Monday 1 February 2010

Robo Dominion Rally (or something like that)

Thursday is our usual Descent night but JC was unavailable so instead we played some other games. Those games being RoboRally and Dominion.

RoboRally is a game that I have had two different opinions on. When I first played it (4-5 years ago), I played it in a tournament with 10 other people in the game, and the next time was with 11 other people. Groups this size did not make it an enjoyable experience for me, but I ended up with it in a trade last year, and convinced Brenda to play. She likes the game and so we have played it a couple of times in the last 6 months. So, when Jay and Cory came over, I suggested this to start. Well, the game started, but my robot did not. In the time it took to pay, my robot fell into pits twice and shutdown once... I made it to the third (of four) flags in the time it took Jay to moonwalk backwards onto the final flag...

Since game one was so fast, we played a second one, and as we were setting up the phone rang so Brenda dropped out and we played three player. This time, the cards fell my way and Cory kept confusing his left from his right. I waltzed to victory, completing all four flags before Jay managed to get his first (Cory made it to the first and was just heading to the second). game two was even faster than game one!

We switched to Dominion as Brenda had just hung up the phone and we played with the rule that the ten cards were deal out and each player could reject one. I am thinking I may modify the rule and deal out fourteen and then each player rejects one...

On to the game!

I don't remember which cards we played with, except there was one duration card and the Witch was the only 5 card. I spent most of the game collecting witches and silver. I lost... by a long shot. Brenda won by 10 points or so.

So we played again, we had pirates and embargoes and barons oh my! I got crushed again as Jay narrowly squeaked out a victory over everyone else (I think I was ten points out again).

Commands & Colors

Darren hosted the usual Tuesday night gaming and this week we got back to the basics, Commands & Colors: Ancients. The game I believe is Richard Borg's best iteration of the C&C series.

I am not going to rehash how to play C&C, but instead will give more of a session report for the nights gaming.

The first battle I played against John (no not me, the other one), was the battle of Ilipa from 206 BC, historically it was a victory for Scipio Africanus over Hannibal. I played Scipio in the first battle and it held true to form, with the Romans winning the battle 7-2. We switched sides and John played Scipio, and I was sure that there was going to be a beatdown, and there was... Hannibal (meaning me) crushed Scipio 7-4 setting the stage for Zama, which was the final battle of the 2nd Punic War. This time I started as Hannibal and my amazing streak continued as Hannibal laid the boots to the Romans, defeating Scipio 8-4 and changing the entire history.

I would like to claim that my superior generalship won the day, instead it was a combination of getting the cards, getting the dice rolls and knowing what to do with the cards. My elephants in these battles were tremendous, killing multiple units before dying and minimizing the damage to my forces.

Next week, Rise of Empires!