gaming

Scythe

Scythe

Scythe

I’m keeping this post short and sweet: Scythe lived up to the hype.

… okay, maybe a few more words. I was terrible on my first play as I tried to get my head wrapped around the game. It reminded me of my first experience with Terra Mystica: I knew I was doing some things wrong and by the time I could correct my mistakes, it was too late.

And I couldn’t wait to play again.

(My buddy Patrick actually pulled an all-nighter to paint all of the figures so they’d be ready for our Thursday night gaming group. Just like his Blood Rage figures, these were beautifully done and made the experience even better.)

Scythe Player Board

Scythe Player Board

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

I’m not the biggest fan of social deduction games. Werewolf, Mafia, SpyFall, etc.: all of these and more fell flat for me. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong was no exception. After my first play, I felt meh about it.

That meh changed into yeah last night. My Thursday night group played it and my second experience with Deception: Murder in Hong Kong was the best I’ve had with any social deduction game. The guys I played it with call it a cross between Mysterium (which I liked) and The Resistance.

The game’s theme is true to its title. There’s been a murder and it’s up to the players to figure out who amongst them is the murderer. There’s also an accomplice and a witness, but everyone’s identity is a secret. It will be up to the forensic scientist to give clues to the team to find the killer, while the murderer and accomplice try to trick the others into picking others’ cards.

Players are given a role card. One person is the murderer (the accomplice and witness are optional roles available with six or more players). The only one that will reveal themselves is the forensic scientist. Players (except the scientist) will have two rows of four face-up cards in front of them. The top row are possible murder weapons and the bottom row are possible clues.

To start the game, everybody will close their eyes except the forensic scientist. They will ask the murderer and accomplice to open their eyes and silently acknowledge each other. Next, the killer will point at a murder weapon and a clue in front of them. The scientist tells them to close their eyes. Next, the scientist will ask the witness to open their eyes and will point out who the murderer and accomplice are. The witness then closes their eyes. The scientist will ask everybody to open their eyes together.

Play begins when the forensic scientist gives out the first clue. There are six clue boards with different topics such as location, weather, relationship between the killer and victim, etc. The scientist will place one token on a board to indicate a clue. For example, they might indicate “dry” on the weather board. After all of the clues have been given out, the forensic scientist can replace two clues.

Players then discuss how that clue can fit into their cards or the other players’ cards. Obviously, it is up to the murderer and accomplice to try to steer the conversation away from the murderer’s cards. The scientist cannot speak or gesture while the team is discussing the clues. However, by listening carefully, they can pick their next clue based on the team’s conversation.

When a player feels they can make a correct guess, they state the murder weapon and clue. If they’re correct, they win and the game is over. If not, they’re out for the rest of the game. Each player gets one guess.

The first time I played D:MIHK I was part of the team trying to figure out the case. For my second play last night I enjoyed it much better as the forensic scientist. While I couldn’t participate in the team’s conversation, it was fun (and more difficult than it sounds) trying to find the right clues for them. It helped the experience that the gamers in my group are enthusiastic players in these types of games. Their enthusiasm rubbed off on me and I’m excited that there’s a social deduction game that I actually like.

Saint Malo

Saint Malo

Saint Malo

I picked up my copy of Saint Malo for the bargain price of $11, thanks to the Virtual Flea Market at Gamex 2016 (one of three conventions of the year hosted by Strategicon). I was intrigued by what was in the box: dry-erase markers, dry-erase game boards, and five dice.

Saint Malo is best described as Eurogame-style Yahtzee. You’re building your city of Saint Malo, trying to make it the most prosperous. You have five dice and you can roll up to three times before scoring and you’re only allowed to score one item. For example, after three rolls you have 1 log, 1 cross (church), and 3 heads (people); you’ll most likely score the heads.

The heads (they look like profiles) represent people you add into your city; depending on how many you roll will determine what type of person it is. So, score 1 person and it’s an ordinary citizen. Score 2 persons and it’s a soldier who will help you defend against the inevitable pirate attacks. Score 3 and it’s a merchant who will earn you money on the crates of goods in your city.

How do you add people to your city? Just draw a little circle on your player board and write the letter of the type of person (for example, “M” for a merchant). Where you draw your items matters as well, since they’ll score more or less depending on the adjacent items.

Likewise, you can add crates (goods) to your city, churches, logs (for building houses), and walls to defend against pirates. You roll up to three times, score the items you want, and draw them into your city. I’m not an artist, but it’s fun drawing little walls and churches onto your board. Unfortunately, there’s not enough room to write “Pew! Pew! Pew!” above your soldiers.

Here’s the catch, though: any pirates (the swords icon) that show up on your final roll count toward the running tally of pirates. Once a certain level is reached (for example, four pirates rolled for a two-player game), then you must resolve a pirate attack against your city. If your defense isn’t up to the challenge, then you’ll lose points.

I’ve only solo played the game a few times and I enjoy it. I haven’t gotten it on the table at game night yet, but I think it would go over well. There’s something about drawing on the boards that is unique and pleasing.

 

Rhino Hero

Rhino Hero

Rhino Hero

We had a packed house at our weekly gaming group, with several tables of us regulars alongside some new faces. As always, there was a wide variety of games on the tabletops including Specter Ops, Descent: Journeys in the Dark, Sushi Go Party, FUSE, Kingsburg, Othello, and several others.

My buddy Oscar brought Rhino Hero, which is one that has been on my gaming bucket list for quite some time. It’s a gamer’s version of building a house of cards.

Each player starts with five cards and plays one of them. First, they add the wall cards on the spaces indicated on the roof (or if they’re first, on the base) card. Next, they lay down a new roof card, which will indicate an action such as play another roof card, make the previous player go again, place the rhino figure on the card, and more. First player to play all of their cards wins or whoever has the fewest cards when the building comes crashing down is victorious.

It was nerve-wracking trying to place the cards on top of each other and the Rhino Hero meeple seemed like it would bring down the structure every time we moved it. I think we made it to seven stories before our building bit the dust.

I’m sure this will be a hit at my family game nights, so I’ve added it to my Wish List. All hail Rhino Hero!

100 Games

Screen Shot 2016-07-02 at 7.19.27 PM

Last week I completed my 10×10 Challenge for the year, with six months to spare. Over at boardgamegeek.com, people have been doing these challenges for years, but this was the first time I’ve tried it.

I chose to do the Normal Challenge where you pick 10 games that you’ll play 10 times each during 2016. You can swap out games if necessary to accomplish your goal, which I did several times. In the Hardcore Challenge, you’re bound to your original list and can’t change games.

After my wife bought me Dead of Winter for Christmas, I solo-played it a bunch of times at the beginning of the year, then took on the 10×10 Normal Challenge. According to the original post:

As a counterpoint to the Cult of the New, this challenge encourages people to play each game several times to explore and experience them in depth. There is no rush to find the optimum strategy on your first play, or read all of the cards beforehand. Instead, each play reveals something more and something different, you get to try various strategies, and everyone’s strategies evolve with their understanding and learning of the game. If you are tired of constantly learning new rules when running after the latest hotness, never really learning various strategies to any game, and needing to relearn the rules of old games because it’s been too long since they were played, this is the challenge for you.

At my weekly gaming groups there is always something new (or new-to-me) to play. I love trying out all of the different games and figuring out which ones would go over well with my wife and family. However, not many games get played multiple times except for fillers like No Thanks! or For Sale.

So, my list was completed thanks to all of the gaming I did with my wife and family. I’ll never tire of our game nights, especially the good-natured trash-talk that my wife and I dole out to each other. Nothing like gloating over our imaginary championship belt for whatever game we’ve most recently won.

After completing my goal I learned that I’d played 106 different games so far this year. I’m happy to say that I’ve played heavy fare like Mage Knight along with fillers like Zany Penguins. Besides the bonding time with my family, the best part about my board gaming experience this year has been making new friends at the tabletop. This alone has made the challenge worthwhile.

And I’ve got six more months to go.

Day 289: French Friday

Carcassonne.

Carcassonne.

There wasn’t anything particularly French about today, but my wife and I played Carcassonne so that gave me a chance to use the alliterative post title. After an early dinner we watched Book of Life (good animated movie), went out for ice cream, and came home to play the game.

Carcassonne is a city in the south of France that I’d love to visit one day, if only to see the actual landscape that inspired this modern classic board game. In my mind it’s a mellow place since that’s the feeling I get whenever I play. Draw a tile, play the tile, place a meeple if you want, and score points if possible. Simple, relaxing, and I have no idea why I let it sit in storage for years before actually playing it.

Day 267: One-Day Genius

fantasy football

I was patting myself on the back yesterday after nabbing free agent running back Matt Jones from my league’s waiver wire. We’re an auction league, so all free agents are up for bid on Tuesday and the results are announced Wednesday.

It’s a much better system than the standard waiver wire priority that most leagues run. Several years ago, my league switched to the auction format for our draft and our free agent acquisitions. I couldn’t be happier since it eliminates a lot of the luck during these two parts of the game.

Standard snake drafts have you at the mercy of a random draw for draft position and the first two rounds are usually predictable. So if you were stuck at the bottom of your draft order year after year, you weren’t going to get an elite running back unless one of your late-round sleepers panned out.

Good luck with that.

Auction drafts give every owner a chance at their favorite players. There are no excuses for not getting a top player. If you want him, pay the highest amount. Simple and effective.

Likewise, the old waiver wire priority system never worked out well. You were at the mercy of the running list of teams; either you were next up to sign a free agent or you weren’t.

Acquiring free agents via auction, though, requires more skill. Again, it’s better than the old priority system because every owner has a shot at signing a player. You either pay enough or you don’t.

The trick with the free agent auction, though, is that it’s a silent bid auction. It can be brutal trying to figure out how much the other owners will pay for a player. Sometimes you’re outbid, other times you overpay.

Matt Jones was the hot prospect after last weekend’s games and in my league, there is no such thing as a player slipping through the cracks. Everybody’s too smart and too informed to let any decent player go unsigned. So it all comes down to who can make that perfect bid.

It looked like I did when I landed Jones for $34, outbidding several owners (the next closest was $30). I talked some trash (an unwritten fantasy football rule) and got ready to see my new player turn around the fortunes of my 0-2 team.

Not only did Jones fumble away a touchdown tonight, he also didn’t even score two points for my team.

That’s fantasy football in a nutshell: one day you’re a genius, the next you’re clueless.

Day 266: Betrayal at House on the Hill

Betrayal at House on the Hill

Betrayal at House on the Hill

I made my first trip to the House on the Hill tonight, thanks to my local gaming group. Five of us braved the haunted house and one of us did the betraying, which resulted in a fantastic gaming experience.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is like a role-playing horror movie with the brilliant addition of the traitor, which ratchets up the suspense. I somehow managed to survive as old Professor Longfellow and my fellow survivor and I were able to outlast the traitor and the house itself, which was slowly but surely killing us. Two of our group weren’t as fortunate.

Even though this was my first time playing BAHOTH, I loved it. The role-playing aspect of it was fun and gameplay ran smoothly (I liked the tile-laying mechanism and it helps a newbie like me to have four veterans explaining things). After skimming through the rule books, I found so many scenarios that there seems to be a lot of replayability built into the game.  I can’t wait to play it again and I just added it to the top of my Games Wish List.

Day 262: Clearance Sale

Munchkin Zombies Deluxe

Munchkin Zombies Deluxe

I occasionally stop by Barnes & Noble to see what they have in their clearance section and today I dug through a pile of Game of Thrones action figures, Ravensburger jigsaw puzzles, and assorted bookstore knickknacks before I found something to my liking: Munchkin Zombies Deluxe. It’s a zombie-themed version of the popular Munchkin game by Steve Jackson that retails for $29.99. The clearance price was 50-percent off and I had a 15-percent-off coupon, so after tax I ended up paying just under $14. Score!

There’s a terrific thread on boardgamegeek.com with information about the B&N clearance sale. I never knew there was a method to the clearance-sale madness and it was nice to learn about it so I could plan my next day of bargains.

Day 260: I Tried, But …

X-Wing Miniatures Game Core Set

X-Wing Miniatures Game Core Set

Confession: as a self-proclaimed Star Wars geek, I don’t have much of a collection. I have a Yoda figurine, an Admiral Ackbar action figure, a few books, some old trading cards, and a few knickknacks. Nothing too exciting. I LOVE the original trilogy, but I didn’t save any of my childhood toys, then later in life I didn’t feel the need to collect Star Wars stuff. The memories of the films were sufficient.

And even though Force Friday offered a lot of cool things to buy, I still had no urge to buy Star Wars toys, clothing, food, or what not. I’ve resisted the urge, even though I was getting more excited about the movie every day.

My excitement finally got the better of me.

I took the plunge and bought the X-Wing Miniatures Game Core Set. I can’t remember the last time I bought a miniatures game (if ever) and a Star Wars-themed game would be the one, of course. I told myself that it serves the dual purpose of owning a few cool Star Wars miniatures and satisfying my urge to game.

The core set comes with the X-Wing and two Tie Fighters shown above, which are beautiful. But they’re not just aesthetically pleasing, they’re functional as well: using the game’s cards, dice, and range-finding system, you and a friend can create dogfights on your tabletop.

The spaceships only take up a small portion of the living room table and I’m trying not to remind myself that there’s plenty of room for the Millennium Falcon, Slave I, and all of the other iconic ships. I do remind myself, however, that each addition isn’t cheap.

So, I tried to resist the Star Wars merchandising empire, but like Yoda said … well, at least I know this game will be more fun than Episode I.