Return of the Heroes

I just played a very frustrating game of Return of the Heroes. It was the first time that we played with the Under the Shadow of the Dragon expansion, which made the game much longer and more complicated.

The primary issue, however, was that Z decided she wasn't going to listen to anyones advice, and ended up in difficult situations that made her cranky and whiny. The first mistake she made was playing the hobbit, which is one of the new characters. The hobbit has only three hit points and only moves 2 spaces. Then she wouldn't listen to any advise about were to place her manor house, and placed it next to the White Village, where you can get healed. Therefore, she had fewer areas on the board where she could heal than the other players did. She also completely fixated on fighting the dragon to win the game. She focused on her dragon quest, and ignored doing other small quests.

Her character got killed one space away from her manor house, which resulted in major tears. We decided that since she didn't start the game with the bonus that we sometimes give her, that her bonus would be a one time "you don't lose your last life" potion. She got impatient with moving slowly, so she kept using the teleporter, which shot her everywhere on the board except where she needed to go, and ended up taking her longer to get anywhere than if she had just moved there normally. Finally she got impatient for her dragon quest chits to come out, so she spent all her gold at the mystic to pull the chits she wanted from the bag. She then didn't have the gold that she needed to actually complete one stage of her quest.

We finally ended up conceding the game to Al, which is the nice way of saying, we had to quit before we all ended up in a bad mood.

We separated out the expansion from the base game, and decided that we would just play the base game until Z gets a little older. Al also wants to try Shadow of the Dragon as a stand alone. He thinks that since it is only 9 tiles, it may play more quickly than Return of the Heroes, which would be a good thing. Although it says that it is only a two player game, Al says we should try it with three.

Struggle of Empires

We played two wars of Struggle of Empires tonight. We weren't able to play the entire game because we got a late start. This guy Scott was repairing Harry the Lego Hippo when he got swarmed by bees. We invited Scott in and gave him some beer and pie, and let him sit a while. We tried to get Scott to play Settlers with us, but he decided it was getting late, and he needed to get home and take care of his bee stings. So we didn't get started playing until about 9 pm. Francie said that we have to start gaming earlier, because she starts falling asleep at about 10:30 pm. I told her that Scott vs the bees wasn't exactly part of the original plan for the evening *cough cough*

Struggle of Empires

I spent this evening teaching myself Struggle of Empires. Francie stopped by and saw the game laid out on the table. I told her it was like Nexus Ops with action points like Railroad Tycoon, and an 18th century theme instead of a Sci-Fi theme, but it scores like Mission: Red Planet. She said that she's in and is coming over tomorrow to learn how to play.

Arkham Horror

I have such a friggin' headache. We started a game of Arkham on Monday and are about half way to being slaughtered, but haven't been able to finish the game because I can hardly see straight. It's this weather.

I had the brilliant idea that we should play the singer and the musician. We put on some Robert Johnson and some Bessie Smith to create the mood. I love me some Robert Johnson. However, playing these two characters turned out to be a very bad idea because their stats are too similar. Al made short work of a several of the undead. However, on the second turn I got sat upon by a Star Vampire. I struggled along for a few more turns, and then the headache hit, and has been in and out for the past two days. I'm thinking we should just pack it in. We are sooo losing anyway.

Is it giving up if it's been three days and you need the table back?

Evo

I found a dusty, marked down copy of Evo hidden behind a copy of Descent at a comic & game store this weekend. When we went to pay for it, the clerk said, "I've been working here for years and have never seen this game." It's really easy to lose a game or two behind those coffin sized FFG games. The clerk was a really sweet guy. He even let me use the bathroom, although he wasn't supposed to. Nice beard too.

I think that I really like Evo. I usually don't like bidding games, but the bidding mechanic in Evo is more like playing chicken than like bidding. I'm pretty good at playing chicken. I also find most spawning games fascinating. Francie hated it. I think that was mostly because my three horned green dinos kept munching her soft, weak, one-horned pink dinos. I think that she also didn't quite grasp the climate change probability factor. Al crushed the both of us. I want to play again, but we need to find a third player. Maybe I'll bring it to game night on Thursday.

Buffy CCG

Al and Z got me a couple boxes of BTVS CCG boosters for Mother's Day, and I picked up another box for myself this week. I have been trying to build some decks now that I have nearly all the cards, and enough duplicates to make something decent. Al asked me to build him a Spike deck, which I finished last night. We tried it out, and he beat my Willow deck in 3 turns. I wasn't even close. I think I have to work on a new deck for myself. The thing that I don't like about CCG's is that most of the "game" is in building the deck. Building a strong deck isn't too hard. What is challenging is building a couple of decks that are well balanced against each other.

Harry Potter TCG

I picked up a starter set of the Harry Potter Trading Card Game last weekend (see ultimate geek day). It was an impulse buy at the counter for $4.99.

Z really likes Harry Potter and we have a few Harry Potter themed games. They mostly suck. But hope springs eternal.

Tonight Z and I played. It's a kid's game, but it was still pretty fun. You get to have a wizards' duel. How fun is that! Z really liked it. It is fast (about 10 - 15 minutes) and easy and captures the flavor of the books. The best Harry Potter themed game I've played. So I ordered a couple boxes of boosters ($2 a box) for Z. She is going to be tripping ripping open those packs.

Marvel Heroes vs Puerto Rico

We played Marvel Heroes again last night. Al lost. Afterwards I asked him if he had a good time despite his loss.

Al said," I got to be the Thing and fight Juggernaut. On the other hand, I could have spent the evening selling coffee like the lady at Dunkin' Doughnuts. . . Uh, yeah . . . Let's leave Marvel Heroes set up and play again tomorrow."

Marvel Heroes

Today was Al's birthday. When he opened Marvel Heroes his first words were "Wow . . . WOW!" Z was literally jumping with excitement as I popped out the figs (a huge pain).

It took quite a while for us to work through the rules, which we found a bit jumbled, requiring three trips to BGG for clarifications.

Al and I struggled through a learning game, with Z stopping by to help roll the dice and add color commentary. We caught on to the basic mechanics quickly, but there is a lot to remember. Reviewing the rules afterwards, I see that we forgot a lot and played a few things wrong.

I had read many comments that the game was too dry and abstract. We didn't find this to be true at all. Both Z and Al are comic super hero fans, and brought the richness of the knowledge of that fandom to the table. They narrated each headline and provided a play by play for each combat.

"Toxic gas cloud released over the city! It's Storm to the rescue. Using her wind control, she blows the gas into the upper atmosphere, where it becomes harmless. But what's this? It's the Green Goblin trying to make an escape. Storm hits him with a lightning bolt. He retaliates with explosive pumpkin bombs, releasing more toxic gas. . .etc."

I do see, however, how ignoring the flavor text and focusing on the numbers could turn this into a mathematical exercise of "I'm going to the 6 headline. I'm using my red power to roll 5 dice. You use your yellow power to roll 4 defense dice. . ."

I agree that the story track was gamey and disappointing. I also agree that Marvel Heroes feels unnecessarily complex. I think we may play without the story track, the mastermind mind rules, or the power-ups for awhile. We are going to consider those elements as the expansion. I think this will allow us to more quickly master the mechanics and strategy of the base game and make it easy enough for our daughter to play.

Arkham Horror - Chaosium version

Al asked me to pick out a game and set it up while he finished down loading some Brian Jonestown Massacre. I picked Arkham Horror. I unpacked the pieces, but didn't set it up because I was sure Al wouldn't want to play. Surprise, he agreed to play. This is such a great game. It really isn't that complicated. It just looks complicated because of all the monster chits. Also the rules SUCK. We couldn't remember which monsters were immune to a spell (like it would have been so hard to just print the exceptions on the spell card itself), and it took forever to find the info in the rules, which, did I mention, SUCK. I need to make up a quick reference sheet for the rules.

Heroquest

Z changed her mind about playing Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel and decided that she wanted to play HeroQuest today. She plays the dwarf, but pretends she's a hobbit. I play the elf. We used the female figures that I painted back in my youth, and still keep in their special box. Al was the DM. We played the second mission. Since we were playing only two characters, Al declared a special sale at the equipment shop - 2 shields and 2 helmets for exactly the amount of gold that we had earned from the first mission. Z gets a little flipped out about losing hit points, so the extra defense is a good thing. Al always adjusts the game to keep Z's character alive during the game so that she doesn't freak out, however she doesn't realize this, so the game is always tense for her. It was a lot of fun. Z found a broadsword early on, and happily slashed her way through the monsters. At one point, I used the walk through rock spell to move into an adjacent room while Z kept the monsters busy up front. I kicked in the back door and dealt two swift blows to the chaos warrior on the other side. Z thought that was so cool that she had to act that bit out a couple of times using the living room door before we could continue. We completed the mission and returned with a pile of treasure.

Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel

We had a couple of warm days and my daughter needed a T-shirt. I pulled a couple out of the trunk where I store out of season clothes. As I was doing this, Z spotted Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel amongst the shorts and bathing suits. She asked to take it out. I think the woman on the box cover is what caught her attention.

Tonight I set the game up so Z could see it. This game certainly has a WOW factor. Al and I did a little training mission and taught Z how to kill the bad guys. She wants to to play for real tomorrow.

Giant Silly Mutant Monster Weekend

Today we played Gammarauders.

We set up and picked bioborgs. Al choose Roddis the Octopod. I choose Dweemish the Hamsterian.

Turn 1: Al plays two "ANY" recruitment cards, gets 5 hovertanks and moves them out towards my fortress.

Turn 2: Al plays two gammajet recruitment cards and gets 5 gamma jets. Al plops 9 hovertanks, 9 gammajets and Roddis on my fortress, and then slaps down the "Super Hovertank" card - his hovertanks are now worth 2 each. We roll. I lose. Roddis trashes my fortress. Al wins. Game over.

Al says, "This game is stupid. Let's play Monsters Menace America again."

Total playing time, including set up, about 15 minutes.

Toxicor vs Megaclaw

Played Monsters Menace America with Al while listening to Velvet Underground.

I was Megaclaw. Al was Toxicor.

Toxicor is the now the King of the Giant Monsters. Megaclaw fell over, re-squashing New York and rolling into the sea from whence he came.

Al says, "I don't care what anyone says, this is a great game. squISH squISH STOMP!"

Gammarauders

Al says he will play Gammarauders with me if I can remember how to play. Okay, I can't remember how to play, but I can read the rules. I remember this game had a problem with being a bit endless with only two people. I'll have to do some research to see if anyone has ever come up with a solution to that. I'm also thinking of pulling out the reverse combat results and the teleport cards. If I remember correctly, the reason we haven't played this game in a decade is that the last time we played, I threw down both of these on the same turn and won game, resulting in Al vowing that he would never play Gammarauders again.