Friday Night Gaming: To Court the King, Mall of Horror, Shadow Hunters
October 31, 2008
As we waited for Ian and Robert to arrive, Merwin suggested that we break out Race for the Galaxy, though he hadn't read the rules. I flat-out refused. We pulled out another game, which was good, because RrtG only handles 4 and Robert soon arrived, bringing us to 5 players. Ian showed up before the first game was done.
To Court the King
In abstract, To Court the King sounds like an interesting, multi-player Yahtzee variant, but it practice, I felt it fell flat. During the game, I felt I was lagging behind Zach and Brian, who seemed to be getting the better rolls. Merwin seemed like he was struggling to catch up, lamenting his lack of dice-adders. Robert simply played his turns in silence; I don't think we even payed much attention to what he was doing. And that, I feel is the great failing of the game. Sure, you expect it to be multi-player solitaire and you expect downtime while others take their turn. In a good game, there is some entertainment value in watching someone take their turn. Or you have a vested interest in the outcome and want to see it play out. In this game, it really doesn't matter; even with kibitzing, there isn't enough going on for me to care.
And apparently Robert felt the same, because he went for the King and got it as soon as he had 7 dice. He was bored and wanted the game to end. Merwin and I still needed to finish out the round, and I was able to grab the General, which gave me 2 more dice, bringing my total to 9.
As this was our first game ever, we weren't clear on the winning conditions. The rules say, "each player tries, on his turn, to roll as high a dice result as he can..." But they don't tell you what that really means. Most of us assumed this meant the highest overall dice total, counting all he pips. This is not the case. Really, "the more dice of a kind the better (e.g. eight 1’s is better
than seven 6’s). With the same number of dice of a kind, the higher the number the better, of course."
Zach started the final round with 9 dice and managed to get 9 fours. Brian had good manipulation cards, including the Nobleman which alllowed him to add 2 pips to every die. This would have been great if we were going for highest total, but since he only had 8 dice, he could not win. Robert, even with the Queen, only had 8. I was the only other player with 9 dice and I was able to roll 9 fives to take the win. I got a little lucky at the end, but so did Zach to get his nine-of-a-kind, so I don't feel bad.
Having played it once from start to finish, I think it would be beneficial to the group to play it again with knowledge of what it takes to win. Otherwise, I don't find the game fun or interesting enough to pull out again.
Mall of Horror
This is one of my favorite board games. I have already written a full-length review, so there is no need to go into the details here. Tonight was the first time we played it with six. I really wanted to introduce it to Brian and he enjoyed it as much as I thought he would. The Security Office was dominated by Zach, Brian, and Ian in that order. They were also seated in that order, and Zach began character placement by placing his gun-guy in the office. I had a suspicion that the roll of Security Chief was slightly too powerful and this session reinforced that as Zach went on to win with Brian in second (more on this later). Because zombies were not showing up a the Security Office, Zach was able to sit pretty there for a long time. The same thing happened in the usually deadly Parking Lot, where Brian was able to gather a bunch of cards.
In the penultimate round, I screwed up by playing it safe. Though I knew it was a bad idea, I placed my two remaining characters into the same location. Generally, this is a bad thing to do, especially as the zombies piled up, but I thought I was taking a calculated risk. I really was walking into a trap. In the final round, I could only move one of them and the other would be left to die as the zombies swarmed the area. But an interesting thing happened. This was in area 3. Zack was in area 5 (yes, the Security Office) and was also going to be overrun. But because my guy died first, it triggered the end-condition of only having 6 characters left on the board, and Zach was able to win because the helicopters came before his guy died. If the timing had been different, Brian would have won.
Earlier, I had screwed up the rules, thinking that the end was triggered with 4 characters and told this to the group. In my defense, this is the case in all games except with 6 players. To my guilt, though, I simply failed to read the game summary properly. Had we realized my error sooner, the end of the game and winner might have been different.
Shadow Hunters
Ian kicked my ass this time. I was cruising along as the Vampire, trying to figure out who everyone was. I was taking a bit of damage, but not enough to start using my healing ability (requiring me to reveal myself). Ian, playing a Hunter, got a Hermit card that forced me to show him my card. He had determined with a Hermit card and meta-knowledge that Brian was the other shadow and attacked him. This screwed me up a bit. I was sitting at 7 or 8 damage when Ian turned and brought the smack-down on me, revealing himself and doing enough damage to kill me in one turn. Oh well.
Zach (the Neutral) and Brian (the Werewolf) managed to pull out a co-win by killing the two Hunters, but I don't remember how it all went down. There was the usuall post-game discussion of how powers are unbalanced, some cards are really useless, and what changes should be made. I feel that the idea of the game is really good, but the execution just falls short and it begs to be reworked.
As we waited for Ian and Robert to arrive, Merwin suggested that we break out Race for the Galaxy, though he hadn't read the rules. I flat-out refused. We pulled out another game, which was good, because RrtG only handles 4 and Robert soon arrived, bringing us to 5 players. Ian showed up before the first game was done.
To Court the King
In abstract, To Court the King sounds like an interesting, multi-player Yahtzee variant, but it practice, I felt it fell flat. During the game, I felt I was lagging behind Zach and Brian, who seemed to be getting the better rolls. Merwin seemed like he was struggling to catch up, lamenting his lack of dice-adders. Robert simply played his turns in silence; I don't think we even payed much attention to what he was doing. And that, I feel is the great failing of the game. Sure, you expect it to be multi-player solitaire and you expect downtime while others take their turn. In a good game, there is some entertainment value in watching someone take their turn. Or you have a vested interest in the outcome and want to see it play out. In this game, it really doesn't matter; even with kibitzing, there isn't enough going on for me to care.
And apparently Robert felt the same, because he went for the King and got it as soon as he had 7 dice. He was bored and wanted the game to end. Merwin and I still needed to finish out the round, and I was able to grab the General, which gave me 2 more dice, bringing my total to 9.
As this was our first game ever, we weren't clear on the winning conditions. The rules say, "each player tries, on his turn, to roll as high a dice result as he can..." But they don't tell you what that really means. Most of us assumed this meant the highest overall dice total, counting all he pips. This is not the case. Really, "the more dice of a kind the better (e.g. eight 1’s is better
than seven 6’s). With the same number of dice of a kind, the higher the number the better, of course."
Zach started the final round with 9 dice and managed to get 9 fours. Brian had good manipulation cards, including the Nobleman which alllowed him to add 2 pips to every die. This would have been great if we were going for highest total, but since he only had 8 dice, he could not win. Robert, even with the Queen, only had 8. I was the only other player with 9 dice and I was able to roll 9 fives to take the win. I got a little lucky at the end, but so did Zach to get his nine-of-a-kind, so I don't feel bad.
Having played it once from start to finish, I think it would be beneficial to the group to play it again with knowledge of what it takes to win. Otherwise, I don't find the game fun or interesting enough to pull out again.
Mall of Horror
This is one of my favorite board games. I have already written a full-length review, so there is no need to go into the details here. Tonight was the first time we played it with six. I really wanted to introduce it to Brian and he enjoyed it as much as I thought he would. The Security Office was dominated by Zach, Brian, and Ian in that order. They were also seated in that order, and Zach began character placement by placing his gun-guy in the office. I had a suspicion that the roll of Security Chief was slightly too powerful and this session reinforced that as Zach went on to win with Brian in second (more on this later). Because zombies were not showing up a the Security Office, Zach was able to sit pretty there for a long time. The same thing happened in the usually deadly Parking Lot, where Brian was able to gather a bunch of cards.
In the penultimate round, I screwed up by playing it safe. Though I knew it was a bad idea, I placed my two remaining characters into the same location. Generally, this is a bad thing to do, especially as the zombies piled up, but I thought I was taking a calculated risk. I really was walking into a trap. In the final round, I could only move one of them and the other would be left to die as the zombies swarmed the area. But an interesting thing happened. This was in area 3. Zack was in area 5 (yes, the Security Office) and was also going to be overrun. But because my guy died first, it triggered the end-condition of only having 6 characters left on the board, and Zach was able to win because the helicopters came before his guy died. If the timing had been different, Brian would have won.
Earlier, I had screwed up the rules, thinking that the end was triggered with 4 characters and told this to the group. In my defense, this is the case in all games except with 6 players. To my guilt, though, I simply failed to read the game summary properly. Had we realized my error sooner, the end of the game and winner might have been different.
Shadow Hunters
Ian kicked my ass this time. I was cruising along as the Vampire, trying to figure out who everyone was. I was taking a bit of damage, but not enough to start using my healing ability (requiring me to reveal myself). Ian, playing a Hunter, got a Hermit card that forced me to show him my card. He had determined with a Hermit card and meta-knowledge that Brian was the other shadow and attacked him. This screwed me up a bit. I was sitting at 7 or 8 damage when Ian turned and brought the smack-down on me, revealing himself and doing enough damage to kill me in one turn. Oh well.
Zach (the Neutral) and Brian (the Werewolf) managed to pull out a co-win by killing the two Hunters, but I don't remember how it all went down. There was the usuall post-game discussion of how powers are unbalanced, some cards are really useless, and what changes should be made. I feel that the idea of the game is really good, but the execution just falls short and it begs to be reworked.
Labels: Other Games
posted by Patrick at 8:28 AM
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