Long time no blog. I've been busy, but also a bit lazy. I finally overcame that laziness, though, and have played another random game from my collection for your edification. This time, the random selection isn't even a complete game. The Lurker at the Threshold is an expansion set for the game Arkham Horror. This is a "small box" expansion, so there is no new map, or new monsters, or new heroes. The expansion does come with some new item and spell cards, as well as new mythos and encounter cards, as well. But the big addition with this expansion is in the area of pacts and relationships.
The theme to this expansion is providing aid to others. Many of the items and spells in this expansion allow players to aid other players in various ways, and the relationship cards allow for permanent benefits between two different characters. All of this helps the players to win the game. Not that the expansion is making things easy for you, of course, as the expansion also introduces new gate tokens which generally have nasty surprises and can actively harm you, as opposed to the dimensional gates in the original game which are just kind of there on the board. That is decidedly unfun. Also, the pact cards go along with the 'Lurker at the Threshold' herald card, and adds a whole new dimension to the game. Basically, there is an evil creature who is perfectly happy to aid the players as they try to accomplish tasks in the... for a price, to be named later. And some of those prices can be very high, indeed.
All told, I like this expansion. I like how many of the new cards relate to helping other players, which means that this expansion gets better with more players. If only only playing with two or three people, I'm not sure that this expansion provides much to the game, but with four or more players I can see how it could really increase the interaction among players, which is always a good thing in a cooperative game like this. So, a solid expansion that makes the game harder but adds to player interactivity in a good way. That's a win in my book.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Battleship Galaxies
The next random game in my journey through my game collection is a rather recent one, Battleship Galaxies. This is a recent Hasbro game of space combat featuring plastic spaceships. As some of you may know, for decades there has been a game called Battleship. You might think that there is something tying these two games together, and you would be right to think so. We will get to that in a minute. First, let me explain the basics of the game.
There are two sides, the ISN (humans and friendly aliens) and the Wretcheridians (unfriendly aliens). Each side has a total of 10 ship pieces available (three capital ships and seven fighter craft). Each ship or fighter squadron has a card that describes its capabilities, of which there are three variants (standard, experienced, veteran). The more experienced a ship is, the more special abilities it picks up. The base game comes with five missions, and each mission explains which ships are involved. Alternately, some missions instead give you a certain amount of points to use to purchase your ships, so this came can be played with lots of different combinations of ships. There are also cards that you use to change things during the game, such as adding special crew to your ships, or adding extra weapons or systems, or special tactics (like re-rolling a miss or ignoring a hit).
Everything in the game is ruled by energy. Each turn you get 10 energy points to use however you wish. It takes energy to "launch" a ship onto the board, it takes energy to activate a ship or fighter squadron already on the board, and it takes energy to play cards. Some weapons even require energy to fire. That 10 energy you get a turn is rarely enough to do everything you would like, so there are times when you have to not activate ships or play cards and instead save your energy for use in a later turn.
Combat is pretty simple but surprisingly effective. Each weapon has a stated range and damage capacity. If an enemy ship is within range, you can make an attack. Here is where the tie-in to the original Battleship game comes in. Each ship card has a grid of 80 spaces, with columns A through J and rows 1 through 8. There are two dice in the game, a 10-sided die with letters and an 8-sided die with numbers. The attacker rolls the two dice and calls out the attack coordinates, and then the defender looks at the target's ship grid and determines whether the attack hits the ship or misses. Large capital ships take up many boxes on the grid, and fighters take up less, so they are harder to hit (which makes sense). If the attack hits, the defender takes as many points of damage as the weapon does. For each hit, you put a red damage peg onto the base of the ship, and once it reaches its hull rating the ship is destroyed. Many ships also start the game with shields, which are (usually) removed before taking any hull damage. Interestingly, each ship also has a critical damage space, and any hull damage to that space automatically destroys the ship.
This game is pretty fun. It doesn't take that long to play, and the players have many choices to make as they try to make the best use of their energy to take actions to defeat the other player. The only downside to this game is that it could really use more: more ships, more cards, more scenarios. The rulebook references expansions to the game, though as of the date of this blog entry I am unaware of there being any expansions, or even plans for expansions. So while the game is perfectly playable on its own, it could use a little more love and attention from Hasbro. Still, what is here is a good, fun game that I can see myself playing a lot more of in the future.
There are two sides, the ISN (humans and friendly aliens) and the Wretcheridians (unfriendly aliens). Each side has a total of 10 ship pieces available (three capital ships and seven fighter craft). Each ship or fighter squadron has a card that describes its capabilities, of which there are three variants (standard, experienced, veteran). The more experienced a ship is, the more special abilities it picks up. The base game comes with five missions, and each mission explains which ships are involved. Alternately, some missions instead give you a certain amount of points to use to purchase your ships, so this came can be played with lots of different combinations of ships. There are also cards that you use to change things during the game, such as adding special crew to your ships, or adding extra weapons or systems, or special tactics (like re-rolling a miss or ignoring a hit).
Everything in the game is ruled by energy. Each turn you get 10 energy points to use however you wish. It takes energy to "launch" a ship onto the board, it takes energy to activate a ship or fighter squadron already on the board, and it takes energy to play cards. Some weapons even require energy to fire. That 10 energy you get a turn is rarely enough to do everything you would like, so there are times when you have to not activate ships or play cards and instead save your energy for use in a later turn.
Combat is pretty simple but surprisingly effective. Each weapon has a stated range and damage capacity. If an enemy ship is within range, you can make an attack. Here is where the tie-in to the original Battleship game comes in. Each ship card has a grid of 80 spaces, with columns A through J and rows 1 through 8. There are two dice in the game, a 10-sided die with letters and an 8-sided die with numbers. The attacker rolls the two dice and calls out the attack coordinates, and then the defender looks at the target's ship grid and determines whether the attack hits the ship or misses. Large capital ships take up many boxes on the grid, and fighters take up less, so they are harder to hit (which makes sense). If the attack hits, the defender takes as many points of damage as the weapon does. For each hit, you put a red damage peg onto the base of the ship, and once it reaches its hull rating the ship is destroyed. Many ships also start the game with shields, which are (usually) removed before taking any hull damage. Interestingly, each ship also has a critical damage space, and any hull damage to that space automatically destroys the ship.
This game is pretty fun. It doesn't take that long to play, and the players have many choices to make as they try to make the best use of their energy to take actions to defeat the other player. The only downside to this game is that it could really use more: more ships, more cards, more scenarios. The rulebook references expansions to the game, though as of the date of this blog entry I am unaware of there being any expansions, or even plans for expansions. So while the game is perfectly playable on its own, it could use a little more love and attention from Hasbro. Still, what is here is a good, fun game that I can see myself playing a lot more of in the future.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
History is Fun
The only thing that I knew I wanted to do today was go to Monticello. I hadn't been there in at least four years, so I wasn't sure what would be different. As it would turn out, more than I thought. First, there is a nice little exhibit hall attached to the visitor's center complex with some interesting interactive exhibits. My favorite part was the word tile thing on the floor, where a projector would slap a bunch of moving letters on the word, which would then move to the wall to make a quote from somebody relevant to that word. Pretty interesting.
Also, I was sad to learn that the two huge trees flanking the rear of the house are both gone, victims of disease and storms. As is my wont, I got there before 10AM and didn't leave until after 3:30PM. I then visited a mountain-top orchard selling their own cider and apple butter. After that I had to visit multiple grocery stores before I could successfully find some Dominion root beer. I drank a bit of that stuff when I lived in Arlington. Then I lucked into a really authentic Chinese restaurant, where I got a mix of really and really not healthy foods, and now to watch some playoff hockey.
Also, I was sad to learn that the two huge trees flanking the rear of the house are both gone, victims of disease and storms. As is my wont, I got there before 10AM and didn't leave until after 3:30PM. I then visited a mountain-top orchard selling their own cider and apple butter. After that I had to visit multiple grocery stores before I could successfully find some Dominion root beer. I drank a bit of that stuff when I lived in Arlington. Then I lucked into a really authentic Chinese restaurant, where I got a mix of really and really not healthy foods, and now to watch some playoff hockey.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Hold Your Horses
Greetings from Charlottesville, VA! I am here for a long weekend away from work. When I mentioned to one of my colleagues (who used to live in Virginia) that I was coming to Charlottesville he asked if I was here for the races. Alas, I am not, but there are a LOT of fairly fancy people at the hotel, so that is probably what they are here for. Instead, I am going to Monticello tomorrow, and will probably hit the walking mall downtown in the evening. I am unsure if I'll be able to find someplace with the Blues game playing, but I'll give it my best shot. Sunday is a wildcard, as of yet unplanned. I'm sure I can come up with something to do, though.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Panzer Blitz
A year ago I wrote about the board game Panzer Leader. The next game up in my random walk through my board game collection is Panzer Blitz, the predecessor game to Panzer Leader, being published first, in 1970. While the games are quite similar, in some ways I like Panzer Blitz better, probably because the rules are even simpler and artillery don't have a completely different set of rules to resolve fire. The main differences are thematic, with Panzer Blitz's situations covering action on the Eastern Front (German vs. Soviet). There are some different unit types in this, including Russian cavalry, which are way more fun than they should be, but otherwise it is feels very familiar. Panzer Blitz uses the same style of modular boards as Panzer Leader, so it is possible to combine the games together and have really huge battles if you want. So if you want to know my opinion of Panzer Blitz, just take what I wrote about Panzer Leader and put it in a slightly more favorable light.
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