boardgaming in photos

Warning: Spoilers related to Risk Legacy in this post.

17 Feb 2012. Once in a while I play Ra on the iPhone. It's a good implementation. Too bad the AI's are a bit weak. I scored 124pts in this particular game. I don't think I have ever scored more than 100 before.

18 Feb 2012. Risk Legacy again with Allen and Han, this time intentionally getting both the mutant faction (bright orange) and the alien faction (white) in play. Both these factions are hidden when you open the game, and only get introduced when certain conditions are met. The third faction we used was the Conclave of the Bear, which was the faction that collaborated with aliens in our previous game, so they also have some additional rules.

As the attacker I rolled three 6's, and still lost! AAAaaarrrgghh!!!

That black-and-white target-like space between South America and Africa is the alien base, and was pasted there by me in our previous game. The alien faction gains a bonus if it controls this space. I made it adjacent to Argentina, which has a very strong city that only Han can start in, in order to make Argentina more vulnerable to attacks. I also made it adjacent to Russia, because all the cities in Europe are Allen's, and I wanted to make Europe vulnerable too.

18 Feb 2012. Nightfall with the first two expansions. Making use of Wight Trash, which has a high attack value of 6, was not a good idea. I ended up painting a big fat target on myself because both Allen and Han perceived me as the biggest threat, and they always prioritised killing off any Wight Trash minions that I played.

20 Feb 2012. Although I like Innovation a lot, I have always been lukewarm towards Glory to Rome. Maybe it's the artwork. Maybe it's the slight similarity and thus inevitable comparison with Race for the Galaxy. However after a few recent plays, I'm starting to enjoy it more and starting to be able to strategise better.

24 Feb 2012. Ninjato played at OTK Cheras. On the left are the envoys of the blue clan whom I have bribed. The upper row are special skills I have learnt from the sensei, and treasures I have stolen / robbed. The lower row are elite guards I have defeated, and my fighting cards (card back).

This was the second play for me, and now that I have played a second time, I feel I should apologise to the designer for saying that the rumour scoring felt artificial and rather loosely integrated after my first game. The rumour scoring is important for players to cash-in treasures, and it can make the 2nd place position during the intermediate scoring rounds lucrative. In our game Allen fell behind in scores, but he switched to focus on rumour cards, including spending just enough effort to gain 2nd place during intermediate scoring rounds. By game end, he had a huge hand of rumour cards, because noone else had been systematically collecting them, and he scored about 45pts to overtake all of us and win the game. Who knew spreading gossip could be so deadly?

24 Feb 2012. My new high-score of 77pts for solo Roll Through the Ages on the iPhone. I don't quite remember how I did it. I was surprised when I saw the final score. It's still quite fun to play a quick game of this once in a while.

17 Feb 2012. Ticket to Ride on the iPhone. I think it was free when I downloaded it. Again, nice implementation, but weak AI's. The user interface is good. No problem playing it on the small screen of an iPhone.

27 Feb 2012. The Ticket to Ride AI's are so bad that they often cannot complete their tickets. In this particular game, the red AI scored negative! The AI's play style is not confrontational though, i.e. they won't try to intentionally block you (at least not that I noticed). They also won't try to hide their intentions (to avoid hostile blocking). Quite often I see them completing routes from both ends, leaving the incomplete middle bit vulnerable. When I play with Michelle, we don't play in a confrontational way either, so this style is fine with me.

2 Mar 2012. I've played Mage Knight quite a number of times now. This was Allen's second game. We picked a confrontational scenario which had many mage towers and keeps that we must conquer. They were the only source of victory points. Allen (elf on the left) came to one of my keeps with the intention of attacking it, so I (green dragon on the right) attacked him before he could do so. I rarely do player-to-player combat, and had to look up the rules as we played. Eventually I just pushed him away to a far corner of the board, since he didn't have any artifact I could rob.

For this scenario the game board is of a fixed shape, and the tile mix is also predetermined to include every mage tower and keep. Allen was unlucky with his exploration. When he conquered the mage tower and then the keep in the lower left corner, next to the two mountains, he further explored only to find his way blocked by a lake. He had to retrace his steps. So he had to spend much effort on movement, which slowed him down.

4 Mar 2012. I bought Tigris & Euphrates on the iPhone when it was discounted. I own the boardgame version of this Reiner Knizia masterpiece, but have never spent enough time on it to learn the strategies properly. Playing the iPhone version was a great way to learn the game and its basic strategies. I must say I have learnt a lot from the AI's.

I have also grown to appreciate the beauty and depth of this game. It is very confrontational. Often even one single move has many implications to be considered. The board position can change drastically, sometimes due to major wars, and yet also sometimes due to just one cleverly placed disaster tile. I must also say the game is very thematic. Your leaders need to worry about both external conflicts and internal usurpers. There are many tough decisions to make, e.g. do you build a monument for a steady VP stream and risk your nation being attacked after being weakened? In the first few games that I played, sometimes I won without really understanding what I did right. Now I have a slightly better idea, but I still feel there are higher skill levels I have not reached. What a wonderful and tense game!

Cave Evil

Plays: 2Px1.

The Game

Cave Evil is a squad-level combat game with an unusual theme. Players are necromancers summoning various monsters to form squads and fight for them. The battlefield is a network of tunnels, where three types of resources can be harvested - stone, gore and black fire. Resources are required to summon monsters. Sometimes wild monsters appear and may attack you. You can attack and recruit them too. You defeat your opponents by killing them in battle, or by conquering their home base. As the game progresses, there is a countdown towards the arrival of a super evil being. There are a few types, and they bring different effects to the game, possibly ending the game in yet another different way.

Some units can dig new tunnels, which will alter the game board, and also sometimes resources can be found. Monsters in the game are represented by cards. So are magic spells and equipment. Not all monsters can cast magic spells or use equipment though. Some monsters have unique abilities, printed on their cards.

The cards with red font are the placeholder cards for my squads. Players start with two squads, the necromancer's squad, and one other squad with a follower who can dig tunnels.

Combat is squad vs squad. Every monster has six combat stats arranged around a hex shape, with attacker and defender taking turns to pick a different stat to use. The numbers are added to a die roll (12-sided die, i.e. D12) and higher total wins. You need to win 2 out of 3 rolls to win the combat.

You start with a hand of cards, and every turn you draw a card. So you are somewhat limited by what you draw, and what random monsters appear near you that you can attempt to defeat and recruit. Necromancers, i.e. characters you play have different abilities and can lead to different strategies.

The artwork is a little disturbing and may cause nightmares if shown to children. The numbers along the hex behind each monster are their combat values.

The Play

Han and I did a 2-player game. I was luckier with my card draws and had pretty good monsters. Summoning them was a challenge though, because stronger monsters cost more resources to summon. I had one monster which simple gobbled up one smaller monster before every fight, which was handy.

The gameboard. The initial setup for our game was like this, a central chamber with six tunnels leading outwards to six different caves, and two of those were our bases. The little stand-up markers are our squads.

My necromancer. Handsome? It has big eyes. The game comes with a few for you to pick from, each being unique. Top left foot-bones icon is movement range. Hand-and-dagger is ability to weild tools. On the top right the 3 hooded figures mean this is a small sized monster. A squad may contain 3 small sized monsters, or 1 medium monster and 1 small monster, or 1 big monster by itself. The S-like icon means this monster can cast magical spells.

I expected big uncertainties, due to the use of a D12, but it turned out that the uncertainties were often small, because when we fought, the combat stats used had big gaps so only rather extreme die rolls would cause unexpected results. In fact some combats were deterministic because the strength differences were 12 or more.

At one point my monsters comfortably outnumbered Han's, and his monsters which were at the entrance to his lair were no match for mine if I wanted to barge in to conquer it and thus win the game. However I was cocky and became sloppy. His necromancer rushed towards mine, used his special ability to control one of my powerful squads, and then used it and all his available squads to swarm my necromancer. He killed me and won the game! Aarrgghh!!

The Thoughts

The most unique thing about Cave Evil is undoubtedly the dark and unnerving artwork. The theme is quite unusual. In comparison, Chaos in the Old World looks like a kumbaya-Euro. Gameplay-wise it actually feels like pretty standard fantasy fare, the squad based combat type. The ability to dig tunnels and collapse them is unique though, allowing the battle arena itself to change. There is a bit of luck in what cards you draw, but it is somewhat balanced by how better cards cost more to put in play anyway. This is an indie game, and components are so-so: paper game board and squad markers.

Box cover. It took me a while to realise there was writing on it. Those weird patterns on the top left are "CAVE EVIL".

Yomi

Plays: 2Px4.

The Game

Yomi is a 2-player fighting game where each fighter is represented by a deck of 54 cards, i.e. a standard card deck plus two jokers. The cards have much more information on them than normal playing cards. Every card has two possible uses and you must pick one when you play it. You can use a card to attack, to throw, or to block/dodge. Every turn both players simultaneously pick a card to play (and which half to use). Once the cards are revealed, attack beats throw, throw beats block/dodge, block/dodge beats attack. If both players play the same action, the card with a lower initiative value wins. So this is very much like rock-paper-scissors.

Each character starts with a certain health level. Whenever you successfully attack or throw your opponent, you injure him and deduct his health based on the strength of your card(s) played. You win the game if you reduce your opponent's health to zero.

Some cards let you string attacks. After your card beats your opponent's card, you may be able to play extra cards to deal more damage. This would reduce your hand size though, because at the end of your turn you always only draw one card. One way to increase hand size is by blocking successfully, because doing this lets you draw an extra card.

J, Q, K, A cards are powerful cards. Some of them when played in pairs, triplets or quads can deal a huge amount of damage. So there is incentive to try to fish those cards from your deck and then keep them for such combos. Stringing attacks lets you take powerful cards, so does discarding matching numbered cards. The latter can be risky though because you are significantly reducing your hand size and thus flexibility.

Characters are quite different, with different special abilities, unique attacks, initial health level and also distribution of card types (attacks, throws, blocks/dodges).

This is a Chinese version which Allen's cousin bought for him in China, but Allen doesn't read Chinese, so he gave the game to Han. The icons on the top right (and bottom left) corners of the cards represent how they can be used. Each card can be played in one of two ways, and the chosen icon should point forward when the card is played. The (top right) icons on these cards are Dodge, Block and Attack.

The small board on the left is for tracking health level. The card on the right is a character card, which shows the character's limitation when playing attack combos, the cards distribution of his deck, and also his special ability.

The Play

Having only played four games, I am still far from having a good grasp of the strategies. My initial impression is it is at the core a double-guessing game. There are factors and information affecting how you make the guesses, but ultimately win or lose depends on making the right guesses. You may not need to make more right guesses to win though, if you can make good use of those right guesses to deal a lot of damage.

As I play more I expect to discover and remember more tricks to make powerful combos. As players get familiar with the decks and develop their own play styles and approaches in playing each deck, there will be more and more basis for the double-guessing.

The Thoughts

I am rather lukewarm towards Yomi. Admittedly there is much more to explore, techniques to learn and advantages to exploit, but that feeling of playing rock-paper-scissors makes me feel a little uncomfortable. This is a game that requires repeated plays to truly learn and to appreciate. You need to learn how to utilize your character well, how to put together attack chains, so that you are not relying on making more right guesses than your opponent to win. If you can't get past that point, the game will feel like just glorified rock-paper-scissors, which I don't believe it is. You need to manipulate your hand of cards and stay flexible. You need to plan for both possibilities: If you lose, can you afford to waste that card? If you win, will you be able to follow-up with a chain attack? Will a big chain deplete your hand so much that you are left with almost no options?

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Buy from Noble Knight Games. Status: restocking (at time of this post).

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our top 10 lists

To spice things up a little here, and also for my own interest, I decided to do a top ten list comparison among my most regular gaming buddies. I asked both Han and Allen to share with me their top 10 games and do write-ups about the kinds of games they like. We did our lists in simultaneous selection fashion, not knowing what others were going to put in their lists. I will start with Han's write-up, then move on to Allen's, and finally end with my own. This was an interesting exercise for me, and I hope you will find it entertaining too.

Han says...

Top ten games:

1. Here I Stand
2. Twilight Struggle
3. War of the Ring
4. Through the Ages
5. Mage Knight
6. Risk Legacy
7. Nightfall
8. Innovation
9. Britannia
10. A Few Acres of Snow

Here I Stand.

Honorable mentions:

1. Chaos in the Old World
2. Battlestar Galactica
3. Maria
4. Successors
5. Arkham Horror
6. Hammer of the Scots

Types of games I like:

Dudes on a map:

• The dudes-on-a-map type of game is my first love. The best thing in life is “to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women”, said one famous Cimmerian.
• Risk Legacy is one of the most innovative designs in 2011. I started playing this game on 1 Jan 2012. It’s a joy every time we reveal another pack, tear up a card or apply a sticker. We now only have the World Capitol pack and the last pack unopened. WHAT IS DONE CANNOT BE UNDONE. So what if you'll only play the game 15 times (game components will not be modified anymore after 15 games)? How many games can boast 15 plays anyway?
• I have 3 other Risk variations in my collection - Lord of the Rings, 2210 AD and Star Wars. I will rank Star Wars the highest among these, but it’s mostly a 3-players game, with cool powers and different strategies for each faction.
• Axis & Allies is another prominent franchise in this genre. Hiew is a diehard fan. I only have the Anniversary edition. We have only ever done online games, but those 2 sessions that we played were exciting.

Horror games:

• I am a horror fan, both movies and books, especially the subgenre of zombies, even before zombies became the "in" thing nowadays. Unfortunately, horror-themed games are difficult to do well. You can’t put cheap scares or gore or convoluted plot twists in a boardgame. It is difficult to create a scary atmosphere using just a few lines of description and flavor text.
• For me, Arkham Horror is probably the best horror game (I only have the base game and have yet to try Mansion of Madness). Last Night On Earth can be fun but is not very deep. Zombie State: Diplomacy of the Dead is mostly solitaire stuff. Where did the tagline come from anyway? Diplomacy with the dead? What diplomacy?
• Zombie movies are the poor man's horror movies because the special effects are simple. Video and mobile gaming is flooded with zombie-themed games, and there are many print-and-play zombie-themed boardgames too. Strange coincidence, right?
• Let me explain my fascination with zombies. It’s the ultimate symbol of human mindlessness and extreme materialism turned cannibalism. In any horror film, no human can hope to overcome the monster, be it vampire, werewolf, alien, demon, etc. But in a zombie apocalypse, you can always fight back or outrun the zombie, but the future is bleak with hordes of undead roaming the world and you cannot run forever. The great novels / comics / movies about zombies are always about how the humans survive in this undead apocalypse; about the best and worst in human nature coming out when society collapses, and all those Lord of the Flies stuff.
• There are some other interesting upcoming releases like Dark, Darker, Darkest; I am also waiting for the iOS release of Victory Point Games' Dawn of the Zed.
• Cave Evil deserves a mention for disturbing artwork.

Historical wargames:

• Military history is also one of my interests, although I am not a grognard by any means. I haven’t really tried any hex-and-counter, CRT-loaded wargames. All the wargames I enjoy are either CDG's (card-driven games), block games or hybrid wargames.
• I like epic grand strategy history games, to see empires wax and wane and cities fall and rise, huge armies rampaging and clashing. Britannia is a good example here, I have played all 4 colours at least once.
• CDG's put a lot of events into play without bloating the rules. I particularly like the Twilight Struggle system where an opponent's event will occur even if you are the one playing it for operation points. It creates more angst and more difficult decisions as opposed to just playing enemy events as points.

Fantasy / dungeon crawlers:

• Lord of the Rings brought elves, dwarves and orcs to the world, and I can still remember the first few times I played War of the Ring. It was intoxicating, like the book coming alive, an epic 6 hours for my first game; I do hope I can play this game more.
• Dungeon crawling is also the hallmark of geekhood / nerdism. I once read an article describing why RPG's (role-playing games) appeal to social misfits such as geeks. We imagine ourselves as fearless barbarians, noble knights, powerful wizards and such, going forth and battling dragons which represent everything wicked in our lives: bullies at school, social awkwardness … and this also explains why sports games don’t appeal to geeks.

War of the Ring - fantasy and dudes-on-a-map.

Civilization:

• Civilization building is yet another love of many gamers. The holy grail of civ building games is forever a topic of contention, but for me, Through the Ages comes close to claiming that. Despite an abstracted military and a total removal of the map, it manages to capture the spirit of Sid Meier’s PC game very well. The FFG version is more a race than an epic game.
• Innovation surprises me with its wild and whacky powers especially at the later ages.
• I tried Twilight Imperium 3 once, although I didn't complete the game. I can see the appeal but that game is difficult to bring to the table due to game length. I haven’t tried the newer Eclipse yet.

I guess it’s fairly obvious I am AT (Ameritrash) guy. I will play any cube-pushing Euro, no problem, just that I am less likely to buy them, that’s all.

I put Here I Stand as my number one because of all the effort involved in doing a full game (3-players), the reading of rules by everyone beforehand, time allocation (9-hour session for 3 busy adults who have wives and children), the discussion afterwards. It’s pure joy! I can still remember the game vividly. It’s not only about the game; it’s also about the players whom you play with. Good gaming, everyone.

Allen says...

I was requested by Hiew to provide a write-up on my top 10 games of all time. I have a hard time remembering games that I’ve played. In fact I can barely remember what had happened after my gaming sessions. I have to take my hats off to all the guys who can write long and interesting session reports with all the minor details in them.

I have played many different games with my group and most have been played only once or twice. There are some games that I really like after the first play but I’m not sure if I’ll still like them after repeated plays. With that being said, there are some games that really stood out after a few plays and I can vividly remember the enjoyable time I had playing them. So here is the list of my top 10 games of all time (with more than 3 plays).

Top ten games:

1. Innovation
2. Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game
3. Maria
4. Acquire
5. Le Havre
6. Automobile
7. Troyes - Mostly played online, I was once in the top 3 at boardgamearena.com.
8. Dominant Species
9. Samurai
10. Struggle of Empires

Innovation

Troyes

Most of the games in my top 10 were first played in 2011, but there is one game that has a special place in my heart - Acquire. It is the first game that got me hooked into the world of gaming and I like it so much that I’ve acquired 5 copies of different versions of the game (1962, 1972, 1995, 1999 and 2008). Although I hardly play this game nowadays, I will gladly bring it out to teach new gamers if I get the chance to do so.

Honorable mentions:

1. Mage Knight (1 play)
2. Here I Stand (1 play)
3. Successors (2 plays)
4. After the Flood (3 plays)
5. Liberte (1 play)
6. Merchants & Marauders (3 plays)
7. Sekigahara (1 play)
8. Glory to Rome (>3 plays)
9. Agricola (>3 plays)
10. 7 Wonders (>1000+ plays, mostly playing with AI's)

On dice, cards, randomness and luck:

• I used to hate too much luck and randomness in games. The Settlers of Catan was the first Euro game that I bought and it was also the very first game that I traded away because I felt that it was too random.
• It is quite ironic because my favorite game of all time is Innovation, which some complained of being a very random game. I guess my tastes have shifted after all these years.
• Another element in games that I like is the dice and cards. In fact The Settlers of Catan has it all (dice, cards, randomness and luck), but I don’t know why I can’t bring myself to play that game again.
• Glory to Rome is also one of the games that I really like that is very random.

Martin Wallace:

• I’m a big fan of his designs, in fact I’ll even play any crappy game that he designs.
• I guess me and his designs really click. So far I own 9 games by him and will continue to hunt for some of his older games (After The Flood and God’s Playground).

Automobile, by Martin Wallace.

Historical wargames:

• I used to hate war themed games. Twilight Struggle is one of the games that I traded away after one play. CDG is a mechanic that I despised in the past but this year (2011) after playing Here I Stand and Successors, I began to appreciate its beauty.
• My interest in historical wargames began this year, thanks to my gaming buddies who are willing to invest their time to play.
• Maria is one of my favorite games of 2011 even though I have never won a single game.

I’m not really sure how to classify myself as a gamer (AT or Euro) because I will play any type of game and I’ll most likely enjoy myself. I guess I can be classified as a ‘game taster’ because I like to ‘taste’ different types of games, although there are some games that I won't add to my collection (Risk Legacy for example).

If I were to choose a single game to play for the rest of my life, I would certainly choose Innovation. This shows how much I love this game. I will always request it if we have some time to spare and if I’m asked to suggest a game. I hope they will release it on iOS so that I can play it all the time.

Hiew says...

Top ten games:

1. Through the Ages - My ideal civ game. There is long-term planning and long-term strategy. You need to keep tabs on every aspect of your civilisation and not let any part fall behind and drag you down. You need to keep upgrading your civilisation to remain competitive.
2. Race for the Galaxy - Compact, decision-packed card game.
3. Le Havre - I like the long-term planning aspect. The game telling the story of a developing port city is a bonus.
4. Automobile - Few actions but much thought required to fully utilise every action. Tight game.
5. Axis & Allies: Anniversary Edition - The Axis & Allies series is special to me because I liked Axis & Allies (1984 version) long before I became a boardgame hobbyist. I still think it is a great game now that I am exposed to many more games.
6. Innovation - Many possibilities, lots of potential for twists of fate.
7. China - Succinct, clever game. Fulfilling despite being a quick game.
8. Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper - Excellent when played as a two-player game. Gambling on Ripper escaping is fun. Hard to pull off, but exhilarating when you do.
9. Lord of the Rings - Cooperative game. Difficult to learn by yourself, which is unusual, given that this is a Reiner Knizia game. The tile draws and die rolls are exciting, but despite these elements, there is much planning to do and many tough decisions to make.
10. Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal - I have only played this once, but I really really enjoyed that game. It may drop off the top 10 list after my second play, but for now it belongs here because of that one great game.

Through the Ages

Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal

Honourable mentions:

1. Die Macher
2. Age of Steam
3. Hammer of the Scots
4. Merchants & Marauders
5. Carcassonne - Many many plays, and I still think it's a great game.
6. Brass
7. Ticket to Ride: Switzerland - My favourite among the Ticket to Ride games. I get a kind of perverted joy when I draw tickets that are already completed, which happens more often in this version.
8. Here I Stand (1 play) - That one play made me realise how I actually don't mind luck in games as much as I had thought I did, as long as a game delivers a good story and an immersive experience.
9. A Few Acres of Snow - I have played this 5 times now, and I have enjoyed myself a lot. Still keen to play more.
10. Antiquity (1 play) - Need. To. Get. A. Copy.

Some of these honourable mentions are not in the top 10 simply because I have not played them enough or I have not played them frequently enough, so I don't feel I have a solid opinion of them yet.

Heavy Eurogames, mostly

• I have always thought of myself as primarily a heavy Eurogames guy, so one sub-topic is probably sufficient for me. I like challenging games, games that require you to plan, to consider various possibilities, to strategise. I generally like the Euro design approach, which generally means low luck, and streamlined - the "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler" mentality. Low luck means your decisions and actions matter. Rules being streamlined means you are spending less effort on "maintenance" and "overhead" and more effort on actually playing and strategising. A good game should be lean and concise, but that does not necessarily mean it is has to be simple or short. China is very lean and compact, and I'd say Automobile is too, despite the different game lengths. Through the Ages is a little fiddly because of the tiny wooden markers you need to shift around, but compared to other civ games that try to achieve the scope and width of human civilisation, it brings out that civ feeling very successfully in a pretty compact time.
• The fantasy theme, space theme, horror theme, medieval trading (heh heh) don't particularly interest me, but I don't dislike them either. The civ theme, history and warfare interest me somewhat, but in the end it is the game mechanism that must be interesting and must work for me to like a game.
• I have always thought of myself as anti-luck and anti-randomness, but two games threw that theory out the window - Innovation and Here I Stand. Innovation has wild swings. In Here I Stand, sometimes even one die roll can be very critical. I think the reason I still like these games is at the macro level I always feel there are things I can do to improve my situation. I still feel that my decisions matter, or at least they had mattered earlier in the game, i.e. I was the one responsible for getting myself stuck in an irrecoverable situation.

Comparisons

If I compare all three lists, Innovation is the only game that appears 3 times. Through the Ages, Le Havre and Automobile appear twice. If I consider the honourable mentions, Maria, Hammer of the Scots, Successors, Here I Stand, Mage Knight, Merchants & Marauders and A Few Acres of Snow all have more than one appearance.

	Han	Allen	Hiew
1	Here I Stand	Innovation	Through the Ages
2	Twilight Struggle	Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game	Race for the Galaxy
3	War of the Ring	Maria	Le Havre
4	Through the Ages	Acquire	Automobile
5	Mage Knight	Le Havre	Axis & Allies: Anniversary Edition
6	Risk Legacy	Automobile	Innovation
7	Nightfall	Troyes	China
8	Innovation	Dominant Species	Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper
9	Britannia	Samurai	Lord of the Rings
10	A Few Acres of Snow	Struggle of Empires	Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal

In our group, Han tends to be the one buying the more complex wargames and AT games. Allen buys all sorts of games and (at least from past record) is the most trigger-happy. Well, he started boardgaming later than Han and I, so it's understandable that one's game collection grows rapidly during the formation years right? I'm the only one who tries to self-enforce a quota. I realise that a significant portion of games that I buy are either games that I can play with my children, or games I can play with my wife. That's because between Han, Allen and I we have more than enough games to pick from for our regular sessions. In fact, we always have a backlog of unplayed games to "work on".

We rarely coordinate our game purchases, and yet usually end up buying different games. Because of our different buying habits, we get to try many games that we would not have been able to try otherwise. I certainly had a number of interesting discoveries, like Famiglia (via Allen) and Successors (via Han).

Successors (3rd edition)

Conclusion

I realise after all that rambling there is not much to conclude about. But it was an interesting exercise for me because despite playing together regularly, we've never discussed our top tens. In fact, I haven't seriously thought about my own top ten before. Have you thought about your top ten, and what your favourite types of games are?

18 Feb 2012. Left to right: Han, me, Allen's son Ethan, and Allen. I didn't ask Ethan to write a top ten list because I think he still needs to complete his first ten list.

Han is now away from Kuala Lumpur on a one-year overseas assignment, and Allen and I will miss him dearly, especially the lamentations of his women.

Mage Knight

Plays: 3Px2, 2Px2 (including a cooperative variant).

The Game

Mage Knight is a dungeon crawl game by Vlaada Chvatil. The theme is nothing new. You start the game as a character with more or less the same abilities as other player characters. You explore the map to defeat enemies, kill monsters, conquer castles, recruit units, and as you gain fame, you level up, gaining new abilities, learning magic spells, improving your armour, increasing your team size etc. What is interesting about the game is how all these are implemented - using the deck-building mechanism. Every turn, what you can do is mostly determined by your cards in hand. On your turn you play cards to do things, and then at the end of your turn you draw back up to your hand size. Units you lead and special power tiles you have gained can let you do extra stuff, but mostly you are limited by your hand. To move and explore, to fight (which includes attacking and blocking), to heal injury, to recruit units, all require card plays. Your starting deck is fixed, so you have some idea about the distribution of the card abilities. As you level up, you gain more (and better) cards and your deck becomes more powerful and also more different from others' decks. You only play through your deck a handful of times. The game is usually played over 4 to 6 rounds, with day rounds and night rounds alternating. One round means one play-through of your deck. So at the start of every round, you know roughly what cards you have and how much you can achieve within that round. You need to plan accordingly.

Battles are deterministic and involve no dice. The main uncertainty is sometimes you don't know what you are attacking (e.g. you enter a dark dungeon). However there are different classes of enemies and a lookup chart showing every enemy in every class. You will know the enemy class, so you have a rough idea of what you may be up against. In some cases the enemy is known, and the only thing stopping you from determining whether you will able to beat it (or them) is it can be time-consuming to work out how to best use your cards. Often I just go ahead with the attack based on gut feel and work things out as I go. Combat is mostly straight-forward. You try to range attack your enemy first, if you can't kill it, it will then melee attack you and you can try to block, unsuccessful blocks resulting in injury (useless wound cards clogging your hand and your deck), and finally you can melee attack it.

One of the characters, an elf. The miniatures are nice and are pre-painted. The round token is an enemy. The various types of enemies you can fight are represented by these round tokens.

Each game starts with three terrain tiles. Each tile has 7 hexes. As players move towards the uncharted area, more terrain tiles can be revealed. The game board will grow in the shape of a pizza slice, with the starting tile being the tip.

These are the various types of in-game characters you will encounter and can choose to fight. The different classes of characters have different strengths and characteristics, and even within the same class there can be significant differences. Generally dragons (reddish brown) are the strongest, and orcs (light green) the weakest. Naturally the more powerful enemies are worth more Fame.

There are dice in the game, but they are mainly used to determine the mana available to the players every turn. Mana is important. Every card has two powers, the more powerful one requiring mana of a specific colour to activate. Every turn you can get one mana for free from the pool, and after you use it, you roll that mana die and put it back to the pool. Other dice in the pool are not rerolled, so your opponents can still plan ahead somewhat. Some cards allow you to gain or store mana in crystal form, which is handy, because normally mana dissolves at the end of your turn. Storing lots of crystals allows you to make a big move later, activating the more powerful abilities of many cards.

A small board indicating the movement costs of various terrain types. It is double sided, this side being the day round side, and the other being the night round side. Movement costs of forests and desserts differ depending on whether it is day or night. Forests are easier to move through in daylight but harder after nightfall. This board is also used as the mana pool - where you place the mana dice.

The basic cards. Each card has two parts. To use the more powerful ability, you need to spend mana of the appropriate colour. E.g. the more powerful ability of the Swiftness card is Range Attack of value 3, and requires a white mana to trigger.

You move and fight, recruit, level up, learn new tricks. Fame that you gain during the game are victory points. When the game ends, you do scoring for all your feats - castles conquered, dungeons explored, cities conquered, units under your banner, spells and abilities learned etc. You also lose points for wounds not healed. For each scoring criteria, there is also a bonus for being best in category (and a penalty for the most wounded category). The scoring is like quite a number of other Vlaada Chvatil games, where everything that you do well is rewarded.

There are a number of scenarios that come with the game, even cooperative ones. There are ultra competitive ones which encourage direct conflict between players. For normal games, it is probably not so worthwhile to fight other players because you don't gain that much from it. It is better to fight monsters and other game characters. You get more good stuff. There are rules for building your own scenarios, so the game is like a toolbox. You can adjust the difficulty level to your liking.

Cities are toughest to conquer, because they have multiple defenders, and they give additional abilities to their defenders. You can adjust the difficulty of the game by modifying the city level (which can range from 1 to 11).

Two dragons right next to each other. If you move from a space next to a dragon to another space next to it, it will get annoyed and will attack you.

The game comes with four player characters. Each starting deck only has one card which is unique for the character, but whenever the character levels up, he will gain a unique special power tile from his own pool. So the characters have unique aspects, and players can also develop these characters to their liking.

The various player- / character-specific components. Top left is draw deck. Top right is discard deck. Middle left is my only unit at this moment. As you level up, you will be able to lead more and more units. Centre is my character card. Mana crystals are kept here (I have none at the moment). Middle right is a reference card for this character's unique special ability tiles. The tokens at the bottom are: my current armour strength and hand size, which is based on my current level (Level 1 and 2 characters have an armour value of 2 and a hand size of 5); one special ability tile which I now have; markers for marking my achievements on the board, e.g. towers conquered, monasteries burnt, tombs explored; special ability tiles which I have yet to obtain (the backs showing).

The Play

On my first play, I wasn't impressed. It felt like just another dungeon crawl, going about killing monsters and leveling up, and I don't have any particular interest in fantasy role-playing games. I felt very restricted by my cards. I couldn't move when I wanted to move, I couldn't fight when I wanted to fight. However as I played more, I began to understand the rhythm of the game and how to make better use of my cards, sometimes holding some cards for a better moment to use them, sometimes adjusting my plans based on the cards I had. Leveling up was quite fun, much more interesting than just increasing numbers and stats to roll dice against. Many new abilities come in the form of new cards in the deck - advanced action cards, magic spells and artifacts - and it is fun to use them to make powerful plays. As I leveled up, I became more specialised in certain areas, and I planned my moves accordingly.

I'm a lousy boss. All my employees get injured at work. They have no medical or personal injury insurance. I often hire new (and healthy) employees so that I have an excuse for firing these older and, um, non-performing employees. Due to the need for cost-cutting measures, it is important to save on medical expenses whenever possible.

The five silver-coloured shield tokens mark my journey.

The gameboard near the end of a game.

It is usually bad to roll black mana at day time, because these dice become locked, and they rarely get used and rarely get rerolled. Black mana is usually only used for magic spells. Five black mana means noone is getting the daily free dose of mana, until someone can cause a reroll.

I defeated two dragons at one go using magic spells. Magic spells require at least one mana, and to use the more powerful ability of the spell, you need an additional black mana. Later we discovered we had played the rules wrong. I should not have been able to kill the dragons so easily with these spells. I need to block their attacks first before I cast spells.

The game is a little solitairish, because most of the time you are doing your own thing. I guess it is up to the players how much they want to do player-to-player combat, but in my opinion it is not very beneficial (you may gain a little fame, rob an artifact or shove the guy away), especially in 3- or 4-player games when other players not involved in the fight can make better use of their limited actions to fight monsters and level up. There is a race element in trying to reach certain locations before others, recruit certain units, claim certain skills etc, but other than these, most of the time you are focusing on how to make the best use of your cards. There can be much downtime because working out how to best execute your turn can take some time, especially when you have leveled up and have more cards, more special ability tiles, and more units. It is best that you plan your turn beforehand. It'll save much time, but the game will still take quite long, 2 - 3 hours.

Most scenarios have some overall objective, e.g. exploring all dungeons, conquering a twin city, so the game builds towards a climax. You need to level up as much as you can, and then plan for that ultimate battle before the game ends.

Han and I did one cooperative scenario, in which we needed to conquer a twin city. We played with Level 7 cities. Each had 4 guardians, which meant we needed to fight 8 guardians at once. It was intimidating.

This was when we first discovered the location of the twin city.

The time was right, and we came knocking at the gates. It turned out that defeating 8 guardians was not as bad as we thought. Han had a card that cancelled fortification effects of all enemies, a card that made all his attacks siege attacks, and a card that boosted the attack values of all his units. These combined with other special abilities and cards he had already allowed him to kill most of enemies. I ended up being a minor contributor, and all my units just relaxed under a tree sipping tea and enjoying the show.

The Thoughts

I quite like Mage Knight. Although I have never been a fantasy fan, I quite enjoyed the character development in the game. It is deck-building put into good use, perhaps not as thematically fitting as A Few Acres of Snow, but still a very good implementation. The game is long, but I don't find it particularly complex. There are many rules, but in most cases you can just refer to the handy reference cards that come with the game. Every turn you just move and then do something at your destination. That's all there is to it. Making good combos of your cards can be complex, since the cards give you many possibilities. This is not a game for casual gamers. Building up towards powerful combos is very satisfying. Throughout the game as you gain new abilities, you build up towards an ultimate showdown. It is like trying to get all the stars aligned. When you achieve it, it is exhilarating.

These reference cards and indisposable. They tell you what to do with each type of location that appears on the board.

I really admire how the fantasy dungeon crawl is implemented in Mage Knight. This Vlaada Chvatil fellow is a very smart guy. Despite all the familiar elements of the genre, the implementation feels fresh. Luck in dice rolling is replaced with luck in card draws and tile draws, but the latter is much less because of how much more deterministic combat is. The deck-building has a purpose to it and is not just chasing meaningless victory points.

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Buy from Noble Knight Games. Status: restocking (at time of this post).

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guest post from Allen: 2011 in review

Another guest post. I also asked Allen to write about his 2011.

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2011 was a great year for gaming, I think I must have played around 30+ new games this year and bought more games than I had time to play. This year was also the year of Kickstarter. I have supported more than 11 games on Kickstarter. I think I have bought about 50 games this year excluding the ones that I’ve kickstarted.

Below are some of my top 10 games that I've played in 2011. Most of the games played here were with my gaming buddies Han & Hiew. Unlike my gaming buddies, I can hardly remember the details of our gaming sessions but I can certainly remember I had a great time playing. You can read the reviews on this blog on all the games listed and our gaming sessions, so I'll just keep it simple here.

1. Maria - A great Euro-wargame... Another game that I simply don't know how to win and I just love it.
   Maria

2. Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game - I really like this game a lot and the best part is I've never won a single game. We must have played 4-5 times and each time I find it more interesting. Only until recently thanks to my Secret Santa I owned a copy of this game. I have the expansion now and I think this will see more plays in 2012.
   Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game (Fantasy Flight Games)

3. Innovation + Expansion - This must be the most requested game by me, every time we can't think of anything short to play I'll definitely suggest this.
4. Dominant Species - Chaotic but it's really fun. Well, you either hate it or love it. I think it is one of the best 3 hour games I've played.
5. Troyes - Another game that I've played mostly online. At one time I was in the world top 3. Played about 100+ games and I still find it interesting. Played face-to-face only twice. Not a favourite among my gaming group so this will just sit on the shelves.
6. Merchants & Marauders - This game is kinda like a filler to us because we can complete a game in less than an hour. A game that I won't mind playing over and over again.
7. 7 Wonders - Enough good things have been said about this game. I think I must have played over 1000 games on the PC since each game only lasts about 2 mins. The problem is that I lose every time I play against humans.
8. Navegador - A great rondel game which I've enjoyed.
9. Omen: Reign of War - A simple 2 player card game which I enjoyed a lot. Played just once with Han’s copy and I liked it a lot. Now it's on Kickstarter, and I’ve ordered a copy.
10. Tammany Hall - An area majority game with a bidding element added. It is a great game with such simple rules. This is one of the very few games that I can actually teach.
    Tammany Hall

Honourable mentions:

1. Here I Stand - Finally had the chance to play this beast. It is really satisfying. Time flies by and by the time we ended the game it was already like 9 hours. A great epic game that I wish I could play more often.
2. Successors - Another GMT war game with a nice story behind the game.
3. Sekigahara - One of the best 2P war games I've ever played, even better than Twilight Struggle.

Games that I’ve Kickstarted in 2011:

1. Omen: Reign of War
   Omen: Reign of War has great artwork.

2. Flash Point: Fire Rescue (received)
3. Glory to Rome
4. Carnival (received)
5. Get Bit! (received)
6. Startup Fever (received)
7. Kings of Air and Steam
8. Sunrise City
9. Empires of the Void
10. D-Day Dice
11. Forceball: Futurisitic Hockey Card Game (received)

Personal observations in 2011:

1. Games I like tend to be the games that I do not own. I don’t understand why this is happening, at some point this year I would like to get a copy of these games.
2. I like games that I can’t win. I don’t understand why this is happening either. Maria, Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game, Here I Stand and Successors are the games that I truly enjoy but I just can’t win.
3. I like playing games with 3 players. I can truly understand this. Playing with Han and Hiew is enjoyable even when we’re playing a game that sucks. I guess it is the company that matters. Sadly, Han will be leaving for Australia this year. We will have a hard time finding a replacement.
4. I like playing games with dice and luck. I used to be a euro-centric gamer and I used to hate games that involve dice, but this year after playing so many games, my tastes have certainly changed. I really enjoy dice rolling and games with a bit of luck involved. Games like Puerto Rico and Power Grid which I enjoyed in the past have been sitting on the shelves for quite some time and I’m less likely to suggest them when we have our gaming nights.
5. I like games from GMT. I have been gaming since 2007 and only in year 2011 that I began buying games produced by GMT. Some of the games that they produced are the ones that I truly enjoyed.

My aims for 2012:

1. Play more buy less. Try to do more research when buying.
2. Try to read the rules of the new games I bought. At least it will ease the burden of our only "official rules reader" in the group.