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Thurn & Taxis

So if I told you we were going to play a game where you build post office routes across Bavaria, how exited would you be? Probably pretty excited because you would know that this had to be the game, Thurn & Taxis! (A little history…) Throughout the course of the 16th century, the Taxis dynasty was entrusted as the imperial courier of the Holy Roman Empire and in the Spanish Netherlands, Spain, and Burgundy. The Thurn-und-Taxis-Post was operated by the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis between 1806 and 1867. So now you know why a post office game in Bavaria (Germany) is called Thurn & Taxis.

This was an old favorite of ours, but we hadn’t played it in a long time. We also have a couple of the expansions for the game, but decided to stick with the basic game this time. In Thurn & Taxis you gain victory points by claiming postal routes. The VPs could be for special cities, or because of the length of your route, or because of the area you now deliver too. One interesting dynamic about route claiming is that you rarely get to claim every city along your route. This is because you can only claim one city in each region along the route or all cities in a single region along the route. So you must plan, as best you can, to get the most cities claimed during your turn.

Everyone played a good game, but for most of the time the luck of the cards was with Ben. He seemed to be able to score long routes with many cities all of the time. Everyone else did their best to keep up with him. I realized midway through the game that my strategy was doomed to failure—as evident by my victory point placement. Ben quickly got down to his last five city tokens. (You use the city tokens to mark the cities along your routes.) We thought the game would be over soon, but quickly discovered that Ben was having a hard time getting routes in cities he didn’t already have routes through. This gave the rest of us time to catch up.

On what would be the next to last round of the game, Own had a choice to make. He could take a huge chance for a huge reward or play it safe and get a lessor reward. The ever safe Owen chose the latter. This caused him to tie for second with Mike at 26 points. Had he taken the chance, he would have challenged Ben’s first place showing. Ben had 33 points. I had a respectable 24 points, but still came in last.

Chaos Steve

Star Wars Game 3

Worf – Wookie (Lee)
Elderkin Something – Padawan (Steve) (Absent this month)
Sy (Orion) Kentaurus – Padawan (Shawn)
James Border (Bond) – Padawan (Alex)
R4-GMM – R4 droid (Grace)
Obi-Wan – Padawan (Ben)

Our intrepid Star Travellers started the game by realizing they could not possibly be on the right planet.  So they re-checked their Navigation charts and R4 realized her error.  Soon they were docking on the correct planet and visiting the local establishments looking for a guide to take them up the trails to the volcano.  Elderkin remained aboard the ship with their prisoner Madicus Rex (as usual).

After finding a guide, they started for the volcano.  The trip was long and while they were resting their guide scouted ahead to make sure the trail was clear.  While he was gone, a band of Confederate goons attacked them!  It was a bloody battle!  The Padawans took heavy wounds, but soon managed to take out the Confederate attackers.  Assuming the guide had planned this trap for them, they decided to go forward and see if they could find the path to the volcano on their own.  About an hour later they find the body of the guide and his speeder bike wrecked in the woods.

Later, as the Padawans get close to the volcano, they spot a path leading to some caves.  They explore the caves and discover a hoard of crystals being guarded by a small squad of droids.  Even in their wounded conditions they were able to dispatch the droids and take the crystals with them back to the ship.

All the Padawans were able to make Lightsabers, as they travelled back to the Jedi Council to report what they found.  While at the council, they discovered that R4 has a glitch caused by some special hardware and software that is intricate to her systems.  They find that a Jedi droid maker named Cylon Brazier created R4-GMM.  The Padawans have decided to visit one of the few people who knew Cylon well…his Jedi Master and expert droid builder, Polo Muerde.

 

Savage Worlds Pirate’s Game xxx

(Written by Ben, who still is not technologically advanced enough to get on the internet at home.)

It was a dark and story night off the south coast of England….meanwhile in the Caribbean it is hot and sunny, as usual. The crew of the Black Prince find them selves up river. Duncan acquired a map, stolen from the Spanish ambassador. Of course the map is for treasure, and X always marks the spot.

A small elite squad headed further up river in three boats. Buck insisted on bringing extra crew and boats to haul off the huuuge amount of treasure they were obviously going to find. Some Griffons attacked them while they were in the boats and after some running and screaming, falling in the river etc the griffons were fought off.

Slogging through the jungle, they came across a 100 ft high tree stripped of all its branches, except two in the form of a cross. From the top of the tree a ziggurat could be seen two miles away, overgrown with vines. In front of the ziggurat the remains of a city could be seen, now overgrown. All is quiet in the clearing. no hostile tribes, no drums in the jungle.

Suddenly there is movement off to one side of the clearing. Footprints in the mud, it seems the group was being watched.

An amazing series of tracking rolls by Duncan, to follow the footprints, led the party to a native village. The chief, “Tofu Seafood” (he must have been a Jedi master in another life) comes out greet them. Well after much excitement in the village the chief calls for a feast. Whilst waiting for the food to cook he offers everyone some recreational smoking; some Peyote. Getting bored waiting for the food the chief jumps up and calls for the group to follow him, to the ziggurat; the great temple of Unka Lunka. He runs all the way through the jungle, across the abandoned city, up the great staircase to the top of the ziggurat. Ignoring the nest of baby Griffons at the top, he pushes a sacrifice alter to one side to reveal a secret stair case. Down he goes, followed by the party. Down a ramp, to a giant stone skull statue. Turns the lever in the left eye socket and pushes the skull out of the way to reveal another secret stair. On he goes. The party first lights some torches and quickly follows the chief, down into the dark of a great chamber. Pools of molten lava are on the floor, in-between rows of very nicely painted columns. Tofu Seafood is standing in the middle of the great hall and call out in a great roar…some ethereal ghostly figures rise from the floor and start to fight Tofu. He strikes one of them down with his great spear, but the ghosts are too much for him, he is hacked to pieces and falls dead into the lava. The part is alone in the dark, looking down on the death of the mighty Tofu (told you he was a Jedi master in a previous life).

As Tofu Seafood died, his very nice, youngest daughter leans forward and offers you a plate of roast wild boar. She gives Nicholas an extra special smile. You are all seated around the camp fire with a wild boar roasting on a spit. It would seem the journey into the ziggurat was all a dream, a waking dream in the spirit world. The chief Tofu is very much alive.

The next morning after you have feasted on wild boar and on the chiefs youngest daughter, The chief wishes you great luck and gives to the mighty warrior Nicholas, his long spear (apparently it is a wedding gift) and some more peyote. Anyway….journey to the temple, fight the griffons, Buck stumbles into a pit trap and fall into a dark snake lair. By some miracle the snake gets past Bucks parry and bites him (there was some confusion about +2 to attack because of the snakes small size. If only Steve was there to clarify the rules). By even more of a miracle Buck doesn’t die. A few more traps and poison darts on the way down into the ziggurat.

Fighting the ghosts proved to be a problem. Buck had the magic spear from the chief, but he broke it. Thomas decided to smoke some more peyote but got a bit confused and everyone looked like a ghost. So what to do when surrounded by ghosts….start shooting…no really!! There was Buck on one side and Nicholas on the other, who to shoot? Nicholas persuaded Thomas not to shoot him and shoot buck instead by the old favorite “look out behind you !”.

Anyway Duncan ran across the burning lava to retrieve the treasure (a golden idol) but his shoes caught on fire. Eventually the golden idol was retrieved and Thomas stopped shooting people.

And the group went back to village for a nice cup of tea.

Railroad Tycoon: Railways of England and Wales

Last night’s game night was called off due to Mike’s work going nuclear. Then we found out that Ben doesn’t read his email. He showed up at Owen’s ready to take them both to gaming. Calls were made and a plan decided upon. We would meet at my house and play Railroad Tycoon: Railways of England and Wales. I let Mike know what was going on, just in case. Turns out he could make it after all, so game night was saved and all of us got to play.

Owen and Ben both started building their railways in the north. Mike started in the north too, then moved to the west, then changed to the northwest, then realized his tracks weren’t connected properly. Ben, Owen, and Mike all took advantage of Delivery Service Bounties. That gave them all an early lead over me. I built my railways around London. I did this mostly because I could earn 8 points at the end of the game from my Tycoon card. It turned out to be a good investment throughout the game.

I was pretty much alone in the south, except for a few rail lines owned by Mike. Ben and Owen filled the north with so many railroads that it became a jumbled, twisted mass of writhing tracks. As the game wound down, Owen had the lead with Ben and me fighting for second place. Owen did win, but it was close. Ben’s seemingly endless supply of 5 and 6 deliveries, along with my excessive seven shares, allowed him to take second place. Mike and I ended in last and next to last place, just like last game. Only this time, Mike was so far in last place that I’m not even sure he played the same game as us.

Ok, that last statement was a little cruel. I mean, Mike spent all day on business calls, some having over a hundred people on them. As business fires blazed around him, he fought them dutifully and bravely all day. He deserves better than to be stabbed in the back by some callous THIRD PLACE finisher. Sure that THIRD PLACE finisher was like 50 points ahead of him, but that doesn’t matter. Mike showing up and playing, that’s what’s important here. So I want that…uh…what was I talking about? Well, I’m sure it’s wasn’t important. Looking forward to next time!

Chaos Steve

Railroad Tycoon: Railways of England and Wales

This week Andy joined us as we played Railroad Tycoon: Railways of England and Wales. Ben
and Owen had a slight advantage as they actually knew where the cities were
located on the game board. The rest of us were always asking “Where is Cabbageford?”
or “How far is Buttsandbother from Nopantshaven?”

The game started off with Owen shipping the first cube of
goods and taking a huge lead. Everyone else struggled to catch up. As the game
wore on and everyone began to carve out their rail lines, it was obvious to me
that I wasn’t going to do well. Even Andy, who had never played before, was
keeping up with the leaders. Ben and Owen were firmly planted in the center of
the board. Mike was on the western coast. Andy was mostly south and I was in
the southwest.

Owen went after every extra bit of points he could using the
cards and special rail lines to his advantage. Ben was hoping his lack of
shares would help throughout the entire game. Mike was deep into financing his
line by issuing share after share. Only at the end of the game did he realize
they counted against him as negative points. I blundered about managing to stay
in last place, but still keep up with the rest of the group. Andy quietly turned
his southern railway into a massive shipping line.

Andy won the game with Ben and Owen following behind him.
Mike thought the negative 15 points for his many shares would land him in last
place. It did not. I was two points behind him. He was very excited about that.

Chaos Steve

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode $%^

(I’m too tired to figure out the screwy formatting.)

Another Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main game came
and went last night. I’ve lost track of what episode we’re on. So far, GM Ben
has led us on a twisty trail of madness in the Caribbean.  I missed most of last night. Not because I
wasn’t there, but because I was sick and kept falling asleep. Fortunately the
guys good-naturedly pelted me with dice and bennies when it was my turn to do
something.

So just what did happen last night? I remember we were in a
port. Being superb seamen, we backed our two ships into the docks. Then we went
carousing. Duncan returned to the ship with a hangover. Nicholas returned to
the ship with two serving girls. I’d say Nicholas won. Then it was off to a
noon breakfast onboard the ship of Captain Hawkins. Once we got there, all hell
broke loose. As we met with Capt. Hawkins for a quiet breakfast, he was shot dead
by our sworn nemesis Timmy Tims. Tims jumped ship. Thomas fired shot after shot
at him, but Tims is a slippery rascal.

Nichols quickly went to find the cook. The cook was
important to us as he has one of the three watches that contained the secret to
the treasure we were seeking. We cut the cook in for a 1/3 share.  (We’ve lost track of all the folks we’ve cut
in for a 1/3 share.) Meanwhile the crew had heard the shots, found their captain
dead, and began looking at us funny. Buck, Duncan, and Desmond all climbed into
a long boat to catch Tims, who was swims to shore. Thomas decided this was a
perfect time to name himself captain of the now captain-less ship. Thomas fought
the biggest pirate on board. He must have lost because soon he was climbing
down the nets on the side of the ship. Nicholas and the cook both jumped for
it.

Meanwhile Buck and Duncan had caught up to Tims and were
trying to kill him. After many, many attempts, we finally succeeded. By that
time though the 6 crewman in our longboat had realized that something was
wrong, as their counterparts on the ship were yelling at them to get us. Buck killed
two before the rest were knocked into the water. We picked up the cook, Thomas
and Nicholas and hightailed it back to our ships. We immediately set sail.
Strangely every ship in port set sail after us.

Mike, who was on the larger of our two ships manage to run
it aground at the harbor entrance.

That’s where we ended for the night.  Will we be able to save the grounded ship?
Will the other ships catch us? Will we leave Buck behind to suffer the hangman’s
noose? Will we wave to Buck as we sail off to finds the treasure? When Buck is
out of sight, will we still think of him fondly? All these questions and more
will be answered next time.

Chaos Steve

The Players:

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who run a great game of Pirates.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: a dual knife wielding maniac who lusts after a bigger ship.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter, who lusts after all the beautiful women.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded pirate who sleeps with his musket and steals clothes.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions, but still comes out on top.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.

Savage Star Wars – Game 2

Worf – Wookie (Lee)
Elderkin Something – Padawan (Steve) (Absent this month)
Sy (Orion) Kentaurus – Padawan (Shawn)
James Border (Bond) – Padawan (Alex)
R4-GMM – R4 droid (Grace)
Obi-Wan – Padawan (Ben)

This Month (supposedly): The resolution of the meeting with Dubu and Lightsabers will be constructed!

So our intrepid Star travelers cleaned up the monastery and took the scientist (Madicus Rex) as prisoner. The Padawans discovered that the crystals they found were of poor quality and would not last long if used in Lightsabers.

Their Jedi Masters then tried to complete negotiations with Dubu the Hutt. But as usual, negotiations with the Hutts are not easy. The Hutts required additional payments be made to them by the Empire in order to sign the treaty with the Empire.

While the negotiations were going on, the Padawans did some interrogating of Madicus Rex. Eventually they discovered that Darth Tyranus is prepared to slaughter his entire family in order to keep his experiments with The Force secret. So the Jedi agreed to rescue Madicus’ family in exchange for the location of a planet with crystals that can be used for making Lightsabers.

The Jedi Masters needed to head back to the Jedi Council in order to work out the deal with the Empire and the Hutts. They agreed to let the Padawans decide what the best course of action for them would be. They could either come back to the Jedi Council or go searching for crystals. The Padawans chose crystals.

Since they had no ship, they decided to take the one that the Confederates were using and that Madicus had access to. Their plan was to have Madicus claim that he needed to get something off of the ship and that he had brought the rest of these people as bearers. However, when asked for identification code, Madicus found that his code was no longer any good and a firefight broke out. They were attacked from the rear by a group of mercenaries that they recognized from Dubu’s throne room. They seemed to be led by an Empire ambassador.  After a couple of crippling attacks on the Padawans, they were able to get aboard the ship. The guards then dropped their weapons and backed away to let them leave when Obi-Wan (Ben) shot the unarmed guard and killed him!  He drew 3 corruption cards! I suspect he will be the first to succumb to the Dark Side.

The Padawans sent a message to the Jedi Council that there may be an Empire traitor in their midst. Then R4 made a critical failure on her Navigation roll (again). They wound up at the wrong planet; however, all believe they were on the right planet to find the crystals.  What they found was a large angry creature and a cave full of guano covered crystals of very poor quality. After Worf took the creature down with just one shot, James Border critically failed his roll in the guano cave and was made very sick.

Next Month: Lightsabers will be constructed?  I’m not holding my breath on that.  :)

Rise of Empires

This week Owen brought Rise of Empires, so we settled down to play it. We’ve tried this game two other times and liked it both times. You can read about our previous games here and here. The game started out normally enough, we all jockeyed for position trying to gain resources, gold, people, and victory points. We caught Ben cheating a dozen times, and Mike once or twice. A couple of times we had to backup and redo actions that we realized broke the rules. This mostly happened during the combat action. I sure this action has a better name in the game, like “expansion” or “exploration”, but to us, it’s “combat”. It seems hard for us to remember the rules concerning how you expand your empire. I didn’t have to remember those rules, as I hardly expanded my tiny empire anywhere.

We had a really good time during the game with lots a good natured ribbing and finger pointing. I like this kind of management-type game. I also suck at this kind of management-type game. And the reason I like is the same reason I suck at it. You have lots of options and choices available to you.  I invariably choose the wrong option or make the wrong choice. Give me a straightforward game like Roborally and I can speed across the factory floor while pushing my opponents into bottomless pits—by accident of course. In these management games, my decisions border on disastrous.

So how did our game end? Well we made it through 2 of the 3 eras in about 2+ hours. Not bad. Towards the end of the game it was obvious that Mike and Ben were the contenders for the win and Owen and I were contenders for not-being-last. I cemented my position in the game by making a huge blunder on the last turn. I was last in victory points which meant I got to choose what position in the turn order I wanted to be. In the previous round, going last was good, so I chose it. Had I only realized that now, going first was much, much better. It cost me 10 victory points and 3rd place. I came in last. Woe is me. As for the less important first place position, Ben took that. Mike was second and Owen was third.

I’m sure when the other guys read this they’ll wonder “why didn’t you mention this funny thing or that great quip?” That’s because I’ve forgotten them all; just like I want to forget this game…that I hope we play again soon.

Chaos Steve

 

Savage Star Wars – Game 1

Worf – Wookie (Lee)
Elderkin Something – Padawan (Steve)
Sy (Orion) Kentaurus – Padawan (Shawn)
James Border (Bond) – Padawan (Alex, 10)
R4-GMM – R4 droid (Grace, 10)
Obi-Wan – Padawan (Ben, 9)

Our first game playing Evil Mike’s Savage Worlds Star Wars rules. I basically used the best ideas of other people and added some of my own.

Our game started with the Padawans and their Masters, being asked to visit Dubu the Hutt and secure his agreement to either join the Galactic Empire, open up travel through Hutt space, or at least not join the Confederacy of Independent Systems. The group is sent to Tatooine with a wookie and R4 droid on one of the Jedi transport ships.

After a critical failure on a navigation roll, the wookie was able to escape the scout ships from the confederacy that had spotted them. Back on track they arrived a day late to meet with Dubu. Upon arriving, the Jedi Masters were called away on an emergency mission, leaving the Padawans to begin negotiations with Dubu. Dubu asked for a good faith showing from the Jedi (after remarking about the lack of even one Jedi Master to negotiate with). He wanted the Jedi to clear out a neighboring monastery that Dubu was interested in acquiring. After some trepidation the padawans agreed to see what they could do. There was one catch, they had only 2 days to get it done since the Confederacy was coming the padawans wanted to have a deal with Dubu before then.

The padawans went to the nearby town and did some digging around on the monastary. They found out that Dubu had been trying to get his hands on it for several years. R4-GMM discovered the plans to the monastary and they quickly (like 45 minutes!) decided to go through the back door that led into an underground cave.

Upon sneaking into the cave they discovered a giant worm that was guarding the back door. After several useless attacks, they determined that they could shoot the stalagmite off the ceiling and crush the worm! After several rounds of attempting this, they finally succeeded. Obi-Wan and James found crystals for their Lightsabers and Worf found a dead body. Elderkin and R4 determined that the body was that of a “reborn”. A dark side force re-animated corpse that had been imbued with force powers. With R4’s help on the door, they got into the monastary.

Going to the control room first, R4 tapped into the cameras and discovered a lab where it appeared a scientist was using huge “force batteries” to transfer the force from a couple of victims (or volunteers?) into two new corpses. They quickly went to dispatch the scientist. Again with R4’s help to unlock the door, they nearly killed the scientist and asked him to surrender. He accepted, but not before sending a message off to some unknown person at some unknown location. Just then the Padawan’s masters showed up to offer their aid.

Next Month: The resolution of the meeting with Dubu and lightsabers will be constructed!

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode XII

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode XII

Word of the week: (This week you get to pick your own word. Don’t waste this opportunity.)

Several things changed this week. For one, we played on Monday night and secondly, I’ve placed the player info at the end. For those of you who hate change, skip to the bottom and read this post backwards. It’ll be just as riveting.

The first part of the night was spent in recapping, negotiating, planning, and sleeping. It was I who was doing the latter.

Then we got to the meat of the night. Along with Capt. Hawkins we began raiding the Spanish settlements along the Mesquite Coast. (I’m sure it probably isn’t the Mesquite Coast, but in this write-up, it is.) Our job was to take out the port’s cannons so Hawkins’s ship could safely enter the harbor and wreak havoc.

We stealthily entered the town and made our way to the cannons. Buck and Duncan led the way followed by Nicholas and some of the crew. Why Nicholas came with us, is one of those mysteries that will never be solved. Thomas chose a house that would make a good sniper’s nest and proceeded to break into it. We’ll come back to Thomas’s daring dos in a moment.

Buck and Duncan stealthily ran through the streets, but it was Duncan who led the way to the cannons, arriving first and dispatching the sleeping guard. Unbeknownst to Duncan though, a whole gander of nearby guards watched in horror as he killed their companion. They were not happy. Fortunately Buck appeared and threw a black powder grenade into their midst. Then the fight began in earnest as more guards poured out of the barracks.

Let’s go back and see how Thomas is doing at the house. For the first several rounds, the door out-fought and out-thought Thomas at every turn, barring him entrance. The dog inside began to bark, waking up the occupants. Thomas did manage to get in through the unyielding door. He then killed the poor defense hound. Thomas raced up the stairs, only to nearly collide with a portly man in his nightshirt. The man was

So let’s recap.
Thomas was stymied by a door for almost an hour.
Thomas killed a defenseless, but rather loud, barking dog.
Thomas scared a fat man in his nightshirt.

Ah, this is the stuff of legends.

This is part 1 of the adventure. Be sure to check back in a couple weeks to see if Thomas makes it to the roof before we are done sacking the town.

Chaos Steve

The Players:

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who run a great game of Pirates.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: a dual knife wielding maniac who lusts after a bigger ship.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter, who lusts after all the beautiful women.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded pirate who sleeps with his musket and steals clothes.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions, but still comes out on top.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.