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Category Archives: Board Games

Posts about our weekly game nights.

Settlers of America: Trails to Rails

This week we played Settlers of America: Trails to Rails from the Catan series of games. This is one of my favorite Catan games. The reason? You can do something almost every turn.

I’m adopting the following text from BoardGameGeek because it does such a great job of capturing the flavor of the game. “Settlers of America: Trails to Rails utilizes the familiar Catan hex-tile grid to present a map of the United States. Players collect and trade resources, in order to purchase, migrate and build settlements, forge railroads and acquire locomotives. Railroads are used to distribute goods to the interconnected cities. As westward locations are settled, old sources of resources deplete. The addition of gold adds to the depth of play and increases options for the players.”

Playing time for Settlers of America is two hours. Our game took about three hours. We could all point fingers at the culprits (Ben, Owen, Mike) but that would be childish. We had a pretty close game the entire time. Looking at the board at any particular time you might think differently, but so much can change after a single turn. It’s not unusual for someone to go from dead-last to being a contender for the lead after their turn is over.

The game was winding down and Ben was setting himself up to deliver some more goods on his next go. Owen snuck in and stole those deliveries from him. Ben was speechless. (That’s only a saying. Ben probably talked up storm about how unfair Owen’s move was, but those words will be lost to history since I’m writing the account of it.) Now that move by Owen might not seem like a big deal, but we all think this was the one move that enabled Mike to win over Ben.

As the game ended, I was able to sneak into second place only because I had a stellar turn just before Mike’s game winning turn. Had Mike not delivered his last goods to win the game, Ben would of. That’s how close the game was. As it was Mike won. I came in second. Ben and Owen tied for third place, with Ben being last. (Yes, that last sentence was intentional.)

Chaos Steve

Rush N’ Crush & Ivanhoe

This week we played Rush N’ Crush. I like racing games. I also like racing games where you can shoot at your opponents or ram them into walls. This is just such a game; although I found that most of the time I was the one being shot at or rammed.

First a quick note about the playing pieces. The track and the driver displays are first rate. The tokens and gear shift levers used on the driver display are clear tokens—nothing fancy, but workable. The dice are standard dice. The cars are crap. You get six cars in three different colors. The cars break apart into two pieces so it is possible to get six unique cars. The problem is that the cars break apart into two pieces…a lot…while playing the game. I’m replacing the six cars in the game with some extra cars I have for Formulae De.

Once you figure out how to decipher the driver display it’s pretty easy to play the game from then on. Rush N’ Crush has two playing modes: Arcade and Overdrive. We played the simpler Arcade mode. We also played with the track layout suggested in the Arcade rules.

All of our cars and drivers where tweaked a little differently. Mike made great use of the ramming and bumping options on his car. Owen and I raced around the track firing our machine guns and dropping land mines. Ben ran into things. Unfortunately it was usually not what he intended to hit. Going through a particular tight area of the track Ben tried to bump Mike into the wall. Ben failed and plowed into a wall nearly destroying his car.

Mike was the leader throughout most of the game with Ben and I trying to keep up with him. Owen ran a safer race in the hopes that we would destroy our cars. That strategy nearly worked. Mine and Ben’s cars where pretty beat-up by the time we came around the last turn. Ben had no steering, no brakes, and no armor left. I had no steering left. Steering is important in the game to get you around obstacles. Mike was still in the lead at this point and his car was in great shape. He crossed the finish line in style. The rest of us crossed the finish line as losers.

After the game was over I asked everyone what they thought of it. The all liked it better than Formula De. Maybe because has a good balance between racing/shooting/ramming fun and car/driver record keeping.

Next we had ice cream. Then we played Ivanhoe. You have to win four different tournaments to win the game. Ben came out and won three tournaments in a row. Having drained his hand of good cards, Mike and Owen began to win. I couldn’t win a tournament to save my life. Although honestly Jousting, Pole Axes, Swords, Morning Stars, or Fists(?) are not my best weapons. Owen eventually won and everyone called me an idiot for not playing the action card I had. I put up a stellar defense on my behalf, before diverting their attention and running from the room.

Chaos Steve

JimCon 2012 Spring

Since people out there were clamoring for a JimCon write-up. I decided to do a quick wrap-up of what happened. (I say one person is a “clamor”.) But first a song sung to the tune of “The Piano Man”:

The GM Man

It’s nine o’clock on a Friday morn
the regular crowd shuffles in
There’s an old man sitting next to me
Makin’ changes to his character Trin
He says, son can run a game for me
I’m not really sure how it goes
But it’s got orcs and efreet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man’s clothes

[Chorus]
La la la de de da
la la de de da da dum
Play us your game, you’re the GM man
Play us your game tonight
Well, we’re all in the mood for a TPK
And you’ve got us ready to fight

This year the “usual crowd” was augmented by Bob Geiger. Our friend Bob got to come almost a whole day early to JimCon. (Yea!) Once everyone arrived and the cars were unloaded of games, we got down to actually playing one.

Evil Mike ran us through the four-hour version of the two-hour Savage Worlds demo he would be running at the big conventions this year. It’s called “Hell on Wheels”. And yes, it’s patterned after the TV show. I think we did ok; no deaths that I recall. We did help the evil one figure out what parts to keep for his two-hour version.

Next, we played History of the World, a JimCon favorite. Completely against all gaming protocols I did not write down who won. I can only guess it was me…and I won by a huge margin.

The movie of the night was Kick-Ass. I had never seen this one and I was completely surprised by it. I expected a typical super hero movie. Kick-Ass is not that.

Saturday is RPG day at JimCon, but before that all started Ben and I played a game called Battle Khaos. Ben played the paltry humans, while I took the orcs. Battle Khaos is a placement game of sorts where the object is to take over towers and score points for doing so. The orcs shutout the humans 7-0. Go Khaos!

The first Savage Worlds game of the day was Owen’s Weird War II game. Actually it isn’t Weird War II, but the real World War II with no weirdness. Our team of elite troops was assigned to recue some downed pilots. We did just that and my character, Boris, got promoted. (I don’t remember why.)

Then Evil Mike ran us through his star wars adventure. I don’t remember a single thing about it except that Ben briefly flirted with the light-side, before plunging back to the dark-side. A fantastic time was had by all. A very memorable game—probably Mike’s best to date.

That night we watched Sucker Punch. (Someone please explain this movie to me.)

Sunday morning a few of us played a game called Eminent Domain. Everyone else had played this before and I must say I was rather lost through the whole game. The other players did help me though, which is why I came in second with 19 points. Ben won with 21 points. Mike and Evil Mike tied for last with 17.

We spit up for the next few games, Ron, Bob, Jim and I played Deadwood. It’s similar to the game Carson City, but less complicated and, I think, a more fun. Ron’s Rowdies won the town with 21 points. Bob’s Buckaroos come in second with 17, Jim’s Jackalopes scored 16, and Steve’s Saddle Tramps came in so far last, with 5 points, it was embarrassing.

We then played Ra, the dice game. Ra is a great game for 2-4 players. Roll the dice. Determine your strategy for scoring points and mark you selections. It’s simple, but fun. Ron once again showed his superior game-playing skill and won with 48 points. Bob came in second with 35 points, I managed a third place showing with 34, and Jim came in last at 31.

Finally, we played the Monopoly Deal card game. This is a fun and fast version of Monopoly. (it’s strange writing “fast” and “monopoly” in the same sentence.) In this one, I finally fought my way to the top and won.

While we were playing through our three games, Evil Mike, Owen, Ben, and Mike were playing Steam. I’m sure their game wasn’t as fun as ours. Evil Mike won with 54 points. Ben and Owen tied for second with 41. Mike came in last with 29.

Next up was Lifeboat, an interesting card game that Bob brought. In it you play a character trying to survive on a lifeboat filled with others. One character you love; one character you hate. You get points for seeing the proper end for both of those characters. One nice touch; it’s possible to love and/or hate yourself. After a few fights, some characters falling overboard, shark attacks, and general pushing and shoving the lifeboat sighted land. Bob won with his character getting 21 points. I had 19 points. Ron had 16. Jim, whose character died during the trip, got 8 points, and Mike got 4 points. Please note that Jim’s character died and did better than Mike.

Lastly, we played Ivanhoe, a great card game by Renier Knizia. It was quite a battle, but Ron rose to be victorious.

Thanks Jim for hosting yet another great JimCon! See you all in the fall!

Le Havre, Part II

Mike and I are back from Origins, so this week we finished the Le Havre game we started the week before Origins. At the end of the first half of the game we thought Owen would be a shoe in for the win. Things change.

It was obvious from the beginning that many of us had no clue what our overarching plans where for the game. I think most of us didn’t have a plan. Mike and I floundered with indecision and Ben waffled between doing thing one or doing thing two. (There’s a joke there someplace.) Owen lamented his decisions from the beginning of the game saying that next time he’ll try a different strategy. Heck, I’m impressed someone had a strategy.

Ben tried many of his schemes for cheating. I think we caught most of them. (He tried methods #7, #26, and #42 as found in his book, “Winning through Obscuration”.) As the game played out, Mike gained some momentum. I managed to stay one building ahead of Ben which caused him to have to wait for resources or at least choose something different. This really didn’t seem to hurt Ben much. Owen flat lined somewhere towards the end of the game. Spinning his wheels, he seemed to have lost all of the momentum built up during the first half of the game.

As the points were tallied, I was surprised to find that I did better than I thought. Ben won with 162 points; Mike came in second with the help of a last action build of a Luxury Liner for 38 points that gave him a total of 148. I was third with 136 and poor Owen came in last with 125. With my cry of “I’m not last!” still ringing in our ears, we adjourned until next time.

Chaos Steve

Le Havre, Part I

This week we began a game of La Havre. I say “began” because the playing time on the game box says 100-200 minutes. (They must know Ben.) We are playing the advanced game that has 21 rounds of seven turns each. One player gets to act on each turn. Since there are four of us playing, that means that everyone gets to act on two turns during the round except for one “screwed” person. At the end of the round, harvest is gathered and you must feed your workers. Unfortunately those pesky workers demand more and more food as the rounds progress. The rest of the time you are trying to gather wealth in the form of buildings and Francs. You can buy buildings, but it’s much better to build them. Because of this, all of us struggle each round to gather building materials. Ships also play an important role in the game. The rules state that it is unlikely you will win the game without any ships. We all built ships.

We halted our game last night at round 11 or 12. We all think Owen will win. He has a plethora of buildings. He also managed a triple-play at the diner earning him 24 Francs. (That’s a lot.) It’s be interesting to see how the second half of the game progresses. There are not that many buildings left to be built or purchased.

We’ll finish this game up in a couple of weeks. Right now it’s hiding under Mike’s poker table top.

Chaos Steve

Deadwood

You’ve missed a lot of game playing because I’ve missed a lot of writing about it. So here is a 10 second update to bring you up to speed.

Back in march we went to NormCon up around sunny Cleveland and played a bunch of Savage Worlds games. Last month we went to JimCon in sunny Brownsburg Indiana and played tons of board games and a few Savage Worlds games. (I assume both of the aforementioned cities are sunny. I was inside playing games so how would I know?)  In between these two outings were games of Agents of Oblivion and Savage Star Wars. We also played some board games. I lost miserably in them and have now forgotten their names.

Back to the present…

This week we played a couple games of Deadwood. This is a worker placement game that I first played at JimCon. I liked it so well, I bought it. If you’re familiar with the game Carson City, it’s very similar. It has the western theme, the placing of cowboys, and the buildings with special powers, but it’s simpler and I like it better.

Our first game got off to a rocky start with a cowboy from Mike’s ranch and a cowboy from my ranch having a shootout. They both died and went to Boot Hill. A few turns later, Owen picked up the rules and pointed out that we did the fight wrong. How we did was much more deadly than it should have been. We continued on with the game doing the shootouts correctly from then on. They were still deadly.

You win Deadwood by having the most money at the end of the game. Owen’s Onerous Outlaws won our first game with $22. Mike’s Manhandling Marauders came in second with $20. Ben’s Band of Butchers was third with $19 and Steve’s Sorry Saints were last with $12.

Our second game started great. After we had played though half the game I realized we had left a very important tile in the box from the end of the first game. After everyone through things at me, we inserted the tile so it could be played. Mike looked to be doing terrible, but in true Mike fashion was able to bring everyone else down with him. Owen won with $15, I and Mike tied for second with $14, and Ben came in dead last with $13. It was a low scoring game because that missing tile was the bank tile. When you play the game, you’ll know what I mean.

Chaos Steve

Alhambra: The Card Game & Monopoly Deal

For Christmas Owen got me the game, Alhambra: The Card Game. This week we finally got to play it. I should note that we’ve also played the regular board game of Alhambra. I don’t remember anything about it, so we’ll just stick to the card game.

The card game consists of four different currencies, represented by four colors, and six different types of buildings. There is also a small board that denotes the four currencies. Building cards are placed beside the board so you know which currency is needed to buy what building. Only four buildings are available on any one turn. Also next to the board are four currency cards. The buildings cards and currency cards are refreshed after each player’s turn. On a player’s turn they can either, buy a building or pick up a currency card. To buy a building, a player discards a number of the correct currency cards equal to or greater than the price on the building. If the discarded currency exactly equals the price of the building, you get to take another action. This is very important in the game. You score points at various times during the game  by having more buildings in a specific color than your poor, hapless opponents.

So how did our games go? We enjoyed them even though at times it can be frustrating to see an opportunity pass you by because you were one or two short on the currency you needed. And how is it that Ben always had a plethora of currency in his hands AND a ton of buildings on the table? This happened both games. Even though Ben had a lot of buildings, he apparently didn’t have the right buildings to score a win. Mike won the first game with 99 points, Owen was second with 75, and (surprisingly) Ben languished in third place with 69 points. I was a distant last with only 50 points.

Our second game was a little more even all around. After the first scoring, in which I did very well, Owen read the rules and realized we had been setting up the scoring cards wrong in the currency deck. Fingers were pointed at both Ben and I who had read the rules (supposedly.) We decided to continue on with the game.

Ben had even more building cards down this game and ended up winning with 85 points. Mike and I tied for second with 71 points and poor Owen came in last with 61. It’s ok though, Owen gets his revenge in the next game.

We still had time so we played the Monopoly Deal card game. This is a great little card game that you can even play with non-gamer friends. The deck is filled with properties, money, and action cards. The idea is collect three property sets. If you do, you win the game. Just beware of the other players forcing you to pay rent or even taking over one of your property sets. We played two games of this. In the first game, it looked like Mike had the game all sewed up, but never count Owen out. Through some tricky card playing he got his three sets and won. The second game was much faster, but Owen was just as tricky. He had the cards and he knew how to use them. In one turn he went from have one set to having three and winning the game.

Next week, back to Agents of Oblivion.

Chaos Steve

Pirate’s Cove

This week we continued our game of Twilight Imperium 3. After a few rounds we decided to call the game. We all agreed that Owen would probably win, even though the rest of us all had our plans…really good plans. We just decided that since Owen ruled his HALF of the entire galaxy with an iron fist, two War Suns, and his flagship that maybe we should give the win to him.

We had time for another game so we broke out an old favorite, Pirate’s Cove. I hate this game. Not because of any shortcoming in the game, but because the game simply hates me first. This particular game started off with me losing three straight battles in the first three rounds of the game. So fame-less I languished in Butcher Bay, or whatever that place is called where you repair your ship and vow revenge on all those involved with putting you there. It seemed an eternity before I earned that first fame point. Everyone else was doing fine. Their ships all included Parrots that improved various parts of their ships and many had Master Craft cards attached to their ships as well. Then my luck changed.

When you go to the Island to repair your ship you have the opportunity to get two Tavern Cards. I got Davey Jones Parrot that allowed me to roll SIX dice in ship battles all of the time. I also got a Master Craft card. I was back in the game! I few rounds later I made a play to take out the pirate ship and earn a bunch of much-needed Fame points. Ben rolled for pirate. The odds were in my favor. Things were going well. All I needed was for Ben to roll one or less hits on his three hit dice. Ben (the dog) beat the odds and rolled TWO hits! He sunk my battleship! Er, pirate ship. Once again I visited the island whose name I should have edged in my arm by now.

By this time Mike had a pirate ship full of treasure. (His Parrot allowed him to carry as much treasure as he wanted.) Soon after, he visited Treasure Island and scored 14 Fame points, shooting him far into the lead.

So now it’s the last round of the game. Mike’s got the win apparently sewn up. The Pirate is sitting at Treasure Island. Ben and Owen both go to Treasure Island hoping to destroy the pirate and gain the five Fame points from sinking her. Mike and I also ended up at the same island. I had a clever plan. I sent the Royal Navy to where Mike and I were. Mike had the faster ship, so the Navy would fire at him first. My hope was to sink Mike, Sink the Navy (I still had those 6-dice guns), and gain some much needed Fame points—so I wouldn’t come in last. The odds were once again in my favor. Things were going well until Mike’s 2-dice volley at me. Two hits would sink me. The odds were 9 to 1 that he would roll two hits. (A 5 or 6 on either dice is a hit.) Mike rolled double sixes! He sunk my ship. (By the way, the odds are 36:1 to roll double sixes.) This game hates me.

Back at Treasure Island Ben and Owen were fighting the pirate ship. Once again Ben’s luck held and he was able to end up being the one who sunk the pirate and gain the five Fame points.

Ben was now pretty close to Mike in Fame points. We revealed our Tavern Cards that gave us Fame Points. I thought I was doing well with three Fame points, but both Ben and Owen had five or six extra Fame points hiding in their hand. This caused Ben to tie with Mike for most Fame. So what was the tie-breaker? You fight to the death of course. Ben (the lucky dog) was able to sink Mike and win the game! The final scores were: Ben and Mike with 36 Fame, Owen with 30 Fame, and me languishing at 22 Fame points. Stupid game.

Chaos Steve

 

Twilight Imperium 3: An End* and a Beginning

Last night we decided to halt our current TI3 game and give the win to Owen. Then we chose new races and set the board up again!

(*There were too many asterisks (rule mistakes) made in the game.)

This time the setup heavily favored Owen and I. We had a plethora of planets to plunder. Mike’s setup was not bad, but not as great as ours. Ben’s area was the least favorable. Ben made up for this by being the most aggressive. After “choosing” warfare twice in succession he quickly took over Mecatol Rex and a couple of planets in MY area. This allowed Ben to get a victory point, while removing my chance for one. (This will not go un-avenged!)

We got two turns in this time. Owen has delicate truces with both Mike and I, but the board is small and soon those truces will probably fall. (Not between Owen and I, just with Mike. Mike’s aggressive like that.) It was notable that on the very last action of the very last turn Owen had the opportunity to destroy all of Ben’s units on Mecatol Rex with a Political Action card. Actually there was only a 50% chance of doing that, but it also had a good chance of wiping out a few of Owen’s and Mike’s nearby armadas. The flip side (also a 50% chance) was that we would all receive TWO technologies of our choice! Alas, the fairness quotient in Owen would not allow him to decimate Ben that way. (Mike and I would have done it in a heartbeat!)

We’ll get back to this game in two weeks.

Chaos Steve

Twilight Imperium Part 2

Last week we played part 2 of our Twilight Imperium game. We were supposed to wrap up the game during the session. That didn’t happen. Here’s what did happened.

Owen scored an amazing four victory points in one turn shooting him into the lead. I was able to get an additional two points. Ben and Owen accumulated huge armadas. Mike held on to Mecatol Rex, but is spread a little thin on the board. His “death” ship that takes everything with it when it is destroyed seems to have its sights pointed at Owen. I’m stuck between Mike and Ben trying to decide what the heck to do to get more planets without starting a major war that I can’t win.

We got through 1 ½ turns. There will be some tense moments in the coming rounds. Will Mike’s Death ship become his saving grace? Will Owen continue to dominate the known universe? Will Ben become even more aggressive and move on Mecatol Rex? Will Steve figure out what he’s doing? These and other questions will answered next time.

Our scores so far: Owen 6; Steve 4; Ben 3; Mike 2.