Wichita Boardgamers

Session Report for Saturday, 01/21/2006

By my count we had 15 players and 20 games played last week. Slightly off our numbers from the session before but still phenomenal for our group when considered historically. Here’s a summary of what we played with some of my comments. As usual corrections and additional comments are welcome.

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Rumis (Philip, Richard, Marie, Karen)

Ok, raise your hand if you haven’t played Rumis. Anybody? Yeah, that’s what I thought, we’ve pretty much gotten to everybody with this game. Since Rumis is so quick to play and simple to learn it’s become my de facto “first game”. The one I show to people the first time I play with them. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a visually interesting and very tactile game. It may not blow you away but it’s hard to hate it. If you haven’t played Rumis yet (and I was exaggerating before, I’m sure some haven’t played it) then let me know next time and we’ll correct that oversight.

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Coloretto (Cristy, Kevin K., Kevin L. Hanna, Ashton)

The popularity of Coloretto continues to increase. This is another great ‘gateway game’. If you know anybody who plays cards but doesn’t play boardgames you might try this one on them. They’ll probably like it and then they might trust you when you suggest a boardgame later

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Memoir ’44 (Chad, Philip)

Memoir ’44 is a light wargame set in WWII. It’s a tactical level game where you have control over a few squads and your objective is generally to capture a village or a bridge (or defend them) or something like that. The thing that differentiates this game from something like risk (other than playing time, Memoir can generally be played in a half hour) is that you can only issue orders to units when you have the appropriate command cards. The battle field is broken into three sectors (left flank, center, and right flank) and there are cards for issuing orders in each sector. For example, a card might say “Activate two units on the right flank”. These cards effectively simulate the fog of battle and the inherent difficulty in coordinating your forces. To be successful you must manage your command cards carefully, know where and when to press and when to hang back. Combat is resolved with special dice so it is a quick and clean affair, not looking up to-hit modifiers in charts or anything like that. Overall it’s good for a quick and fun battle and it should be enjoyable to most people, even nonwargamers. Since the victory conditions are sometimes lopsided it’s usually a good idea to take turns playing the Allies and the German in the same scenario and keep track of the total score.

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Coloretto x2 (Marshall, Richard, Marie, Karen)

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Blokus x2 (Cristy, Kevin L., Hanna, Ashton)

Blokus reminds me of Rumis quite a bit except it’s in 2D. In Blokus you have blocks each made up of several square units arranged in various geometric ways (think tetris except more complicated). Your goal is to play as many of your blocks as you can, the trick is that each block that you play must touch corner to corner with one of your previously played blocks (just like in Rumis except that there they must touch orthogonally). As space on the board rapidly diminishes it becomes quite a challenge to keep finding places where you can play a block. And really, that challenge is the heart of the game. Just when you think you’re out you’ll suddenly see a space where you can fit one of your blocks and you’ll wonder how you missed it before. In my opinion Blokus is considerably more cut throat than Rumis because you are trying to directly cut off the other players unlike in Rumis where that is secondary to getting your blocks to the top of the pyramid. Cut throat isn’t bad though, especially when the game is so quick. If you get cut off it’s likely you just won’t be able to wait to start the next game so you can return the favor!

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Rumis x2 (Jimmy, Scott K., Brandy, Kevin K.)

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Samurai (Cristy, Karen, Richard, Marie)

I started off in this game but handed over my seat to Cristy so I could play St. Petersburg. Samurai is one of the heavier games we played this week and I hope that everyone understood it (at least by the end of the game). In Samurai you’re trying to win influence with the three castes of feudal Japan, there’s the Religious caste, Peasant caste, and Warrior caste. Your goal is to capture pieces corresponding to these three castes from the board using your influence markers which you get throughout the game. It’s pretty straight forward until you come to the end of game scoring and then there’s a complication. Basically your score is not the sum total of the pieces you captured. Instead you must have the majority in at least one of the castes to be ‘qualified’ for the win. Once you are qualified you set aside that caste and count the pieces you own in the remaining two castes and that total is your score. The unique scoring mechanism is interesting because it prevents you from concentrating entirely on one caste (if you did you’d be qualified to win but your score would be at or near zero) and it prevents you from spreading yourself out evenly (if you did you might have the most points but you wouldn’t be qualified and thus unable to win). So you want to be strong in one aspect but not too strong, there’s probably a Zen lesson in there!

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Yinsh (Cristy, Kevin L.)

Yinsh is an abstract game that looks an awful lot like Othello but is really a level above in my opinion. You’re goal is to get five markers of your color in a row and, as in Othello, you can flip markers from your opponents color to yours and vice versa. You play the game on a hexagonal board and each player has 5 rings which sit on the intersections of the hexes. Each time you move a ring it leaves behind one marker in your color. Rings may move in a straight line and they may jump over markers (thus flipping them to the opposite color) but they may not jump over any rings. When you achieve a row of five in your color you remove those markers and also you remove one of your rings (first one to remove 3 of their rings wins). This is a neat scoring mechanism because as you score points you also weaken your board position relative to your opponent keeping the game balanced. If you want to give Yinsh a try you’re better off playing against me, I haven’t understood the strategy in it yet. My wife Cristy, however, is getting quite good at it and is trouncing me every game. I guess I need more practice!

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Polarity (Kevin L., Hanna, Ashton)

Polarity, the game of magnets. After Kevin’s write up last time I’m anxious to give this game a try, we’ll have to make time for it at the next session.

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Coloretto (Scott K., Brandy, Kevin K.)

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Ra (Scott K., Brandy, Kevin K.)

I missed out on this game again. So what’s the opinion of this one so far?

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O Zoo Le Mio (Kevin L, Ashton, Hanna)

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Yinsh (Philip, Paul)

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St. Petersburg (Marshall, Philip, Paul)

St. Petersburg is a new one to the group although I played it about a year and a half ago. For having played it so long ago I was rather amazed that I remember the rules well enough to explain the game. I did forget a couple at first but interjected them before they were needed. St. Petersburg is an economic game where you’re goal is to turn money into more money and then into victory points, the one who does it most efficiently will win. The game is played over several turns with each turn having four phases. The first phase is the workers phase, here you hire workers then reap the benefits of their work by earning money for each worker you own. Next is the Building phase in which you construct your buildings. Buildings can cost a lot of money but they give you victory points each turn. Third is the Aristocrat’s phase, in this phase you pay to recruit the best aristocrats to your cause. Aristocrats reward you with both money and points in addition to a powerful endgame bonus for having many of them. Finally is the upgrade phase, this phase is where you can pay to buy better versions of everything you bought in the first three phases. There is no payout at the end of the upgrade phase as there is after the first three. There’re a few more bells and whistles but that’s the big picture. It’s a fun game where you have to manage your money carefully and plan ahead.

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Blokus x2 (Richard, Marie, Kevin L. Cristy)

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Settlers of Catan (Kevin L., Karen, Marshall, Cristy)

I’m glad to see Settlers getting some love lately. It’s supposedly a classic game but I never burned out on it like others have so I’m glad to play it once in a while. We played with the quick start variant. I’m not sure how many are aware of this variant but basically instead of starting with 2 settlements you start with one settlement and one city. It just moves things along a little bit as sometimes it can take awhile to get going with only two settlements (and the acceleration curve can be a little uneven between players in the basic game. Getting the first city is a huge jump in productivity, each additional city is less so. Therefore, if everyone starts off with one city it’s a little smoother… theoretically anyway).

-- MarshallPhilips - 23 Jan 2006
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