Ludocracy Now

Had we but world enough and time

these boardgames, tumblr, were no crime.

Oh hi, blog, I didn’t notice you there while I was reciting poetry, but hey, I’m glad you’re here!  Because I played a bushel of games yesterday.  And I took pictures.  And I took notes.  Here is what my table looked like after the many hours of gaming:

The story of this mess will be told, indeed, many a web will be weaved, AFTER LE JUMP!

Whew.  Glad you landed safely.  Now, on to the session reports!

Summoner Wars

After seeing the marvelous success Erik and I had had with Summoner Wars, Jake was willing to forgo his Orcophobia and give the game a shot.  I took the Tundra Orcs because I am frightened of change and Jake recruited the Shadow Elves which I had never seen before.  I won the initiative roll and sent my right flank up to cause some havoc with great success.

As Jake was getting used to the mechanics and his special powers, he summoned a three headed monster that… immediately got frozen by yours truly.  With Jake’s secret weapon frozen, I used a well-placed wall to summon an attack on his undefended summoner.  I finally started to hit my fury rolls, three successful rolls with one Fighter and a successful Fury roll with Ragnor to get him in position.  A blast of magic from my Shaman finished the onslaught and gave the victory to me which I shared with my summoner Grognack.

Through the Ages

The appetizer out of the way, I presented some heavier fare.  Jake wanted to tell “a story of civilization” so I set Through the Ages up.  We played only the simple game although I’m sure Jake could have handled the Advanced but I wanted to make sure he had a good foundation for future plays.  Even though I played both Work of Art cards for 11 points throughout the game, I only won after final scoring with three points.  Whacky!

I certainly feel much less overwhelmed by this game than when I played it with Kassie those many moons ago.  Or maybe it’s just because this was the “simple” game.  Jake gave it a “meh” review saying he hopes the aggression cards in the advanced game make it more interesting.  Be careful what you wish for cuz u just might GET IT.

Innovation(: Echoes of the Past)

Spoiler alert: I get swept 7-0 in this game.

Innovation is a favorite of Jake’s and I wanted to get the expansion played before Gen Con (where Sands of Time is being demoed) so this was as good a time as any.  Thanks to BGG for alerting me to the rules changes that encourage a “cake” set up of each of the decks.

Jake was winning by the sixth age and almost didn’t bother to close out the game so he could see more of the new cards.  It was humiliating.  He wanted to play again, I wanted to drink.

Castles of Burgundy

Seeing this picture is throwing me into a rage stroke, so, brb.

Ok, back.  I was given board 5 and Jake took 4.  I lost 184 to 199 and then gnashed my teeth and rended my garments because I do not take losses in Burgundy well.  But!  It is through stress that we evolve. -Spinoza.

The notes I have are:

• Too flexible?
• Don’t let Jake get the first two mines—too often didn’t have enough silver
• Starting castle was too far away from blue
• Shouldn’t have taken a knowledge tile that benefited from playing blues if you’re so far away from blues you turd.

I’m so hard on myself.  90 plays to go!

Crokinole

After my ignominious defeat, I suggested we play something less mentally taxing.  Unfortunately what I got was a progressive tax on my emotions.

We played with the standard 4 board match set up and in the first match Jake took the first two boards and I thought my shame spiral was going to continue.  However, I forced a tie-break by taking the next two boards in gentlemanly fashion.  For the tie-break we did the 4-pucks-a-side ‘deuce’ rules as I am now calling them.  Meaning, someone needs to win two boards in a row at deuce to take the tie-break.  I went ahead and won the first two boards to put a nice little end to my heroic comeback.

Second match saw Jake notch 3 “natural” 20s in the first board and then sweep the next two for the win.  I call them “natural” 20s because Jake is a dick and wanted to distinguish between 20s that are sunk on an open board and 20s that use an opponent’s puck as a backboard (which is really the only time I can notch a 20).

Anyway, the third match, the rubber match, is the one you’ve probably all heard about.  It began innocently enough: I won the first two boards, Jake stormed back to win the next two and force a tiebreaker.  *Yawn* I yawned, I’ll win with stunning aplomb posthaste and we can move on to Eclipse.  What followed instead was 24 boards of tense 4-puck play… wild swings of momentum, screaming, crying, cats skittering away in terror, Jeff irritated that we were screaming over his Meryl Streep interviews, 20s natural and abhorrent, and a shameful, shameful loss for mister JMLAnderson 10-12 in the tiebreaker.  It was very emotional.

Eclipse

Now is that time of the blog for me to publicly humiliate one Erik Boox Breakfast McBreche for making a last minute cancellation and dashing my dreams of 3p Eclipse upon the rock of ages.  If you graphed “length of article” vs “non sequiturs” for my blog you would certainly see a positive slope.

Anyway, I still wanted to play real bad so Jake and I took 20 minutes to set up 2p Eclipse.  I as the Terran Conglomerate and Jake as the Terran Directorate.  We started exploring and I was surrounded by ancients and no money planets.  Jake was bewildered and bothered as his first attempts at Ancient subjugation backfired and he found himself without an astral navy.

I worked my way through a few ancients and amassed some impressive reputation, I explored my way into Jake’s territory to harangue him and wiped out his access to the galactic center.  I then fortified with starbase after starbase and when he launched his final massive attack “for honor” his fleet was just as dashed as my dreams.

Final scores: Joe - 35 (14 rep, 16 hexes, 4 for discovery, 1 for science), Jake - 28 (13 rep, 13 hex, 2 discovery, 0 science)

I had a fantastic time and Jake had another “meh” experience.  “Needs moar playerz” he intoned with much agreement from every other player.  My table is probably not big enough for a game of this with more than 3 people but I’m going to make it work and recruit those extra people to help me clean up.  It took me another 20 minutes to get everything back in the box.  Puss was NO help.

So yeah.  This was certainly “a blog post” and I applaud you for making it this far through the muck of my blogorrhea.  GENCON is coming -Joe Stark.