Nerdy Friday Recap Nav-ah-gah-door

Games played : Navigator, Dixit, Race for the Galaxy

Navigator:  1 false start then 5 player.  My game got trashed fairly early with a couple of miscalculations.  Mike won handily.  Review forthcoming, I need to play a couple more times to get it.

Dixit: 4 player Dixit.  This game remains amusing.  Mike dropped a hint "1981 AFTER Gettysburg", knowing that only his dad would know the reference.  Turns out Warren is the only one who guessed wrong.  David won this by a lot.  Rasim Frasim.

Race for the Galaxy: 3 players.  Proving that I really know nothing about this game, I won with a VP grind deck playing 2 cards that I despise.  Replicating Robots (4 cost development, -2 cards for settles) and destroyed world (1 cost 0 VP rare element windfall world).  Having a VP cycle worth 12 VP and card helped.

F%#& Strategery

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." Churchill

Love Churchill. Witty. Determined. And one of the greatest wartime leaders OF THE EVER. But I digress. The question before me is what value do strategy and tactics have to board game victories? And which is more critical? So to quickly get this out of the way, what are our definitions of strategy and tactics for discussion purposes?

Strategy is taking an action that will give the greatest overall value, usually long term value.

Tactics means taking actions with the greatest immmediate value, or short term value.

For me, my strategy skills are generally much better than my tactics.

Strategy is your game plan, and you just can't win without a game plan. Most of the time when I first play a game, I have no game plan. I'm just trying to learn the mechanics and try different things. Don't get me wrong, I want to win, and I'm trying to win, but without a game plan, I usually don't (although it helps if everyone else is new to the game too).

You use tactics to accomplish your game plan. If your tactics aren't the best, but you're accomplishing things that further a great strategy, you're still going to finish in the money.

There is a generic situation in many games were bad tactics can cost you bigtime, perhaps the game: When there is a potential confrontation, your goal is to win a quick decisive victory, OR to become a prohibitive favorite. The last thing you want to do is go back and forth with another player throwing actions/resources at the same objective over and over again with neither player backing down. This effectively stunts both players, particularly the loser, but even the winner isn't really a winner. You have to avoid this type of arms race, dominate a conflict so the other player would rather put his resources elsewhere. It helps if you build a reputation among your friends of never backing down (Chris Brown, I'm talking about you).

Late in a game, generally you are only playing tactically. Your strategy got you here, now you need to pick up the VPs, as many as are available each action. In fact, it's difficult not to strictly play tactically. Very occassionally there are still strategic moves to make that will give you bigger points before the games is over. However, just playing tactically near game end is no vice.

I break down games like this (you know, away from the table, when I'm obsessing over it): How many turns/actions/decisions do I have over the course of the game? How many points does it take to win? During which phase of the game are the most points scored? I also like to get a point per turn ratio to get an idea of what a really good turn is and what's not a good turn (has not helped me in Ra). Note that most games give low VPs early, and high VPs late.

Sun Tzu: "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."

I like this quote, and it sums up my feelings. A player with good strategy and bad tactics will win their fair share. Players with bad strategy and good tactics will always struggle. Average tactics are sufficient.

Now lets look at a few games from this perspective: Age of Empires III: Age of Discovery, 7 Wonders, and Brass. Read whatever game or games you're most comfortable with.

AoE:AoD - I've uncovered three strategies in this game. Colonization, Colonization supplimented with Guns, and Merchantilism. There are eight turns with five+ actions in each one, and three scoring phases. In a 4 or 5 player game a winning score is over 85. Most of the points are scored in the final scoring phase, and the last round's capital buildings can be worth 20+ points each. Now let's talk about a few of those strategies. First, if I can get +1 merchant per turn later on the first turn, I like to go with the Merchantile strategy. With that strategy, one thing I like to do is stunt the other players economies by winning the merchant ship wild card every single turn. I do this by becoming a prohibitive favorite with more unplayed merchants and captains than any other player. So they don't even want to try and arms race with me because they cannot win. Often I win the ship with a single worker (and if Navy comes up, I win! Navy doesn't tend to come up btw). This is a potential arms race that you must win decisively, because otherwise you spend excessive resources, and allow the other players more good selections that you're not taking because you keep playing doobers on the Merchant Ship. The Merchantile strategy requires most of their final point total to come from capital buildings. Part of this strategy is to amass a wad of cash for the start of that final phase, and potentially to go first during that phase. With good tactics, he accomplishes that efficiently. With bad tactics, he accomplishes...less efficiently :) Next, let's break down the colonization strategy by looking at points - in this strategy you need to get about two thirds of your points from by occupying the colonies. That's about 60 points...that means in the first scoring phase you need to occupy two of the available regions (nine total, but only ~three will be conquered by now), during the second scoring phase you need to hold three, and during the final scoring phase you need to hold five. The remainder of your points will come from capital buildings, economy, and and odd exploration. Now you understand your game plan, and for me, playing the game with those goals in mind helps tremendously.

7 Wonders - A winning score is about 50-60 points. You get six choices three times (so about 18, some civs get more). Most of the points are scored in the last phase. A good card is worth 6-8 points. Your wonder is worth 10 points on average. 7 Wonders is pretty situational, it matters what everyone is playing, particularly your neighbors, and it matters what cards you see. But there are some lessons for us in this game. A very simple strategy is to collect resources and complete your wonder during the first two turns, and then buy high point cards worth between 6-8 points on each of the six actions of the third phases. *IF* it works out, that's about 50 points and and enough to win sometimes. The next lesson is around military. The arms race is your enemy here. Two players piling up the level three military over and over again during the last phase is good for the rest of the table only. If you can become a prohibitive favorite in the first and second rounds, a neighbor is less likely to mess with you in the third round. You can improve your position with your left hand neighbor by burying military you cannot use in your wonder on round two.

Brass - Brass has two "phases" with 16 actions in each phase. A winning score is about 140. If you look at a typical game, most of the points are scored in the first six to eight actions of the second phase, the rail phase. 10-12 points is a good action. Brass has several viable strategies, and sometimes requires more flexibility on which strategy you choose than most games...that is you may be forced to make significant "adjustments" to win. Let's talk about one strategy - cash and shipyards (this is my "go to" strat). Cash usually comes from iron to offset your loans. The ability to play shipyards generally comes from having ports played in good positions. So that's your strategy. First phase you have several things you need to get done, you need to take a bunch of loans, you need to get some iron played, and you need to get some ports played. Good tactics gets those things done as efficiently as possible. Second phase you spend all that money on rails and shipyards. Tactically you try to block the shipyards so you can continue to earn big points after the first half of the rail phase. and shipyards. Once I know what I'm doing (sometimes after the first few actions of the canal phase, sometimes not until half way through), I can then map out what exactly I need to get done before the end of each phase. That's my game plan, when and how I do each task is a tactical decision. I'm much better at this game online because I can take some notes and ponder it for a bit. You know, when I'm obsessing.

Tips:
*If the game plays clockwise in turn, you should avoid the strategy or strategies employed by your right hand neighbor. He's going to get first crack at the things you want. You will lose out.
*Similarly, if the game plays clockwise in turn, you should prefer the strategy or strategies employed by your left hand neighbor. You will get first crack at things he wants.
*The longer you can effectively defer commiting to a strategy, the better. In a lot of games, finding the void can mean a much more enjoyable experience, and maybe a cheap win :) With Brass, you don't want to be one of three players playing Cotton. You do want to be the only player playing Ports and/or Shipyards.

F@$& Honorverse

David Weber's Honorverse 

Groan, another boring book review.

And to make matters worse, starting with an analogy that only I get!  Let’s compare Eric Flint and David Weber real quick.

Eric Flint’s 163X reminds me of the Clash.  London Calling is my favorite album of all time, it proved what a punk band can do with talent and creativity.  Sandinistas was disappointing, it was ambitious and creative but really could have used more focus.   IF during the recording of that triple album, the band focused on the 12-16 best songs we could be talking about another seminal album.  Instead we get Sandinistas, which I still see flashes of the Clash I love, but it’s really really long with plenty of skippable songs.  So back to Eric Flint.  1632 is like the Clash’s first album, good for the genre but nothing Earth shattering.   The short story anthology Ring of Fire blew me away, like London Calling did.  The follow up novels are like Sandinistas, so much potential but too much crap to sift through.  

David Weber’s Honorverse reminds me of AC/DC.  AC/DC have released the same album for 30 years and Weber has released the same novel for 20.  Ok that’s overly harsh, because I really like the Honorverse, but it’s also true.   You know what you are getting with the next installment, and like anyone attending an AC/DC concert, you want him to play the hits.  So after that oblique criticism here is some praise.  Weber is a very prolific writer, he releases a couple of titles a year.  And while none of them are brilliant, most of them are pretty good.  I think there’s something admirable and praise worthy in supplying consistent work as often as he does.

Anyways the series mostly revolves around the run up to and fighting a war between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Peoples Republic of Haven.  The series starts with fairly limited engagements, single ship duels or squadron versus squadrons, but by book 3 fleet actions take place.  As the series progresses, some of the Haven antagonists get more ink, and start to become protagonists in their own right.  It’s a nice evolution that really helps keep the story fresh within the similar plot lines Weber loves.

Weber gets a lot of praise for his technological development, and it is indeed praise worthy.  Once you suspend your disbelief about how ships are propelled most everything follows a logical tech tree.  Ship propulsion is done via “focused gravity”.  Now I have an engineering degree but never took ‘modern physics’ (known colloquially in Rolla as A-Bomb), so don’t have the background on why that would or would not work, and it’s a big who cares anyways.    If you read Sci-Fi, you have to buy in somewhere…

The main character, Honor Harrington, is almost annoying to me.  I really get sick of main protagonists being always right and excelling at whatever task is at hand.  And Honor does mostly.  But she faces obstacles and setbacks aplenty.    The protagonist breezing through every encounter is simply boring to me, it’s the setbacks that make the story compelling.

Weber has written enough that we can now follow several arcs simultaneously, and I think he deserves some praise for this too.  He built up to the epic story following several people.  Like any good ensemble, he started small and slowly expanded.

 

So overall recommendation :  This is not a must read for everyone, but it definitely warrants consideration.  Try the first book, its available online for free (most of his books now are, the wiki article for Honorverse has the links).

F@$& Dr. Nerd Love

Tim referenced an article on another blog, Nerds and Male Privilege.  And I have some thoughts on it I’d like to share.  I strongly recommend reading this, because even if you disagree it’s a compelling and thoughtful read. 

Now I am at least mildly guilty of the transgressions outlined by Dr. Nerd Love.  Although I would never argue that a costume that looks like something an exotic dancer would wear moments before she takes her top off is inherently important to a super hero’s characterization, I have designed City of Heroes costumes for female toons that look EXACTLY like that.  It’s kind of a joke with me, I am incapable of designing a female costume that doesn’t look like a stripper (I am similarly incapable of designing a male costume that doesn’t look like a masked professional wrestler.)  As time has gone by, costuming has become less and less important to me, I now simply hit random until something passable appears and adjust from the hideous colors generated.  But even the random ones still come out provocative.  My last female toon I rolled was “Spirit Desire”.  And although the random costume doesn’t show a bare midriff, it’s still skin tight purple leather.

Now I am positive I have also made in game remarks that were offensive.  Liz and Mermoine, I apologize.  I treasure our online friendships, and I am going to try to do better in the future.   I have very poor instant communication impulse control though, please be patient.

The contention I have with Dr. Nerd Love is the assertion that geeks should be above this (I have no idea if the good doctor meant to imply this, but it was something I inferred).  This is a society wide problem (just watch a football game or frequent a club that Bro’s go to).  And while geekdom is a subculture, it’s still part of a society.  The single most hypocritical thing about geekdom is the assertion that they are individuals.  If you are wearing an Anime costume, or dressed with the stupid strappy pants you got from Hot Topic, you are dressed for nerdy society’s norms.  To paraphrase Summer Phoenix from SLC punk “You say you are about freedom and individuality, but you dress like a punk.  That’s a uniform.  Individuality isn’t a dress code, it’s in your mind.”

This absolutely includes me.  While I may fancy myself an individual, I look like a stereotypical gamer.  I’m overweight and dress like a slob that owns amusing T-Shirts.  There are thousands of me attending Gencon every year

F@%& This Game: Last Night On Earth

Last Night on Earth is a zombie game. Normally this would be a non-starter for me, because I really do not like zombies.* But I am new in town and I needed to bond with new nerdlingers and make friends so they would invite me back. And, despite the zombie theme, this game is pretty fun and re-playable.

Last Night on Earth is a team game with a group of players vs the zombies, controlled by another player (or two). We played with four on the team vs. Jeremy, the zombie controller. The team drew randomly from the character pile, each character has different abilities. The

board was generated randomly, with different buildings in the town having different materials/equipment available. Even our scenario was randomly chosen, with each scenario having different victory conditions for the team and different advantages for the zombies.

We drew the "Plague Zombie" scenario, which meant we had to eliminate (note I didn't say 'kill') 7 plague-infected zombies before something happened. That "something" could have been any of a number of things, to add pressure to the players. Team failure conditions included:

• All team members are dead
• Clock runs out (there is a time marker, with total time determined by the scenario)
• No more hero cards (the pile of cards of weapons, equipment, and bonus actions that the living players get to choose from)

The four of us left to defend the town from the zombie plague were:

• Sheriff Anderson, white man with gun and the ability to reclaim his gun if lost (me)
• Johnny, white high school quarterback with the ability to move and attack and keep moving (Zac)
• Jake the white drifter with the ability to take extra cards and keep what he likes (Dan S.)
• Raylenne (?) the black detective with a gun and flashlight and an ability I don't think she ever used (Scott)

I mention race and sex because it's important and it led me to notice that all of the other characters were white, and all of the other women were high school age. All of the "professional" people in town were white men. Whatever.

Essentially the game is designed to play like a horror movie.

Game Play

Players start at the center of the board, and roll dice to move and attack. Players get two cards to start with, which gives them extra options or equipment, in addition to whatever they get to start with based on their character.

Zombies start at spawning points around the board, and replenish EVERY TURN. This was crazy, surprising, and another reason why I don't like zombies. Zombies have no ranged attacks, but fight hand-to-hand with extra dice. Ties go to the zombies.

Team coordination of tactics and strategy is strongly encouraged, and definitely necessary. The only drawback to good communication is that the zombie controller hears everything you say and can try to counteract your plans. This can make the game more interesting or not fun at all, depending on how "smart" the zombies act.

Players with weapons have a clear advantage, especially ranged weapons. But weapons can run out of fuel/ammo, be knocked away, or otherwise lost during play. Hand-to-hand combat with zombies is bad and should be avoided...if you want to live.

So, lots of random elements, but also strategy on an ever-changing chess board of dangers. For the 90 minutes or so we played, I was not bored at all. There is a lot to focus on, and you are involved in everything, potentially.

We lucked out with a great combo of characters and starting equipment for this scenario. Two players had pistols, one started with a chain saw, and we had access to flare guns throughout the game. With four unarmed characters, this would have been a much different and harder game. It is easy to imagine an "impossible" scenario, where all the odds seemed stacked against you.

Advice:

1. Make whoever plays act like their character. Zac was brilliant in the role of football jock ("All right, bro!"). Dan S. was creepy in a lot of ways as the drifter, but he was probably definitely acting I think.
2. Feel free to abandon characters or scenarios that aren't fun or are impossible. There are lots of possibilities, don't let bad luck throw the evening.
3. A good zombie controller can enhance or ruin this game. Just like a good DM. Pick someone who isn't trying to prove they are a master strategist, or pick someone like Jeremy who will have the zombies act "realistically" (meaning they wander aimlessly until they smell or hear something). Zombies should not act like coordinated soldiers, IMHO.

I would definitely recommend this game for a board game night. It is well designed, has great game elements in the right combination, and encourages teamwork. I give it four brains out of five.

*I will avoid zombie movies, TV shows, books, and costumes. It is a source of constant annoyance that zombies and zombie-like creatures are everywhere in computer games. I also have no sense of humor about it. Which should tell you how enjoyable this game was.

F$@& Mechanics part 1: Draft based games.

Mechanics part 1:  The Draft.

Starting a series exploring how games play, starting with games that feature a draft.

“Draft” is kind of vaguely defined as a game mechanic.  In general a draft occurs when a player has a choice to make and that choice eliminates/limits options for the other players.

My 3 readers will be very familiar with drafts; we’ve been drafting simulation hockey players for 2 decades.  Implementing a draft strategy is one of the most rewarding aspects of the RLHL (I. Am. A. Genius!) so we are pretty well educated on draft position and what that means tactically speaking.

I think the purest ‘draft’ board game that we have played is Settlers of Cataan.  Starting positions are drafted, and for the rest of the game those initial selections dominate tactics.  There are a lot of hybrids, like Notre Dame or 7 Wonders.  Those don’t seem like drafting games at first glance but they really are.  The draft pool is your hand and you select the best card available before passing the leftovers down the line.

So how do draft games play?  That depends on a lot of factors, most importantly how well balanced whatever gets drafted is.  Like a broken item that is always picked first makes a game uninteresting pretty quick.  Likewise if items have too much parity draft position becomes pretty unimportant, so why have a draft mechanism in the first place?  Just deal something out randomly.

In theory, if a game is reasonably well balanced a draft game will have quite a bit of replay.  Because when to take something is an opinion.  

Discuss amongst yourselves.

F#¢& Galaxy Trucker

Galaxy Trucker

Plot:  You pilot the Millennium Falcon trying to make the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs!  Ok not really, but you are playing a space freighter.

Goal:  It is not a game about Victory Points, you are trying to earn CASH!  You do that in 3 ways:  Event Cards, Winning/Finishing the Race, and having a well constructed ship.  You lose money by having parts of your ship break off.

Mechanics:  The game has 3 turns with 2 phases.  Phase 1 is building your ship and phase 2 is the race.

Building the Ship:  This is really a race.  Every player, with one hand only, examines a face down tile and either places it on the Spaceship frame or face up in the center of the table.  The tiles have connectors, a one pronged, a two pronged or a three pronged connector.  The three Pronger is considered universal, or in other words can take the single or double pronged connections.  There are lots of things to add on your ships:  Guns, engines, shields, crew compartments, alien crew compartments, batteries, cargo holds, and hazardous cargo holds.  I am probably missing something, deal with it.



This part of the game is a scramble as people build there ships.  The first person done building gets the pole position for the event phase.  There is also a timer people can flip to speed this process along and make people panic.  FUN!

After you have placed one piece onto the ship frame you can take time to peek at the upcoming event cards and plan ahead.

The phase ends with the last person declares himself done, then each ship undergoes peer review.  Badly connected pieces will happen, and they break off in the space dock, and count for your broken pieces total.

Event Phase:  A card is flipped, and it may effect everyone or it may depend on turn order.  Some cards let you pick up loot, and these cost position on the time track (you had to slow down to land the prize crew or whatever).

Some examples

Defeat Cards :  You need a crew minimum or a certain amount of guns or whatever to defeat the card.  First person to defeat the card may choose the reward listed (spending time as usual).  If the lead dog can't beat the card, there might be a penalty incurred and then the next guy in line gets his shot.  IF the victorious freighter doesn't want the reward, the guy behind him can take it.  Only one pass, so anyone who was unable to defeat the card won't get the reward.

Meteor Shower:  Roll some dice and look on the ship frame.  The meteors might miss but will probably hit.  A well constructed ship has nothing to fear from small meteors (well constructed:  no connectors open to space.), but a small meteor hitting the wrong spot will break off a piece of the ship.  After part of your ship falls off, recheck the connections, anything no longer legally connected also floats off.  These go into the pile of shame to cost you money at the end of the turn.  A shield can also stop a small meteor strike.  Big meteors can only be shot down with guns, and will automatically break off pieces of your ship if they hit.  I think nearly all big meteors come from the front arc, so chasers > broadsides.



Planets:  Go get cargo!  Lead player gets first choice then on down the line.

Open Safe.  I mean Open Space.  Fire your engines and race ahead by that amount.  Pretty boring but will probably change the order.


 Round ends when the last event card is played.  

Then money is awarded for finishing the race.  Winner gets moar, but finishing gets you some no matter what.

Money is also awarded for prettiest ship, or the ship with the least amount of connectors pointing to open space.

Finally, you owe money for the parts of your ship that broke off.  This is capped round by round, so its important but not crippling.  Frankly if you had most of your ship fall apart around you, you had bigger problems that round then having to pay that penalty.

Tactics:  Building a good ship is everything in this game.  I have only completed one game of Galaxy Trucker, but I think I caught on by turn 3 by heeding Ryan's advice.  He builds his ships, which always looked awesome (in the one game I played), from the outside in.  He searches for guns and engines first, then fills in with whatever connectors he finds.  Maybe when its close to completion he starts looking for particular internal parts.  The logic is that engines and guns are easily the most versatile pieces, so the most important to claim first.  The internal items are important, but in a rock-paper-scissors way.  Either you have the right combination or you don't.  Aliens are particularly hard to play, they require a specific placement on the frame to utilize.  It seems like you have to be a really experienced player to make good use of aliens.  The other thing experienced players might do is peek at the upcoming cards.  I don't recommend that for novices, just getting a ship that doesn't self destruct is challenge enough.  Anyways, my 3rd round ship scored 40+ space bucks, and like $35 of that from cargo.  If I had any kind of skill in the first two rounds I would of been in the thick of it with Mike and Ryan for the win instead of $20 behind.

Review:  This is definitely another it is what it is game.  It will be amusing once in a while, but I wouldn't want to spend the entire night playing this or play it several weeks in a row.  But as an every other week change of pace game its pretty good, so long as everyone can take a joke.  Ships will break apart and playing with someone easily and demonstratively frustrated will make this game suck.
7 out of 10.

Nerdy Friday recap - this time on Thursday because that's how we roll

Games Played:  3 player Ra.  Mike won by copying play not to suck.  Actually he got a fistful of rivers and monuments, which is part of not sucking...buy stuff!

4 player Galaxy Trucker.  Mike wins again, but that was a low fence to get over with how Warren and I built space ships.  I actually think this might be a game I enjoy less as I get better at it.  Without random pieces of my spaceship breaking off, this game loses amusement.

4 player Race for the Galaxy.  Ryan wins with a really fun tableau.  He got cards and goods when he produced, he was able to trade cards when he consumed for double victory points and had fun synergy all over the place.

3 player Notre Dame.  I AM REDEEMED!  Ok not really but I had a really strong game.  The game isn't drastically different with 3 but you do know that everyone at the table will be passing you cards and you do have an effect on every location.   I won with Messages (five for 14 points plus 6 for the VP townie) and the VP spot (6 doobers on it totalling 21 points).  Well that and I was never forced to drop a guy into the hotel.

F$@& Sports Tangents

Dan "Duke" Davis is retiring and appeared on ESPN's Mike and Mike this morning and they quizzed him on who the best players he had ever seen were.  Duke was quite up front with saying I am always going to pick the players I grew up with over modern guys.

So my 3 readers, who was the your favorite and who was the best you ever saw?  Limiting my scope to hockey since that's the only sport I regularly watch, although I could probably talk football and baseball credibly.  Feel free to comment on those.

My favorite Center and Player ever is Dale Hawerchuk.  I don't have like any good reasons, except when I first joined the RLHL he was my best player and had a long career with Winnipeg, a city I lived in for 2 years 35 years ago.  Dale was very good at a lot of things, probably known more as a passer than a scorer and was generally over shadowed my Gretzky, Lemiuex, Yzerman, and Messier.  You know the famous for a reason centers in the 80s.

Now the best center I ever saw was not Gretzky (this is going to similarly eliminate Bobby Orr from defense).  See Gretzky had his mind blowing years before I started really following hockey.  He did lead the league in scoring a couple years in the early 90s, but by that time he was clearly on the back end of his career and his contemporaries caught up.  The best center I ever saw was Forsberg.   I loved everything about Forsberg's game.  He made his linemates better, he was a ferocious defender and gave his share of shoulder checks.  Too bad he couldn't stay healthy and made horrible Face off Hockey Cards.

A quick word on my favorite Blues center, Craig Conroy.  He was like Forsberg light.  He did make his linemates better, he was a great defender, he was just goal scoring impaired.  Conroy on a breakaway wasn't really all that exciting...








My favorite and best I ever saw winger is the same guy.  Teemu Selanne.  Teemu does fall short in the all around game department, but he really is good at keeping possession of the puck and working for a good shot.  Wasn't nearly electric as Pavel Bure, but in my opinion an overall more consistent performer.

Favorite Blues Winger, Brett Hull who else.

Best. One. Timer. Ever.

He really had a knack for getting open in the slot for those couple of seconds needed to get that one timer off.

My favorite defenseman was Adam Foote.   Known as a ferocious defender, I really felt his over all game was under rated.  He was quite mobile, and very very good at making the first pass out of the zone.

Best I ever saw was Al MacInnis, who is also my favorite Blues defenseman.  Ok the slap shot got him into the HoF, but his overall game was really really good as well.  The Blues defensive play noticeably improved in 1994-95 (that was back when we still liked Keenan...).   Thanks for the memories Al.




Best Goalie I ever saw:  Hasek.  He carried a marginal Buffalo for years, almost winning a cup there.  Got onto a good team and Detroit dominated.  (pun intended I dunno?)

Favorite Goalie:  Don't really have a favorite, probably CuJo because he sure was fun to watch as a Blue.

F%&# Dixit

Don't F%&# Dixit. Go buy Dixit. Do it now, before Christmas.

Dixit is a clever little game that gamers are typically not good at. It's a cross between Apples to Apples and Balderdash. The game is primarily a deck of 84 cards with trippy little art work. Each player is dealt 6 cards, and the player whose turn it is (aka "the Storyteller") must think of a sentence that describes one of his cards. The sentence doesn't actually have to be a sentence, it can be a word, or a sound, anything. Each other player tries to find a card in their hand that fits the sentence, and they give that card to the Storyteller. All the cards are mixed up and layed out. Now each player secretly guesses which card belongs to the storyteller. When everyone has guessed, they reveal their guess and you score, next player becomes the storyteller and you do it again. Here's the rub, the storyteller only gets points if he gets at least one vote for his card, and at least one vote for someone else's card. So he has to vague enough that everyone doesn't guess his card...but not so vague that NO one guesses his card.

It's really fucking hard to be vague, but not too vague:


Dixit is fun. Trying to tie a clue to card can have some humorous results. And a good group can arc the game toward silliness pretty quickly (well, that's what *I* consider a good group). Sometimes the wake for the round is funnier than the round itself! "Why did you pick that one??!?" "Because it's blue, and your clue was cat, and my cat's name is Bluebell!"

At a recent get together, I made my family play it with me and even my mother, who hates games, said she would play it again (although she wouldn't go even an inch out of her way to seek it out).

The players drive the experience, so it's dramatically different from one group/table to another. If you play with your buddies, it's going to be a different experience than with your grandmother.

I can see the game getting a little stale after everyone has seen the 84 cards countless time, so replay-ability might be a problem. It's not that you can't keep playing it, it's just that it would be less fun. But wait! You can just buy Dixit 2! Which is simply 84 new cards to add to, mix with, or replace your original deck.

Thanksfully, I won the first game of Dixit I ever played, which is good, because I may never win again.

7/10, but 10/10 for accessability. Anyone can play this game. It's fun, there's a teeny tiny bit of strategy, and it's FULL of laughs.

TIPS:
*If you can't potentially see another one of your cards fitting your sentence, it might be too descriptive.
*look at the art carefully, there are lots of litter details in there.
*The hardest part of this game (and most time consuming) is thinking up a good sentece, so even when it's not your turn, review your cards and try to think of some.
*Don't play this game with Mike C., his deeply competitive nature would likely find a way to suck the good natured fun out of it.


Now go buy Dixit, and take it to your holiday gatherings and replace that awkward time at your relatives with laughs and jokes.

F$@& 7 Wonders

7 Wonders

Plot:   You control an Ancient society, Rhodes, Ghaza, Alexandria and so on.  Build the bestest country in the world!

Goal:  It's a game about victory points.  You get victory points with a multitude of cards, more on that in the mechanics phase.

 Mechanics:  The game starts with each player drawing a civilization.  These civilizations each supply a resource and have a 'Wonders' track.  These wonders cost resources and grant a benefit upon completion.  Most of the time, victory points, but quite often some other benefit.  A round starts with each player getting a hand of 7 cards, selecting one to play and then passing the remainder to your neighbor.  The direction of the pass changes from round to round (three rounds total).  Keep doing this with the hand passed to you until there is one card left, and that gets discarded into the center.  Many of these cards cost resources, which you need to have previously played or purchase from an adjacent neighbor.   Oh yeah, this is important.  Only one specific card can be played in your tableau.  For example if you already have one Glass Works, you can not play the second.  Also, some cards by themselves unlock follow up cards.  Which means that the resource cost is ignored as long as unlocking card was previously paid.

Cards are color coded for easy recognition.

Brown cards are 'basic' resources.  These may require money to purchase but will never require resources to purchase.   These are also only available in the first two rounds.  After playing them, you now have that resource type available for further purchases.

Gray cards are 'manufactured' resources.  These never require resources or gold to play and now supply the manufactured resource type.  Like brown cards, no gray card will appear in the 3rd round, plan accordingly.


Red cards are military.  At the end of a round, compare your military with your adjacent neighbors.  A tie gets you no points, losing gets you -1 VP and winning gets you 1 VP in round 1, 3 VP in round 2 and 5 VP in round 3.  So losing the battle isn't a big deal, but winning battles all 3 rounds can be really good.  Some, but not many red cards are unlocked by previous plays.

 Green cards are science.  Each science card has one of three symbols and scores in 2 different ways.   I can describe the symbols but don't have names for them so substituting $, %, and & for the examples.  Deal with it.  Duplicates of the same symbols score at N^2, or 1$ gets you 1 VP and 3$ gets you 9.  A set of all 3 symbols, one each of  $, % and & gets 7 points.  Therefore, green cards can be awesome or they completely suck, there's not too much middle ground.    Quite a few green cards are unlocked by previous plays.

Blue cards are solely victory points, usually themed as arena's or courthouses or something.  The prerequisite-unlock system really comes into play with these blue cards.  All but one card in the first two rounds (never play the lowly pawn shop...) unlocks a follow up card.  While not quite as all or nothing as green cards, to really get going on a blue card strategy requires early plays.

Gold cards are economically themed cards.  They either earn you money, provide resources for free, or make trading with your neighbors cheaper.  A few gold cards are unlocked by previous buys.

Purple cards are guild cards and are only available in the 3rd round.   These are pure VP cards and are never unlocked with previous buys.   There worth is variable, like count up your neighbors blue cards and get that many VPs.

In addition to these cards, two generic plays occur.  You can play a card face down under your starting civilization tablet representing a wonder build.  This is usually a really really good play late in the round; you get trash for cards passed to you and there is nothing, absolutely nothing better to do with them.  The other generic play is to discard to the middle and get 3 money.  This play should be avoided, if you are forced to do this, things are not going well for you.

Tactics:  The really great thing about this game is that winning tactics are often contradictory.  Sure, playing lots of resource cards is desirable in the first 2 rounds, but I have won games with playing hardly any resources and lost games while playing a ton.  Likewise, when to build your wonder is a HUGE decision.  On the one hand, building it early lets you play  the higher scoring 3rd round cards, but building it late lets you bury a 3rd round card that might be even more advantageous to someone else.  Also, generally speaking getting into an arms race is bad, but letting your neighbor get cheap military point is also bad.  The best advice I can give is pay attention to what the entire table, and especially what your adjacent neighbors are doing and pass and build based on that.

One unalterable tenant is to pay attention to your Wonder track.  It's a bad idea to pass resources that you need to build the various Wonder tiers.

Review:  The first night we played this game, we knew, absolutely knew, that this was a winner and that's the only thing we were going to play the entire session.   It plays well with a small group or a large one (I prefer large groups) and its one of those rare games that you can sculpt tactics around the personality of the players (this player ALWAYS goes for science, that player ALWAYS goes for military).  The 'leaders' expansion was just ok.  I didn't think leaders changed the game too much, but it didn't really add much to game play either, so I am of a mind of why bother.  Original game 9/10, expansion 5/10

Tips:
*Pawn Shop is easily the worst card in the game because it is only 3 VP and unlocks nothing.  If the last 2 cards passed to me were both pawn shops, I would probably trade in one for cash

*Pay attention to your Wonders' special abilities.  Good use of these really helps.

*The first 2 rounds I like building Wonder tiers late when you are constantly getting passed lame cards, in the 3rd round I like building a Wonder anytime I can bury a card that would score lots for the neighbor I am passing it too.

F%#& CoH: Mistress of Mayhem Trial

 

 Minds ofMayhem Trial (ur MoM trial)

5^th iTrial released.  Well co-released with the TPN trial.  Semantics.  I’m going by memory on a trial I have only done twice and the wiki hasn’t been updated yet.  I may be missing a phase.  

 Oh like anyone cares.

Trial starts in a staging room with Desdamona.  You can stock up on inspirations (temporary buffs for you non CoX players) here.  It is recommended you buy some rezzes and mez protections here.  There is no hospital, and if you allow Des to rez you 15 seconds gets run off the clock.

Phase 1:  Beat up Malaise.  When Mal gets to 50% health he summons several giant monsters or AV’s from other game content for the party to kill.  You have to beat them up too, and after a while Mal pops back in for you to finish.  All the while a big pink patch periodically appears to give Psychic damage over time.  It’s not an instant kill, but it is really, really quick.   If you are in the center or in the midst of a long animation, it will be hard to escape.  There’s a time limit, and I can see some particularly inept groups screwing this up.

Phase 2: Beat up Penelope Mayhem.  PM can only be damaged after some boss level monsters are defeated near her.  The most successful tactic is to have most of the group wait by the first door while tanks drag the AV and the “vulnerability” type monsters near her.  Also timed, and probably won’t be failed.

Phase 3:  Beat up Mother Mayhem to free Aurora Borealis.   Simultaneously you must defeat MM while keeping AB alive.  AB is being attacked by Lieutenant level monsters.  Not an imminent threat, but a big enough one that a sub-group needs to split off and deal with this.  Tankers and players with targeted heals.   In the main battle pink death patches are back, as well as some devastating AoE attacks that give a  warning (if tagged suffer in silence, get the hell away from the main group).  Still timed, and uncoordinated groups will have trouble.  After this an annoying cut scene plays.  Thankfully shorter than a lot of the other iTrial cut scenes.

Phase 4:  Final Showdown.  Beat up Mother Malaise and Shalice Tilman.     There’s story behind why Mother Mayhem now turns into Mother Malaise, but even I, who play CoH regularly could give a crap.  This battle is kind of a combination for Phase 1 and 2.  The following procedure needs to be repeated 3 times.

Beat Malaise down to 50% health.

When Malaise gets to 50% health he ports out and a couple more mobs from CoH greatest hits arrive, this time at boss level.  You need to drag them over to where Shalice Tilman has spawned and defeat them.  

After defeating them ST becomes vulnerable to holds, which the team needs to do because at 50% health ST heads to the center of the map and if she reaches there, Mal respawns at full health and that resets the round.  

Too many ‘round resets’ will result in a trial failure, and it looks pretty easy to do.

The Review:

Right now, I think this is my favorite iTrial.  It’s very challenging, unlike UGT, Lambda or BAF.  But it doesn’t gank the player just for the sake of ganking, like in Keyes or TPN.  Inexperienced or dense players will die a lot from the psychic death patches and AoE attacks, but they are fairly avoidable if you pay attention.