Benny’s Weblog

Pax Romana: This is it for me, Pax is awesome. In a lot of ways it’s kinda like a much heavier version of A Game of Thrones. It’s certainly more chaotic and there is lots of delicious screwage. Barbarian invasions and Rebellions are so much fun! When one player starts to gloat about their lead there’s nothing like playing a Slave revolt card and watching the inner sanctum of their empire get hosed. It’s just a beautiful game with lots of surprises and strategic options.

The only downside is length, the full game is about 20+ hours long. It took us roughly 8 hours to do the first 3 turns of the big 10 turn scenario. Next time will be much much quicker but the learning curve is pretty steep.

Settlers of Catan Cities and Knights: Love this game but damn it’s looooong. Now that we have a better idea of strategy it’s harder for the leader to finish off the game. Very tight and tense, many strategic options. Looking forward to our next game of this.

Amun Re: Great, great game. Our evaluations are starting to get tighter with much more emphasis placed on initial bidding for valuable areas. This game kinda reminds me of Powergrid in a way. I would choose Amun-Re over Powergrid anyday, much less fidly and more streamlined rules. Great fun!

Command and Colors Ancients: Another great game, I’m not sure how long C&C will hold up however, scenarios do feel rather similar.

We finished off Twilight Struggle on Wednesday night to find we had done all of the scoring incorrectly. If you have domination *and* control of an area you do not get the sum of the victory points. Doh!
I’ve had a bad head cold the last few days so haven’t played anything at all since then. Only thing that has been happening is a discussion on BGG about Pax Romana.

I’m starting to come under the impression that the Rome player is at a severe disadvantage. I hope I’m wrong.

At the beginning of the game Rome starts with very few assets. One city and a town and control of only two provinces. Given that cities/towns and provinces are the main sources of income, Rome cannot afford to lose too many at the start or she will be playing catch-up all game.

The problem starts with Greece, Greece has a huge Soldier of Fortune army at her disposal early in the game. Not only that but Greece is allowed to move that army before Rome can do *anything*. This means that if Greece decides to, she will capture Rome’s only town. This is a given, there is no way the Roman player can stop this. Now this SoF army can do even more damage in further activations. It can easily take Rome’s only other province. A likely state at the end of Turn 1 is that Rome will have only one province and one city. That will amount to a grand total of 4 Talents of income. Assuming that Rome will have already have had to spend a load of cash on strengthening the army in Rome, this isn’t going to leave much.

It has yet to be seen if this is a game killer for Rome but at this stage I cannot see how it can be any other way.

Twilight Struggle: Twilight continues. Here’s the situation at Turn 3. Not so good for the US.

Turn 8 looks slightly better, this shot taken right before the Late War cards were shuffled in. A good hold on many Battleground countries but probably less likely to see enough scoring cards for the US to gain the lead, especially since the USSR is so far ahead on the Space Race.

Pax Romana: Two back to back games of Scenario IV. Here’s a pic of the Romans surviving the Turn 1 Phyrus invasion. I’m on the fence as to whether the 2-player scenarios are any good. For two it plays more like a war game. It’s not going to stop me trying again however.

Castle: Pretty good, improves as you get to know the abilities of the cards… I love the way you can feel the noose tighten around your neck as the game comes to a close. I’m really curious to see how long this game will remain interesting.

Wings of War: Tactical air combat. Light and fun, lots of luck and outguessing. Played the very first scenario, looking forward to adding the tailing rules etc. May be a little too luck-dependant for my taste.

Twilight Struggle: A nice balanced start with neither of us at a huge lead. Currently at the beginning of turn 3. I’ve got no idea what the best strategy is other than to just hang on to key areas before a scoring card comes up. I’m scared.

Hoity Toity: How do you convince a gaming group to try something called “Hoity Toity” which is kinda like multi-player rock-paper-scissors? I dunno, but still.. everyone ends up enjoying this game. Try to collect a crap-load of paintings for the final showdown when someone makes it to the dinner table.

Settlers: Still amazed at how good the 5 player game is.

Amun Re: First time I’ve played this. Very, very good, it’s going to take a few plays to get a feel for the evaluation of each item. So many different things going on and a good amount of room for trash-talk. Very important for our group.

Yesterday I picked up Great Battles of Alexander: Deluxe Edition, Paths of Glory, Wings of War Famous Aces and Burning Drachens. Other than that, no gaming.

Hammer of the Scots: I played the English again. This time I spent most of my resources to bring infantry in early, I wanted to clear the areas closest to England and maintain some sort of front. This appeared to work quite well for a while, I all but ignored the nobles in the highlands and let them slowly get consumed there. The thorn in my side was Wallace, all I needed to do was eliminate Bruce but Wallace teleported himself to Selkirk and harassed me. This meant cleaning out the area just north of England took much longer than it should have. 7 years into the game I finally eliminated him but it was too late. By that time the Scot player had amassed a heap of new and quite strong units. I resigned (possibly prematurely)
Still, it’s a great game, a little stressful but fun all the same. At this stage it’s certainly something I won’t turn down.

Command and Colors Ancients: Played a new scenario. I love the game, it’s always fun. I’ve got the expansion on pre-order. My only regret is I’m not getting the chance to play Memoir ‘44, a game I like equally as much as CC:A.

- Note map errata of sea rout from Aleria to Pisae.

Activations
- for AM order determination, the player with the least VP goes first. Stability level breaks ties.
- no player may play more than two activations in a row.
- When a player draws an AM and he pays 1T for it, he then draws an event card.

Cards
- A player may have no more than 3 May Be Held cards. These may be played during the Card phase or Operations phase.
- If a Rebellion card is played, the player chooses the Space where the rebellion will occur.
- Pirate… TBA

Control
- Ports in home territory are always controlled. Ports outside of home territory are only controlled if containing a land unit or garrison therefore must always roll for continuity.
- To control non-home province - occupy more than half land spaces or if there are no other forces.
- To control own home province - control capital or control any land space and no other player controls more than half.
- To control territory - control all of its provinces.
- Galley squadrons have no effect on control.
- Towns and cities are considered to have an inherent garrison for all purposes. (control etc.)

- Income may only be collected from provinces that have an established LOC.

Purchasing
- No HI units may be raised in any of the Aegean islands.
- Players must pay 1T of maintenance per galley.
- Players must pay 1T of maintenance per LG/HI above manmax (exc. Cart may never exceed manmax).
- Use a minor move to rebuild a town/city wall at 1T per point.
- Cities and Towns cannot be built in mountain spaces.
- Walls may only be repaired by the owning player. Independent Walls may not be repaired.

Combat
- Lone leaders who are attacked and cannot withdraw are eliminated.
- Attacking units cannot use a town or city defence benefit.
- Independent units always use the town’s defence strength.
- Don’t forget to check for leader death after battle.
- Captured Cities/Towns my be Plundered with the risk the unit will need to end its turn.
- If an Attacker eliminates or retreats the enemy from a City/Town, it must then attack the City/Town. This costs no further MP.

Retreat
- If a defender did not use a city/town for defense and the attacker won the battle, the attacker can force the defender to retreat for one additional MP. The attacker now occupies the battle space.
- Units may retreat through land transit points to stop at first Land Space reached but must lose one BP per LT point.

Interception
- only Regrouping units may not be intercepted.
- Galleys cannot intercept.
- Intercepted units may not use Pre-battle withdrawal.
- The currently active force may not intercept withdrawing units.
- Units may not be intercepted in an Alpine Space, Transit Point or Across a Strait.

Units
- In battle where a city or town is used for defense, the max Leader shift is 1.
- An army defending against amphibious attacks gets 2 shifts.
- Starting Turn 3, Roman LG units have 1 integrated Cav per 2 full LG. The Cav have no strength or losses, they’re only used for Superiority. However they can only gain Supremacy if used with regular Cav.
- Elephants cannot be used in any battle where town/city or mountain fortress BP is used. Nor may they exist on their own.
- Elephants cannot absorb combat losses but they may absorb attrition.
- Two reduced LG/HI *must* combine if in the same space. Reduced units can be rebuilt during Recruitment and Manpower.
- Reduced legions do not contribute to the cav component.
- A player may not have two elite leaders in play at the same time.

Special Units
- Garrisons may not end movement in a mountain fortress unless stacked with an army.

Mercenaries
- Carthage may hire mercenaries by playing any “May Be Held” card. The event of the card is ignored. Others must play the Mercenaries card.
- Must pay 2T and get 2 LI or 1 Cav or 1 HI.
- Rome may never hire mercenaries.
- Mercenary units are always removed in the removal phase.

Militia
- A player may call for Militia if he loses a land battle in his home territory or if a city has been lowered in strength to 3 BP. Immediately adjust stability by -1.
- Roll one D6 and halve (round up). Result is the number of 1 BI units raised in any one or more non-enemy controlled Spaces in Home Territory. (check Stability limits too)

SoF
- The Roman player never gets the SoF army, he may hold the card to prevent others getting it. He may also play it as a Dictator if there is an enemy army in his Home Territory when played (12.47).

Rhodes
- Players may conduct Naval movement through Rhodes at a cost of 1T to the controlling player or the bank.
- The navy may only be used by the player of Rhodes Alliance card.

Mamertines
- Just hold, their fate is elimination.

Syracuse
- A power who captures the Syracuse Space gains control of Land Units/Fleet/City if they exist.

Pergamum
- Player may use alliance card otherwise they sit in place and defend.

Pontus
- Activated on play of the card.

Fleets
- Galleys on their own do not use movement points, they may travel unrestricted except for Continuity.
- A fleet may pick up other Galleys at no cost.
- Naval Transport (with or without Galleys) do use movement points.
- Individual units of an army can be dropped off at no MP cost. Dropping off more than one unit in a space is considered debarkation and costs 1MP.
- Galleys may never be purchased in a port if an enemy galley is there.

Objectives
- May purchase a single OO marker during the Manpower Phase for 1,2,3 talents depending on Stability level.
- A player may not purchase an OO if already has three.
- A player may discard any of his OO markers during the removal phase.
- If an OO is drawn that applies to a certain player then it goes back and another is drawn.

Alliances
- Alliances are forbidden unless an Alliance card is played. Alliances made this way expire at the end of each game turn.
- Bribes of Talents are allowed at the instance an action is being performed.

Scenario IV
- Both Rome and Carthage get their 4 initial AMs, and Carthage gets a free move of the SoF leader and army at the beginning of the game. Carthage gets to move the SoF *before* any AMs come into play. After that, they may use an AM to move the SoF as per the normal SoF rules. In the first free AM, Carthage may not use minor moves to move its own troops.
- A card is not drawn for the initial SoF AM.

Tichu: Played twice at Dockers, not a bad game but probably not my thing. A bit light for my taste.

Settlers: A four player game. It’s very satisfying to have played this game so many times and just pull it out and put it together and start playing in a few minutes. No rules explanations or fiddling with the rulebook to remember who goes first and player order etc. I wish I could dedicate as much time to other games (and they were as easy to teach to newcomers), I would if there were other games as absorbing and as fun as Settlers…

Pax Romana: Oh man this game is intriging. I soloed a single turn of a four-player scenario, it took a very very long time. It’s quite rules heavy and a pretty long game but it’s just so *good*.

The rules come in two flavors, there are the standard rules where over the course of a turn you will roll for two random events. The advanced game dispenses with the random chit events and introduced the cards. This is where the game really shines. If you’re holding a “Stability Check” card for example, you can play it on an opponent whos empire has a low stability rating (stability goes up and down as your civilization gains and loses territory etc.) to cause Civil War and Unrest. There are 55 cards which do all sorts of funky things, it’s fantastic.

So over the course of the game you may decide to expand into Gaul and Hispania, seems easy right? Wrong, when your fleets arrive in these tribal regions you cannot control provinces until you eliminate the tribes there. At the start of the game you place a heap of counters randomly on the map face-down. Until you actually move your army into one of these in the course of the game you have no idea how strong the tribe will be.

There is so much more than I could cover here. You need to manage your treasury, money allows you to recruit troops, build cities and towns, bribe other players, repair sieged cities, maintain galleys etc. In fact you need money to do anything at all, even when taking your turn you need to pay one Talent for the favor.
Your stability needs to constantly be kept in check, if it gets too low then you cannot support your armies and risk falling into turmoil. You need to make sure newly conquered territory is adequately garrisoned. Supply lines need to be maintained so make sure you do not expand too quickly or an enemy can block communications.
I just can’t wait to play a live opponent/s, let me know if you’re up for a game.

- Units crossing a red border must stop.
- Nobles are B2=B3 when defending their home areas.
- All Scottish inf fire at +1 (c3=c4) in battles when the English have no archers. (Optional Rule)
- The Combat Reserves rule does not apply to units attacking across the Anglo-Scottish border.
- All Welsh and Ulster blocks must roll before battle.
- Battlefield Control changes if the Attacker wins in round 1 before the Defending reserves arrive. The Attacker then becomes the Defender.
- Border limits are applied to the entire movement phase and each combat round. So you can retreat 2 units across a red border each combat round.
- During Wintering Moray may decline to return home.
- Edward I can winter in Scotland with any number of red blocks regardless of castle limits.
- Edward I cannot spent two consecutive winters in Scotland nor winter in 1306.
- Edward II cannot winter in Scotland.
- The English can only use castle RPs to strengthen infantry and nobles.
- English infantry can only remain if in a castle with a sufficient limit. All units in England must disband.

- The Norse block requires 1 movement point to move by itself. It moves separately to other blocks.
- It can move from any coastal area to any other coastal area. It can also retreat or regroup to any friendly ( not neutral ) coastal area. It cannot enter England.
- The Norse or French block may be deployed at a friendly adjacent coastal area if drawn for an inland area. Castle limits do not apply.
- Should the Norse block be pulled for a landlocked territory, it is placed in coastal territory, but uses the castle build points from the territory for which it was originally drawn.
- The sea move card may *not* be used to move the Norse block.

Hammer of the Scots: I’ve been longing to play this for years and finally managed to get a game going. Glad I did though, it’s excellent. I played the English in the Braveheart scenario and got soundly beaten. Somehow I managed to get Edward killed in round 1 of the first year.
We got a few rules incorrect on first play. One of them was an inconsistency in the rulebook, surprising given the rules are only 4 pages long and up to version 2.3.
William Wallace is powerful so a deep groan would eminate every time his block was flipped for battle hehe
Next time we play I’m going to try and get Edward as far into Scotland as possible, I need to make sure those 2 and 3 value castles are clear of Scots to prevent them accumulating too many forces. When he’s near Fife I’ll stack other units with him and keep him there through winter. Really looking forward to trying different stuff.

I’ve been going over the rules for Pax Romana on and off the last few days. The more I read the more I’m looking forward to giving the game a try.
Slave revolts, barbarian incursions, Gallic uprisings, civil unrest, pillage and plunder, economic management, expansion, war. 300 years of history. Nice!
Also kicked off a game of PBEM diplomacy against anonymous opponents. I managed to draw Germany. So far talks with Russia, France and Turkey have been fruitful. This of course means that a silent Austria had better talk up soon or be eliminated early when we conspire to eliminate her hehe It does not pay to be quiet in Dip.

Twilight Struggle: Finished yesterday’s game. It was all over by the 4th phase of turn 4. The USSR had exclusive control of Africa thanks to a very handy card I played in a previous turn. The very first scoring card I had drawn all game just happened to be that of Africa which of course I had to play by the end of the Turn!! Very well played by my opponent who hit game-end at 20 VP. Can’t wait to play again and try a host of different strategies. We needed to make more use of the Space Race track to burn potentially harmful events, this would have prevented my hving played the nasty Africa event which helped secure my loss.

Lost Cities: A big jump from Twilight to one of the lightest Euros! Still good fun though, I like the bluff aspect of this game and it plays so quick.

Three Player Settlers: Played two games today, good but frustrating fun as usual!

Settlers: Cities & Knights: Very very long but very good. The winner managed a good middle-endgame by trading 2:1 brick for the comodities needed to get a metropolis on board. C&K increases the importance of wool quite a bit. Also, it seems the best way to get the comodities needed to upgrade your cities is to trade for them. Expecting dice rolls to accomplish the same is not a realistic strategy seeing as you only get one per city resource roll.

Twilight struggle: Played the first three turns of a game today. Wow, lots of cold war flavor. Somehow my opponent managed to draw every single scoring card. I’m losing by about 11VP so there’s lots of work to do yet. Next few turns I’m going to concentrate on gearing up more re-alignment rolls by surrounding opponent’s territory with my own. I need more card protectors We’ve just shuffled the mid-war cards into the draw deck so I cant wait to play the next few turns.

Scrabble: Two consecutive games. OK, Scrabble has finally reached nightmare stage after about 6 straight losses. I just cannot compete and there is no useful handicap system. I’ve reached the point where I’ll resign when I’m at least 70 points behind. It works out more bearable to resign rather than continue the game to its bitter end!

Took a break from face-to-face gaming today. I did manage to both solo and play online Hammer of the Scots and Twilight Struggle however. Both are really really good games, highy recommended if you haven’t tried them.

I picked up a copy of both Twilight Struggle and Hammer of the Scots today. I’m really looking forward to giving them a try.

Modern Art: I’m not sure if 5 players is the strong point. Still as great as ever though, always tough decisions on the net worth of paintings. Interesting to observe how others play. I did reduce my rating on the geek recently. Given that I won the game I might have to put it back up again

A Game Of Thrones: Still trying to grasp this one. Only a four player game today. Even though I was feeling a little crappy.. got some sort of virus, the game was a lot of fun. From now on I’m taking the card summary sheets along to Gamers@Dockers… It’s just too fiddly having to look at other’s cards.

I managed to pick up the three starter decks for Battleground: Fantasy. I’ve
been soloing it to get a feel for the mechanics as I’ve never played any sort of miniatures game. I’m not yet sure if there are enough interesting strategic decisions. I’m hoping someone from Dockers will step up for a game of this soon.

Castle: An interesting little game by Faidutti and some unknown called Laget. You try to gain influence in a castle by placing cards. I’ll play a few times before coming to any sort of conclusion as to whether it’s good or not. It reminds me of some other game, not sure what.

Memoir ‘44: OK got my butt kicked and lost the match for Scenario 9. I’d like to blame lack of center cards but more likely my strategy was crap.

Settlers of Catan 5 Players: We played this twice today. Man did I do something nasty.
We had no less than 4 people in game-winning position, all were at 9 points. The person to my left was the only one not winning. She played a Monopoly and stole all the brick which was nice. When it came to my turn I played my own Monopoly card and stole all of the Ore. Good, so that meant everyone would need to collect resources to build their game-winning city or settlement. This would give me enough time to collect the stuff I needed to win myself.
So when the game gets to a guy sitting opposite me, he rolls the robber and says “all I need is wool, has anyone got wool? Hey, you’ve got wool” he says as he points to the girl sitting to my left. I then interjected with “Nah, actually I’ve got wool do you want it?”. Of course, I was totally lying as I didn’t have a single wool. He took the bait and stole a card from my hand, looking slightly baffled at why I was keen to help him win the game. He wasn’t at all happy but took it well when I told him. Is that bad???!!!

I didn’t end up winning because even though that particular guy lost, the next guy managed to roll the resources he needed to win. Best game of Settlers I’ve played yet.

Fury of Dracula: Fury has held up better than anything. Today I played Drac for the first time and was beaten. I underestimated Dracs weakness to the Pistol and lost 10 points of health. The card which lets Drac move anywhere was played but countered with a card played by the hunters which disabled it. So there goes the only problem I may have had with balance! I upped my rating from 8 to 9.

Lost Cities: Yeah a good game but too light. Maybe I’m just annoyed at losing two games in a row.

Card Baseball: Nine innings of this is way too long. Cut it down to 3-4 and it’s just right. I lost

Memoir ‘44: I’m winning this consistently lately but my opponent will not let me tell her what she is doing wrong lol

Pitcher
Play a picture card to throw a ball. Any other number to throw a good pitch.
May call for a new ball at any time by discarding two picture cards and re-drawing.

Batter
Play one or two picture cards before the pitch to attempt a steal.
If bat card is:
- a different suit then strike.
- < pitcher's card then it's a ball.
- > pitcher’s card then it’s a hit.
- picture card then it’s a foul.

Hit
Count the difference in cards.
x2 if different suit but same color.
x3 if different color and different suit.

If batter played a picture then it’s a Sacrifice attempt.
If pitcher played a picture then it’s a Home Run.

0, 1, 2 - out
3, 4 - single
5, 6 - double
7, 8 - triple
> 9 - home run

Steal
Play picture cards before the pitch to attempt a steal.
If pitcher plays a pic of the same suit then Out.
If pitcher plays any other card then he is sent back to base.
If pitcher plays a non-picture then he is safe.

Stealing Home
Any picture of the same color is out.
Any picture of another color or number card of same suit sends him back to base.

Multiple Stealing
First steal is normal.
Subsequent steals require a higher ranking picture card for an out. A lower picture of same suit or picture card of other same-color suit send him back to base.
Stealing home, a picture card of the same suit is required for an out while any other picture card is required to send him back to base.
Run does not count if out is made before runner reaches home.

Sacrifice
Batter leads with picture card after a hit.
Another picture card of same suit leads to a double play.
Picture of another suit means the sacrifice is a success, batter is out and base runners advance.
Any other card means the batter advances as well.
A man on third cannot be sacrificed home.

Lost Cities: A quick fun loss.

Card Baseball: I kinda got into (US) Major League Baseball quite some time ago. One of the best pitchers in the league of the past few years has been Curt Schilling. Being a fan of ASL he rescued Advanced Squad Leader from a dying Avalon Hill and started Multiman Publishing at his own expense. This all happened years ago but ASL has since seen a huge resurgence (Well, as huge as wargame resurgences get. It ain’t a tsunami!) due in part to MMP and the online play tool VASL.
Well, Schilling led me to baseball. I have a subscription to mlb.com an awesome website which lets you watch any game of the season both live and recorded. A season contains over 2400 games of baseball (no shit!!) and at 3-4 hours per game it’s not humanly possible to watch it all

Anyway, I managed to score a copy of the book “A Gamut of Games” from an Internet secondhand seller some time ago. It contains a collection of classic designs by Sid Sackson. I’ve already played Lines of Action a few times online. It’s an abstract which uses a checkers board and pieces. An excellent game, the only reason you would want to get a checkers set in the first place
So yeah, Card Baseball is pretty cool if you are at all familiar with the sport. Considering it uses a standard 52 card deck, it really does capture the feel of the game.

Battle Line: I’ve got a kind of weird thing with Battle Line. If I play with the cards included in the game I lose time after time. But if I play using a nice set of Rage cards, I win more often than I lose. Strange I know… I think the cards give me some sort of epileptic fit.

Command and Colors Ancients: Starting to lose more consistently now, I thought I had it worked out, I’m not so sure…

Scrabble: Tightened the timer up tonight, 30 minutes each and our closest game yet. It’s interesting how words used in previous games come in handy later. We’ve seen “qi”,”te” and “yeti” a few times. Easy ways to get some of the higher valued letters onto triples. The game works best with some sort of time limit. Our games are taking well under an hour now.

Settlers: Still no less fun after so many games. Played one three player game. If we play this for another 6 months I’ll give it a “10″ for sure. Right up beside ASL.

Citadels: In the past I’ve played this 5-6 times and it has fallen flat. Three player today, much better. Starting to see the beauty of this game. In fact I actually look forward to playing again.

Lost Cities: The first Euro I bought years ago. Played 3 matches. Great fun when both players are playing really fast.

Liberte: A learning game. Hmm, I do like it but I feel Wallace designs have been falling flat with me of late. I need to start getting into them more. I really should attempt to get Byzantium on the table.

Wellington: First CDG! I think I would have enjoyed this more playing a single power instead of two at once. Having to manage 16 cards at once was a little too much for a first time learning. I really want to try it again though, i’m dying to in fact.

Jambo: Nice light card game. With Blue Moon, Battle Line and Lost Cities I doubt I’ll ever need to buy it.

Scrabble: Squib killed it. I mean, she played the word squib on a double and scored 42 points. Her average score is over 300 every game. I played the word “zen” with the z on a triple letter and as it turns out it’s not listed as an allowed word

We played using a chess clock and it was great. Kept the game short, it was nice to see how much time we had taken to play.

Scrabble: A nice close game, 282-251. Well, the closest I have come to winning yet!

Gang Of Four: A fluffy little kids game, which I lost in spectacular fashion. Twice. ’nuff said.

Starfarers of Catan: A four player game at Dockers, thanks for bringing it Doug! A great game, lots going on. Has a similar feel to Starship Catan. I’m thinking of picking it up but the booster bracket issue may be a hastle and I still haven’t played Seafarers or Cities & Knights to death
Great fun, very satisfying to dump a colony right next to a heavy resource producing planet. Damn it’s gonna be hard leaving this game on the store shelf. Actually, maybe I should get it just in case it goes out of print?
It has that classic Settlers feel, something that makes you go away and think how you may do things differently next time. Lots of different trade options, faster travel, exploration cards and it looks stunning.

Settlers of Catan 5 Player: What can I say that hasn’t already been said? Still loving it, and sometimes hating it! Today we had a rare opportunity to see the same strategy at work two games in a row (both five player). The first game saw big wheat and ore resources gathered in one spot. I started a settlement right in the middle of 3 ore hexes and my second next to ore and wheat. This meant the only resources I would be generating before my third settlement would be ore and wheat. No brick, no wool, no wood.
This appeared to work well for the better part of two turns. I had two cities down before I rolled the dice a second time. You would think this would be a great point from which to lever. Not so. From that point I could not get my hands on the wood and brick I needed. I attracted the robber almost every time and rarely had the four cards I needed for a 4:1 trade.
Other players built roads around me and my strategy had to fall back on pulling Dev cards. Game Lost.
The second game saw Doug set up almost exactly the same configuration of starting settlements and sure enough his two cities were up and running early. I wasn’t paying much attention but somehow he managed to get hold of enough resources to run a road and build an additional settlement. From there he managed the largest army and was a continual threat the entire game. I think this strategy fell short again because of the lack of resource diversity, near game end he had no resources to build extra roads to settle so was maxed out with three cities and no expansion.

Command and Colors Ancients: This thing has been permanently set up on the table all week. We had an interesting game. Scenario 2 has a river spanning one side of the board and a hill behind the Syracusians. I’ve been enjoying stacking leaders with medium cav lately and sending them all around the board to harass unsupported light inf. and it has been working pretty well. Until today when I ran out of center and left flank cards.
Things got nasty, I had a heap of single blocks in no-man’s land barely surviving. Lost the game 4-5. Can’t wait to play again.

Scrabble: I’ve only played this classic 5-6 times. My opponent knew what to expect as I had blurted out basic strategy months before our first play. Double and Triple word scores were never opened up. In fact, it was I who had to open them.
And get this, one my opponent’s plays was a single ‘q’ on a double letter score next to two single adjacent ‘i’, for a total score of 42. Let me explain, that’s the word “qi” spelt twice with the 10 point ‘q’ on a double. Doesn’t get any better than that. And to add insult to injury my opponent also managed the word “vim” on a triple word with the “m” lining up for a “me”. I mean, am I the only one who has never heard of the word “vim”? The score was something like 300 - 200 by game end. I had a headache.

Settlers of Catan: A six player game that I won. Great fun as always, three new players joined us to get sucked in. Lots of table talk and interesting group dynamics.

We then played a four player game on the standard board. Two strategies seem to stand out right now. We either go for early roads or early cities.
Early in the game beginners tend to want wood and brick for road so a good strategy is to build one initial settlement on wheat and ore and the other on brick and wood. That way when the other players are desperate for roads you can trade with them for their wheat and ore. It works a treat and if you can get to a port as well even better Two early cities can be enough to take you to a win especially if you secure a port location as well.
We prefer the Seafarers expansion due to the many more strategic options and increased variety but right now we’re training for the Albury tournament so play 4-player basic when we can.

Traders of Genoa: Wow. I’ve been hesitant to get this out because I didn’t want to have to teach the rules but I’m sure glad I did. A fantastic game that I cannot wait to play again. So much going on and so many options. The open trading elements leads to many interesting decisions and strategies. Not a lot I can say right now though because it seemed chaotic the first time. I can already tell this will become a true classic in our group who love to talk and trade and make deals etc.

Memoir ‘44: Starting to get a better feel for the game, winning more often now. Seems that luck may be less of a factor than I thought.

Command and Colors Ancients: This is certainly an excellent game, my dice aid worked really well. We seem to have the basic ideas sorted out, cav are good on the flanks but need lots of support. Units need good retreat paths. Move in early to steer clear of the friendly board edge. Keep as many units in support as possible. Heavy inf can get by with minimal support. etc.

Navia Dratp: The more I play the more I like it. Still playing with the starter kits and enjoying the challenge. Fixes all the things with chess that make it suck in my opinion; The fixed starting position which means experts have analysed sequences to death. The analysis paralysis of having every piece on the board at once with 50 move lookahead. The boring static movement of pieces. The singular victory “checkmate” condition (Navia Dratp has three).

A really excellent game only marred by the anime theme. Seeing as the game has Japanese origins this can be forgiven.

Setup
- Place Chariots
- Each player draw his teams from a cup in turn.
- Secretly fill out the Preperation points.
- Reveal one at a time and fill out Driver Modifier/Hits/Team Speed/Endurance.

- No attacks allowed *from* the grey squares the first turn.

Turn
- Players secretly record planned turn speed. (max is Team Speed + CDM)
- Randomly draw a counter from the cup.
- If first turn of the game, roll a die and subtract from movement.
- Announce use of the whip to gain speed. Cannot add more MF than endurance remaining.
- Resolve that team’s move.
- Repeat for each counter drawn.

Movement
- If entering a corner, check for strain. Subtract from endurance and check for flip.
- Only strain if lane change is to inner.
- If braking, subtract 1 endurance per MF delayed.
- If braking in opponent’s move, subtract 2 endurance per square moved back.
- Chariot must sideslip if blocked. 3MF.
- Additional flip checks are only needed if changing lane.
- For flip roll 3 dice.

- A chariot with zero endurance cannot strain again.

Attacks
- Attacker must be directly beside or not partially behind on a corner.
- Decide on Ram or Lash attack. Can only Lash if have whip.
- Defender decides whether to evade or hold.
- Roll dice to check evade.