wargamesdiary   A diary of war games and board games

Darryl and Alex played the Rebels against Phil and Mike.  Interesting game.  The Rebels were quite successful in creating anarchy and disrupting the supply lines of the Empire.  A notable success being the Rebellion and overthrow in the only Imperial Star Destroyer building system which hampered them for most of the game.  Then when they did build any they were destroyed by missions whilst on the build crew!   Princess Leia proved a great thorn in the side with C3PO aiding her Diplomacy missions especially, but she also did well with insurrections and other mayhem.

Notice how for a long time all the Character Action and subsequent military action revolved around one system.

The Imperials for their part concentrated initially on missions to capture Rebels or build projects.  Thus they held prisoner one general almost all game despite many rescue attempts and they built two Super Star Destroyers in time for the final showdown.  So the Imperials were relatively militaristically weak compared to our other games in terms of Stormtroopers and systems held.  However they did have a fairly strong fleet of super star destroyers on the way to allow them to strike back later.

Using the information from the Prisoner the Imperials were able to destroy the Rebels Secret Death Star Plans and they were reasonably quickly able to identify the Rebel Base using a Long Range Probe.  This forced the Rebels to relocate of course and by then the Imperials had a reasonable idea of where that would be.  So they began moving the death star and the super star destroyers to the new base straight away.  The Imperials then caught the Rebel Fleet in a Trap using a single troop transport as a decoy and then trapping them with the No retreat action card.

With time running out for the evening the final assault could not happen but with no fleet to stop the Imperials and the Death Star on its way armed with a superlaser ready as well it looked very bad for the Rebels indeed.  So a Victory was awarded to the Imperials.  This was mainly due to the successful interrogation of the prisoner and the long range probe plus the invincible Super Star Destroyers arriving to smash the very powerful Rebel Fleet.

Mike, Alex, Phil, Darryl and Bruce played some of Mike’s games.

First up was Cosmic Encounter.  Mike’s yellow Pacifists worked their way to Galactic Domination.  They managed to be victorious in every encounter it seemed.  Darryl took an early lead and everyone tried to stop him.  Phil foolishly invited Mike to help him against Darryl who was close to victory.  This then allowed Mike to make an unstoppable attack against Alex and claim victory.

Next we played a few rounds of Deception which was fun and then Love Letter.  Darryl proved victorious rapidly reaching 4 tokens whilst everyone but Mike had one and Mike had none despite being chosen as the one most likely to win a round twice!

Darryl’s evil overlord beat up Phil, Mike and Alex ‘s attempt to find a peacemaker pistol.  Even Luke sky walker was no match for his machinations .

We played two games linked with a famous Conan.

The first was Conan from Monolith Games the new strategy battle game.  Phil played as overlord whilst Mike was Conan, Darryl the wizard, Alex the Thief and Bruce took Belittle who unfortunately had left her crew behind.  The heroes needed to rescue the princess and slay the evil shaman.

The players advanced rapidly into the pict camp with the wizard scouting out the western huts using his teleport skills.   The thief entered the eastern hut and slew two hyenas and opened the chest.  A good start.  Conan cleared a path to the shamans hut supported by belit.

Conan then killed the shaman whilst belit held a look out outside the hut.  The thief stole in and grabbed the shamans head.  The wizard teleported into the giant snakes hut and discovered the drugged princess asleep therein.  The snake bursts out of the hut enraged by the death of its master and encountered belit.  It was thus blocking conan and the thiefs escape.  However the thief grabbed the head and raced off table in one speedy move using his evasiveness.  Now the players only needed to rescue the princess.

However there remained the small matter of the giant blocking snake and hordes of enraged Picts coming from all angles.  The snake had sunk its deadly teath in to poor belit and was squeezing the life out of her turn by turn with its huge coils.  Even as Conan arrived it was too late for belit who was also being attacked by Picts.  The wizard proved unable to harm the beast and belit could only scratch it.  Conan nearly killed it but it was not enough and belit was defeated.  However her attack from beyond skill finally killed the beast opening up the way for Conan to reach the princess and escape off board.

Victory for the players.  Well done.

Thoughts.  A good introductory scenario for new players and certainly was a fun game.  The encumbrance for the princess makes sense for balance but thematically Conan should be able to carry her with his armour and a weapon, he had to cast aside his leather armour to do so. Still it made sense that the wizard would be reluctant as when carrying her he could not cast his spells so waited for Conan to arrive.

Belit without a shield and her guardsmen is not really that much fun to play especially for an introductory game.  If I was to do it again I would give her at least one guard or the option to switch with another character.  There is a discussion about point values on the board game geek site.  I think Valeria might be a good swap especially as belit gets to play in the next scenario.  Probably belit would be more fun with items from the chests but got blocked by the snake and then the thief ran off with the shamans head leaving his friends to their fates!

Next Mike cleverly suggested another Conan game.  Sherlock Holmes the card game based on the books by sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Bruce won that when he found mikes collection of villains hiding out in moriartys country mansion.

Played my first 2 Solo play-throughs of Conan by Monolith Games which arrived in the post this week.  The monster figures, cards and maps look great.  The mechanics are good and very clever but I did struggle with some of the rules that were not explained very well.  It also seemed the Overlord can use lots of gems thus extra dice on Guard for the Blocking Snake and thus effectively trap the Heroes indefinitely which is quite tricky when there is a time limit and they need to exit the playing area.  Still it was a lot more fun second time round when I worked out how to search for the Princess using Teleport.  There is a French FAQ and some advice on BGG so I think I have it now.

My first rules questions:

1 Does the scenario start on turn zero then so that on the Overlord turn he moves the tracker to state that turn 1 begins?   Makes sense but odd.  The heroes arrive quite exhausted so maybe they rest up on their turn zero?  Or should it start on turn 1 with the Overlord effectively having passed and just restored fatigue to the level shown.  Maybe start on turn zero as explained in setup.

2 Teleport could be better explained.  It is in fact able to go adjacent which means through walls, yes.  Is it a move?  No.  But it can be added to movement.  Can it be done during a Cautious phase.  No.

3 Should the Overlord set a Guard limit to make it more fun for the players?  Probably not but 4 orange dice make even Conan’s mighty strikes feeble.  Tried limiting it but then the Monsters just die.  The overlord can easily get 4 gems back but poor Conan will miss his next go to do so and can’t move out being blocked.  I suppose it is up to his crew to distract the overlord too whilst he is doing this.

4 Wall wrecker is only wooden walls and wooden doors.

5 The flaps are annoying as its hard to see where they are on the map.  They slow people and block line of sight which is fine I guess.

6 Where is the wound tracker?  I think it is the turn tracker as explained in setup.

A new player called Michael joined us for two good games of Quartermaster General.

First game:  Phil Russia, Mike USA and Bruce UK, played Darryl Japan, Alex Germany and Michael Italy.   The two western powers concentrated on Japan leaving Russia to fend for itself.  Russia seemed to be doing so well he also helped against Japan and then fell foul of Alex’s blitzkrieg into Moscow!  The VP’s kept piling on for the Axis and even with Russia soon back in the game it was too much too late from the Allies.  Axis victory at turn 20, well played.

Second game:  Alex Russia, Phil USA, Darrl UK, played Michael Japan, Bruce Germany and Mike Italy.  This time USA started out strong in Schezuan holding up Japan a little while.  Russia held off the Axis Eastern front whilst UK and USA fenced on the Western Front which was then heavily fortified.  Eventually the UK got into North Africa thanks to lots of lend lease from the USA.  This depleted the USA a fair bit allowing Japan eventually to conquer the seas and create a nice VP empire but US and UK held onto the mainland VPs for most of the game.   Eventually USA got into the Mediterranean and invaded Italy; though with a depleted draw pile (lots of lend lease, use of radar and economic warfare took its toll).  The VP’s proved to be moving too fast for the Axis once Italy fell and the game ended a little early with an Allied Victory at this point.  Well played Allies.

A quick belated catch up.  Over the last few weeks have played the games listed below.  Mike, Darryl, Bruce and Alex joining in as much as possible.

Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game

Bruce’s new game in which we   beat the evil Nazi’s in a co-operative game.   Great game.

Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

We sort of made it onto the boat but Phil and Alex got left behind (sadly).

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

The Empire struck back and it hurt badly.  Probably should have left Skywalker behind in retrospect.  Darryl was happy though!

Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

We made it just about but were too slow to stop the ceremony (of course).

Ticket to Ride

Bruce showed us how to play this classic game: winning easily in the end by holding the best tickets.

Love Letter: The Hobbit – The Battle of the Five Armies

Always fun.

The Hobbit

The Smaug/s mountain one.  Phil won this one by being the greediest dwarf!

Star Wars Rebellion:  Darryl introduced us to the new game with 2 unfinished games of SW Rebellion over 2 separate sessions.   Certainly enjoyed them and we realised just how many options there are and that its important to know what the other side can do with at least the starter mission cards before setting out.

Bruce introduced Mike and Phil to this game set in the Star Trek Next Generation Universe.  Mike quickly grabbed some Klingon War-like crew and a new ship and then set about attacking and destroying Phil’s ships every time a Battle occurred.  Phil managed though to take a lead on VP’s thanks to having a more diplomatic crew and Bruce too pursued a less militaristic path.  Bruce though relied heavily on certain characters who suffered some bad luck and were not able to help him at the right moment.  Phil had some bad luck with his ship being attacked by star ships drawn as events which weakened him.  Eventually though Phil was able to get a superfast ship and keep out of trouble more easily.   Mike steadily accrued VP’s mainly it seemed through defeating any star ship foolish enough to attack him be it a shuttle, hospital ship or a raider vessel.   Bruce benefited from VP’s when Phil and Mike mutually destroyed each others ships.   Finally though Phil was able to take a convincing lead with a big 100VP event only he could match and then soon made it to the finish line to claim victory.  A good game and certainly fun and challenging to play!

Phil, Alex, Bruce and Alex decided to enter the Temple and investigate cult activities having been ambushed on the way to town.  Bravely they left the Cleric to guard the horses.  Fighter, Ranger, Wizard and Thief barely made it two tiles before they found themselves with three players down and only two surges to heal with.  Game over.

Regroup.  This time Alex’s thief led the way backed up by Phil’s cleric for healing.  he required lots including a potion.  Mike’s Fighter and Bruce’s Ranger dealt with lots of monsters.  Every time the players got treasure it was stolen by the invisible stalker who had amassed quite a hoard by the end.  The players did so well this time they required no healing surges.  The Wizard this time was left behind to guard the horses and is consequently the richest fifth player if we ever have more for the second or later adventures in the series.  Definitely will be taking the Thief and the Cleric for every scenario now !

Next we played Thunderbirds. we only had two turns before Mike announced we had been defeated by Hood. Oh well!

This time Darryl played the part of the Evil emperor as Alex, Mike and Phil began a new campaign to save the galaxy from tyranny.   Jedi Warrior, Stealth Fighter and Sly Smuggler took on the Imperial Storm troopers backed by their shadowy spy force in the first scenario Aftermath.  The Heroes took out the first set of sentries easily enough but then found it impossible to actually damage the reinforced terminals.  They did however open all the crates: though knowing the cards in Darrl’s hand he had already played was useless.  On the last attack of the last turn the Jedi Warrior (Mike) finally destroyed the last terminal and the Heroes somehow won!

Now they have an extended haft for the Jedi and a better blaster (DL-44) for the Sly Smuggler.  The Sniper (Alex) obtained better supplies using Xp whilst the others saved theirs for the future.  Hopefully Bruce can join later and maybe claim 1XP and 200 credits should he do so or he could use one of the characters if someone is missing that week.

Star Wars Imperial Assault Campaign Page

The players decided that the Imperials had been doing far too well in the first campaign so that ended with an Imperial Victory.  Hopefully the Rebels can do better this time.

We then finished off with a couple of games of Cthulhu Fluxx.  I think Alex won one and Mike the other (by trumping Phil’s win with a Secret Cultist).