact at least.
In many ways this was as atypical a session of AH as I have ever played. The investigators seemed largely able to gather what they needed, some of the Mythos cards actually proved beneficial and the trips through the outer realms went pretty smoothly without the usual "A Monster Appears!" actions being drawn. We also managed to draw a disproportionate number of cultist, zombie and ghoul tiles as well as a fistful of Byakhee, Mi-Go and the odd Elder Thing. The one Cthonian that appeared was destroyed by Mandy's Dread Curse of Azathoth and the twin Hounds of Tindalos were nullified by virtue of closing the last gate right after they appeared.
After saving Arkham and post Great War New England we decided to switch things up a bit. By this time Rob and Angela had arrived and struggled through a game of Ghost Stories. The game lived up to its billing as one tough mutha co-op game. I think they were good and ready for a Wild West shoot out. Though only Beth, Homer and I had played Bang! before, it is a delightfully easy game to teach.
Josh had the misfortune of pissing off Deputy Homer, his seatmate to the right and the Renegade was the first to fall in a hail of bullets. The constant attacks by Indians and the rattle of Gatling guns only seemed to weaken the outlaws. Sheriff Rob was never put in much danger as the game progressed. Deputies Homer and Ken seemed willing to antagonize the outlaws and, admittedly, I probably focused too much attention on Ken. It's hard to forgive a guy who hands you a stick of dynamite.
Outlaw Beth, the only known outlaw as she took the only shot at the sheriff, was gunned down by Indians after enduring repeated attacks from Outlaw Angela. I didn't fare much better finally getting plugged by the lawmen after a game-long blood feud with Ken. In the end Outlaw Angela was outgunned and out manned. Both deputies and the sheriff took pot shots, occasionally wasting bullets on her empty whiskey barrel, but ultimately emerging triumphant.
In the last gaming session of the night we pulled out two copies of Last Night on Earth and had two four-player throw-downs with the Escape in the Truck scenario. Shannon and Ken were the zombies squared off against heroes Rob and Josh at one table while Angela and I ushered forth our legion of undeath against heroes Beth and Homer. At both tables the heroes struggled to gain ground in a pretty unforgiving scenario.
That is the one problem with LNoE. Some of the search scenarios appear to be heavily skewed in the zombies' favor. Certainly there are multiple copies of useful cards buried in the hero deck but the right combo of zombie cards can effectively shut off the heroes from the very items they need. Our zombies overran Sally, who had found the keys, in the gym. Automatically one set of keys was lost to the heroes. It was further compounded when we played a zombie card that then removed the keys from the game!
The same sort of misfortunes were happening at the other table, based on the gloating of the zombies and the sullen expressions worn by the heroes. In the end, despite finding the gasoline, Beth and Homer were unable to get back to the truck before the scenario timer ran out. A search through the hero deck revealed that the keys were so deeply buried that it likely would have required an extra ten to twelve turns of searching to uncover them. Even the helpful "Just What I Needed!" card was at least eight to ten cards down.
I guess it was appropriate that since the forces of good triumphed in Arkham and the Good Guys won the Wild West the zombies would triumph in the end as the night wound down into the witching hour. "All it takes for evil to triumph is for heroes to find lighters but no dynamite."
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