Session Report for Friday, 10/06/2006
5 Gamers, 4 Games
KevinLi -
It seemed like a relatively quiet night at Agents. Not just with the boardgame group, but true with the other miniatures/RPGers (?) as well. Perhaps it was because of the Columbus Day weekend, or perhaps it was because the new season of Battlestar Galactica was premiering that night. Or maybe it was just the full moon.
Mississippi Queen
(Chris, Clint, Kevin L.)
KevinLi -
Each player in this game takes the role of a Mississippi River steamboat captain. The object is to reach the finish before the other players. Approximately 10 river tiles and a die are used to create the meandering river layout. Each river tile contains islands that must be steered around. Some islands also have docks, where passengers may be picked up (used in the advanced game). The speed of each boat may be gradually increased or decreased. To make sudden accelerations, decelerations, or sharp turns, however, coal must be burned. Each boat only has six units of coal, so it must be conserved wisely for use during the game.
We actually played this twice, although the first time was with the introductory rules so that hardly counts. With only three river tiles to play and no passengers to pick up, the first game was over before we knew it.
The more interesting version of the game uses the all of the river tiles and the passenger rules. In order to win the game a boat must pick up two passengers from the various river islands and deliver them to the finish line. I managed to save some coal for the end, so when the last river tile was laid down, I got a quick burst of speed and a quick deceleration to reach the finish docking area first.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Game
(Chris, Clint, August, Kevin L.)
KevinLi -
This game was new to me, but I enjoyed it. "Dungeoncrawl in Sunnydale" would be a quick way to summarize it, I think. It also reminded me of Fury of Dracula, except that everyone knows where everyone else is in town. In this game, one player plays the bad guys and the rest of the players play the good team (Buffy, Oz, Willow, Xander). There are several different bad guys to choose from, and each has a different mission. The game board depicts the town of Sunnydale, and players race around the board collecting weapons, artifacts, spells, minor character allies, or "evil" cards for use against each other. There is also a phase of the moon tracking system which determines when Oz turns into a werewolf, when it is daylight (which hurts vampires who are outdoors), and when it is the new moon (I think it allowed the bad guys to draw extra Evil cards).
In our game, Chris played The Master. His goal was to kill Buffy and the good team's goal was to kill him. Oz (played by August) got cornered a couple of times and almost killed, but always managed to survive long enough to reach the full moon phase, when he transformed into werewolf state and regained his health. Xander (played by me) didn't do much except run around and collect stuff and give it to the other players. Willow (played by me as well) healed Buffy a couple of times. All of this happened while they chased/were being chased by vampire characters from the show. Meanwhile, Buffy (Clint) and The Master got into an extended mano-a-mano combat, but eventually Buffy staked him to win it for the good guys.
Cartagena
(Chris, August, Karen, Kevin L.)
KevinLi -
We played using the Tortuga rule variant, which means that everybody plays with cards face up and the top twelve cards from the draw deck are visible. It certainly gives everybody a lot more to think about, and slowed the game a bit as we each tried to gauge the effects of our actions. The game was still enjoyable, though (at least to me). I didn't have the same "waiting to jump on an opportunity" feeling that I sometimes have while playing the game. It felt more methodical, and I moved more slowly and accumulated more cards at the beginning than I normally do.
Power Grid
(August, Karen, Kevin L.)
KevinLi -
August had Power Grid, and we played a 3 player game using the central regions of the Germany map. For a 3 player game, eight power plant cards are randomly removed from the game. In our case, they ended up being many of the middle to high level oil and trash plants. Resources were tight, but they never completely ran out for anyone. Karen accumulated two wind and a trash power plant, but their capacities were relatively low. In the end, August outbid me for the 46 plant and out-powered me to win the game.
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KevinLi - 06 Oct 2006
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