My Board game plays, My log as I venture back into boardgames

Sep 22 2012

Birthday at my mom's house.

Watched the kids play KING OF TOKYO twice, 1 4p then a 5p game. The games dragged longer than expected since all were nice and did not want to attack, although Shawn won in the first game by killing everyone, then Sharlene defeated my other nieces and Shawn and my nephew by getting to 20 VP.

Sep 23 2012

SUPER DUNGEON EXPLORE

Sherwins' friends came by again for another round of SDE. This time we used the 4P variant and I had them on the ropes early in the game as I managed to kill the Hexcast Sorceress and was starting to mob the heroes. However, they managed to draw the resurrection charm and the sorceress came back, and when another hero got the dragon bow and thus you had 2 heroes who could fire away blast templates then my tightly packed minions started dropping in droves. When the bosses came out the hexcast sorceress ability to put in status effects was very valuable, and even though I got Sherwin's paladin down to 1 wound the Dragon Lance employed by the ranger was able to inflict a LOT of wounds of the dragon, and the remaining heroes were able to mop up and win the game.


The kobolds choke the hallway, blocking off the heroes


The heroes get set to face Rex the kobold ogre and Starfire the dragon!

AGRICOLA

In the evening I continued my soloplay series. My score to beat is 55, and I managed to get 60 points, and decide to keep the Pearl Seeker as my 2nd occupation after the Plow Maker, for the next game.


My farm scores 60 points

AGRICOLA

Game 3 of my 1st soloplay series...barely managed to top last game's 60 with 61 points...

I found out I actually get to start with free food for every 2 points you are over the recommended point target. For the 3rd game the target is 59, so that means I get to start with 1 food on my next game, as with 61 points I am 2 points over 59.


61 points...I played a LOT of cards. I decided to keep the Clay Mixer who will join the Plow Maker and the Pearl Seeker in my next game.

Sep 26 2012

AGRICOLA

Continued with game 4 of my soloplay series.

The cards I got were really good and I had a huge boost especially with clay production. Despite the late appearance of the renovation action I managed to expand my home (with the aid of the gimlet) and population quickly and thus was able to focus using wood on building stables. The Shared Walls card also made my house walls able to act as the side of a fence, and I laid out the stables and the new rooms with this in mind. By the end of the game I get an all time high so far of 69 points (7 points over the target of 62), meaning I get to start my next game with 3 food!!!


69 points, this time with a different layout as I normally do.

In the evening I had another game. Despite starting with 3 food and 1 more occupation, the Minor Improvement cards were not as good so I ended up 1 point lower than the previous game with a score of 68, but this is still 4 points over the target score of 64 so that means I start with 2 food in the next game. I decide to keep the carpenter as my 5th occupation, as his ability to allow me to build new rooms with 3 primary resources instead of 5 will really help me to be more efficient from the get go.


68 points is still a decent score!

September 27, 2012

AGRICOLA

Continuing my soloplay series, in my 6th game I got cards which seemed to support a plow and sow strategy, especially if the fields were adjacent to my house. However, in doing this I made a booboo with the arrangement of the rooms, fields, and pastures and thus I found out that I could not expand my house and the fields anymore, and I ended up with even a lower score of 64, which is 1 point below the target of 65! GRRR!!! I decide to keep the bricklayer as my 6th occupation, as he makes using clay to expand rooms and build improvements even more efficient!


6th play, 64 points. Notice how the fenced pastures limited my house and the plowed fields from expanding some more. Could have done better GRR!!!

I decided to play my 7th game, and this time the cards which I got proved to be much better, especially with the Animal Tamer occupation (he allows 1 animal to be kept in each room of the house, instead of normally only 1 animal total for the entire house). This relieved a lot of pressure to build pastures and fences in order to hold animals, and thus I was able to relax a bit in hoarding wood and managed to build a lot of improvements which gave bonuses in points. In the end I came back with a vengeance and got 75 points! Highest score so far, and at 9 points over the target score of 66 that means I start with 4 food in the last game of the series! I naturally keep the Animal Tamer for my final occupation before the penultimate game of the series.


75 points! And look at all the sheep running around in my house! Must be a mess to clean up after!!

Sep 29 2012

It's time for the Open Game day which is held at Robinson's Galleria, and also for the Puerto Rico tourney. I arrive early, but find out that due to the rains the PR tourney will start later than usual. While waiting, Dr. Carlos Sandico and his brother Clark teach me and another guy how to play the new Zombie game, Zombicide.

ZOMBICIDE

The game differs from Last Night on Earth in that it is a full coop game, and zombies have rules in order to know which direction to move (ie move first towards guys in LOS, otherwise move towards areas which have the most noise tokens.) I play using El Cholo (a parody of the famous Mexican character Machete), and he has 2 machetes as his starting equipment. In this intro mission, the 4 of us are supposed to look for 4 objective tokens in order to win.

To cut it all short, despite my teammates getting nice weapons, and El Cholo chopping down hordes of zombies, we all die.....but it was still fun!

I took some pics, only to find out I forgot to load an SD card in the camera, sigh!!!

By 3 pm the tourney has still not started, so I decided not to join. I got to play a couple games though of:

GLORY TO ROME

I played with Clark and this new guy I meet, a YugiOh player named Taka. Clark and me teach Taka the game, and being a card gamer he gets the gameplay really quick. He ends up winning the first game via a forum victory, right under our noses!!!

We immediately start a second game. This time Clark ends the game before Taka can get another forum victory. Clark had the most points through buildings, but I manage to squeak through with the bonus from getting the most materials in my vault!

Me 21 Clark 20 Taka 18 close game!!!

GLEN MORE

During the day I managed to get some new games second hand. One of them is Glen More, which is a nice game which uses a Rondel and Tile Laying mechanic in order for you to make the best Tableau.

I teach my son Shawn how to play, and he easily learns the mechanics. Shawn and me manage to get a fast game in before going to bed.


Shawn's tableau 30 points


My tableau 37 points

Sep302012

GLEN MORE

Shawn and me get another game in. We decide to call the Robot player (in 2-3 players, there is a die which you roll to represent a dummy or robot player) Glen. In this game Shawn and me leapfrog long distances forward in order to claim tiles, but this made Glen eat up all the tiles behind us through low scoring rolls. Shawn's early lead was lost when he had to subtract -6 points as he was 2 tiles more than me (in GM, you are taxed -3 points for every tile you have OVER the player with the lowest number of tiles) and this means I manage to win 28-23!!!


Shawn 23 points


Me 28 points


Glen eats up 37 tiles!!!

Wow... Zombiecide looks promising (because of the full co-op game, not having one person to control the zombie)... I want one... adik lang ako talaga sa mga zombie game... hehe

There has been some discussion between LNOE vs Zombicide. Both have legit points.

As Carlos Sandico pointed out (Togashi is his forum name) in another forum, in Zombicide the zombies act like the zombies in the movies by the behavior the rules give them (ie they have to move at someone in LOS or towards a sound), unlike in LNOE where an intelligent DM is controlling the zombies. In fact, in Zombicide you can actually use sound as a method to distract zombies from the objective where you want to go. The other advantage is that in Zombicide you can play solo. Finally Zombicide is made by Cool Mini or Not, the same makers as Super Dungeon Explore. The minis are all whole na no assembly required.

But LNOE has their proponents as well. You guys already have that game though. Zombicide is also brand new so I think it is not yet available pa here. Carlos kickstarted it so he has the cool additional minis (El Cholo, a Bruce Willis parody who "dies hard", as well as a parody of Glenn from Walking Dead, with the "slippery" rule (ie Zombies cannot pin him in an area he can always move normally through zombie infested area).

Oct 2 2012

SAN JUAN

2P game with Shawn, using all the cards from the expansion. I win 31-24.

AGRICOLA

Last game of my first soloplay series. Did not beat my score of 75, got 71 instead, but this was still higher than the game target of 67.

I may start another series using the Farmers of the Moor expansion, or just using specific decks instead of mixing and matching the E,I,K and G decks. We shall see.


71 points

Oct 3 2012

Classes were suspended by lunchtime, thus I was able to bring Shawn with me for plays with my gaming group.

KING OF TOKYO

Taught King of Tokyo to J and R (V was not present). They loved it, but Shawn had the most guts to stay in Tokyo and also got good VP rolls and that made him run away with a 20 VP victory, although he did come close to being eliminated as he was down to 2 HP, but he was lucky in that J was not able to roll enough claws to finish him off!


High Rolling!


Shawn's winning roll!!!

GLEN MORE

After KoT, I then taught them how to play Glen More. It was OK, albeit the fact that I got confused on how to replace tiles since J kept on vaulting over to the head of the track to get tiles. As a result of this, she had the smallest Tableau (9 tiles), and since I had the largest one (14 tiles) I got taxed a huge -15 points.

Shawn on the other hand had a nice time making Whisky and he had several of his people promoted to Chieftain. This made him overcome his -9 point subtraction (as he had 12 tiles, 3 more over J) and he won his first game of Glen More!

Shawn 31 R 29 Me 22 J 16


J's score 16


My score of 22 (-15 pts grrr!!!)


R's tableau with 29 pts


Shawn with 31. He had the most cards, whisky, as well as chieftains.

Shawn had a great afternoon with 2 victories!!

Oct 4 2012

Shawn's exams were officially over by lunch, hence another PM visit with him to my gaming group was in order.

DUNGEON PETZ

Taught the group this game, which I really wanted to get to the table again. Initially, the 2 were confused as hell, but after a couple of rounds and after managing to see how exhibitions and selling was done, they picked up quick and understood that the game basically is a "puzzle", as you try to match needs which your shop can handle with the traits required to bet a good score during the exhibitions and sales. V had excellent cards and got 2 good sales involving lots of pet dung with one and sickness with the other. J on the other hand focused on bribing the judges during exhibitions. I had a balanced approach while Shawn was content in managing his favorite pet, the Denguin, throughout the game, even though it ended up with it's cage up to the neck with poop, as well as suffering a bit and mutating.

In the end, V managed a win, narrowly beating me by 2 points!


V(yellow) 64 Me (Blue) 62 J (Red) 46 Shawn (Green) 20. Sold pets clustered below the respective buyers are seen on the top of the pic.

7 Wonders

Another game which I have played a while, we had a nice game with the Leaders expansion. V managed to get good leaders for both the military and science cards, and thus managed a good win over the rest of us!

V 66 Me 59 Shawn 47 J 36

It was V's day, as she won both games!

Oct 6, 2012

PUERTO RICO

I bought several games for the afternoon session, but we only had time a game of PR as Betty called and said she could leave work early. I have played PR over 90 times on the Ipad, but this was the first time I played using the physical game, using the second hand copy I just bought.

As this game is basically the board game parent of San Juan which we have played a lot, V and J understood the role selection mechanic quick, and after a couple of rounds got the additional concepts of getting laborers, arranging plantations and buildings, and shipping and trading. The 2 had an early lead over me in production, but due to me picking Captain often V's goods were often spoiled rotten and thrown away. J managed to get a good win due to the bonus given by the Fortress building, which rewarded her getting a lot of colonists.

This game was very competitive and together with Agricola I expect to get in a lot of plays with Puerto Rico!


V 28 points. Lots of goods produced, but they were not optimized as I made sure they were thrown away, as I was next to select an action after she chose Craftsman (production).


Me 33 points. I ran out of time in order to populate the 2nd 10 point building, which may have given me enough bonus points to have at least tie for the lead!


J wins with 38 points!

Oct 7 2012

A nice gaming Sunday.

SORRY

Shawn had to bring a boardgame to school for boardgames day, so we pulled our copy of SORRY out. Shawn, Betty and me reviewed the rules in order for Shawn to teach his classmates, and we decided to have the variant where you have a hand of cards. However, we were reminded that this has nasty Take That elements and thus decided that this was NOT the game for him to bring. Betty won, then me, then Shawn, much to his consternation.

DOMINOES

We played 3 games with dominoes, using the block dominoes rules. Sharlene joined us, and it was quite fun and refreshing. Betty won, then Shari twice.

THROUGH THE DESERT

As a finale, Shawn requested this to be played, and I was glad since it has not been played for quite some time. It was Bettys first play, and she showed why she was so good at this by demolishing me and Shawn with a score of 108 to my 77 to Shawn's 49.


Lots of candy colored camels!!!

Oct 9 2012

MORELS

Betty requested this to be pulled out to kill some time, and we had a nice brisk game. I managed to get a very nice 20 point score by cooking a set of Hen of the Woods with Cider, and that enabled me to pull out a 40-36 win versus her.

Shawn and Betty played another game, and Shawn kept putting down mushroom after mushroom and he won decisively with a score of 52 vs Betty's 39.

Oct 10 2012

Had time and thus visited my gaming group.

PUERTO RICO

Had 2 nice games. These were characterized by a heavy shipping theme, although in the first game we all managed to get enough money to all get the expensive 10 gold buildings, but in the 2nd game it was much closer as money was much tighter and the VP chips ran out, thus we all did not get to build a lot of buildings.

Game 1


V's plantations 34 points


J with 50 points


My winning tableau with 64 points

Game 2


V with 36 points


J with 37 points


Me winning again with 45 points

KING OF TOKYO

Taught V this, and we had a nice quick game. J and V tried their best to roll claws to kill my Brockenbar while in Tokyo, but I manage to survive by the skin of my teeth and I get 20 VPs!

Good day for me, as I sweep and win all 3 games for the day!

October 11 2012

Another good day at the FLGS..

AGRICOLA

Brought out this game for good old farming fun, and the game did not disappoint as it was really tense. I like the fact that J and V were now really experimenting with strategies with the cards, with J being the perfect example as she was focusing on clay conversion into food with both the pottery plus her occupation card (at the detriment though of maximizing the farm plot).


Me (blue) with 33 pts and a bigger family just edges out V's (red 29 points) better utilization of her farm while J (green) did not starve through optimization of clay but she fails to develop her land well.

SMALL WORLD

I brought this since it has not been played for a while, and I wanted to try out also the Be Not Afraid Expansion for the first time. I had a great time annoying the heck out of the others with the Pillaging Gypsies, so while I lost it felt like I had a moral victory!


End game map


V wins with 104 points


J had a good game with 92 points


I am last with 85. But Pillaging Gypsies are awesome!!

GLEN MORE

Kent joined us for a 4P game, and it was the first play for both V and him. I manage to get a good whisky engine going and this plus last turn selling of goods enable me to push pass Kent's chieftain strategy.


Me 31 Kent 26 V 17 J 16

October 13 2012

After entertaining a guest for lunch, I had some time to pass by G4.

SMASH UP

First game ever. Taught Kent, Rod, and Adonis for the initial 4P game.

We had to spend time to read the cards and the bases, but I manage to go horde with the robot zombies as I get to 15 points first versus Kent's annoying Pirate/Tricksters (8 points), Rod's Wizards/Dinos (8 points) and Adonis' Ninja/Aliens (3 points)

This game needs more plays and I will continue to bring this to learn the depth of the game better.

KING OF TOKYO

This was a fantastic blast, since Kent,Rod, Paulo, Adonis, and George are a perfect bunch to play this game with. In the end Kent had a great combo of cards and his Gigazaur eliminates everyone else! The game is a definite hit and I will be bringing it regularly every time I visit G4.