Event recap: Mt. Claremont October 2016

Event recap: Mt. Claremont October 2016

Another great day of gaming was held at our October Mt. Claremont event. Here are some recollections from amongst the games played:

Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries

Elaine, Craig and I played this brutal brutal version of ticket to ride. You really have to get your trains on the board as soon as possible. Did I mention this one is brutal. I was doing well until the tickets got calculated 😛

Craig and I decided that as Elaine was the only one to pass the 0 on the score tracker that her score reset leaving him in first and me in second. Unfortunately convention rules that Elaine whooped our butts! with a >100 score leaving us far behind. I came last, if only it was for all those negative tickets…Brutal!

 

A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (second edition)

This was a partly prearranged game (see https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1649586/will-you-conquer-we…). Mark, Kent and I had agreed to play pending finding enough players. Eric came when I did and he agreed to join, and with Adrian owning the game without having learnt it yet, it was the 5 of us who sat down to conquer Westeros. 

For those not familiar with the game, each player takes the role of one of the houses, with the winner being the first to 7 castles (or the most after turn 10, then a series of tiebreaks if tied). Each turn, everyone secretly places order on each of their troops and once all are revealed, there are resolved one at a time in turn order. There may be raids, where you discard another player’s token, either holding up to your agreement with someone or betraying them by weakening their position. There may be battles, where troops battle over territory (including any betrayals) and unique cards can swing a battle one way or another. There may be consolidating power, where power tokens are gained to be later spent to increase your position on various tracks, each with their own benefit.

We did a partially random allocation, resulting in:
-Kent playing Baratheon
-Adrian playing Stark
-Mark playing Greyjoy
-Eric playing Lanister
-me playing Tyrell

House Martell was unplayed, so that part of the board was appropriately altered. We also played with the Tides of Battle cards. 

Kent seemed to get out to an early lead, sweeping down the southwest. He reached 6 castles, and it was Eric who defeated him on the sea to prevent Kent getting his 7th castle [if Eric lost that particular battle, I had two options to fight Kent but neither were great]. Kent and I tusseled in the south, Mark, Eric and Adrian in the north, and there were some skirmishes in the middle. Castles changed hands as each of us had a chance to pull away if certain battles went our way (at one stage, I was on 6 but being low on the Iron Throne track meant turn order went against me in trying to poach a 7th castle). More than once, we were all on 4 castles as we took down real and perceived leaders.

Going into the last turn, no one (we thought) could get 7 castles, so it was a case of how many castles could be held and/or gained. Battles were many and after the dust had settled, Eric with the Lannisters emerged the victors on 5, over Kent, Adrian, and Mark each on 4, and me on 3 (and remembering that there is no second place, only 1 winner!).

Things on reflection:
-I really enjoyed this session – thanks to everyone who played (and Ian who lent us his copy)
-I’m sure we got some rules wrong – as a Fantasy Flight game, the number of bits increases the likelihood of things being missed – but I don’t think it was anything major that affected the game (e.g. I think we let Mark choose a siege tower to be a destroyed troop rather than it automatically dying from a lost battle).
-I can understand why people (such as Mark) don’t like the Tides of Battle cards. I didn’t mind the extra unpredictability of battles, and while I wouldn’t play with it all the time, wouldn’t mind using them once in a while.
-For some reason, I didn’t take The Arbor all game, missing out on a good consolidate power spot.

Yes, its a long game, but I’ve never regretted the time spent, and this session was no different.-If that battle in Starfall with Loras had won, just imagine having another turn with those troops on a plus 1 march order…

 

Automania

Leah, Warren and myself played this worker placement game from last year’s Essen.

This is a very clever game about building and exporting cars, which features a really simple but fun production line mechanism, where you can place upgrades that will make your car more desirable in either the North American or European market, both of which have fluctuating trends.

I’m not really sure why this game hasn’t been picked up for wider distribution. Some have a problem with the artwork, which is very bright and colourful, maybe a little too much. I’d agree that it’s pitched slightly wrong, but it’s by no means the worst I’ve come across.

Warren ended up winning this one.

 

Smash Up

Played a game of this with Blake while waiting for Ernest to turn up and play GoT.I played as Ninja-Ignobles verses Blake’s Tornado-Minions of Cthulhu.The Ignobles (a game of thrones knock-off faction) specialise in giving control of their minions to other players for extra abilities, which I doubly exploited by forcing Blake to win bases that awarded more points to the second player!

 

Navegador

Christophe and Celine brought their copy of this out-of-print Mac Gerdts design that I’ve been wanting to try for a long time. Concordia is a favourite of mine, so I wanted to play his other games, and this always comes highly recommended. Warren joined us, forgetting until near the end of the game that he had indeed played this before, long ago.

It didn’t disappoint. Elegant mechanisms, difficult decisions, a great implementation of the rondel, and a fantastic market system all combine to make this a winner. Christophe won.

I enjoyed this so much that since then I’ve tracked down a copy of my own 

 

Pictomania

Rob and Leese taught Blake, Craig, Leah and myself this fun one. It involves simultaneous pictionary like drawing and guessing. Everyone at the table can see the list of items the words have come from… Doesn’t make it any easier but incredibly fun and funny. Highly recommend as a party game addition. Really enjoyed it. I believe Rob slaughtered us all despite not feeling 100%