Friday Night Gaming: Clans, Moai, Volle Wolle
April 17, 2009
Zach was supposed to have run Street Fighter, but he never showed. This particular post is late due the relative ennui I've been feeling about the site. That and Google thinks this is a spam blog, for some bloody reason.
Clans
I brought this over hoping to play while we waited for everyone to arrive and I'm happy that we were able to do just that.
The first game featured Robert, Merwin, and myself while Jill semi-watched. It took Merwin a long time to wrap his head around it. And even though I was following him, it didn't seem to help me and I couldn't get any traction. Robert was the clear winner.
However, we had piqued Jill's interest and she joined in the second game. She had a bit of a struggle wrapping her head around the rules, but no worse than anyone else playing the first time. Meanwhile, it seemed to me that Merwin basically gave up trying to get the game. I ended up winning by a good margin.
Moai
Rather than wait until the end as we did last time, we all ganged up on Ian from the beginning. Meanwhile, I kept tangling with Brian which cost me momentum during the first few rounds when I couldn't get any wood. Because if this, I wrote myself off (and some of the others might have as well). However, I managed to gain considerable ground and had the lead going into the final round. I compare my situation to a middle-distance runner who starts his final kick just a bit too soon. Robert was able to destroy one of my moai, which set me back enough that I really had to work at the end. But I wasn't paying attention. I made the tactical error of pulling out the rules for our next game and was studying it instead of figuring out what I needed to do to win. I knew that Robert would win if someone didn't stop him, so I focused on denying him wood, which limited how many moai he could build (not only because he lacked wood, but was using his workers to fight for the wood rather than building a moai). But this also netted me nothing and all my workers starved in the final round. Meanwhile, Brian focused on simply keeping his workers alive and pulled away with the win. Had I been paying attention and not sacrificed my workers, focusing on getting points rather than stopping Robert from getting points, I might have had a shot at the win, but I'm not worried about it.
Volle Wolle
Ian left early because he had to fly to Japan the next day.
Merwin called the game "quaint," which is pretty accurate. It has elements of a dice game and a set-collecting card game. In this case, the dice are a d8, d10, and d12 with the goal of rolling as high as you can. The cards feature cute artwork of sheep and are of good, but not great quality. They are square with rounded corners, making them a little awkward to shuffle, but luckily it only has to be done once at the start of the game. Each player also has a bidding card and a cute little clothespin with which to secretly indicate the bid, by clamping the pin on the bid value which are positioned on the outside of the card.
A number of cards (one more than the number of players) are dealt face-up. The cards have a point value and over the course of the game, whoever collects cards with the most points wins. The cards depicting black sheep have negative values. There are also a few special 3-7-0 cards, which are worth 3 points if you only collect 1 such card, 7 points if you get a pair, but no points if you have 3 of them. Similarly, there are 0-0-7 cards. There are sheep dog cards, worth 9 points if you only have 1, but you get negative points if you either don't have one or have the most sheep dogs. There is also a bone card which gives you bonus points for each sheep dog you have.
As you collect cards, you place them in a single stack and are not allowed to review your pile, so you have to remember which cards you picked up. The top card of the pile may give you a positive or negative modifier to your die roll. In general, black sheep give a positive bonus whereas sheep worth more give you a negative modifier. Each card also has a number from 1 to 60 (or something like that). The value of the card on the top of your stack is used to break ties during the bidding process.
Once cards are revealed, each player makes a bid. The highest bidder goes first and rolls the 3 dice. If the roll (with any bonuses from the top card of your pile) equals or exceeds your bid, you get 3 of the face-up cards. If not, you can re-roll 2 of the dice. If you get your bid, you get 2 of the cards. If not, you can re-roll 1 of the dice you just rerolled. If this makes it, you get 1 card. If you fail to get your bid, you get a wool token (actually, a gray wooden disk). When rolling, you can spend a wool token to increase your die roll by 1; at the end of the game, each disk is worth 2 points (iirc). If you fail to roll 14 after 3 rolls, you are forced to take any and all black sheep that were dealt. When you win cards, you pick which ones and can choose the order in which they go into your stack.
Then, the next lowest bidder goes. The person with the lowest bid doesn't have to roll and simply gets all the cards that are left. It's also possible that that lowest bidders don't get any cards. You keep going in this way until all the cards have been captured and then you add up all the points of your cards, noting any black sheep or sets you were able to make.
I could never get any traction, and while Merwin and Robert were racking in cards, I floundered around. I even ended up with the most sheep dogs. Some of it was due to unlucky die rolls and some was due to being completely unable to predict what everyone else was going to bid. Brian seemed to be in much the same boat, but was still doing better than I was. In the end, we thought that Merwin was going to be the clear winner, but Robert managed to pull off a couple of good sets of 3-7-0 and 0-0-7 cards and came away with the most points.
As a filler, I guess it's an ok game, but I'd rather play Clans.
Zach was supposed to have run Street Fighter, but he never showed. This particular post is late due the relative ennui I've been feeling about the site. That and Google thinks this is a spam blog, for some bloody reason.
Clans
I brought this over hoping to play while we waited for everyone to arrive and I'm happy that we were able to do just that.
The first game featured Robert, Merwin, and myself while Jill semi-watched. It took Merwin a long time to wrap his head around it. And even though I was following him, it didn't seem to help me and I couldn't get any traction. Robert was the clear winner.
However, we had piqued Jill's interest and she joined in the second game. She had a bit of a struggle wrapping her head around the rules, but no worse than anyone else playing the first time. Meanwhile, it seemed to me that Merwin basically gave up trying to get the game. I ended up winning by a good margin.
Moai
Rather than wait until the end as we did last time, we all ganged up on Ian from the beginning. Meanwhile, I kept tangling with Brian which cost me momentum during the first few rounds when I couldn't get any wood. Because if this, I wrote myself off (and some of the others might have as well). However, I managed to gain considerable ground and had the lead going into the final round. I compare my situation to a middle-distance runner who starts his final kick just a bit too soon. Robert was able to destroy one of my moai, which set me back enough that I really had to work at the end. But I wasn't paying attention. I made the tactical error of pulling out the rules for our next game and was studying it instead of figuring out what I needed to do to win. I knew that Robert would win if someone didn't stop him, so I focused on denying him wood, which limited how many moai he could build (not only because he lacked wood, but was using his workers to fight for the wood rather than building a moai). But this also netted me nothing and all my workers starved in the final round. Meanwhile, Brian focused on simply keeping his workers alive and pulled away with the win. Had I been paying attention and not sacrificed my workers, focusing on getting points rather than stopping Robert from getting points, I might have had a shot at the win, but I'm not worried about it.
Volle Wolle
Ian left early because he had to fly to Japan the next day.
Merwin called the game "quaint," which is pretty accurate. It has elements of a dice game and a set-collecting card game. In this case, the dice are a d8, d10, and d12 with the goal of rolling as high as you can. The cards feature cute artwork of sheep and are of good, but not great quality. They are square with rounded corners, making them a little awkward to shuffle, but luckily it only has to be done once at the start of the game. Each player also has a bidding card and a cute little clothespin with which to secretly indicate the bid, by clamping the pin on the bid value which are positioned on the outside of the card.
A number of cards (one more than the number of players) are dealt face-up. The cards have a point value and over the course of the game, whoever collects cards with the most points wins. The cards depicting black sheep have negative values. There are also a few special 3-7-0 cards, which are worth 3 points if you only collect 1 such card, 7 points if you get a pair, but no points if you have 3 of them. Similarly, there are 0-0-7 cards. There are sheep dog cards, worth 9 points if you only have 1, but you get negative points if you either don't have one or have the most sheep dogs. There is also a bone card which gives you bonus points for each sheep dog you have.
As you collect cards, you place them in a single stack and are not allowed to review your pile, so you have to remember which cards you picked up. The top card of the pile may give you a positive or negative modifier to your die roll. In general, black sheep give a positive bonus whereas sheep worth more give you a negative modifier. Each card also has a number from 1 to 60 (or something like that). The value of the card on the top of your stack is used to break ties during the bidding process.
Once cards are revealed, each player makes a bid. The highest bidder goes first and rolls the 3 dice. If the roll (with any bonuses from the top card of your pile) equals or exceeds your bid, you get 3 of the face-up cards. If not, you can re-roll 2 of the dice. If you get your bid, you get 2 of the cards. If not, you can re-roll 1 of the dice you just rerolled. If this makes it, you get 1 card. If you fail to get your bid, you get a wool token (actually, a gray wooden disk). When rolling, you can spend a wool token to increase your die roll by 1; at the end of the game, each disk is worth 2 points (iirc). If you fail to roll 14 after 3 rolls, you are forced to take any and all black sheep that were dealt. When you win cards, you pick which ones and can choose the order in which they go into your stack.
Then, the next lowest bidder goes. The person with the lowest bid doesn't have to roll and simply gets all the cards that are left. It's also possible that that lowest bidders don't get any cards. You keep going in this way until all the cards have been captured and then you add up all the points of your cards, noting any black sheep or sets you were able to make.
I could never get any traction, and while Merwin and Robert were racking in cards, I floundered around. I even ended up with the most sheep dogs. Some of it was due to unlucky die rolls and some was due to being completely unable to predict what everyone else was going to bid. Brian seemed to be in much the same boat, but was still doing better than I was. In the end, we thought that Merwin was going to be the clear winner, but Robert managed to pull off a couple of good sets of 3-7-0 and 0-0-7 cards and came away with the most points.
As a filler, I guess it's an ok game, but I'd rather play Clans.
Labels: Other Games
posted by Patrick at 12:01 PM
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