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Boardgaming.GameSession47r1.3 - 13 Dec 2007 - 03:06 - LoboSolotopic end

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Session Report for Friday 12/7/2007

11 gamers 12 games

10 Days in Asia

(August, Bart, Clint, John)

Beowulf

(Kevin, Bart, Russ, Marshall, August)

This is the 2005 Knizia version of the game, not the one based on the recent movie (which is also by Knizia however.) In this game players are companions of Beowulf as he travels through the events of his epic poem. The board basically just consists of a linear track of events that the players step through one at a time. Some events are helpful, some are challenges where the players might take wounds if they're not carefull.

Events are resolved by card play, thus Beowulf is a hand management game. There are five suits of cards and a sixth suit which is wild. Since the entire track of events is known players need to look ahead and prepare their hand accordingly by acquiring or saving certian cards that are going to be needed in the future.

There is another important mechanic in the game called risking. When a player needs certain cards (say an axe or a ship) and the player doesn't have them in hand, or has them but wants to save them for later, then a player may "risk". During a risk the player turns up the top two cards from the draw deck and if any of them match the required symbols (or is wild) the player gets to play them as if they came from his own hand. If none of the risk cards match then the player takes a "scratch" (three such scratches make a wound) and is forced to drop out of the event. Thus, another important skill in the game is setting yourself up to take the minimum number of risks necessary. Yet, probably you can't win without taking some risks, so you have to judge correctly when the time is right for a risk.

The game is an interesting combination of linear play, which would seem to get repetitive if there was nothing to spice it up, with hand management and luck. There's obviously a lot of luck in the game, but that keeps it fresh and keeps players on their toes. The winner of any given game could be influenced by luck, but I think over many games the player who has the best judgement for when to risk and who best plans ahead should win more games than average.

Thurn and Taxis

(Nick, Johan, Clint, Scott)

This is Nick. I was the only one to have played Thurn before, but everyone really picked it up quickly, and the game ended up being really competitive.

For those of you unfamiliar, Thurn is basically a race to build the most complete postal system you can across Central Europe in the 17th century. ("Thurn und Taxis" is the surname of the Bavarian aristocratic family that pioneered postal service in Europe.) I sometimes describe this as "Ticket to Ride meets Power Grid." Like Ticket to Ride, you must draw cards that enable you to claim routes on the board. Like Power Grid, you mark service to cities on the board with colored houses. And very much like Power Grid, the game is about efficiency. You have to make a series of choices based on which routes you are able to claim and which cities you are able to mark, and you need to do so while wasting as few moves as possible.

The basic point of the game is to collect victory points. Long routes are worth victory points. And completing service to the various provinces on the board is worth points. The catch is that you get more points if you achieve these goals first. For instance, serving all eight cities in Bavaria is worth 5 victory points to the player who does it first. The next player gets 4 points. Being first to claim a seven-city route is worth 4 points. Being second is worth 3. Etc.

So the game is really a race. And familiarity with the game's dynamics is a definite advantage. (Marshall would say this is the mark of a good game.) I won this game -- I've played it almost a dozen times now -- but Scott came very close, and Clint would have, too, save for one key mistake. Scott was always right on my tail, claiming the same bonuses I was claiming, but generally just after I did, so he trended a point behind. Clint would have ended the game and possibly won it, except for one cold-hearted, iron-clad rule of Thurn: If you're ever caught unable to play a city card to the route you're working on, you must scrap that route and start over. Clint had about six cities linked in his working route, but he got stuck unable to extend it and had to start over. That lengthened the game by a few turns, and it meant that Scott and I were the ones racing to the finish line.

Oasis

(Marshall, Kevin, Russ, Bart, Elizabeth)

Oasis is a game by Alan Moon of Ticket to Ride fame. It's a pretty simple game really, there are three types of landscapes (oases, plains, mountains) and camels. Players attempt to place landcape tiles on the board (there are certian restrictions) with the goal of creating large continuous areas of the same type of landscape. At the end of the game they score points equal to the number of tiles of a given landscape that they control times the number of scoring tiles they have accumulated for that landscape type. Repeat for all landscapes and camels.

Landscape tiles and scoring tiles are acquired in a novel way. Players have a deck of cards which they can't look at. The cards contain various numbers of landscape tiles or scoring tiles pictured on them. On his turn a player begins turning up cards which constitute their "offer". When the player is satisfied with his offer he stops. After all players have made an offer the player with the #1 marker goes first in choosing which offer to accept (he cannot choose his own). When a player chooses and offer he gives that player his turn marker token (thus the player chosen first will go first on the next turn) and takes the tiles pictured on the cards. He immeidately plays the tiles on the board (landscape tiles) or adds them to his collection (scoring tiles). Repeat for all players in turn order.

And that's about it. It's light game that presents some interesing decisions. Probably best if played with the maximum number of players to take full advantage of the offering mechanic.