Ludocracy Now

Hi Friends.  Can you read this through your tears over the ignominious performance by the US Men’s gymnastics team?  (I’m speaking to you, Jeff.)  If you can, please see below for fun Crokinole and Summoner Wars dressage reportage!

Jeff and I played another best of 3 set match of Crokinole with our modified rules.  This picture was taken after I lost the first set 6-3.  After a kidney tap and a wasp nests killing, I came back and won the second set 6-0.  The third set saw plenty of service breaks but I managed to break at 5-4 to walk away with my 2nd Crokinole-Tennis championship!  NB: We can no longer blame the warped pucks for our maladroit play as I have marked the bad sides and the pucks slide rather uniformly now.

Erik, Jake and Nate also got in on the fun with Erik taking a match from Jeff, Jake taking a match from nearly everybody (not me, but it was close) and Nate taking a big sip of Manhattan!

Summoner Wars! So my fears that the Ludocrats would reject the fantastic theme of this game proved true. “I’m not sure I want to play a game called ‘Summoner Wars’ that has six weird dudes on the cover of the box.” -Jake “This may go to my ‘List of Games I Refuse to Play’” -Erik.  Jerks!  However, I must have cast a potent spell on Erik as he was willing to put aside his apprehension to give the game a shot.

And I am happy to report it was “better than [he] expected.”  I gave Erik the Phoenix Elves and although he said they didn’t look very “bad ass” he agreed to give them a shot against my Tundra Orcs.  And yes, those are specialty dice purchased from the plaid hat games website before I ever played the game…

Anyway, the rules explanation was short and sweet and we were off hacking at each other’s units in no time.  Erik got three champions summoned to my one, but my rush of furious fighters managed to snag three wounds on an oft frozen Prince Elien.  However, Erik pushed forward with a two-champion bum rush and a well-timed Precision event to get my Grognak on his last leg.

It came down to two summoners with one health left and my turn to move.  I either had to take out Maelena and her burning blade (who would surely kill my summoner next turn) or some how find a way to get that last bit of health from Erik’s summoner.    Ragnor successfully raged after attacking a wall to take an additional attack on the Prince.  A tight match but my snazzy blue dice gave me the win.

I loved it.  I hope I can sweet talk more Ludocrats into giving this gem a try because I bed they’ll be hooked.  I also hope Erik, Mr. “Boo to Burgundy,” will give this another shot.  It was so close I imagine he’ll demand a rematch!  Until next time, folks.