Private session. 4-player Cave Troll, 4-player Starfarers of Catan, 4-player Fabrik der Traume, 4-player Showmanager, 4-player Wiz War.
Players were Ralph, Chris, Todd, myself. New players to the game were: Chris, Todd. Todd had the first turn.
We spent 11 minutes going over the rules.
This game seemed longer than it was because Ralph was kindly cooking up sirloin tips for us.
This game had some of the more interesting tokens come out first... knight, knight, orc, knight, cave troll, knight (with a few explorers thrown in) right off the bat!
All the scoring rounds were kicked off so everyone had a chance to position themselves. Ralph drew the artifact to score a room instantly after the first round of scoring.
Game lasted 71 minutes. Final scores were:
Click here to buy Cave Troll at FunAgain.com.
Click here to learn more about Cave Troll at BoardGameGeek.com.
Players were Ralph, Chris, Todd, myself. New players to the game were: Ralph, Chris, Todd, myself. Ralph had the first turn.
We spent 55 minutes going over the rules.
This is a space exploration themed, resource management game.
Players start on a fixed board of planetary systems and alien starbases. Each player rolls dice to find out what resources everyone gets that turn. Then the player trades for resources he needs, and buys ships with the intention to colonize or trade, or upgrade ships to go faster, shoot enemies, or increase trade level. Then use the funky space-ship to determine if a random encounter occurs, and how much movement they have for each ship. Encounters are novel in that they occur as questions with different results based on the answer. Sometimes a benefit results, sometimes a detriment. Establishing trade with an alien gets the player a card with a valuable ability.
The object of the game is to gain the most victory points, and game ends when someone reaches 15 victory points. Victory points come from establishing colonies, upgrading to a space port, establishing trade with an alien, shooting pirates at a planet, and colonizing a planet with ice rings and earning bonuses.
Chris was having fun reading the exploration cards and made us laugh by substituting different situations over the exploration text.
Ralph initially had the chance to warp anywhere on the board, but decided to stick to exploring the nearby planets as he originally intended.
Chris noted that the game is usually won by the person going after the pirates, because it's a sudden surge of victory points. That's what happened in this game, when Ralph took a planet with pirates nearby.
Caption: Ralph, Chris and Todd having fun with Starfarers of Catan.
Game lasted 150 minutes. Final scores were:
Click here to buy Starfarers of Catan at FunAgain.com.
Click here to learn more about Starfarers of Catan at BoardGameGeek.com.
Players were Ralph, Chris, Todd, myself. -1 had the first turn.
We spent -1 minutes going over the rules.
In this game, I bid too high for best film, and hedged my bets to make the worst film. Chris actually had worst film and a low enough score to keep it. I had the best film, but didn't finish many other films at all.
So, in the end, Ralph got the game as only his wacky bidding gets it.
Caption: Ralph, Chris and Todd directing movies in Fabrik der Traume.
Game lasted 49 minutes. Final scores were:
Click here to buy Fabrik der Traume at FunAgain.com.
Click here to learn more about Fabrik der Traume at BoardGameGeek.com.
Players were Ralph, Chris, Todd, myself. I was a new player to the game. Chris had the first turn.
We spent 8 minutes going over the rules.
This is a card game about making theatrical shows. Each player tries to get a set of actors for four different shows. Start with money, and four actors are laid out in increasing expense to hire them, and with different point values for having them. Players take one card, shifting the values of the remaining actors into the vacated spot and drawing a new card to fill the empty spot. Players can, instead, pay to have the cards displayed replaced with a new set of cards. The third option is to play a hand of cards to score it. A hand is all the actors to make a set for a show. If all the actors can play the parts, then a bonus is added. Then the score is noted on the scoring track, with the player choosing if it's a high risk, high scoring show, or a low risk low scoring show. Rank on the scoring track determines the final score.
Ralph and Chris spent a lot of money flushing cards to get the valuable ones, or the needed ones as the case may be. They even borrowed money against their played shows to get needed money. I played extremely conservatively, borrowing only a small amount once, and never flushing.
In the end, Chris bewailed because I eeked out a higher score on the low score track costing him the victory. But he eeked me out of the high scoring track, which cost me second place.
Caption: Players love Showmanager.
Game lasted 56 minutes. Final scores were:
Click here to buy Showmanager at FunAgain.com.
Click here to learn more about Showmanager at BoardGameGeek.com.
Players were Ralph, Chris, Todd, myself. Todd had the first turn.
We spent 3 minutes going over the rules.
We spent a little time to refresh our memories of the game. This would be a light game to wrap up the evening.
I quickly blocked of a door to Ralph's adjacent tile. Ralph, Chris and Todd went off to clash in Chris' tile. I was stuck for a little while with no interesting spells, so I was being conservative.
Todd and I clashed when he cast a spell to drain half a point of health every space I moved for the rest of the game. I returned the favor on him, lasting three turns for him. Fortunately, I had a soulstone which kept my life from getting below three by magical means.
Eventually, I ventured out into Ralph's territory while Ralph and Chris were still at each other there and locked Chris into a closet. He picked his way out, though and used a previously established warp to get back to his home territory. Todd, in the mean time, went in to collect his last treasure unopposed, because everyone else was distracted.
Caption: Happy, Fun Wiz War gamers.
Game lasted 62 minutes. Final scores were:
Click here to learn more about Wiz War at BoardGameGeek.com.
Click here and scroll down to "11th" for Ralph's take on our games.
