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Dungeon Lords

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking how great it would be to build your own dungeon complete with special rooms, terrifying monsters (and ghosts), and insanely clever traps. Then you’d sit back and watch the clumsy, ill equipped party of heroes try to survive while searching for your carefully hidden treasures. I am right? Well then Dungeon Lords is the game for you. (And if Evil Mike would figure out why we can’t upload images any longer, there would be a nice graphic of the game box at the top of the post.) In the game each player is the lord of a dungeon. Through the clever use of you minions (administrators) and imp (imps) you construct a dungeon, create traps, and hire fearsome monsters (and ghosts). But don’t think that being a dungeon lord is all gold and lilies. You also have to pay those fearsome monsters (and ghosts) that fill your dungeon. If you don’t, they go rampaging around the countryside mumbling about your horrible administrative skills. Worse yet is the Ministry of Dungeons that requires taxes from all dungeon lords. So you see, you have your job cut out for you. There is also the matter of your reputation, if you get to be too evil, the paladin may come knocking on your door. And I know you don’t want that to happen, so you need to manage your evilness as well. One last note: the rules, although long, are extremely clever and filled with several training dungeons. The training dungeons are so you can get a feel for the nuances of killing heroes foolish enough to delve into your dungeon.

Now let’s talk about our game*. Our game* was a lot of fun. Never have I seen so much inept game* playing. Although all of us had occasions of not being able to afford something we selected during dungeon construction, Ben wins hands down for using awesome strategy to acquire a dragon and then was not able to pay for it. But by far the best (or worse) case was Mike and Ben not being able to pay their taxes to Ministry of Dungeons. You get -3 victory points for every gold you can’t pay. At the end of the game Mike had a -15 and Ben -21 from “fines”. As I mentioned, Ben was on a roll…straight down the tubes. At one point Owen commented, “His (Ben’s) cheating is coming thick and fast now. My head is swirling.” But Ben’s cheating mattered little in our game*. We were doomed, doomed I tell you. Mostly because of the plethora of rules Ben neglected to tell us or just had completely wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pointing any fingers at Ben. (Yes, I am.) The game* was all the more fun because of our outrageously inept playing and getting so many rules utterly wrong. Our ending scores (in no particular order): Ben -12, Steve +21, Owen +13, Mike -06, and Ben with -12. Ben came in last with -12. I won the game*. We liked the game* and plan on playing it (somewhat) correctly next week.

Chaos Steve, Dungeon Lord, Monster Lord, and Battle Lord (You get titles in this game* too.)

*The guys kept telling me that this game had so many *’s that I thought I should note that.

Galactic Emperor

Monday night found us each struggling to become the Galactic Emperor. Galactic Emperor resembles Twilight Imperium III in many ways. You’re building a galactic empire. Each round you chose roles which cause certain events to occur. You use star ships and wield political influence to expand your empire and the planets in your empire produce resources. It plays much differently though. For one thing, there is a greater emphasis on combat. I like this. Conquering plants with your fleet is fun–as is taking planets from other players. And as an added bonus, you get victory points for taking planets away from other players. Mike and I had actually played this game before at Gencon a couple of years ago. Neither of us remembered any details, so for all practical purposes it made little difference during the game.

Our game started well. All of us were expanding our empires. It seemed by the look of it that Mike and I were doing the best based up goods and technologies. That all changed once our empires grew within striking distance of each other. Evil Mike broke our truce and attacked me (and won) with his fleet. I retaliated AND I attacked Owen to the other side of me. Now I was stupidly fighting a two front war. Ben’s empire had dwindled some, so he took advantage of me attacking Mike, to attack Mike on the other side of his empire. Owen kicked my butt in the coming space battles and I eventually lost all of my ships. (Rolling four 1’s on four attack dice didn’t help either.) Mike actually told Ben what to do at one point during Ben’s turn. Amazingly Ben listened and had his best turn ever.

We were running out of time, so we ended about a round short of finishing the game. We thought Mike was going to easily have the most victory points. It turned out that he and Owen tied for first with 24 VPs. Ben came in last with 18 VPs. I floundered in the middle with 20.

I think we all liked this game. The one thing I learned was that if you buy a technology, have the presence of mind to use it! I forgot every single time and finally on the last round the guys let me use it just so I wouldn’t appear to be a complete idiot…even though it was too late for that.

Chaos Steve

Gloria Mundi & Kingdoms

After winning at Gloria Mundi last week, I was pretty sure that everyone would want a rematch this week. For some reason, my friends seem to have a hard time swallowing the fact that through cunning strategy and impeccable timing I am able to win once in a while. Luck might have a little to do with it too…LOTS of luck. So how did this week’s game go? Well…

We first decided to randomly choose our positions at the gaming table. I know that might seem rather odd, but changing our table positions can change the dynamic of the game a bit. The game started off just like the last game, but soon one fact became very clear to Mike and I. We were not going to win. And we were only about half way through the game. Both Owen and Ben had been able to develop several buildings that gave them movement points, which is how you win the game. I, on the other hand, was inexplicably using Ben’s strategy from the previous game. (I think Ben came in last in that game.) I could generate vast amounts a certain resources, but no movement. Mike was struggling to get both resources and moment points. So as Mike and I watched, Ben and Owen got further and further ahead of us.

In the final moves of the game, Ben took a big risk and called for a Farm turn that gave both Ben and Owen vast amounts of moment points. It moved Ben within two moves of winning, but propelled Owen to within one move of winning. Now, Owen only needed a gold resource behind his screen; because if he did, he could use it to move and win the game. Alas Ben’s risky move paid off. Owen did not have the gold he needed, so Ben won the game. Mike came in last.

We still had some time so we played Kingdoms. Kingdoms is played over three rounds in which you score points on a grid where you have castles in the rows and columns. After the first round we were all in the same point neighborhood. Mike was in the lead, but was catchable. That all changed after the second round. Mike jump 100 points ahead of the rest of us. And the rest of us were all within 10 points of each other. So the final round turned into not so much trying to stop Mike as it was to try not to be last! After much backstabbing by the rest of us, Mike won with 289 points. Owen did a good job of catching up (much to his surprise) with 229 points. I had 219 points and Ben brought up the rear with 198 points.

Next week we’re playing Galactic Emperor.

Chaos Steve

Gloria Mundi

We played an interesting game Monday night called Gloria Mundi. This is a game where you play a Roman statesman during the fall of the Roman Empire. The goal is to get as far from Rome as you can with the winner being the first to reach Africa. While the players are fleeing Rome, the Goths are rampaging towards Rome pillaging as they go. On a player’s turn, he decides what kind of a round it’s going to be: Farm, City, or Peace. The type of round he chooses determines what type of resources he gets. Unfortunately whatever a player chooses could help all the other players as well. After collecting resources, the player can build a building, if he can afford one. A player is able to move further from Rome by building buildings or by spending resources on a building’s ability. During the final phase of a player’s turn, he must decide if they are going to bribe the Goths or let them rampage, possibly destroying one or more of his holdings.

So how did our game go? Fantastic! In the beginning we all wondered just what the best strategy should be. We learned quickly just how devastating the Goth rampage can be. It wasn’t long though before a few players were using the Goth rampage to their advantage. I believe Owen was the first to cause someone else (me) to lose a resource card, while he scooped up the resource from the board.

Throughout the game I got very lucky in that I was able to purchase relatively cheap buildings that helped me move further and further from Rome. Soon I was in the lead and was managing to stay there. It looked liked Owen was going to give me a run for my money near the end of the game, but some unlucky resource losses kept him from getting too close. In the end I was able to win. (I told you the game went fantastic.) Owen was second, followed by Ben and then Mike.

I think we’re all anxious to play this again. Me, because it was fun. Everyone else, because they want to see if my win was pure luck or brilliant strategy. I think we all know which it was.

Chaos Steve

Ticket to Ride, Ingenious, & Kachina

On Monday night, Ben was King of the Games. Owen was gone on a trip through the tornado infested land of Mississippi, so it was just the three of us. Without Owen our gaming equilibrium was thrown off causing all kinds of strange things to happen; such as Ben being crowned King of the Games.

Our first game of the night was the Ticket to Ride card game. Mike and I could not stop Ben from continually placing many cards in his on-the-track card pile. (These are the cards you use to complete your destinations at the end of the game.) At the end of the game, both Mike and I had trouble completing all of our destinations. That meant negative points for us. Ben on the other hand completed all of his destinations; even the extra ones he had taken. He trounced Mike and I who were battling to not be in last place. It was close, but I was not last.

Next we played Ingenious, a tile placement game where your score at the end of the game is your lowest score within all your colors. Let me explain. The board is made up of hexes. The pieces are two joined hexes and each hex of the playing piece contains a different color. (Each color also has its own symbol, but we’ll just talk colors for now.) The idea is to score points by placing a piece such that the colors on it lie next to already-placed pieces with the same color. In our game, Ben once again was able to score vast amounts of points in all colors, nearly completing his entire score card. This time I failed to beat Mike and ended up in last place.

kachina
The last game of the night was Kachina, another tile placement game. This time Alex, Mike’s son, joined us too. Oh, what an awful game I played. I was in last place the entire game–usually way behind everyone else. Ben and Alex vied for first place most of the game. Mike got the biggest score of the night, nine points, which I gave him because of my previous tile placement. As the game drew to an end, Mike and I were scurrying to not be beaten by a nine-year old! Oh, the shame. Ben eventually won. Mike ended up tying the nine-year old and I came in last…behind the nine-year old. Well at least I was beaten by the best.

Chaos Steve

JimCon XV Con Report Available!

Howdy Harrowed Halls fans!  The latest JimCon Con Report is now available on Harrowed Halls!  Check it out!

Roborally

Evil Mike was out of town this week. When this happens it can only mean one thing…RoboRally! Ben, Owen, Mike the Younger, and I gathered at Andy’s house for the Straatman invitational. If you know nothing about RoboRally you can click the link above or go to GeekBo.com to check it out. Basically each player is one of several supercomputers in a fully automated widget factory. Each turn you program your robot’s path in a frantic, destructive race across the factory floors. Our games are always heavy on the destructive part of the race, as many of our robots are destroyed along the way. Fortunately you can archive copies of your robot along the way, so destruction isn’t the end, just a setback.

We like the robot option cards, so we have several home rules that include them. Each robot starts with an option and as you touch each flag you get a new option. This is above and beyond the normal option rules.

We made the horrible mistake of allowing Ben to pick the factory floor boards. (We play with the new Hasbro release of Roborally, but I have all of the boards and expansions from the original release too.) Of the three boards Ben chose, two were particularly deadly. One was filled with conveyors and spinning gears, while the worse of them was filled with lasers and walls—forcing you into the lasers.

All through our game we had lots of programming mistakes, but I don’t think any directly ended in robot destruction. Indirectly though, there was lots of damage as players used their robot lasers at every turn. My robot got off to a slow start and even was destroyed early in the game at the hands of a crusher. Still this ended up being a good thing. While everyone else was ahead of me, they were also interfering with each other, slowing each of them down. This allowed me to eventually catch up with my robot being pretty much unscathed.  Mike the younger took an early lead, but those nasty boards that Ben chose soon had his robot in trouble. This allowed everyone else to catch up. A low point for my robot was during the turn I powered down. Granted, I was in a horrible position, but Andy didn’t have to shove me into a laser (well, maybe he did actually.) And Mike didn’t have to keep shooting me…register phase after register phase. My power down turned into a destruction sequence.

At the end of the game Andy and Owen were primed for the win, but a mutually destructive laser battle postponed one of them from leaping in for the win. Ben and Mike were nearby, ready to touch the final flag too. But where was I? My robot was doing a spirited ballet on one of the spinning gears…right turn, right turn, right turn… In the end it was Owen’s robot that touched the final flag first-using his robot’s extendable arm, then his robot did a victory danced on the flag itself.

Chaos Steve

Rise of Empires (again)

Once again we tried our hands (and brains) at Rise of Empires–the game where you build an empire in just three short eras. Of course, for us those three short eras took four hours. If you want to know more about the game itself you can check out my previous post. Let’s just jump right in.

Ben is an idiot and so am I. That was the first revelation of the game. It doesn’t matter why or who said those things because those involved will be crushed! Crushed I tell you! But that will have to wait until another game–maybe Roborally. 

Just like our previous game, Mike took the lead and refused to let go of it. We tried everything short of poisoning his drink to overtake him, but he just kept scoring more victory points.  I spent most of the game in last place, while Ben and Owen shuffled around in between.  Owen tried a different strategy that didn’t depend upon owning areas on the board. Instead he grabbed up victory point yielding cities, technologies, and territories. This served him well at the end of the game. Both Mike and Ben took the shipping technology, that along with island territories; gain you any type of resource you want.  This time I settled on grabbing up forests that gained me people.  It cost me a fortune in food, sending me to the low edge of the food track, but I think it worked ok. Looking back on the game–and this may be obvious to everyone else–but it seems the less you need to fight with the other players over resources, the better you are.

Our game ended with Mike garnering about 160 victory points, Owen was only a short eight points away from him in second place. I think I was about 20 points behind Owen and Ben was way in last place…at the end…behind everyone…even me…again.  

(Ben’s still in his gaming slump, but on the up side he has been working feverously on a piece of gaming terrain for Mike. Somehow that makes it all ok.)

Chaos Steve

NormCon Report Preview

Well NormCon is over but we had a blast.   Here’s a rundown of the games we played.  Pictures, details, and humorous anecdotes will follow in the official Con Report.  Cheers!

Realms of Cthulhu
The weekend started Friday night with Evil Mike’s House on Haunted Hill inspired Realms of Cthulhu game on Friday night.  Much horror and hilarity ensued from many critical failures and the balcony railing…we followed up the game by watching the movie! 

Savage Sci-Fi
Saturday morning Chaos Steve ran a scifi game using AT-43 figs.  Lots of great scenery and figs and we even got to pick our own combination of mechanized suits and characters, very cool!

Tour of Darkness
Next up was Dave McGuire’s Tour of Darkness near TPK!  Nothing like a helicopter crash and losing all my gear to make me start counting each shot carefully so I don’t run out of bullets!

Savage Fantasy
Finally we ended the weekend with Norm’s Old School fantasy game!  Norm ran us through the new Reality Blurs “Keg for Dragon” adventure.  I’d completely forgotten that fantasy can be fun!

Rise of Empires

Last night we played a new game called Rise of Empires. Rise of Empires, as you may guess, is an empire-building game in which players develop their empire from Ancient Age to Modern Age. This is done over 3 era’s. Each era is broken into an A turn and a B turn. One unusual dynamic of the game is that what you do in your A turn, dictates what you will be able to do in your B turn. The B turn is almost a mirror image of your A turn. The main part of each turn is the Action phase. In it, each player takes six actions, one at a time, in turn order. These actions allow you to bolster your empire by adding territories, cities, technologies, and resources to it. You must manage carefully what you select because at the end of each turn and at the end of each era, you must pay for what you want to keep. As far as empire building games go, this game is more abstract than most. I had a hard time getting my mind around just what I should be doing. Because of this, many errors were made. You win the game by having the most Victory Points.

After Owen explained the rules to us, I think most of us were still in the dark as to how the game would play out and to what strategies we should try to employ. By the end of the game, or at least by the time we had to stop, I was still in the dark. I strayed from my normal strategy of going after victory points; this is probably why I was in last place almost the entire game. Mike took an early and substantial lead. But as the game progressed, it was easy to see that Owen was gathering a large amount of resources, control cubes, and gold.

We only played through two eras. Just by happenstance, I had a stellar B turn in era two that earned me 25 victory points (as compared to my normal 5-10 points in previous turns.)  This thrust me into second place. Owen was out in front by now, but not by that much. Mike was in third place. A place he didn’t think his playing deserved. I agreed. I think had we continued to play he and Owen would be battling it out for first place. But let’s not discount Ben’s effort. Sure he was in last place…at the end…behind everyone…even me, but I could see him as a solid finisher had the game continued. Many of us–ok, not me actually–had empires poised for greatness. At one point during the game Owen exclaimed I was a genius. Only to realize he was looking at someone else’s tokens, then changed it to “Steve, you’re an idiot.” There were many, many other creative and fun comments during the game. Fortunately I can remember any of them.

We’ll certainly have to play this game again, and soon, so we can further work out our strategies. In the meantime, I’m looking on GeekDo.com for a playing aid that shows all of the city and territory tiles.

Chaos Steve