Session Report for Friday, 07/07/2006

12 Players, 12 Games

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Descent

(Drew, Dave, Scott, Kevin K., August)

DrewWoodworth - I posted a session report of our Descent game on Friday night because I thought I needed the geekgold. Then, I realized Marshall gifted me some geek gold. Thanks Marshall! Anyway, here's my session report.

Last night I brought the game to my gaming group and managed to get four other players. I was the overlord, and I gave two random characters to each other player and had them choose one. The heroes chosen were Grey Ker, Steelhorns, Trenloe the Strong, and Sir Valadir. So, they were pretty strongly weighted in melee ability. The heroes pretty much tore through the first area without much trouble. Trenloe was usually inflicting 10 or 11 wounds with every attack. I spawned the bane spiders hoping to slow them down, but due to poor rolling I wasn't able to make much headway. The heroes decided to go north to Area 3 which seems to be pretty standard. It seems like the dungeon was laid out odd on this quest because it seems like the inclination is always to head north at this junction. I'm not sure if that is to their advantage or not. I swarmed the heroes in the narrow part of the hallway with my razorwings and managed to stun them, but it didn't really slow them down. I was not able to do enough damage to really penetrate their armor and make some headway. My one saving grace was my master sorcerer, due to his sorcery ability I was able to finally deal some damage to the heroes, but once the heroes swarmed him not even his undying ability helped much. I did spawn two sorcerors which came up from the rear and sandwiched the heroes. Didn't do much good. The headed east and considered grabbing the rune and shutting the door. However, with a quick rule check, monsters can open doors, so that wouldn't do much good. They were all bunched up so I flamed them with my master hellhound. I did some damage, but my roll wasn't that great. They all got burn tokens, but they all managed to roll surges the next round. Then they quickly dispatched my ogre and hellhounds. At this point, it was looking kind of hopeless for the overlord, and we had been playing for about 2 and half hours. So, I decided to stop spawning creatures because they didn't seem to make any headway and it was just prolonging the game. I did drop a couple of them in some pit traps. They headed towards the final area and went for the gold chest. I played the curse of the monkey god, but the hero managed to roll a blank. Also, the hero got the Curse of Rot rune out of the treasure chest. The Manticores managed to deal some damage, but they were no match for the Curse of Rot. Tenroe and Steelhorns surrouned the giant and the other two heroes hung back slinging ranged attacks. I managed almost kill Steelhorns, but not before I was finished by the Curse of Rot. So, it was a pretty futile effort on the Overlords part. However, I was so distracted with trying to run the game with five novice players, that I sometimes missed my opportunities to play my trap cards.

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Ra

(Marshall, Steve, Johan, John, Clint)

MarshallPhilips -

It was the first time with the group for Steve, Johan, and John. They said "We'll play whatever you pull out" so I pulled out Ra. We got the rules explanation over with fairly quickly and got into the game. They picked it up fast and seemed to enjoy it.

Steve won the game pretty handily based on a good monument score and a bunch of rivers in the final round. The tile distribution was a little weird with a lot of Ra tiles coming out in the first round thus ending it early. But no "black" tiles came out until the second round then a bunch of them came out at once. It made for some interesting auctions.

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Polarity

(Chris, Kevin L.)

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Duell x2

(Chris, Kevin L.)

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Bang

(Kevin L., Johan, John, Clint, Marshall, Steve, Chris)

MarshallPhilips -

Next up was a seven player game of bang. With 7 players there is 1 sheriff, 2 deputies, 3 outlaws, and 1 renegage. The outlaws want to kill the sheriff, the deputies and sheriff want to kill the outlaws while the renegade has the hardest job of all: to kill the sheriff but only as the last player.

My role turned out to be a deputy and the Sheriff (Clint was seated just to my right). While Kevin was explaining the rules I did a sneaking thing. I just kind of casually asked "who's the other deputy", I don't think anyone even heard me except Chris who made eye contact and faintly nodded yes. Once we knew we were deputies it was fairly easy to gang up on the outlaws. Our first target was Steve who was seated between us. He was the reciepient of a couple of Bangs and a jail card. It wasn't long before he was killed. Next we took down Johan who also turned out to be an outlaw.

The game went on for awhile with 5 players left until a stick of dynamite blew up in my face. Amazingly I survived that but the next indian attack took me out. No matter, Chris and Clint were able to clean up the final outlaw (John) and the renegade (Kevin L.) for a victory by the white hats.

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Memoir '44

(Chris, Marshall)

Next I taught Chris Memoir '44. We played the first scenario twice switching sides after the first game.

In the first game I was the allies and I got extremely lucky with my cards drawing 2 cards that allowed me to order 4 units each with an extra action. I used them back to back to storm Chris's strong hold at the bridge on the left flank. I tore down the wire and drove his squads back. Chris killed three of my squads and was one point away from victory when I ordered a pincer movement and rushed a squad onto each bridge netting me the final two victory points I needed.

In the second game Chris was the allies and didn't have the same luck with cards so he got bogged down in the wire for a long time on his left flank. He was never able to get his attack going on the right flank either. He finally did drive me out of my sandbag bunker and had my units retreating but a well timed artillary barage from the axis killed the fourth allied unit and ended the game.

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Grave Robbers from Outer Space

(Johan, John, Clint, Kevin L., Steve)

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Polarity x2

(Chris, Marshall)

MarshallPhilips -

The game of balancing magnetic fields. This was my second game of Polarity and I understood it much better. When the rules are grasped it becomes quite strategic and I believe spatial recognition is a key skill. You have to see the open areas on the board where you can place your magnets. Strageic positioning is more important than dexterity I think. In both of these games Chris went for risky placements (mainly just to see if he could do it I think) and I was the beneficiary of those risks. Everyone should make sure they try this game at some point.

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Colasal Arean

(Scott, Kevin K., August, Drew)

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Boomtown

(Scott, Kevin K., August, Kevin L.)

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-- MarshallPhilips - 08 Jul 2006
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