Cyberboard

GAME REPORTS

There are many many more AAR's(After Action Reports) on the Yahoo Group, so check that out for more recent reports, or for specific games :)

 *** Club Event at ALLSTARGAMES for February in Diamond Bar:
REPORTS FROM BARRY LEW
As the Axis player in Europe Engulfed, here is my take on the game.

There are two basic sections to the rules... the Rules Book and the Play Book. Both are about 23 or so pages. The Play Book has Players Notes, Designers Notes, Optional Rules, Examples of Play and some Scenarios and Short Games. So to be able to play the game, you only need read the Rules Book and perhaps certain sections of the Play Book that cover the side you are playing. Not an overwhelming task.

The map uses area movement, with infantry type units being able to move one area, while armor and air units can move two. There is also a strategic movement, but there is a limit how many units can be moved that way per nation. Germany for example can move seven (7) units, while Italy can only move two (2). While there are naval units on the map, they've somewhat abstracted, along with submarine, anti- submarine, and strategic bombing. Its a very nice, clean system, that gives you the essence of those strategic areas, without distracting from the ground combat.

There is also something in the game called Special Action Markers. Somewhat similiar to what an O-Chit is in WiF, but it goes beyond that. In effect, if you want to conduct additional moves & combat during your turn, you need O-Chits. You can also use them as a defender, to react to an attacker.

We used the recommended setup for the '39 Campaign game. First step for Germany, was to take out Poland. My main attack went into one area, but needed to spend a Special Action Marker to be able to conduct an attack in Warsaw, which was another area. Even so, Poland fell during the first German turn (which it needs to do).

There is weather in the game, with Snow and Mud having effects on combat. Something that hurt me later on, as you will see.

A few units were sent against the Danes, while I stacked the Western border against the Low Countries and France. When you conduct combat, you have the option of declaring a normal attack or a assault. An assault lets you use twice your combat dice (as well as the defender using twice his). The idea behind using an assault, is that you want to take out the opposition during one round, so you can move into another area using your Special Action Marker. Otherwise, you have to use that Special Action Marker to finish off the defenders in your first area, meaning to get to the second area, you have to use another Special Action Marker. Thats was my downfall against France.

Germany launched attacks against the Maginot line (to pin the defenders down), the Netherlands and the Belgians. The idea was to take out the Low Countries, then using a Special Action Marker, move the Panzers and attack aircraft from Netherlands thru Belgium, linking up with the other forces in Belgium to launch an attack against France. I spent too long building up forces (buying Panzers), and launched the attack May/June(?). That gave France, during the Mar/Apr turn, a chance to build fortifications along the Belgium border.

The Netherlands fall in one turn, but they do damage against the attacking Germans (ie both roll a 6 on a 1d6, scoring two hits). So while the Germany infantry can take the hit, the Allies have just "gotten inside my kill zone" (ie they've made me wonder). I'm now neverous about the garrison I'm leaving behind, wondering if the British will try to invade the Netherlands.

My attack against the Belgiums comes out even worse. The Germans, even with overwhelming numbers, fail to kill off the defenders. That was the price I paid for not using an "assault" attack. So now I have to spend a Special Action Marker to finish off the Belgiums. Then another Special Action Marker to launch an assault against the French. Again, I use a "normal" attack, not an assault, and I fail to clear the French. I spend my last Special Action Marker, the French fall back on Paris and I'm out of Markers.

I'm in a bad spot now, since the French defending the Maginot line, have the ability to attack into Germany (against the remants of the armies that thru themselves against the Maginot line) or into Belgium. They choose Belgium. That does two things to me... it cuts off my invading German units in France, who are now out of supply, and it forces me to deal with the French units in Belgium, who are supplied from the sea.

So in addition to trying to save my cutoff units, I now have to deal with French probes into Germany proper. While I eventually get France to fall, I never recover from those mistakes, as once France does fall, its 1941. I'm in no position to launch a Barbarrossa. Any thought of trying to invade the UK is a German dream, as I've spent no resources getting ready for something like that (ie naval units).

While we did not continue, Germany would have had to fight a defensive battle on the Eastern Front, with its only hope of any offensive actions being in North Africa. Not the kind of plan for "winning" the campaign... at best fighting the Allies to a draw.

My mistakes were in not having any Special Action Markers for "just in case"; being too wimpy to use assaults; and trying to get "just a few more panzers".

But it was fun, and for those of you who want to play a "monster wargame" in one or two days, I urge you to try it out. If you've ever played A3R, WiF, etc, I think you will find that this puts the fun back into playing a campaign game, without having to sacrifice realism because the rules are only 20 pages.

REPORTS FROM DAVE GEE
I played Rise of the Roman Republic with Patrick and Brett. This game features a steep learning curve, and I am deeply indebted to them for getting me up on the step. On Sunday, I took another run through the rules to prove Brett's point that we played several of them incorrectly:
* Only one try at involuntary surrender per city per campaign.
* Contrary to what we thought, it is not a misprint that its harder to continue after a successful involuntary surrender; looting and pillaging...

The only unanswered question of the evening is whether a Soviet Guards unit would surrender to handful of Diamond Bar kindergartners.

REPORTS FROM STEVE WILLIAMS
Paul led Rod, Rick, and I through a playest of Richard Berg's game concept Dynasty. It was kind of neat to experience a "raw" game; it really makes you appreciate the final game product!

Rod taught me how to play AH's Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage. Hannibal is truly a mean mutha' with his elephants. They went rampaging across Italy and besieged Rome. Fortunately, I was able to take my Roman general Pubus Maximus and put the spank on Hannibal, making him retreat a bit. I still lost, but it was a lot of fun.

I played El Grande soon after with Rod, Pat, Winton, Dani (spelling?), Bruce and Keith. It was pretty fun; kind of a faster version of Wallenstein.

I finished up the night with Guillotine around midnight. Robspierre was in the lineup halfway through the first day, and the game began to go quickly. Dani already had the early lead (what is it about beginner's luck, anyway?), but Pat was coming up quickly in second. At this point, I remembered the true objective of all games I play, and that is to throw myself into the oncoming victory machine that is called Patrick Havert. A couple of mean cards were traded between the two of us, with my final move resulting in us trading our entire card hands. Unfortunately, I gave him a better hand. The game gods truly smile on this guy. Dani picked up the squeaker win. Bruce was urging us to play a second round, but several of us called it a night.

*** Club Event at KnightWare in February:
Lord of the Rings
1.Jennifer
2.Jeff
3.Jameson
4.Chuck/Keith
5.Patrick
Close game, with Fatty Bolger leading the charge into Mordor and tossing the Ring into Mount Doom. It was fun, even though it went against my natural instinct to cooperate with the other players :)

Amun Re
1.Michael - 40 pts
2.Eric - 40 pts
3.Shannon - 34 pts
4.Chris - 35 pts
Tight game, with Michael winning as the favored of Amun Re.

Puerto Rico
1.Barry - 48 pts
2.Myo - 45 pts
3.Anna - 45 pts
Another nail biter, with Anna completing the buildings in her area to end the game.

Starfarers of Catan
1.Brant - 10 pts
2.Barry - 9 pts
3.Myo - 8 pts
4.Anna - 6 pts
Barry was attacked constantly due to his bullying ways :) Brant snuck in at the end with the help of an encounter card.

Palabra
1.Brant
2.Jameson
3.Jeff
4.Jennifer
5.Chuck
Fun game, with more possibilities than scrabble.

Car Wars the Card Game
1.Michael
2.Chuck
3.Eric
4.Jennifer
5.Patrick
As I was destroyed quickly, it was a bust :) Quick(45 minutes) card game.

Cave Troll
1.Jennifer - 64 pts
2.Chuck - 63 pts
3.Jeff - 62 pts
4.Jameson - 32 pts
Jennifer edged the crowd out in a toughie.

Vinci
1.Patrick - 100 pts
2.Anna - 90 pts
3.Keith - 88 pts
4.Myo - 87 pts
5.Barry - 85 pts
Close game, with Barbarians and Weapons leading the charge at the end.

We the People
1.Patrick - Britain
2.Steve - America
Close game, with a surprise ending causing Britain to win.

Zero
1.Patrick - USA 1940
2.Keith - Japan 1940
Keith started strong, wounding both planes, and flipping my main pilot, but horrible cards caught up to him, causing him to lose 2 planes to 1 in the dogfight.

*** The following took place at DuPar's after the main event ended.
High Society
1.Barry - 0/12 pts
2.Patrick - 12/11 pts
3.Myo - 6/3 pts
4.Anna - 0/0 pts
Quick auction card game, with Anna getting crushed on money in both games. Barry made a nice recovery in the second game, to win by a point.

Citadels
1.Anna - 36 pts
2.Patrick - 24 pts
3.Myo - 23 pts
4.Barry - 17 pts
Anna dominated the game, even after losing buildings to the warlord.

*** Club Event at All-Star Games in January:
Puerto Rico
Close Hard fought game, with Matt moving in for a win.

BANG! by Devon Tuck
We played a 7 person game of Bang! and the "good guys" won!
Players:
Steve W as Sheriff, Matt and Devon as Deputies Outlaws: Larry, Ed, Mark H. Renegade: Leann(sp?).
Summary:
It seemed like whichever Outlaw shot at the Sheriff was soon singled out and killed. The Renegade was one of those new to the game (Renegade has to kill everyone including deupties but leave the Sheriff for last so he can become the new Sheriff), which probably helped keep her the last one standing before the good guys won the big showdown.

Castle by Devon Tuck
(The game with all the square cards played with a cardboard rampart)
Players: Devon, Heather, Mark, Matt... hmm maybe it was 4 players?
Summary:
We played a 5 player Castle game which Heather almost won, but everybody jumped on her at the last minute and she was left with a whole army of Soldier cards that were thrown off the ramparts. After all that nobody had the right cards to completely stop Devon from getting rid of his last couple cards. Matt made a few of the most clever and devious of plays that game.
Times Up
Quick party game.

Catch Phase
Fun little party game, leaving the players roaring with laughter.

Tigris and Euphrates by Rick Byren
Leland, Mark, and Rick played Tigris and Euphrates (Mayfair version). I got very lucky in this one, at one time having 6 Red tiles in my hand! I didn’t lose a conflict, and ended up with a score of 15, beating Leland’s 13 and Mark’s 6. It was Mark’s first game – hope we didn’t discourage you from trying this great game again!

Starfarers of Catan by Roderick Lee
In our game, I think the final score was Matt 15, Mark 12, Roderick 10 (or 9?), Patrick 6 (or 7?).
There were three new players to the game, so I think the victor was helped by the fact that only one player (myself) knew the best way to slow down the leader. Mark was the early leader, and I was focused on him. Matt surged from 9 points to 13 points in one turn, a quick jump which usually signals a threat to victory in the next turn or two. I was not in the position to act quickly enough to watch both Mark and Matt, and Patrick was having the worst luck in all his events.
Oh, and this wouldn't be a Catan game if I didn't complain about the lack of 6's and the overabundance of 8's :-)

Arena Maximus
New Chariot Racing Game.

Circus Maximus
Older Avalon Hill Chariot Racing Game. Dave Gee took off to an early lead, and when Brett attempted to catch up to him, fliped his chariot. Steve then took it upon himself to ride over him before he could escape the track :) The rest of us battled for not finishing in last, with myself flipping my chariot in a suicidal attempt to take a turn.

NFL Showdown 2003 by Brett Dedrick
This last meet we played one half of a game just to try it out.
It ended up being a 7-0 game! My opponent played a no huddle offense strategy card after his first down. This meant that I could only use play cards that were of the same formation as the last play card I played. Since I happened to be in a nickel formation (used mainly for pass plays) all my opponent did from then until he scored was to use run plays. Antwain Smith gained probably 40 of the 70 yards on that drive (the other 30 yards were gained on a scramble by Steve Mcnair).

Puerto Rico #2
The Corn strategy paid off nicely, in a quick finish for a win for Patrick.

Puerto Rico #3 by Roderick Lee
The five players were myself, Patrick, Matt, Barry, and Jason.

Partial final score: Roderick 52, Patrick 45, Matt 39 (that's first to third).
I am rather proud of this victory because this is the first time to my recollection that I ever played a game out with no quarries. And strangely, I was swimming in doubloons for most of the game. I guess I overcompensated for my lack of quarries :-)

I was the fourth player, and as the first player opened with the builder, both hospices were scooped up, and I picked up a small market. On the second turn, I took the builder and built a tobacco storage. By the time it was my turn to be governor, there were only three quarries left as a result of both construction huts being purchased by other players (Matt and Patrick, I think.) However, rather than taking the settler, I sold tobacco for 6 doubloons (including the one doubloon sitting on the trader). Sure enough, by the end of turn 5, all the quarries were gone, and I found myself with none.

I used the proceeds from the first sale to buy a very early university which allowed me, following another tobacoo sale, to purchase a manned office. This allowed me to pick the trader almost any time I wanted and I was rarely lacking in cash. My next building was a manned factory to add to my income stream.

By the time I was ready to build my first 4-pt building, I was sitting on 17 doubloons. The town hall and fortress quickly followed. Patrick was once again shipping like a madman, crafting, on average, three tobacco and four corn. Fortunately, as he was to my left, my tobacco sales were cutting into his revenue stream, so it took him a while to build his wharf, and if I was forced to ship tobacco, that blocked his tobacco from the ship. Any earlier and he likely could have won. I thought Matt was my main competition as he was the only other player to purchase a 4-pt building, the guild hall I think, which gave him 8 or 9 bonus points.

In the end game, I was watching Matt, trying to prevent him from manning his guild hall. This allowed Patrick another shipping round during which he caught and passed Matt. I finally ended the game by filling up all my building spaces and picking up my eighteenth colonist thanks to the university. The guild hall produced seven bonus points, the fortress six. Combined with 16 VP chips, that yielded a total of 52. Patrick had a stack of VP chips but very few buildings. Matt had a balanced game of buildings and VP chips like myself, but was one or two build turns behind.

Barbarossa to Berlin #1
Patrick and Paul squared off, with Patrick as the Axis. After a nice opening shift to the south, the Germans were stopped at the gates of Stalingrad and Moscow. When the Soviets counterattacked with the allies, they smashed up Germany pretty badly, resulting in an overwhelming Allied victory.

Barbarossa to Berlin #2 by Brett Dedrick
Brett was the Germans and Steve was the Russians. Except for the minor fact that we played the first turn wrong, it was a fun game. I ended up winning when Steve mometarily forgot that Moscow isn't automatically supplied. So I surrounded Moscow and he lost the cream of his army. At one time we had two side by side games of BtB going at once.

Titan by Roderick Lee
This was myself, Nathan, and Jason. Early in the game (perhaps as early as turn 3 or 4), Jason attacked one of Nathan's larger stacks with his Titan stack and lost, thereby eliminating himself from the game. Score after resolving all of the stacks: Nathan 198, Roderick 0.
We then jockeyed for over an hour for position and recruitment without a battle. Our first battle was between two low-to-medium strength stacks, my three rangers and three base creatures defeating a slightly smaller stack of fewer rangers and more ogres. The battle was close enough that I needed to summon my angel, and Nathan was able to eliminate my only angel. Unfortunately, the victory points did not exceed 100 (I think I picked up about 70-80 pts), so I was out of luck in the angel department for the rest of the game.
We continued for another 30-40 minutes with some more minor skirmishes along the way, finally calling it a draw because we both wanted to jump into a multiplayer game. I think it was Nathan's game to lose because the early depletion of ogres from the recruitment pool left my Titan stack stuck as a jungle stack only. Advantage Nathan. Furthermore, I had no angels. Advantage Nathan. And of course, he had the point total on me and therefore a stronger Titan. Advantage Nathan. Of course, there was always the chance my dragon stack would have stumbled upon Nathan's Titan.

I'll take the draw. :-)


Hammer of the Scots by Dave Gee
My English took on Rick's Scots in a match where my fortune ebbed and flowed like the tide during a full moon. At one point during the early middle game the map was almost entirely covered by the red English units. Alas, Rick turned the tables during the ensuing turns, sweeping aside my forces and turning my nobles against me as if they were so much melted butter (what?), which is to say that by game's end the map was entirely covered by blue Scots units. This game reminds me of Wilderness War, because of the Winter periods where, Nobles in this case, rather than Indians, return to their homelands and where it is possible to lose infantry and other units unless they are adequately spread to live off the land. In a nutshell, great game. I recommend it highly.


*** Club Event at All-Star Games in December:
*********************** Reports by Anna Acero *************************
Puerto Rico (Steve & Venita)
Classic fun game... Close game at the end. Would be interested in playing this with the expansions one day (Expansions, FUN!) I like the fact that the turns are not always the same but are dependent on the player plans so there's a lot of (I think he thinks that I think...) going on. Great game dynamic.
Leland ...... 53
Vinita ...... 49
Anna ........ 47
Devon ....... 47
Steve ....... 33

Bohnanza (Devon)
The Bean trading game. Usually very cutthroat, but very frustrating this time around because everyone was being nice. Nothing wrong with being nice, but what happened to the spirit of I'm gonna screw you you nasty bastard?
Devon ....... 20
Anna ........ 16
Myo ......... 12
Vinita ...... 10

El Grande (All Star)
The game of influence. Played with a group of five, which made it most interesting (I think) I played pretty conservatively, consolidating all my peoples in one area. While this led to an early lead it also made me a target, and led Myo to over take the game with a really good job of diversification. Tons of fun with the screw the other player factor thrown in (because of the special cards)
Myo ......... 96
Roderick .... 87
Anna ........ 83
Patrick ..... 77
Devon ....... 77

Time Pirates (All Star)
Fun Chase game. The aim of the game is to collect artifacts from the different periods in history but watch out! With each artifact that appears in the board there's a chance the Time Police would come after you! Enough !'s! :) The screw you factor was big in this game too, with people scrambling to get the F. out of the way of the police which will take your wild card and an artifact that you've got the most of each time they catch you. Keep in mind that scoring occurs three times so early points are triple in value!
Anna ........ 47
Larry ....... 46
Patrick ..... 42
Myo ......... 39
Devon ....... 38

Pirate's Cove (All Star)
Another Pirates Game! Shiver me timbers, to the Carribean we go! If people try go to the same place, they are blown out of the water. The fun lies in the fact that the decision making is made in the blind, and you don't know where everyone else is going unless the plans are revealed. Chasing you around are dreadful pirates, the royal navy. But you have a parrot, buried treasure and a handful of doubloons! Yo-Ho! Yo-Ho! A pirate's life for me! I took the early lead in this one, but fame isn't everything folks. A few trips to "Loser Island" (Pirate's Cove) dropped me down to second-loser, but all is fun in love and euro-gaming! Patrick made an AMAZING comeback, being Mr. Lucky in die-rolling madness. Devon ....... 36
Larry ....... 34
Anna ........ 33
Patrick ..... 27
Myo ......... 18

Spank the Monkey (Devon)
Yes, we spanked the monkey! Can only be ordered from Sweden by giving a guy some money through pay pal. The monkey has escaped from the circus, to the junkyard and is sitting on top of a tower of junk. Your job is to build a tower of junk at the monkey's level or higher and spank the monkey to teach it a lesson! The art is hilarious and really nice. I got the smackdown from several people, but I enjoyed the game immensely and would like to play it again.
* Myo spanks the Monkey!

OddsR (All Star)
Weird gambling Trivia game. OddsR questions are all about statistics, and are really fuzzy. Funny thing is you could bet on your opponents winning or losing. Bets are paid out from the house lottery pool, and the odds are not determined by board position and not the difficulty of the question on the card. You also get some lottery tickets which at the end could be used to determine if you've won the pool.
* OddsR, Larry won this one, folks.

*********************** Reports by Paul Marjoram *************************
Age of Napoleon
Firstly, Rick's mighty Austro-Hungarian/Russian/British alliance took on my French in "Age of Napoleon". Unfortunately, an unlikely series of diplomatic cards meant that first the Russians left the alliance, and then the Prussians joined the French. This left a few Austrian units to defend the Motherland against a rampant Nappy, which they singularly failed to do, and the game ended in a quick, decisive French victory which owed far more to the cards than to any good play on my part. Still, it looks like a nice game and I'm eager to try it again.

We the People
The Gods then proved that they don't take sides, as we played "We The People". Rick's British took on my Americans. Rick coped with the schizophrenic choice of roles better than I did and Washington was soon on the back foot. The French allies landed, but busied themselves in port drinking brandy before they were dispatched by some passing British regulars. Feeling a rush of heroic blood course through his veins, Washington left Philidelphia and embarked upon a series of risky attacks in an attempt to turn the tide. However, he pushed his luck too far and victory went to the Brits. Unfortunately, this rather satisfying alternative history (just kidding!) left me the loser as Rick gained revenge for his Napoleonic misfortunes.

*********************** Report by Brett *************************
Napoleonic Wars
Rod(Britain), Brett(France), and Myself(Austria - Russia) Report by Brett

I started the game by combining Napoleon's army with Davout's and heading to the gates of Vienna. By the time I got there the Russians had reinforced the Austrians and actually had a slightly larger army than I. But, I was not worried. Oh no, I was the mighty French being led by one of the greatest military commanders of all time! And even though I was slightly outnumbered I still could commit the dreaded Imperial Guards! I couldn't lose!

Then I lost.....well that's not entirely accurate....I was routed....badly....very badly. Ever had one of those battles where you roll really crappy and your opponent rolls great? Well take that and multiply it by 10 then add a zillion and that was the difference between what we rolled. I killed a measly 2-3,000 troops. He annialated my ENTIRE army. Only Davoult and Napoleon escaped.

Still, he had concentrated his entire army at Vienna and I noticed a gap down south. King Charles was leading a smaller army. And with Napoleon's speed he could head south, pick up another amry being led by Soult and crush Charles. So I once again mightly attacked the pitiful Austrians. Only to be once again completely routed. This time I might have slightly damaged the right index finger of a really clumsy Austrian soldier. Napoleon, however, once again lost his entire army! Things looked bleak.

Did I say Bleak? I meant horrid. I had no army to stop the Austrain super soldiers and Napoleon was wandering around nothern Italy with Soult trying to figure out what went wrong.

Meanwhile, if that wasn't bad enough, the English had not only taken Rome but were on the verge of destroying the Spainish army (my only faithful ally). Then they used their diplomacy to get the Turks to come in as their ally! But then Luck finally struck! The turn ended.

In between turns, the French can rebuild fairly quickly. But I was waaaaayyy too far gone. Then, due I believe, to a carefully slid 20 dollar bill to Patrick, his Austrians and Russians switched to my side. Now turn two looked completely different.

This turn the Brits got pounded. Napoleon came down to Spain with a large army and lo and behold finally won a battle completely destroying any Brits left there! Then a revolt in Ireland almost took all of Ireland! Then the Prussians entered the game as a French ally! The Russians meanwhile went amuck in Southern Europe and remembering some distant insult ransacked all of Turkish property and killed every last Turk on the board.

Then the Brits got lucky! Turn two ended. At this point we were going to go on but we realized that as long as the Russians did not change sides, they had conquered so much that there was no way for them to lose!

A well played game all around with some horredous and great dice rolling.

Good game guys!

*** Club Event at All-Star Games in November:
A few new members made the trip, so I hope everyone had as good a time as I did.
I played/learned Republic of Rome, Thanks Brett for teaching us. A fun game that is entirely diplomatic in nature. I was the first temporary consul, and led the people of Rome into a huge war with Carthage, that we had no army to fight, and then got the locals to almost riot and destroy the government. Then Steve took over as consul, and helped Rome to defeat Illyria. After this Nathan became Consul of Rome, and promptly had to be persecuted/prosecuted for his crimes against the people of Rome :) After this, Rick and I formed our factions into a firm alliance of patriots, and began to trounce the other 3 anti-roman factions of senators(Brett, Nathan, and Steve).
While this was going on, Acquire, Game of Thrones, and A House Divided were being played at other tables. From the response, A Game of thrones was a big hit.
After this bit of gaming, a food break, and a shopping break to take advantage of the 20-30% off for All-Star's anniversary sale.
When we returned, Shogun was begun. This was a fun game, and though we all teamed up against Rod, I was the first eliminated, by a subtle backstab from Steve. Swashbuckler returned for a rousing Tavern brawl as well.
Next we played Vinci, while another table was playing Mammath Hunters. It was my game of Vinci, so naturally I came in last, with Steve winning a close contest against Nathan.
The last game of the Evening was a game of Citadel, which ended at about 1:30 am. It was a very close match, with me edging out Larry, Nathan, and Anna. Mark and Rod seemed to have an Assassin or Thief slamming them every turn, so for me it was good :)