boardgaming in photos, Horus Heresy, Jambo, Medici

Now I'm calling these blog posts "boardgaming in photos" instead, because the word without the "board" bit sometimes attract spam from gam_bling sites.

21 May 2010. This is a worker's working hours record card. Nothing to do with boardgames at all. A part-time worker can use such a generic form (MYR2.90 for a stack of them at a supermarket near my home) to record hours worked, and to calculate wages earned. And I bought these to be used as...

... Dominion dividers. I have Dominion and its Seaside expansion. I wanted to be able to put all cards of both expansions into the same box. So the box insert had to go. I did some quick-and-dirty handiwork, and this was the result.

This was probably the first time a cardboard sprue that I kept after punching out a game became useful. Or at least I can't think of any other time I actually used them, although I often keep them. Guess what these dividers are from. Answer at bottom.

Action cards on the left compartment, and all the generic cards in the middle compartment. My convention for labelling - colour coding for Victory cards (green), Duration cards (orange) or Reaction cards (blue); card name; card cost; "c" means you gain card(s); "a" means you gain action(s); "$" means you gain buying power (buying value); "b" means you gain more buy(s); capital "A" on the right means an attack card.

21 May 2010. Han was keen to play Horus Heresy again, so he came over and we did our second game, this time playing Scenario 4, and swapping roles - he played the rebel Horus and I played the Emperor. Scenario 4 gave much more freedom to both players in setting up their starting forces. This particular spaceport started off heavily guarded by my tank and infantry units. However, I forgot about the treachery rolls. When Han did those, 4 out of 6 of my units in this area betrayed me. Needless to say, I quickly lost control of this spaceport, and never regained control of it throughout the game.

This was one spaceport that Han started with, and I was poised to attack it with units from two different areas. During the game he tried to ship units here from orbit, but since I had two cannons next to this spaceport, many of these units were shot down.

This was the other spaceport that Han started with. I also had units preparing to fight for it.

One of my palace locations was vacant at the start of the game, and Han dropped two space marine units and a thunderhawk troop carrier here, led by one of his Heroes. Thankfully I was able to defeat the soldiers, leaving his hero wandering around my palace pestering my concubines.

One of the event cards forced my Emperor to get beamed up to the Vengeful Spirit battleship, where Horus the rebel leader was. I could bring 4 units, so I brought two elite bodyguards and two Blood Angels space marines (and their leader). This was quite an unexpected development, since I didn't know the backstory.

At this point in the game, I was at risk of losing the game, because the timer track was near the point when spaceport victory was enabled, and Han had a good chance of controlling all 4 spaceports. So having my Emperor try to kill Horus himself may be a worthwhile gamble. I would win instantly. However Horus was quite well protected, and I decided to go for a different approach. I attacked and captured a spaceport, which Han could not quickly recapture, and instead of sending my Emperor to fight Horus (which would be risky for the Emperor too), I tried to get him off the spaceship and back to the palace.

I couldn't just get him out. I still had to fight a coexistance battle with the soldiers at the Catacombs (i.e. not at the bridge with Horus) of the Vengeful Spirit. Han's first card play had his Titan kill both my marines, which was baaaad.

I did manage to win that fight, but was left with just one unit of elite bodyguard. I had to get the Emperor out before Horus came to beat him up. Thankfully I had just enough action points to do so. The second character from the left is the Emperor. Horus is on the right.

I was ready to make a big attack on this spaceport controlled by Han. I later recaptured this spaceport, after an intense battle.

This is one high bodycount game. These are all the units killed in action.

"I see dead people. They are everywhere. They walk and talk like normal people. They don't even know they're dead." And this was not even the final body count. Many more casualties came over to join this support group afterwards.

Later, another event forced Horus to come down to earth - his battleship blew up. Oops. That was unexpected too, because I didn't know the backstory. It turned out to be a good thing far Han, because it meant Horus and the three units with him could come to reinforce some troops next to this spaceport, and they could try to recapture it. Hmm... maybe he blew up his own battleship on purpose. Sneaky fella...

I was very determined to take back this spaceport. Two groups of attackers were not enough. I mobilised the Emperor himself and some troops from the palace and prepared for a combined assault made up of three separate forces. Han seized the initiave, and used his surrounded army (and two thunderhawk planes rushing in from other areas) to attack my Emperor. If he could kill my Emporer, he would win immediately.

The Emperor put up a good fight, and not only did not need to retreat with injury (which I had thought he would), he even beat back the attackers. There was only one unit left defending the spaceport, and one (purple) thunderhawk survived. I would surely capture the spaceport when I next made a move. I just needed to hold it, and keep my Emperor safe, until game end, and I would win.

However there was another unexpected twist of fate. The next event allowed Han to conduct a battle! The event had to be resolved before it would be my turn. So Horus grabbed the opportunity to attack this 4th spaceport that he needed to control to win the game.

And win the game he did! It took the rebel leader himself to get the job done. It was a close fight. It came down to just one last life point that I needed. If Han had caused just one damage less, or I had just one more life point (of units, not heroes) remaining, I would have held this spaceport long enough to be able to give time to my other army to capture the other spaceport.

The funniest thing about this particular game was how lousy Han's cannon operators were. He conducted a lot of bombardments, and almost all of them missed. The only instance when they hit something was actually at this final spaceport that he needed to win the game. Well, I guess the cannon operators still performed when it really mattered. Else Han would have fired them all and fed them to the dogs.

The MVPs of the game were probably the Adeptus Mechanicus (Emperor side) - the half human half machine soldiers. There were quite a few battles involving them where I played a special card (requiring their presence) which made Han unable to defend against my attack. I think at least twice I inflicted 7 points of damage because of this.

Our game lasted about 3 hours. Whoever said Horus Heresy is a quick game must be crazy, or must have played it too many times. There were quite many twists in our game, making an interesting story. It was a close game. Were it not that specific event that gave Han an extra attack, my Emperor probably could have held out until time ran out for the rebels. However I still feel the game rather restricting - the order cards you get, the number of actions each army can take. Now I also feel the game is a bit scripted. The events can have a big impact on the game (obviously!). Events are randomised somewhat, but there is a general storyline that events will follow.

You should manipulate your marker movement on the timer track to make use of the events, which I think Han did quite well and I didn't do, ahem, so well (i.e. at all). Some events benefit one side, some the other, but some are neutral and benefit whoever triggers it. So manipulating the timer track is important.

22 May 2010. Jambo wares.

Michelle and I played Jambo again after a long time. I had good ware cards. This was my hand before I won - two pairs of identical ware cards, which meant I could do buy-sell-buy-sell to earn $7 and $6 to end (and win) the game.

Jambo cover. Having played Jambo again, I find that I don't really like it very much afterall. Based on the cards that you draw, you try to figure out how to make money. The ware cards let you buy and sell wares, and you will need tools and characters to help you. The animal cards let you mess with your opponent. The interesting part of the game is figuring out how to make the best out of the cards you draw. However I find that the game is quite tactical. You can't really plan much or have much of a specific strategy. Generally you should always get some tools in play as early as you can, and make use of them as much as you can. If you don't get many tools early, you are quite doomed.

22 May 2010. Medici, which I had not played for a very long time. I brought it out again when I had Han, Sui Jye, Jing Yi and Chee Seng come over for a 5P session. Medici is an old Reiner Knizia auction game. It is quite a pure auction game, more abstract than Ra and Modern Art. This game is best with more players. Now that I have revisited this old classic, I found it a little dry and wished it had a bit more theme.

The scores in our game were bizarre - Sui Jye won at $102, and Chee Seng was last at $31. We even joked that Chee Seng actually won at $131, having gone one round of the scoring track. I don't remember what Chee Seng did wrong. Sui Jye had one very lucky card draw at the end of the last round of the game, without which he wouldn't have won by so much, and might even have come in 2nd place. He was the last player to have available cargo space. He had two more spots. So he had to draw two cards from the deck, and must load those two goods regardless of how good or bad they were. He drew the Gold card (value 10, which is a lot) and another goods card of value 5 (highest possible value). Because of this, his ship became the most valuable ship in round 3, and he won the $30 reward for this.

Answer for Dominion divider: Tales of the Arabian Nights.

gaming in photos

29 Apr 2010. Race for the Galaxy (with first two expansions). Michelle's tableau. She won all 6 objectives! When we were counting scores, I muttered that she'd beat me by 30 points. I did quite badly in this game. After we were done counting scores, she said no. She beat me by 40 points, 60 vs 20. This was the largest score difference in the 400+ games of Race for the Galaxy that I have played.

My tableau of the same game. The two horizontal cards at the bottom (Galactic Exchange and Diversified Economy) were not played. They were still in my hand at game end. I wanted to show them because these two cards would have worked very well with my tableau. I had all 4 types of worlds. I had enough cards to build at least one of them on the last turn, but I had not expected the game to end so quickly. Michelle developed Improved Logistics (which allowed Settling an extra world) that round, and ended the game.

2 May 2010. Race for the Galaxy again. My tableau which focused on Development. I had wonderful card draws. If I Developed, I would draw two cards, get a -4 discount, and then draw another card. I ended the game very quickly. Michelle would have started massive Consumption activities starting the next round.

We played Factory Manager a second time. This time our earning power was much less. I wonder why. Maybe it was because we removed the beginners' optional rule of no power cost increase in the first round. I think Factory Manager will be more interesting with more than 2 players.

16 May 2010. Michelle and I played Jambo, a 2-player-only game which we have not played for quite some time. I did quite poorly because I didn't have any useful tools in the early game. Michelle put down 3 tools since quite early in the game. By the time she reached $60 to win the game, I still had less than $30. And you start the game with $20. That means Michelle earned $40 during the time it took me to earn less than $10.

Endeavor

Allen brought a new unpunched copy of Endeavor on Sat 15 May 2010, and we punched the game (and played quick games of En Garde and Times Square) while waiting for Han to arrive. Allen had played the game before, and taught us how to play.

Endeavor is a recently released game (2009) which has been well received. So I was happy to have a chance to try it.

The Game

The historical background of the game is the Age of Exploration, when European nations are exploring and colonising new lands. In the early game players fight over Europe, but soon they run out of space and start exploring and conquering new distant lands - North, Central and South America, Africa, India and the Far East. The game is played over 7 rounds, and at the start of every round you get to construct a building (for free). Buildings usually give you an action that you can use during the action phase of a round, or increase your level in one of the four status tracks. Your choice of building will determine your strategy.

The action phase of each round is the meat of the game. You normally take an action by placing a marker on the building that allows you to do that action. You can also take an action by discarding an action token that you have collected earlier. The most basic action is the Occupy action - you place one of your markers on a vacant city and take the token on it. You can Attack another player's city, replacing his marker with yours, by paying one marker. There is no defense against this, but you do need to have the appropriate building or action token to make an Attack. You can Ship, which means to explore a certain new region - you place a marker on the outermost vacant space of the shipping track of the region, and take the token on it. Shipping symbolises exploration of the region, and only when the region is fully explored (represented by the shipping track being filled up), it becomes available to be Occupied.

You can Draw cards. There are stacks of cards that provide various benefits in the regions, sorted in a fixed order from good to very good. When a card is taken, the next (usually) better card is revealed and becomes available. However to be able to get the next card you need to have sufficient presence (i.e. markers) in the region.

Throughout the game you keep collecting tokens and cards from the board, and most of them have icons that allow you to progress on your four status tracks, which are like development tracks. The Industry status track determines how many building types are available to you. The more advanced you are, the more and better the available buildings are. The Culture track determines how many markers you gain every round. The Finance track determines how quickly you can reuse your buildings (by removing the markers you've put on them when you use them). The Politics track determines how many cards you can hold. All these tracks also give victory points depending on how far you progress.

There is a spatial element to the game. Most cities on the board are linked, and a token is placed on the link. The first player to control both cities at both ends of a link takes this token. The player who controls both cities at game end also earns 1VP.

So the whole game is about land grabbing, exploring, and advancing on your status tracks. The buildings you construct, the tokens and cards you collect, and the benefits you gain from advancing on the status tracks, are all your tools to do these.

The Play

I started the game with a card collecting mindset. Unfortunately my rhythm in Occupying was a bit off, and I found myself eventually controlling only 1 European city, compared to 5 and 4 respectively by Allen and Han. I did quite badly at the spatial element of the game, not ever controlling cities at both ends of a link. I did alright in card collecting, and that did help. But the poor performance on the board meant I came in a rather distant last at 36pts. Allen won the game at 51pts, beating Han's 49pts narrowly.

The game was very quick, very streamlined. Everything clicks very well. The different aspects of the game are well integrated and are intuitive.



The whole board. Europe is in the middle. At the start of the game only Europe is open for players to fight over. At this point in the game, Africa (lower left of this photo) had been fully explored, and Han (white) had Occupied both the cities there. North America had been fully explored too, and it was now fully Occupied by Allen (red). Han did some exploration of the Caribbean (top centre) and the Far East (bottom right), but Allen and I had not been interested to participate.


A slightly closer look at the board. See how weak I was in Europe (green).


Africa, land of lions. Colonising Africa was good for Han because the cities link to other cities in the Mediterranean already Occupied by him.


My player mat in round 6 (6 buildings constructed, not counting the one everyone starts the game with, the Colonial House). I had filled up all my card slots. Unfortunately most of my cards are not very powerful ones, nothing more than Level 2. I did have one Governor card due to being the biggest explorer of North America.


My player mat in round 7, the final round. Some of my cards had been replaced with better ones.
The Thoughts

I quite like Endeavor. It does not have big innovations, but there are some small ones that I quite like. I like that the buildings are free and you don't need to managed multiple types of resources like many other Eurogames. The game play feels smooth, simple and clean, although there are actually some rules exceptions and small details that you need to keep in mind.

I think the game is quite thematic, which many may disagree. Occupation, exploration and warfare are abstracted down to simple mechanics, but I find that the game as a whole works very well to give a feeling of colonial powers competing in discovery, conquest and technology.

There have been complaints that the status tracks, i.e. the development aspect of the game, are not very interesting, because by game end everyone tends to have more or less the same technology level. I don't think that is a problem. I think in this aspect of the game the journey is more important than the destination. During the game you need to decide and prioritise which tracks to progress on. Indeed you can't let any specific track fall behind too far, but there is some room for flexibility during the game, and it is within this space that you try to come up with a competitive strategy.

There is a bit of a game of chicken in Endeavor. Do you wait for an opponent to pick up a card, so that you will gain access to the next more powerful card under it? Will another opponent place enough markers to take that card before you? There may be multiple regions that you want to compete in. Which city do you Occupy first? Which region do you Ship to first?



Details of card artwork.
One thing that I like a lot in this game is the artwork, especially the box cover and the buildings. I like the overall graphic design very much - the style, the font, the colour scheme, and the good communication design. It is by Joshua Cappel, who also did the graphics for Wasabi, another game with very good artwork. Joshua is also the co-designer of Wasabi. Multi-talented.

After the Flood

After the Flood is a strictly 3-player game by Martin Wallace, about the rise and fall of ancient civilisations in Sumeria. It is a complex eurogame, typical of Martin Wallace, which means it is also very thematic and it brings out the history and the background of the subject matter very well. On Sat 15 May, Han and Allen came to play, and Han taught us this game.

The Game

The game is played over 5 rounds, and players take multiple actions within each round. The players play 2 roles - the local people and workers of Sumeria and the powerful empires which fight over control of various provinces in the Sumer region. You assign workers to produce grain and textile, and to work metal into tools. You also assign them to provinces neighbouring Sumeria so that you can trade with these provinces. Every round you produce a limited amount of grain and textile. You trade them for other goods like wood, metal, oil, gold and lapis lazuli. Goods are needed for many things - deploying workers, gaining extra troops, strengthening your army, and very importantly, expanding your cities. Expanding a city is something that can only be done once to a city, and it awards you victory points depending on how many resources are spent.

On the military side of things, every round you get to start one empire. There are three preset empires every round with different numbers of soldiers and starting locations. If you have a worker in a province where an empire can start, you can do so, discarding your worker, collecting your soldiers, and placing the first one in the province. Thereafter you expand your empire by placing a soldier in a province adjacent to one you already control. You can fight other empires, which is done by rolling two dice. Your soldiers do not kill workers of other players. They just prevent the workers from trading. If your soldier controls a province, you can trade there as if you have a worker. You can spend soldiers to destroy cities. You don't gain victory points for this, all you gain is an empty spot to build a new city, and probably you deny your opponent one city to expand. Both can be important, because expanding a city can give up to 20pts. Every province you control at the end of the round gives you victory points, and after that all soldiers are removed from the board. So these empires start a fresh every round.

Workers don't go away every round. Some of them go away in Rounds 2 and 4, so there is a form of reset too on the industry side of the game.

The game board. It looks a little intimidating, and I'd say a little ugly too. But it contains lots of very useful information, and I think it is quite practical. Give me a practical board over a beautiful board any time.

A close-up of some of the provinces. Light coloured provinces are Sumeria. Many of such provinces provide some benefit if you build or own a city in them. The dark coloured provinces are outside of Sumeria. The resource icons tell what resources can be traded for there.

Top row: The discs are gold, tools and oil. The cubes are metal and wood. Then an expanded city, the smaller square being the expansion marker. Bottom row: Two workers and a soldier.

Blue discs are lapis lazuli. White cubes are textile, yellow cubes are grain.

The irrigation and weaving boxes are very important because they determine how much train and textile you produce at the start of a round. At the start of the game everyone has one worker, so every produces the same amount of goods.

Resource values on the top left tell you how many workers one unit of a resource can be used for placing. Grain, metal and tools only can be used for boosting the number of soldiers you receive for an empire, by 1 / 2 / 3 per unit of resource respectively.

So in summary, you gain points from having your soldiers occupy provinces, and expanding your cities. A province containing your city can be controlled by an enemy soldier, but as long as your opponent has not destroyed the city, you can still expand it and earn points. Expanding cities is a long and hard road. You need to plan ahead and collect various resources. Given the limited resources that you produce and can trade, and disruption by enemy soldiers, this is quite hard to do. At game end, there is a special area majority scoring based on workers. Some provinces outside Sumeria have this scoring, and the irrigation space for producing grain and the weaving space for producing textile too.

The Play

Our game started with everyone building cities all over Sumeria, which is normal (and recommended by the rules). Most provinces give some benefit when you build or own a city in it. This helps to create some differences among the players from the start. Everyone started the game with a good set of resources. We didn't quite know what to do with them. We didn't really spend much on equipping our armies or boosting their numbers. So we ended up using up the initial resources for expanding cities. Expanding cities is a funny thing. It is an end in itself. Once you achieve it, you don't care much about that city anymore. In fact, you may even want your opponents to destroy it, so that it would release one spot for city building. You are more concerned about keeping safe cities that have not been expanded, because they are the ones with potential.

I had a poor start in the game, making myself vulnerable. I had thought I'd focus more on the industry / economy aspect of the game, but I underestimated how important the military aspect is. Military conquest not only gives victory points. It is also important for controlling trade rights or denying your opponents trade rights. I wasn't aggressive enough from the start, and made some dumb moves which invited attacks. I struggled through most of the game so much that Han and Allen started teasing me for being an AP (analysis paralysis) player. Indeed I tend to do this when I'm stuck and I try to get myself out of the hole I have dug for myself. In this game it didn't work out. I came in dead last, but thankfully not too far behind. I even had to employ pity tactics to beg the others to attack me less. I also kind of played kingmaker towards game end. I had enough resources to make one more city expansion of the best type (i.e. I had 2 wood plus all 4 types of luxury resources, which give 20pts). However, there was some risk that my last remaining unexpanded city may get destroyed by either Han or Allen. Han had one unexpanded city, Allen had two. To mitigate risk, I needed to destroy one of these and build a new city over the ruins, so that I would have a backup unexpanded city. If I destroyed Han's city, it would have been his last city. He probably would have been able to destroy another city and build a new one to expand, but why invoke his wrath and risk retaliation? His armies were near both my existing unexpanded city and the potential sites I could build a new one. I would be in deep trouble if he destroyed both my old city and the new one that I would build.

Allen had 2 unexpanded cities, so I had a good excuse (err... in a way I guess) to destroy one of them. He would still have another one. Also the other reason is his armies were further away, and although he could easily reach my old city, it would be harder to reach the newer one I was planning to build. So I chose to destroy one of Allen's cities and build a new one of my own over the ruins. Throughout all this reasoning and discussion, I was actually secretly kingmaking. I expected Han would see the opportunity to mess with Allen's plans by destroying his other (and last remaining) unexpanded city. This would benefit Han and disadvantage Allen, since the two of them were competing for top position. At the same time tempting Han to attack Allen would mean I had an even better change of being spared. It may even give me a chance of moving up to second place.

And indeed Han grabbed the opportunity and attacked. Allen had the resources to do a 10pt city expansion, but had no city to expand. However I still couldn't beat him. He scored 121. I had 110. Han won the game at 133. Even if Allen had been able to perform a city expansion on the last round, he would not have beaten Han.

So this game actually has some diplomacy and meta game! There is a nice tension of trying to keep a balance among the 3 players. This reminds me of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In our particular game, it was mainly a competition between Han and Allen, as a result of my dumb moves in the early game, but at least I still felt I wasn't a complete non-factor throughout the game. But it took me such a long time to make my moves - there was so much to think through. I was desperate to try to do better, but it didn't work out unfortunately.

Near the end of the first round of the game.

A close-up of the game in progress.

On the fifth round, Han and Allen fought fiercely over gaining majority of this province of Assyria, because the most powerful empire would start here. To start an empire you need to have a majority of workers (ties allowed) in the province. Han (purple) and Allen (red) kept adding workers here turn after turn. This escalation was good for me, because this meant they were spending their actions here while I did other things. It also meant they were spending many resources and workers (both limited) here. 鹤蚌相争，渔人得利.

Eventually Han gave in, and Allen started the Assyrian empire. He had to lose all 6 of his workers as part of the start empire action. Ouch. Han's 5 workers here were a waste too, because it was more than enough to gain majority.

Near game end.

The Thoughts

After the Flood is tight game and a challenging game. Resource production is capped every round, and how much grain and textile you gain is based not on the absolute number of workers you have assigned to producing them, but on the relative number of workers all players have. This means the competition to outproduce others can become quite nasty, if every tries to pile on more and more workers. Or it can be very peaceful, if everyone keeps the same number of workers, so that everyone gains the exact same amount of resources. Sometimes by adding more workers you don't produce more, you just make others produce less. Nasty eh?

The game has a very good integration of the industry and military parts. The military part is a little like History of the World, Britannia and 7 Ages, where different preset civilisations pop up at specific locations with specific numbers of soldiers. In itself this aspect is quite simple. However at the same time you have to think of the industry layer of the game - where and when to assign workers, when to trade. Timing can be very critical. Sometimes you may want to place your workers quickly and trade quickly, before the non-Sumerian provinces get occupied by enemy soldiers, and you are prevented from trading. A trade action can sometimes be quite complex. With one trade action, you can trade once at every province. So usually it is preferable to get your workers (and soldiers) set up at multiple provinces, and then do one big trade action, as opposed to doing multiple smaller trade actions. You need to manage this timing. Watch our for the enemy soldiers!

When expanding an empire (i.e. spreading your soldiers around), it is possible to sacrifice soldiers to expand more than one province per action. You are sacrificing how far you can expand, but gaining the advantage of being able to do it quickly. Sometimes you want this speed. You also have to watch out for your opponents doing this. The enemy may be at the gates earlier than you expect.

I am quite impressed with the story that After the Flood tells, and how it tells it. You see the rise and fall of civilisations and powerful armies. You see industries and trade prosper and decline. The game seamlessly weaves together a simple war game and a medium complexity "cube conversion" game, creating a very challenging, tense and complex game.

Homesteaders

Homesteaders is published by a small publisher, Tasty Minstrel Games, and is designed by Alex Rockwell (a.k.a. alexfrog), a BGG member well known for his strategy articles, especially on Puerto Rico. Given this background, I expected Homesteaders to be a deep Eurogame, and I was right.

The Game

The rules of Homesteaders are surprisingly simple. In a nutshell, you participate in 10 auctions, in which winning some will allow you to construct some buildings, and throughout the 10 rounds you make use of your building powers to gain resources, which can be used for constructing more buildings or earning victory points. But then, the devil is in the details. In this game, that means the buildings.

Buildings give various types of benefits. The basic type is giving you a resource (wood, food, iron, money, livestock, gold etc) every round. Sometimes this benefit requires you to assign a worker to the building. Some buildings allow you to convert something to something else. Some buildings give a one-time benefit when you build it. Some buildings give victory points at game end depending on a specific criteria (i.e. like the big buildings in Puerto Rico and San Juan.

The auctions are in most cases for the rights to build a certain types of buildings. You don't bid for a specific building. This means you have some flexibility in pursuing different strategies. Sometimes the rights being auctioned allow you to build more than one type of building, sometimes all types. Sometimes they also give you bonuses, like a free worker. You have to be careful with workers though. Once you hire, you can't fire. You must pay their full salaries whether you use them or not. So it's not a good idea to employ more people than you have work for.

There is always one right less than the number of players up for auction every round, which means at least one player will not win any right. Sometimes more than one player will suffer this fate, when they can't afford or do not want to pay even the minimum bid. These players get to advance on a Railroad Development Track, which I think of as a consolation prize track, because you do gain a consolation prize. The types of prize you can choose from depends on how many times you've failed to win an auction. These prizes are actually quite helpful. So not winning any auction is not too big a disaster. In fact I suspect sometimes you may not even be interested in any of the rights up for auction (just a wild guess, since I've only played this game once).

The game board is very simple, 3 spaces for auctions (3rd one empty because it is for 4-player games only), and one Railroad Development Track a.k.a. consolation prize track. This board was actually home-made by Allen because he didn't like the board that came with the game. This one is mounted and quite sturdy. Graphics is exactly the same as the original board.

Some of the buildings.

One important concept in the game is the marketplace and the trade chits. You can always buy and sell goods (and hire workers) at the marketplace. The buying and selling prices are the same, i.e. trading is not a viable business model. Every transaction costs you a trade chit, a special resource type in the game, which limits how many times you can use the marketplace.

The Play

Han, Allen and I played a 3-player game (the game supports only 3 or 4 players). Although the game structure and rules were very simple, I quickly realised that there was a lot more to the game. There were many buildings to consider, and it was very overwhelming trying to come up with much of a strategy in the first game. Han got a gold mine, which was very helpful in maintaining good cash flow. He mined gold every round, and could use the gold as $5. He won the most auctions throughout the game, and also kept the start player marker most of the game. Allen tried to grab as many victory points as quickly and as early as possible. I decided to try to get as many railroad tiles and workers as possible. Railroad tiles give $1 every round. During the game I tried to get buildings which gave victory points based on the number of railroad tiles and workers. My cash flow was pretty bad, and I lost many auctions. I was struggling.

At game end when we tallied up our scores, it came as no surprise that Han beat both Allen and I handily, at 60pts. What surprised we was I actually narrowly beat Allen, 41pts to 37pts. I had been so sure I would be dead last.

Railroad tiles, buildings and workers are public information, i.e. in front of the player screen. The rest of the resources are secret. I had a lot of trade chits, but I never quite knew what to do with them.

The game moved very fast. Many things could be done simultaneously, e.g. assigning workers, gaining resources. The auctions went fast, since most of the time money is tight. I literally had a headache because of analysing the many building abilities and working out possible strategies, within the very short time between actions in the game. It was like trying to eat a 10-course meal in 15 minutes. Too much to digest.

The Thoughts

Homesteaders is a game that takes less than half a game to learn the mechanics, and probably 10 times that to learn the strategies. There is still so much I have not yet explored - different combinations of buildings, strategies focused on different types of goods, etc.

This is very much a Eurogame, so don't expect much in terms of theme. It's all about the game mechanics. Player interaction is all via the auctions, which sometimes can be quite brutal. The game is very streamlined. I am amazed at the depth that could be achieved given such a short playing time. There is nothing ground-breaking in terms of mechanics, so the game can feel a bit samey to other deep Eurogames.

Zombie State

When Han brought out Zombie State, he said (something to this effect), "It's a zombie game, so I had no choice - it's a must buy". I'm sure most gamers out there can appreciate this, but probably not their significant others. Han is a big Ameritrash fan, so we make a good combo - he buys most of the Ameritrash games and I buy most of the Eurogames. He's the one who introduced me to zombies. I never had much interest before that. The Walking Dead is a still-ongoing graphic novel series that I quite enjoy.

The Game

Zombie State is played on a world map, divided into 5 regions (sorry Australia, you're merged with the Asian continent), and depending on the number of players (2 to 5), certain regions are in play. Each player controls one region, and every territory in every region starts with some population, represented by pips on a die. Some territories produce goods, which are needed for raising armies and research. As part of game setup, some zombies appear in some territories. These zombies will start biting people, converting them to zombies, and the zombie plague will spread and spread. The players scramble to try to save their people and their territories. They try to kill zombies where they can, and generally just try to survive. When the game ends, you win if you have the most population remaining.

The gameboard is quite wide but not very high. The timer track is on the far left.

Every round zombies will either bite or move. Each zombie will bite one population point, reducing your population die by one, and creating one more zombie. If that area has no more population, the hungry zombies which have not bitten anyone move to the neighbouring territory with the most population. If there are too many zombies, they split up and move to multiple territories. If all neighbouring territories are vacant, the zombies get confused and they sit around doing nothing.

Your resources in the game are freedom points (FP's) and 4 types of goods. FP's are basically action points. Depending on how many of your territories still have population in, you get between 2 to 6 FP's. You need FP's for moving armies, fortifying armies, producing extra goods, performing research and using some technologies that you have already researched. You use resources for raising troops, research, and in some cases for using technologies too.

Research is a very important part of the game. There are three streams - medical, military and physics/science. You spend resources to research a technology, and get a 50% chance to succeed in developing the technology. If you fail, on your subsequent tries your chances improve. If other players already have the technology, your chances will also be better. Technologies give you various benefits. One lets you kill zombies from afar, one lets you build walls cordoning off zombies, one lets you migrate your population, one lets you produce goods in territories which originally do not produce goods. The technologies are important in combating the zombie plague and in surviving.

The player reference sheet is intimidating at first, but soon I found it to be very useful and practical. The track along the top tells you how many Freedom Points you get at the start of the round. Territories with no population left will have their dice placed here, and the track tells you how many territories you have left, and how many FP's you get. The small box on the top left is for storing your FP's, represented by the plastic pawns. Each time you spend an FP, you remove a pawn from the box.

Below that box you see a long box containing the round summary, which is quite handy. The technologies take up most of the space. You don't need to remember them all when you play. Just browse and find what you like. At the start you can only attempt to develop the Tier 1 techs. After you have developed three of these (like I had done here), you can move on to Tier 2.

A close-up of the Popularity Track, which is used for tracking FP's you get.

The Play

In our 3-player game, Han played Europe (yellow), Allen played Africa (red) and I played Asia (green). North and South America were not in play. At the start of the game I decided to invest in a technology that gave me +2 to my die rolls (on a 12-sided die) in future when I attempted to develop new technologies. I thought it was good investment. For the rest of the game I rolled quite well in my tech rolls and ended up not really utilising this ability very much though. But I think I still benefited from the confidence it gave me to invest in tech rolls.

From very early in the game, I was already torn between short-term and long-term concerns. Should I build more troops to try to slow down the advance of the zombies? Should I build attempt to develop new technologies? Would my people survive long enough to be able to benefit from the techs? The zombie armies grew at an alarming rate. The people they bit became zombies themselves, boosting their ranks. It was a mad scramble trying to contain the outbreak. And then there are literally Outbreaks throughout the game. Some happened at fixed turns, some came up from the event deck. When Outbreaks happened, a zombie appeared at a random populated spot, and we had to start worrying about containing that new zombie. At one point in the game, Allen had separated his populated territories from zombie-infested territories using a wall, but when an Outbreak came up and he rolled the die, a new zombie appeared precisely in the territory on this side of the wall, as if some smart (oxymoron?), previously-unaccounted-for zombie had breached the wall.

I played Asia (green). The dice on the board represent population level. I had lost all my population (all bitten by zombies) in Mongolia, West China and Bangladesh/Burma. One zombie just walked into Beijing (red side), but I had an army which could defeat it. India is a lost cause, 8 zombies there.

West China used to produce the blue resource (I don't remember what it was), but since I had no population remaining, I couldn't produce there anymore.

I was quite lucky in this game. My initial zombies were all near the borders with Europe, and the zombie plague spread westwards, and never seriously threatened east Asia or Australia. Heavily populated India was a zombie magnet. As the zombies swarmed India, I used my Evacuation tech to get my population out of the neighbouring territories. I managed to create a no man's land between zombie-infested territories and safe territories. This protected my remaining territories, but it also meant the zombies now headed for Han's territories to my west. Sorry man, this is not a cooperative game.

Han and Allen weren't as lucky with their zombie distribution. All hell broke lose in Europe and Africa. They had to keep spending on troops to fight zombies. Eventually most of the northern half of Africa was devastated, and the western half of Europe too.

Every round three event cards are turned up. Some events are good, some bad. Outbreaks are bad. Free walls are good. Sometimes you lose or gain FP's. Sometimes some types of research become less, or more, expensive. Some of these make you feel like you've won a lottery, e.g. a free wall when you desperately need one to hold off the zombies. Some make you want to bang your head against a wall. E.g. I had one Outbreak in Japan, which was in the middle of my group of "safe" and isolated territories. I had the MV1 virus screening tech, which could prevent Outbreaks, but I had forgotten to keep one good to pay for using it.

After I managed to isolate my territories from the zombies, I spent a lot on techs to further ensure the safety of my population. I even managed to repopulate some territories next to zombie territories because by them I had walls to hold the zombies off. I had the luxury of developing new goods production facilities, and even conducted air strikes to kill off some zombies in Han's territories. I don't think this is normal. We are not playing Puerto Rico here. Colonists? Goods? What zombie game is this?

India and Pakistan remind me of Twilight Struggle. In our game, they didn't need to fight anymore. All the people had turned to zombies.

Close-up of India and Pakistan. The 3 population in Iran are shuddering with fear.

A wall built to stop the zombies in India from entering the Indonesia territory.

Middle East, North Africa and South Europe have all gone to hell.

Asia was looking sweet. I had repopulated Indonesia since it was now protected by a wall. Anyway I had bombed the zombies in India to oblivion. Australia had a new uranium mine (yellow), Hong Kong had a new corn farm (orange), North China had a new oil well (purple).

Eventually the game ended when for one full round I had no zombies in any of my territories. I had bombed them to oblivion. The game can end in 2 other ways - the end of a timer track, or one player loses all population. We were close to the end of the timer track. Things were more settled down in Europe and Africa by then, so Han and Allen's people weren't at risk of extinction. We didn't really bother to count our scores. It was quite obvious Asia survived with most people remaining. The Australians were probably saying, "What zombies? All we had was a bunch of Indonesian refugees!"

The Thoughts

Zombie State is a fun game. One would squarely categorise this in the Ameritrash camp, but surprisingly I find that it is quite a low player interaction game, or "multiplayer solitaire" game, which many Eurogames are often described as. Everyone is trying to survive, and you can't really interfere much with others' plans. You can try to manipulate your population near your borders with other players, and try to get the zombies to go after other players instead of you, but the ability to do so is limited. You can try to reseach techs that other players already have, because you'll have a better chance of success. However tech needs differ depending on your situation. You will be so busy trying to save your behind, you won't have time to mess with your opponents. The most you can do is laugh at their misfortune.

The game actually feels a little like a cooperative game (assuming you don't laugh at your opponents). You are all on the same boat. You are all part of humanity trying to survive the zombie plague, so you feel like you are part of the same team. I tell you this is a scary game. Watching the zombies grow in number and spread is nerve-wracking. You feel so doomed, facing an unstoppable tidal wave. Zombie feeding and movement is deterministic. You feel very helpless because there is so little you can do, especially in the early game. You need to pick your fights wisely and fall back where necessary. Calculating the zombie actions can feel a bit mathy - how many people get eaten, where the zombies will move, how to trick them into moving the other direction. On the other hand, the events introduce quite a bit of randomness. Most of the bad random events are not too severe. Some can be bad though, e.g. Outbreaks. They only introduce one more zombie, but sometimes just one zombie can trigger a chain reaction that wipes out one big swath of your population.

Zombie State tells a compelling story. It is a serious take on the zombie genre. You can say it's an "experience game", but that tends to have a negative connotation, that your decisions don't matter much. I don't think this is the case here. There is definitely randomness in the game. The excitement comes from how you try to manage the disaster. You will get a mix of good and bad surprises, and you have to manage the bad ones while trying to make the most out of the good ones. This is a once-in-a-while game, and not something you want to play repeatedly and frequently to hone your skills. I certainly had a fun ride.

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.