Editor's note: This post was begun a few days after arriving back from a trip to Tampa, FL. Unfortunately, due to some server issues, I have been unable to post entries for the last couple of months. I've recently found a workaround, so I'll be slowly posting older articles until I catch up to present-day posts. Rather than editing to change the time perspective, just note that my trip was a couple of months ago. Also, there was too much content to put in this single post. My thoughts on Federation Commander will come at a later date.
I just wrapped up a 4-day stay with Karl (my uncle) in Tampa. We were hoping to get in a Shuttle launch on Sunday, but a lack of tickets and reschedule due to weather killed that idea. Instead, we spent most of the time eating good food (Cuban & seafood) and playing some games. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to hook up with the Florida Suncoast Gamers due to some miscommunication and driving distance issues. Maybe next time, guys! But here's a recap of what did get played:
2x Battle Line
1x Dreamblade
1x Twilight Struggle
1x Federation Commander
1x Arkham Horror
Countless hours of World of Warcraft
Battle Line is a favorite for both of us, and it's a shame we didn't squeeze in more games over the weekend. Arkham Horror we played with some coworkers of Karl (who used to be co-workers of mine, back in the day). If anyone cares, we wiped out Yig in the final battle without much trouble. As someone put it: "He's a wimp". However, I'm still struggling with how to treat spellcasters. We tried altering the rules, but ran into a broken rule combo during our GOO battle, and had to change back to the standard sanity loss. I hope the upcoming Dunwich expansion makes spellcasters better.
I'd like to cover three of the games in more detail - Dreamblade, Twilight Struggle and Federation Commander, with a mini-review, mini-session report, and some random thoughts, respectively. (FedCom report coming in a later post)
Dreamblade
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/22897
Karl picked up a starter & booster of the new offering from Wizards of the Coast when we visited Emerald City Comics, a local game store near Tampa. Dreamblade is a product that blurs the line between a collectable miniatures game, a collectable card game, and a traditional board game. At the surface, it's a CMG with unique miniatures on large square bases. Each miniature belongs to one of four factions in the initial set. On the bases of the miniatures are stats similar to those you'd find on a CCG, like defense, summoning cost, or one or two special abilities. The miniatures are pre-painted and of good quality, although Karl and I had two problems with them. First, with the large, square bases, WotC has all but ensured you won't be able to use the minis for anything else. (not suitable for RPG use, unless you chop them off and re-base them.) Second, several of the miniatures had what appeared to be either glue marks or some sort of scuffing on the bases. It's a shame, since the production value was otherwise high, and the figures were visually interesting.
Also included with the starter set is a large paper map printed with a 5x5 grid. The players sit opposite each other, with their creatures getting summoned into the first row of the grid. One objective is to try to maneuver your miniatures into the 3rd and 4th rows away from you. If you have creatures in these areas (uncontested by your opponent), you'll score points at the end of each turn. Additionally, you score 1 point for each creature you destroy in the turn. At the end of a turn, whoever has the most points will win the turn, with the first player to win 6 turns winning the game. FYI, the paper map is printed nicely, but some sort of vinyl or felt play mat might be a good upgrade.
The gameplay is interesting. At the beginning of each turn, both players roll a die for initiative. If neither player rolls a '1', the total is added up and that determines the number of summoning points each player receives. Players can spend these points to bring more creatures out to the board, with nastier creatures costing more points. Some creatures get a discount on their cost based on how many other creatures of that faction are already in-game. Creatures start the game at the lower-right hand corner of the board, but on subsequent turns may be summoned to any column in which you control other creatures.
The main turn consists of two actions by each player, which boil down to a) move or b) attack. If moving, each creature in a square without an opponent can move 1 square adjacent. Movement can be done twice to have creatures move a total of 2 squares, but this sacrifices using your second action for attacking. When attacking, the player attacks with all his creatures that share a square with the opponent. The power of all your creatures is totaled, and a number of dice are rolled. With the dice total, points are distributed to your opponent's creatures. Each creature has two defense numbers: If you exceed a lower defense number, you can displace them to other squares on the board. If you exceed a higher defense number, they are destroyed. If you're the first player, your opponent gets a "deathblow", which lets the creature counter-attack. This is a nice feature that mitigates the power of going first. Additionally, the dice each have a "blade" face, which doesn't do damage, but lets you power the creatures' special abilities. For example, if you roll 3 blades, you can power up to 3 blades' worth of special abilities of any creatures in that square.
The positioning of the pieces on the grid feels like a chess-like board game. You strike a balance between getting powerful attackers into position to attack, while still controlling the scoring spaces so you can win the turn. It offers some interesting positional decisions. Combat is very straightforward, and I don't have any problems with how it works. However, it seems like any creatures with special abilities have to be in combat to roll blades, so they need to be paired with a high-power creature so lots of dice get rolled. The strategy here didn't seem intuitive, and I would need to play more games to get a basic understanding.
In our game, Karl and I battled back and forth with me winning some early turns. I was able to get a powerful duo of creatures into his back line with an opportunity to strike first, but poor dice rolling left my duo destroyed without taking out any of Karl's creatures. This proved unrecoverable, as he was able to overwhelm me with good movement and positioning in the final turns. This experience was very different from Magic, where combat results are generally known ahead of time, except for cards played by your opponent from his hand. I'm not sure I enjoy the added random element to attack results.
To conclude, I enjoyed my playing. It's a game I would play again, but I doubt I'll be buying any figures. The game seems totally playable with just a starter & booster, but as with most collectable games, I think you would need to buy several more boosters to begin customizing an army an playing with a strategy in mind. It's important to note the high cost of entry, with starters costing about US $21 and boosters $11 (after online retailer discounts - more like $29 at a retail store). Let's say 6 boosters begin to give you some strategy options in your "deck" building. That's an entry cost of about $90. Granted, that would let two people play customized decks, but that's still a high price tag.
Twilight Struggle
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/12333
Later on Saturday, Karl let me pick the game to play, and I was eager to teach him Twilight Struggle. It was my sixth time to play this year - Impressive considering its length and depth. (especially considering my top 4 games played average a half hour playing time or less) We went through the rules in about 15 minutes before starting - Karl with the Soviets, me with the US.
Initial placement was fairly standard. I went with the 3 influence in Italy, 4 in West Germany. Over the first two turns, Karl locked up most of Eastern Europe without much protest from me. My ops cards were low, so I let him take countries, hoping I could keep my 3 battlegrounds to keep him from scoring domination. We both got cheap scoring early, when Karl played Vietnam Revolts and Asia Scoring for domination (a very nice move!), while I took over Jordan and Iran for a quick domination with Middle East Scoring. Through the early war, Karl was largely playing events, concentrating power in Europe, and countering my attempts to take Asia. Coups were rare at this stage in the game, but that's common for a first-time player. I took an early Space Race lead by two boxes, getting Animals in Space to ditch two cards a turn. However, I proceeded to fail the next 5 attempts at a Lunar Probe through the midgame, giving Karl an eventual edge in the Space Race.
In the midgame, Karl and I began expanding into the rest of the map. One notable turn was turn 4, when I played Lone Gunman (we noted that Eisenhower was in office on the turn track, leaving Nixon to take his place after being shot), followed by Karl playing the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was especially apropos, since apparently Nixon had much to do with the Bay of Pigs invasion - it's only fitting he deal with the resulting missile crisis! Maybe in our alternate version of history, Nixon cut funding to NASA, leading to so many failed US lunar probes...
In hindsight, the Cuban Missile Crisis did more to help the US than hinder it. Since it set the DEFCON at 2, it meant that no coups could be attempted in battleground countries for the remainder of the turn. I immediately played Colonial Rearguards, which let me place 4 influence directly on the board into 4 different African and/or SE Asian countries. This gave me an immediate advantage in Africa, by playing 1 influence into 4 battleground countries, and using the rest of the turn to shore up the influence. When the DEFCON was raised on a later turn, a bitter series of coups erupted in Nigeria, with Karl's Soviets trying to wrestle control. With counter-coups, I was able to finally stabilize the country and kick Karl completely out of Africa until South African Unrest was played - but even by then, it was too late. (He noted later that he felt like he was behind the entire game - I think this is a common theme with a first-time player, and I wonder how it could be avoided. Maybe with a few minutes of strategy discussion after each turn gets played?)
In the meantime, I had been slowly taking battleground countries in South America, while little progress by either side was made in Central America. At this point in the game, the score slowly began a US midgame swing, as Karl could only score Asia. By the end of the midgame, Africa and South America had won me big points, and the VPs raised to +17 US. We called the game on turn 7, just before entering the late war, where the US would have a big advantage.
It was an interesting game, but a little disappointing for Karl. When both opponents are first-timers, the cards and strategy are unknown constants. Playing for the first time against an experienced opponent is a tough task. To his credit, he played very well, making only a couple of mistakes. Chief among them was playing too many cards as events in the early game. Although the Soviet events are powerful, removing them from the game early means less available cards for operations. Unless they put the game away early, the midgame (and endgame) are going to be an uphill battle. I would have liked to have played a second game with him - I think he would have enjoyed it much more than the first learning game. Maybe next time!
All-in-all, it was a fun weekend. I wish we could have planned some more multiplayer gaming with one of the Tampa gaming groups, but I waited too long to set anything up. (We wound up filling time with some World of Warcraft, which I'm ashamed to admit I'm having a lot of fun with.) Ever since I've been a little kid, Karl and I have been playing games together. We play something every holiday - from the early games of SFB and Battletech, the videogame years of Dungeon Master & Wing Commander, through the Magic: The Gathering & CCG years, the early days of Eurogames, and into today's golden age of gaming. It's nice to know no matter how old we get, or how long it's been since we've gotten together, we've always got a game to play. So thanks for the weekend, Karl. I'll see you for the holidays - just let me know what you want to play!