Dune

Jeff of boardgamecafe.net / Old Town Kopitiam Cheras gamers organised a session to play the classic and out-of-print (and very expensive) Dune, a game based on the famous science fiction novel series. He had never played it before, although he had had it for some time. This was the French version published by Descartes Editions. On Labour Day, 1 May 2010, we played a 5-player game at Old Town Kopitiam.

The Game

I read the first two books of the Dune series a few years ago, but don't remember the details very well, so some details written here may not be accurate. Dune the boardgame is played on a map of Arrakis, the planet where precious spice is harvested. Multiple factions are vying for control of Arrakis, and they have different agendas, strengths and weaknesses. There are 5 strongholds on the map. You need to control a certain number of strongholds to win the game, that number depending on the number of players and the size of the alliance you are in, if you are in one.

You need military units to control a stronghold, and military units in this game are very simple. You have a total of 20 tiny round tokens. Depending on the faction you play, some start on the board, some start off board and need to be deployed later. Every round, you can do exactly one shipment of units from off board onto the planet, and exactly one movement of one group of units from one space to one other space on the board. I was surprised how simple this was when I read the rules, and was later surprised again how well the game works in spite of this simplicity.

The battle system is simple. Three factors come into play - units, leaders, and treachery cards. The number of military units is known when two armies clash, but each side secretly commits a subset to actually fight. The loser loses all units, and the winner loses only the committed units. Both sides also secretly commit a leader (every faction starts with five), and some cards. Leaders boost the total strength. Cards are used for killing the enemy leader, or protecting your own leader.

That's me teaching the game. Left to right: me, Arm, Wai Yan (game spectator, whom, in hindsight, we probably should have asked to be the 6th player playing Bene Gesserit), Ainul.

Many photos here are courtesy of Jeff of www.boarddgamecafe.net.

That's me handing a battle disc to Arm. The battle disc allows you to secretly select a number, which will be the number of units you want to commit in the battle. That little round recess is the spot to place your leader.

Leaders are round discs. These are Jeff's Harkonnen leaders. The numbers are the strength that these leaders contribute to a battle. The strength 10 Harkonnen leader should not be in play. It's part of an expansion.

One twist in battles is traitors. During game setup, each faction secretly gains a leader from another faction, a traitor. If you end up fighting an army lead by this traitor secretly serving you, you automatically win the battle, which is cool. However you also will not know how many and which of your leaders are secretly serving other lords.

For most of the actions that you can take in the game, you need spice. This is the key currency in the game, and it is scarce. You need spice to ship units onto the board. You need spice to bid for cards. You need spice to revive dead units. You start with some spice, but once the game starts, you have to harvest spice yourself. Every round some spice will be discovered in one region. The players need to rush there to harvest the spice. Other factions are not the only thing you need to worry about. There is a raging storm which will wipe out your units together with any spice if it hits you when you are in the desert, and Arrakis is 80% desert. There are also giant sandworms which will eat up your units and the spice. They tend to appear in the region most recently found to have spice, so it's a dilemma between getting there before other factions and waiting for an extra round until it's safe. Life is tough.

This was my player shield. You hide your spice under this. The artwork is comic-style and very 80's.

The Play

In our game, Jeff played the Harkonnen, master of treachery (more treachery cards and more traitors than others). I played the Atreides, the faction of the main character in the story. I could see some extra information, e.g. whether a sandworm was coming, where spice would appear next, the opponent's leader in a battle. In the novels the Atreides and the Harkonnen were sworn enemies. They each started the game controlling two important strongholds near each other. Ainul played the Emperor, rich because bids for treachery cards were paid to him, but he started with no units on the board. Arm played the Guild, who monopolised transportation, and was nicknamed DHL. The Guild was rich because unit shipment costs were paid to them. Ken played the Fremen, the natives, nicknamed orang asli (which means aborigines). They were poor but numerous. They popped up freely near a particular desert as opposed to needing to be shipped from orbit. They also get revived for free when killed. They moved faster.

The first round of the game. Atreides (green, played by me) started in Arrakeen, and Harkonnen (black, played by Jeff) started in Carthag. These two cities are important because having units present here mean you have access to ornithopters (something like helicopters) and your units anywhere on the board can move 3 steps instead of 1.

When we played, the French in the game posed a bigger difficulty that we had expected. The English rules we had referred to region names in English but the names on the board were in French. The card texts were in French and we had to look up the English reference sheets. Despite this, we had a fun game and quite a number of interesting stories.

The Tleulaxu tanks, where dead leaders and units go to, and can be revied. Ken (Fremen, yellow) was first to have casualties.

Some spice appeared right next to my (green) home base of Arrakeen. Ainul (red) attacked Jeff's (black) home base of Carthag, shipping his army in directly from orbit. This is one thing that you always need to be careful of. If your enemy has enough spice (i.e. money), he can ship a large army directly to any space on the board (unless it is under storm, or it is already occupied by two factions).

Ainul (Emperor, red), Jeff (Harkonnen, black), Ken (Fremen, yellow), Arm (Guild, orange). Look at how much spice (money) Arm has under his screen. He's filthy rich because all payments for shipping units from orbit get paid to him.

Jeff (Harkonnen) was aggressive from the start, since he had an advantage. Strangely, he reduced his defenses at Carthag, his home base, moving his units to threaten Ken (Fremen). Later, we realised it was because he had a treachery card which would blow up the Shield Wall which protected Carthag and Arrakeen (my home base), making them vulnerable just like deserts when the storm passed over. I was conservative and kept reinforcing my units already in Arrakeen, and when I realised Jeff's plan, I had to mass migrate hurriedly before my army got wiped out by the storm.

Amidst the chaos of my house-moving, I carelessly neglected to notice that Ainul was already in control of two strongholds, and would immediately win when he captured a third. When my huge stack of units stepped out of Arrakeen, leaving a token garrison, he shipped in a huge stack from orbit. It would be the battle to end the game. I was heavily outnumbered. Then I remembered something. One of his leaders was a traitor secretly loyal to me, Comte Hasimir Fenring, a strength 6 (i.e. very strong) leader. If he chose this leader for the battle, I would win regardless of my numbers. When the battle discs and leaders were revealed, I almost shouted with joy. It was Comte Hasimir Fenring! What a dramatic twist of fate. Ainul lost his whole army. Then he saw my leader, and guess what, my leader was a traitor secretly loyal to him too! So it was mutual annihilation. Neither of us gained any spice. All soldiers were killed. Arrakeen became an empty town.

I (Atreides, green) temporarily vacated my home base of Arrakeen to seek refuge at the polar sink (centre of board), which was always safe from storms and safe from attack.

Ainul (Emperor, red) plopped down an army from outer space. Ouch...

The leader he committed to this battle was a traitor secretly loyal to me.

Mutual destruction left Arrakeen deserted. My huge army watched helplessly from the polar sink.

And this was not the only battle ending in mutual annihilation. There was another battle where Jeff attacked Ken with a tiny army, which was literally on a suicide mission. Jeff had both a laser gun treachery card and a shield treachery card. If both these came up in the same battle, everyone died. The rules didn't forbid the same player from playing both these cards, so we agreed this was allowed. The revival tanks (where units could be brought back to life) became rather crowded.

The giant sandworm made an appearance in our (relatively short) game. A huge pile of spice popped up in a desert just outside of one of the strongholds that Ainul was holding. Some of Ken's Fremen troops were also in range to come harvest the spice. Ken sent in his troops. I expected Ainul to send his troops to fight over the precious spice, but he decided to stay put. Then on the next round, the sandworm came! What a lucky decision for Ainul. I was about to start laughing at Ken for his greed. Then I realised that the Fremen were not afraid of sandworms. In fact they rode sandworms, and Ken's troop took a free ride to another region.

In the fourth round, when the sandworm appeared, it also meant a Nexus would occur. This was the time players could form, join, or leave alliances. Ainul's Emperial troops were doing well, and Ken's Fremen orang asli too, and they agreed to become allies. Jeff and I decided we needed to form an alliance too. Arm had to leave by then to catch a flight. In that same round, Ainul and Ken together reached 4 strongholds, and Jeff and I could not stop them. So the original lead hero and lead villian of the novels were sidelined, and the nobility + orang asli pact won control of Arrakis.

Last round of the game. I could not move quickly enough to reoccupy Arrakeen. Ken (Fremen, yellow) and Ainul (Emperor, red) were allied and had units in 4 strongholds. Jeff (Harkonnen, black) was still contesting one of the strongholds with Ken, but eventually could not beat Ken's superior numbers.

Another shot of the final round. The Tleilaxu tanks were pretty full.

The Thoughts

We played only 4 rounds out of the max possible 15, and yet we had so many memorable events and exciting twists of fate. Despite the very simple core rules, the different factions play very differently. Their unique powers give them very different strengths. They also have very different starting positions, and they require different strategies to play. I was surprised how thematic and immersive the game was, despite the simple core rules. A lot of this come from the treachery cards, and of course the varying faction special abilities.

The game is very dynamic. Spice is always scarce. Every round some spice turns up, and the players have to decide whether to scramble after it. Then there's the ever-moving storm. You can never be sure how quickly it will sweep across the deserts, and you have to be careful your troops don't get caught unprepared. There is one weather control treachery card which allows a player to move the storm between 0 and 10 steps, as opposed to the normal possible range of 2 to 6. If you have planned your troops to be a "safe" 7 steps away, and an enemy has the weather control card up his sleeve, you can be royally, ahem, disrupted.

I quite enjoyed Dune, and I think it truly is a classic. Too bad it is out-of-print. I found out that it was designed by the same team behind Cosmic Encounter. I enjoyed Dune much more, but I could see some similarities between the games - simple core rules, but the unique faction powers make a very big difference and create very interesting interactions among the players.

Horus Heresy

Han received Horus Heresy on the same day that we had scheduled an evening session, so we decided to give this new Fantasy Flight big box game a go. Han had read the rules before, but I hadn't, so I quickly downloaded it and read it hurriedly while Han prepared the components and set up the game.

The Game

The backstory is set in the Warhammer 40K universe. A general, Horus, has just decided to rebel against the Emperor, and is attacking Earth, where the Emperor's palace is located. The rebels win by killing the Emperor, or controlling all four of the space ports on Earth (they start the game controlling two). The Emperor wins by killing Horus, or controlling all space ports. The Emperor also wins if he can hold out long enough. When the timer runs out, the Emperor's supporters and reinforcements arrive, and they are numerous enough to kick the rebels' behinds.

The game starts with almost all the Emperor's units already on the board. Some of the rebel units are on the board, but most are still off board, in orbit waiting to land on Earth. As part of game setup, the rebels can attempt to convert some of the Emperor's units to their side. The rebels can also fire some cannons from space trying to destroy some of the Emperor's units. These allow for some variation in the game start situation. There are a number of different scenarios, each with a slightly different setup (although all are about the same battle), and, more importantly, with a different event deck.

The flow of the game is controlled by Order cards and a timer track. Each player starts with a preset hand of Order cards. You need Order cards to deploy units, to move units, and to attack. Order cards cost action points to play, and when you spend action points, you move your counter on the timer track. The timer track works like those in Red November and Thebes - the player who is behind takes the next turn. You may take a few consecutive turns as long as your marker has not passed your opponent's.

The timer track determines many things, e.g. when already activated troops can act again (move or attack), when you can draw more Order cards, when events occur. Of course, most importantly, it also counts down toward game end (i.e. Emperor victory).

Han comtemplating his Combat cards. In this (blurry) photo you can see the main board, the time track at the bottom, the spaceship near the top right (where Horus is located initially), and half the strategic map on the right (red).

A close-up of part of the main board and the time track. Some spaces are 3D - these are thin plastic pieces which protrude through holes in the game board. They do look good, but I prefer not to have them. You need to spend time setting them up. The units fit, but just barely, and they can't stand straight.

Grey units are mostly Emperor units, except some which turned traitor at the start of the game, and these have black bases. Coloured units (red, green, purple and blue) are rebel units.

Order cards. Skulls on the left mean action point costs if you play the card directly. If you play the card onto the strategic map, it costs 1 action point to seed it, and 1 action point to activate it.

There is a mini-map (called the strategic map) on the board. Order cards can be seeded facedown onto this strategic map as opposed to being played directly on troops on the main map. Seeding an Order card here costs 1 action point, activating it also costs 1 action point. Order cards cost 1 to 3 action points. Usually it doesn't make sense to seed a cost-1 Order card on the strategic map. For cost-3 cards, you save 1 action point if you do play it on the strategic map. There are other considerations too. Some Order cards become more powerful if played on the strategic map. Sometimes you want to use your Order card to cover one of your opponent's.

The strategic map is divided into 6 regions. Both Emperor and rebel player can play Order cards onto the map. The game starts with the rebel player having 4 Order cards already placed here.

Battles are resolved via card play. Both sides draw a fresh hand of Combat cards and Hero cards at the start of a battle, the latter if there are Heroes involved. Both players draw cards depending on the type and number of units in battle. Battles usually last for at most 8 rounds. One side attacks (by playing cards) each round, i.e. you'd have at most 4 attacks. In the first round of combat, only one card can be played. In the second round, two cards, and so on. So the intensity escalates. The Combat and Hero cards have attack values, defense values, and also special power texts. A lot of uniqueness of troop types come from the special power texts, e.g. you need to have a particular troop type in the battle to benefit from the special power.

Combat cards. The number on the top left is the attack value, the number of red icons on the left is the defense or shield value. The main body describes the requirement (usually refers needing a particular unit involved in the battle) and the special effect.

There are many units on the board. However, how frequently you get to use each unit is very strictly controlled. Whenever a unit moves or attacks, it's area is (normally) marked with an Activated marker, which means that whole area cannot be activated again until the next Refresh Phase on the timer track. There are only 4 or 5 such Refresh Phases I think. If a unit is routed (e.g. lost a battle), it is marked with the Routed marker, which has to be turned to the Activated side, and then the marker has to be removed, before the unit can act again. So the number of actions a unit can take throughout the game is very limited. You need to try to make use of as many units as you can, and you cannot expect any superstar unit to be running around doing all the hard work. There are some special Order cards which can allow some already Activated units to act, but these are limited.

The Play

Han played the Emperor, and I played Horus. I was moderately lucky with the initial conversion rolls, and managed to convince quite a number of tank battalions to join me. This helped me in controlling a 3rd space port. However I also lost one of the space ports that I controlled at the start of the game. I couldn't reinforce it quickly enough. It was right next to the palace and it was surrounded by enemies. I had tried to land reinforcements, but because that area had 3 cannons pointed at it, any landing needed to first survive heavy cannon fire. I had one very expensive battalion completely wiped out while still descending from space. That was painful.

Some purple units, and two Heroes at the back. The rebel forces in four colours each have a corresponding Hero. Distribution of unit types is the same for all four colours.

I was rather undecided on whether to go for the 4 space ports victory or the kill Emperor victory. By mid game I thought 4 space ports was going to be too difficult. I had already lost one space port which would be hard to recapture. The other Emperor controlled space port was quite far away. So I decided to go for the kill. I landed as many troops as I could using the two space ports that I controlled, which, unfortunately, were further from the palace. Some of the Emperor's troops which had captured my initial space port were a bit out of position. I also used a lone unit to block their movement. It would cost them an Activation to just defeat that lone unit. Han used his Emperor's bodyguard units, and also another battalion at the other end of the palace, to greet my army approaching the palace.

My red rebel forces held on to this space port. I managed to reinforce it enough to deter Han from attacking.

Enemy at the gates. Red and blue armies attacking the palace. I had one lone infantry unit (grey with black base) on the far left stalling some of Han's armies. The hero on the right is the Emperor himself. The trapezoid leaning against the palace wall means the wall has been breached.

We fought some big battles at the palace. I managed to breach the walls, reducing the defense capabilities. However the Emperor's units were too tough to break. In one of my card plays I managed to force two of his marine units (which are very powerful units) to retreat and become Routed (i.e. it would take a long time for him to be able to use them again). But still, that was not enough. The Emperor's troops were still strong and healthy. In the last third of the game, Han tried to push the time track markers forward as much as possible, to end to game as quickly as he could. I think even if he hadn't bothered with that, he would win.

The uprising was beaten down. The rebels never really posed a serious threat to the Emperor.

The Thoughts

In hindsight, I didn't plan out my moves very well and didn't really fully utilise my troops, my heroes and my Order cards. There were two Heroes whom I never deployed because I forgot I could deploy them with any unit. I was waiting for some Order card for deploying Heroes which did not exist. For a learning game, I guess this is normal. The rebels should be able to put up a better fight after the rules and nuances are better understood.

My initial impression right after the game was rather so-so, because it was tough to learn the game so hurriedly, and it was late in the evening too. However, now that I have thought about the game more and digested the rules and game structure a bit more, it's not too bad. The parts do click and the game works on the whole. However overall I feel rather restricted - by the Order cards that I get, by the frequency of Refresh Phases on the time track, by whether I draw suitable Combat and Hero cards when a battle starts. I guess you can argue that once you get familiar with the cards, you'll know that to improve your winning odds in a battle, you should have Heroes, and you should have variety in troop types.

Compared with other Fantasy Flight big box games, I like Middle-Earth Quest more than Starcraft more than Horus Heresy. Since Horus Heresy is about one specific battle, the replayability is probably not as high as the other games, which are more open. How many times can you reenact the same siege? My gut feeling is there is not a lot of space for you to explore different strategies, despite the fact that the scenario setups allow for some randomness.

A lot of flavour and story come from the Combat, Hero and Event cards. The units are very good looking. These are both pluses.

Randomness can be a problem sometimes, maybe more so for the rebel player. Battles themselves actually turn out pretty balanced. If you attack with overwhelming forces, you normally win. If the forces are equal, the battle can swing either way. So the battle resolution system (diceless) works. Sometimes you get some surprises and some interesting stories. Where randomness can have a big impact is the cannon fire. Maybe I'm complaining about this because I had a whole landing party completely wiped out by cannon fire. Yes I could have prevented that by taking out the enemy cannons first, but time was not on my side. I didn't really have the luxury of ensuring risk-less landings. I guess I just had to take my chances, and since there were so many landings I needed to make throughout the game anyway, the odds would even out.

Horus Heresy is not a fast-and-furious game. It is a game of careful planning, where you need to try to maximise the utilisation of your resources. Actions and turns are limited so there is limited manuevering that you can do, and you must plan it carefully and not be wasteful.

gaming in photos

11 Apr 2010. Allen and Han, playing Dominion with Seaside expansion with me. It was Allen's first visit.

Our game was a little nasty because it had the Embargo card, which allowed you to put an embargo token on any stack. Every time anyone bought a card from that stack, he gained a number of Curse cards (-1VP) equal to the number of embargo tokens on the stack. At one point the Province (6VP) stack had 3 embargo tokens, which meant if you spent $8 to buy a Province, you'd net gain 3VPs, and your deck would get diluted with 4 instead of 1 more card. You might as well buy a 3VP Duchy, which costed $5. I did buy at least one Province even after things got that bad, because (a) I wanted to end the game, and (b) Smugglers. The Smuggler card allows you to gain any card up to $6 cost that the previous player bought on his turn. Smuggler cards were in heavy use in our game. We all had Smugglers, and every time anyone bought a good card he would feel nervous about whether the next player had a Smuggler in hand. I bought the curse-ridden Province ($8 cost) instead of a Duchy ($5 cost), because Smugglers can be used on Duchies but not Provinces.

Dominion Seaside is quite interesting and I hope to play more of it. I'm not big enough a Dominion fan to want to own every expansion, but I do think it's a good game with good potential, and I want to get to know it better.

16 Apr 2010. Han came over for a 2P session, and we started with Space Hulk (1st edition) Mission 3. First time for both of us. This time I played the marines and Han the aliens (genestealers).

This mission involves two teams of marines. They need to save a robot cat which has been sent to collect valuable data on the genestealers. One team of marines has already picked up the cat (right side of this photo). They need to bring the cat to the other side of the board. The other team starts on the left and needs to help the cat team (and the cat) get to safety. Genestealers appear quite quickly in this mission - 3 new blips per round, so the marines are under an immense time pressure to get the cat out quickly.

I split my "cat team" into two smaller groups. The captain, flamer and marine-with-cat at the top, and another two regular marines at the bottom. We couldn't find the cat token so we used that square token as the cat.

This was already mid way through the game. On the left you can see my flamer (red base) of the rescue team watching a corridor where genestealers could emerge. The rest of the rescue team were rushing towards the other team. Han already had quite a number of genestealers between my two teams. Three members of the cat team had been killed. Only the captain (dark blue) and the cat-holder remained, and they were surrounded.

I think my rescue team moved too slowly and was too conservative. Now that the cat team was dying out, they had no choice but to rush forward. The genestealers were already upon them.

The survivors of the cat team were both on overwatch, ready to shoot anything that moved. But there were only two of them, but three corridors. And the number of genestealers kept increasing. Eventually I had to move them. They could not rendezvous with the rescue team. They got killed, and the cat was damaged. The rescue team soon was overrun too. The cat was lost, and it was a sad defeat for the marines. In hindsight, the marines should have moved faster and be more aggressive, before the genestealers' numbers became overwhelming.

We played Space Alert again. It had been quite some time so we were a little rusty. We won our first ever full mission the last time we played, but since it had been quite some time, we stuck to just normal full missions. No advanced external or internal threats added yet. We lost our first game. This photo was from our second game. We were rather unlucky with our cards. We didn't have any C button cards, which we desperately needed. This photo shows an alien aboard our ship. I needed a C button card to activate the battlebots, and then needed a battlebot fight card to fight the alien. Unfortunately I misremembered the rules, and tried to use the battlebot fight card to activate the battlebots. I spent almost all my attention on handling this internal threat, while Han worked on the multiple external threats. Only when it came to the resolution phase I realised my mistake. One whole long chain of my actions were completely wasted, I only managed to deal one damage to the (2 life point) alien, and it took over our spaceship. Game over.

We played a third game afterwards, and won it surprisingly easily, only to realise that we had accidentally played a tutorial. Sigh... we need to try this again.

24 Apr 2010. Han and I tried Space Hulk Mission 3 again, this time Han playing the marines and I the genestealers. This was still early in the game, and I think he had suffered the first casualty at his CAT team (on the left). My blips had swarmed the centre of the board, trying to cut off the two teams of marines. His rescue team (on the right) rushed forward.

Unfortunately, things didn't go so well. The marines still weren't quick enough. This was just after one of my groups of genestealers managed to reach and plow into Han's rescue team. Two marines (including the captain) who were facing the side corridor had been mowed down, and these two wouldn't last long.

Zooming out to the bigger picture, the CAT team had not made much progress. Again, the marines were overrun by the genestealers' numbers. We need to try this one again.

God Dice

God Dice is a dice game, but there's not much about gods. Each player controls a team of fighters, and they fight until there is only one team standing. Maybe there is some backstory about gods, but it isn't apparent from playing the game.

The Game

The game starts with players taking turns picking fighters from an common pool. There are 2 fighters in each type, and each type of fighter has different characteristics. Some have more life points. Some have powerful attacks but it can be hard to make such attacks successfully. Some can easily make a successful strike, but deal little damage. The characteristics of the fighters are all on their cards. It is easy if you want to create your own custom character.

Once everyone has chosen their team, the fighting starts. Players take turns to attack the team on their left. Sometimes the direction can change to counter-clockwise. An attack consists of the attacker choosing an attacking fighter and the defender choosing a defending fighter. The attacking fighter will either make a successful attack, or not. In the former case, the defending fighter takes injury, and dies if his/her life points drop to 0.

The attacker first rolls two alphabet dice. These dice may have some special effect on the fight, e.g. defender may ask the attacker to reroll all dice once, or on the game, e.g. switching the direction of play. Then the actual fight starts, with the 9 attack dice. There are 5 different values, red, blue, yellow, 0 and 5 (two sides have this value). The attacker tries to roll his dice such that he can achieve one of the combinations on his fighter's sheet, after which he can deal damage according to the description on the sheet and the number of 5's he has rolled. There are 5 round tokens, and each allow you to reroll all dice of that value. You can decide to stop rolling at any time.

The dice in the game. The round tokens on the right are for reminding yourself which dice you have already rerolled (and thus are not allowed to reroll anymore).

The Assassin

For example, using the Assassin to attack, I roll 3x blue, 3x red, 1x yellow, 2x 5. Since the Assassin's Backstab attack is very powerful and requires 4x blue + 1x yellow, I'll try to gain another blue. I reroll 3x red, and get 1x red, 1x 5, 1x yellow. Not ideal. I have not achieved Backstab yet, and now that red die is locked, because I can't reroll red anymore. Now I have 3x blue, 1x red, 2x yellow, 3x 5 on the table. I don't want to risk rerolling yellow because I would have to reroll both of them, and I may lose the one yellow that I need for Backstab. I decide to reroll the three 5's. I get 1x 5, 1x blue, 1x 0. Now I have 4x blue, 1x red, 2x yellow, 1x 5, 1x 0. I have achieved Backstab. But the base damage I have is only 5, because the total number on the table is 5. I have rerolled red and 5, so I can't touch those dice anymore. I will of course try to reroll the 0, and hope to get a 5. I do so, and fail, getting a yellow. Now I can still reroll blue or yellow. I have 4x blue, 3x yellow, 1x 5 (locked), 1x red (locked), 0x 0 (locked). I have three choices. I can stop rolling the dice, and go for Backstab (4x blue + 1x yellow), dealing 20 damage (5 base damage x4) to any character (normally damage is dealt to the defending fighter only). I can reroll the yellow dice, and hope to still retain one yellow die, while converting one or both the other yellow dice to 5's. That would increase the damage significantly. I can of course also reroll the blue, but that would be silly, because even if I achieve the Knife Twist (5x yellow), it only gives base damage + 10. Not worth the risk.

That's basically the game. You keep rolling dice, setting some aside, and rerolling.

The Play

Allen, Han and I played a 3 player game. Each of us had 4 fighters. I took both the Assassins. They are pretty cool, because they can cause a big damage. Unfortunately they are not very robust. Sometimes one strike is enough to kill them. I was first to get my team eliminated. Allen and Han fought on, and Allen emerged the final winner.

The sage has quite powerful attacks, but not many life points.

The monk fighting the hero.

The Thoughts

There aren't many real decisions to be made in the game. Quite often after you roll the dice, the best choice is quite obvious. So I felt the game became repetitive quite quickly, and I felt it dragged. The roll-dice-freeze-some-then-reroll mechanism is nothing new nor interesting. I feel Pickomino has tougher decisions, and more cheers and groans.

Cyclades

Cyclades is a Euro-ish conflict and development game with a Greek mythology setting. I would say it is more of a conflict game than a development game, but battles are but a means to an end, because to win the game you need to control a certain number of metropolises. This can be achieved through conquest of course, but it can also be done by building them yourself.

The Game

The game board is made up of various islands very close to each other. The islands are of different sizes (meaning they could accomodate different numbers of buildings and metropolises), and have different income values. They are all very close, and typically an island is one step away from 3 or 4 other islands. This means most of the time every island is vulnerable to invasion. The starting positions of players are pre-set, and players start with islands of different charateristics. There is quite a significant spatial element to this game.

The actions in the game are all centred around the auctions to "win" a god (Zeus, Ares, Apollo etc). The god that you "win" determines turn order, the actions you can take, and the creatures you have the opportunity to "hire". There are 5 gods in the game whom you try to win the favours of. The number of gods available for bidding each round is the same as the number of players. This means when playing with less than 5 players, not all types of actions will be available every round. There are four "proper" gods whose tiles will get shuffled and laid on the board. Players who win the favour of these gods will take actions according to the order of the tiles. There is one "consolation prize" god, Apollo, who is always last in turn order. He doesn't give you any fancy action. He only gives some money, but sometimes he may give you a fruit basket (sorry I don't know the proper name for that thing), which you can place on any island to increase its income value.

The four "proper" gods allow you the better actions. E.g. Ares lets you raise troops, and/or make one island invasion, and/or build a fort. The basic benefit (one free army in the case of Ares) is free, but you can pay to gain more (in the case of Ares, you can buy more troops). There are 4 types of buildings in the game, and most give some benefit. When you have a set of all four types, you can convert them into one metropolis, which has the benefit of all building types. You can also gain philosophers and priests. 4 philosophers get you a metropolis (assuming you have space for it). Priests give you discounts when you try to win favour from the gods.

This is a game of building and conquest. You need islands to have income (four special sea locations also give income). You need islands to have space for constructing buildings and metropolises. You can go the peaceful path of collecting philosophers, but beware of your neighbours.

One element of the game which adds a lot of spice is the creatures. Every round there will be some creatures available for hire. The system is a bit like Through the Ages. The creatures get cheaper and cheaper, and once they hit rock bottom price but are still not sold, they are discarded. There are many different creatures giving many different abilities, some defensive, some offensive, some monetary, some quite whacky. They are quite fun, and throw in some chaos.

The Play

I played a 3-player game with Han and Allen. I suspect the game is better with more, but even with 3 it is quite fun, despite some rules mistakes we had. Actually the rules mistakes made our session a funny one. Here's what happened.

Early in the game. Every player starts with 2 islands. By now Allen (red) had a 3rd island. Some buildings have been built.

The sculpts look quite good. The fruit basket thing in the foreground represents income level.

In the early game I was rather careless, and was first to lose an island. Allen was first to build up militarily, and quickly conquered my large 4-space island, on which I had built 2 temples (discounts when recruiting creatures). Ouch. So I only had one 1-space island left. Not a good sign. Allen continued to be the military leader. Han was in the middle ground. Han and I knew that Allen was the one to watch out for, so we didn't really bother much attacking each other. I eventually managed to break out of my lone island, taking one of Allen's islands.

I was down to one island. I had to build up my navy so that I could get off this rich but tiny island.

Things started going crazy when creatures came into play more and more. Polyphemus is a cyclop carrying a big round stone. When he is played on an island, all adjacent ships are pushed away, those unable to move being sunk. Also no ships are allowed to approach the island. After I conquered Allen's island, round stone guy was played on this island, which meant my 3 dudes were stuck on the island. I couldn't build ships to carry them to invade the next island. Thankfully later I managed to move him to another island. I moved him to my own island, that small one which I had left undefended. He would keep it safe for me until someone else moved him. Unfortunately Medusa was then played on my 3 dudes. Medusa prevents armies from moving. So my 3 dudes continued to be stuck.

Some of the creatures that will come onto the board because they have a lasting effect. Most other creatures have a one-time effect, e.g. giving extra income, killing one enemy unit. They don't have any sculpt.

Round stone guy (Polyphemus) visited my island and pushed all ships away. There are no ships anywhere on the coast of that island.

Polyphemus later sent to protect my vacant home island. That green marker is used for marking island ownership when there are no troops.

Soldier A: "Round stone guy just left, and now you?!!" Soldier B: "Hey we're supposed to be frozen, stop talking." Soldier C: "She's cute".

I collected many priests, eventually reaching 6! That meant a discount of $6 when bidding for gods. My armies on the board were a non-factor, and I was so much into discounts, it was like I was playing a different game, some Tesco discount supermarket on Hawaii game. Very isolated.

6 priests and 2 philosophers.

Allen's armies were going strong. He had built buildings of 4 types, i.e. they could be converted to one metropolis. He only needed one more to win, and his armies were poised to attack Han's island containing a metropolis. However Han also had two philosophers, which meant if he gained another two, he would convert them into his second metropolis and win the game. He had been quietly amassing money to bid for the god which gave philosophers, and then suddenly pulled out a $17 bid, which was unheard of up to that point in the game. Allen and I realised we couldn't do anything about it. We didn't have that much money.

Allen's amassed troops (red, near centre of board) preparing to invade Han's (yellow) island with a metropolis, on the right. My 3 green dudes were still admiring Medusa's beauty.

But wait... one of the available creatures allowed us to use another creature which was in the discard pile, and we remembered there was one such discarded creature which stole philosophers. Han came later in turn order, and one of his philosophers was stolen right under his nose. Talk about the best laid plans being wrecked at the last possible moment. It was hilarious (but maybe not that much so for Han).

Han continued to save money, and managed to execute his plan on the next attempt. Allen still wasn't able to invade Han's island with the metropolis. This time we couldn't stop Han. So the game was won by building and not by conquest.

Later on, we realised our mistake. Creatures which come onto the board should not have stayed that long. They should have left by the next time the player who played them took another "proper" god action. So my 3 dudes should not have been stuck on Hawaii for so long by round stone guy and snake hair lady. It was a funny game, but funny only because it was so distorted. We'll play with the proper rules next time.

The Thoughts

The first thing that Cyclades reminds me of is The Settlers of Catan. They are very very different games, but they are similar in complexity level. There are multiple aspects you need to think about, but each of them are not very complex. Go for the discount (gods and creatures) strategy? Go military? Focus on getting a good income quickly? All these are strategies you can plan for. Then the creatures throw in some chaos and some tactical opportunities, spicing things up.

I like the Amun-Re style auction. If you are outbid, you are not allowed to bid on the same god immediately. This means when you bid on a god that you really really want, you better bid a high price, else you may not get him. There are some tough decisions in the auctions. Turn order is sometimes quite important too, especially when there is a creature that you want to use.

When I first read about Cyclades and saw the game board, the game didn't appeal to me much. "Just another Euroish conflict game", I thought. Now that I have played it, I find the board very well designed. Everyone is very near everyone else, so the game is quite tense. It is still just another Euroish conflict game, but I think it is well designed. Streamlined but not bland. I normally don't comment on production qualities of games, but Cyclades impressed me. The sculpts are quite good, and are unique for each player. It isn't necessary but it is a nice touch. Graphics are quite good too.

I'm sure I'll play this again. And I won't be playing like Hawaii next time.

Catacombs

Catacombs is a game with a very typical fantasy / dungeon crawl theme, but with a very unusual execution. It's a flicking game! Like Carrom (more common in Malaysia), Crokinole and Pitch Car. That's a combination of theme and mechanics I've never seen before.

The Game

There are two sides in the game, one side plays the 4 heroes (barbarian, wizard, elf and thief), the other plays the dungeon master. The heroes need to go through a number of rooms, defeating all monsters along the way, to eventually reach the final dungeon to face the boss. Defeat the boss, and you win the game. Get all your heroes killed, and the dungeon master wins. There are two stops along the way, one allows the heroes to buy equipment, the other allows the heroes to heal injuries. Each hero has different characteristics and abilities, e.g. the barbarian has the most life points, the elf can shoot arrows, the thief can move twice. All this is basically your stereotype dungeon crawl game. However the game mechanism is something completely unexpected.

All the heroes and monsters are discs of different sizes. Flick your hero disc to hit one or more monster discs, and you inflict melee damage to them. For ranged combat, arrows, or the wizard's fireballs, are represented by smaller discs, which you flick from a position within an inch of the hero. In a nutshell, you flick your discs to hit your opponent's discs. For the different types of rooms, there are different layouts of pillars, which are basically big immovable discs which block both heroes and monsters. These add some tactical consideration. You can hide behind pillars so that your enemy cannot take a direct shot at you. You can bounce yourself off pillars to hit an unsuspecting victim.

This is how a room looks like. Sorry for the blurry photo. The game was too fast-paced for me to take proper photos. The black discs are the pillars, and are fixed. Hero discs are white. You can see four of them on the board. Monster discs are in various colours. You can see one green and two greys on the board.

There are other details, e.g. the different characteristics of monsters, of the bosses, the magic spells of the wizard, the equipment. These are all quite thematic. The game comes with a few different bosses with different difficulties.

The Play

In the game that Han and I played, I played the heroes and him the dungeon master. I was quite conservative with my heroes and tried to save up the wizard's magic spells for the later rooms, and also the barbarian's rage ability (make 4 moves instead of 1). I think I played a bit too conservatively, which allowed Han to wear down my heroes slightly. I probably should have been more aggressive. What's most funny in our game was my elf, pretty lady though she was, was a hopeless with her bow. She (OK, I) probably missed 80% of her shots. What a waste. Give me ladykiller Legolas any time.

The elf is a hot chick. Her basic skill: in lieu of moving/melee-attacking, she can shoot an arrow. She has two shots per room. I bought an additional Magic Quiver for her, which was a 3rd arrow. Too bad she was a lousy shot.

My wizard was rather stingy with his spells. He got a full set of spell cards at game start, and every time a spell was cast, the card was discarded. In the later game I realised he had more spells than he could use, because some spells could only be used once per room. It took some injury for me to realise he wasn't going to last long enough to fully utilise his spells. I probably should have used his spells more generously, to help reduce injury to the party.

The wizard is the only male in the party, and the envy of all fantasy genre nerds, and Gandalf.

My thief bought one cool invisible cloak during the shopping stage. She could "disappear" instead of making a move, and then "reappear" anywhere on the next turn and then make a move. That was pretty handy.

The thief. Another hot chick. This game really looks like it's targeting teenage boys.

When my party reached the final dungeon, I realised the monsters there were much much tougher than in the previous rooms. The boss himself was tough to beat too, and this was supposed to be the easiest boss. I didn't need to kill all the monsters, unlike in earlier rooms. I just needed to kill the boss. However that's easier said than done, because the other monsters would of course protect the boss. Also they could inflict a lot of damage, so I couldn't just ignore them.

I did manage to kill off three of the 5 monsters, and even dealt some damage to the boss, but I couldn't complete my mission. My heroes were killed off one after another. It was quite a massacre.

The Thoughts

The fantasy and dungeon crawl setting sometimes does get old, but the idea of merging this with a dexterity mechanism is refreshing. The game is pretty simple and you can get started quite quickly. The various fantasy elements and rules add some thought to the flicking game - you will need to think a little about where to position your heroes / monsters, how to make use of the pillars in the room, how to make two (or even more) hits with a single flick. They all give some additional context to the flicking, making it more interesting.

The game is not very deep, but it is entertaining. The theme is applied quite well. In fact it feels more like a dungeon crawl game than a dexterity game to me. This should be played as a light-hearted game. If the players are too serious or too competitive, I imagine there can be many disputes about whether the arrow actually touched the targeted monster, or where exactly the hero went off the board (if not yet killed, the hero returns to the board at the same point where he/she left it). You'd almost need a referee, or a video replay.

stop buying games

I have a sudden urge to stop buying games.

I know it won't happen. But I am considering significantly lowering my self-imposed annual game acquiring quota. I have bought / self-made / been given 11 games this year. My quota is 20. I had vowed no new games until 2nd half of the year, which I think I will achieve, since it's already mid April now. My only must-buy game now is the Brink of War expansion of Race for the Galaxy. Two other close to must-buys are Axis & Allies Pacific 1940 Edition and Axis & Allies Europe 1940 Edition, the latter not released yet.

When I look at my collection (close to 200 now), I see many games that I like and have not been playing as much as I'd like to. So I really should be spending more time playing them. Most games get better and better as you play more and become good at it. I have so many games which I have not achieved this with.

Indonesia

One tip that I found most useful in controlling the game buying urge is this - procrastinate. In Oct 2009 (Essen time) there were so many new releases that I was interested in. Eventually I did buy some - Agricola: Farmers of the Moor, At the Gates of Loyang, Factory Manager - but for many others by now I don't feel much urge to buy anymore. Well, I am still interested to at least try Hansa Teutonica, but that feeling may wane too, the longer I wait.

Die Macher

I now have a stronger urge to play again many of the games already in my collection. When am I going to get a 4-player game of Indonesia? I should play Die Macher and Automobile again. How about doing a 5-player game of Samurai Swords? I should play Space Alert again before I forget all the skills. A marathon / campaign series made up of Axis & Allies games? Complete the Blue Moon tournament with Han (playing all combinations of all 8 races)?

Axis & Allies Guadalcanal

I have written a little program using Excel macros to check for games that I like and have not played for a long time. I should put it to good use.

And let's see whether I can hit 15 games acquired in 2010.