PrezCon Day 3 [Boardgames]

I got a bit later start on Day 3, electing to sleep in instead of going to the gym in the morning. Ate some breakfast, read some rules, and I was ready to get to gaming!

Our early gaming was down one player, as a certain someone was still recovering from the night before. Truthfully, we all were a little bit, so we opted for something lighter, choosing to play Hero Realms.

We opted for a multiplayer format where everyone tried to kill the person to the left of them, while each person also had to protect themselves from the person to their right. First one to kill their neighbor won.

Going clockwise, we had me (Warrior), Dan (Cleric), Jesse (Thief, I think?), and Rob (Ranger). We get into it, buying our cards, throwing out attacks, etc etc.

In the end, even though I was able to hammer Dan time and time again, it ended up being Jesse who was victorious, managing to eat through Rob's defenses and bring him down.

Apparently there are other formats for this game- including a one on many (not really my favorite). Might bear looking into. I love the art (looks to be the same art from the Epic Card Game, which I love).

AJ rejoined us at this point, and we discussed different games we could play next, eventually settling on Rising Sun, recently released. I own this one, as you may have seen from a previous post, but I didn't bring it, as I knew Dan was going to.

We sat down to play, with me using the Dragonfly clan, who could move anywhere on the board easily. Jesse played the Turtle Clan, AJ was the Bonsai Clan, Dan was the Koi Clan, ad Rob took the Lotus clan.

I start the game by allying with Jesse immediately, figuring that getting into an alliance was vastly better than being out of one. The turn started with the following mandates: Recruit, Harvest, Train, Harvest (this was by Rob, who could choose whichever he wanted, regardless of tiles).  During this, I manage to get another Bushi on the board, and grabbed a Phoenix monster, who would gain me Honor and Victory Points every time he died. I planted him in the Bonsai home province, assuming that at the very least, he could kill me over and over again to my benefit. On my turn, I chose Harvest, grabbing some Ronin that I thought I could use to compete in some battles.

Afterwards, Marshal and Betray were chosen, the final one killing/replacing of my minis.

We begin the battle phase, and the only thing I manage to accomplish is to Seppuku my Phoenix for Honor and VPs.

Turning the second turn, I join into an Alliance with Rob.  With him sitting next to me, I figure there are good opportunities, if we can do some double Alliance actions. Mandate choices were Train, Marshal, Recruit. At this point, I'm pretty screwed, as everyone has multiple Strongholds on the table... except me.  That means everyone Recruiting is putting more minis on the board than I am, and that's bad for me.

On my turn, I choose Train, so I could get another Monster (and at least put SOMETHING on the board).

Then Recruit, Marshal, and Betray (by Jesse) were chosen to end the round. My battles once again go terribly, and my only accomplishment is to sacrifice the Phoenix again (although I'm now #1 in Honor!).

The final round starts, and Rob and I ally again... once again hoping to gain some sweet double actions. The choices were Marshal, Marshal (from Rob), Marshal (from me, giving me three strongholds!), Betray (by Dan), Recruit, Train, and Harvest.

At this point, it was pretty clear I was out of the game, but I still did my best in the battles, but failed to really accomplish a whole lot. I end up only getting 13 points, way in last place (Rob was second last, at 28 points).  Jesse won with 46 points, barely ahead of Dan, who it should be noted went the second and third round without an alliance. It's interesting to see that being out of an alliance didn't necessarily mean you had no chance!

At this point, we knew we had dinner reservations, so wanted to ensure we played something fairly short- Chariots of Rome was floated (yay!), but people settled on Sentinels of the Multiverse, instead.  That one, I didn't take pictures of, but suffice to say we had a great time. I was Tachyon, a speed based super hero, and as a group we fought against Grand Warlord Voss and his many minions. Through great teamwork, we prevailed, and I can honestly say that not only did I do plenty of things to help the group, but managed to spike for huge chunks of damage!  What a great game- I really need to buy it.

At this point, we went out to dinner at the South Street brewery, to celebrate Dan's upcoming nuptials.  Very good food, and some very interesting beers.

I couldn't decide what I wanted, so got some of each

After a nice time out there (aside from the pouring rain, yikes), we returned and tried to determine what we would do the rest of the night (we got back about 9pm). We decided to play one of the games I brought- Mansions of Madness.

We took our team of investigators and began looking into a case of buried dead rising up from their graves and terrorizing the area. Our investigations proved very fruitful, and we found the source, and moved to end this terror once and for all.

In the end, I bravely sacrificed myself to keep the tremendous Zombie Horde from going after everyone, but unfortunately, that put a strict timetable on everyone else. However, on the VERY LAST roll of the game, we managed to accomplish our objective, and get the win. Very tense!

And that basically ended our PrezCon, for gaming.

Outside of the games I've played, there's also a vendor hall that comes and sells games.  This year, I bought Nations at War: Desert Heat, 2nd Edition, which is part of the new version of the Nations at War series that I quite love. I also picked up some starters of the Munchkin Collectible Card Game. I hate Munchkin, but love cards games, and thing Eric Lang does a good job. I'll give it a try and hope for the best.

Overall, I had a great time. I only played 4-5 player games, which isn't my first choice, but I definitely got a lot of great gaming in, so I really can't complain. The hotel itself didn't seem to do as good a job this year accommodating us- for instance, they usually serve several meals in the main hall throughout the convention (for a generally fair price). This year, they actually served some pretty disappointing meals, and the costs felt worse. Plus, the entrance fee for open gaming felt significantly worse this year. Ugh.

I had a great time, but it remains to be seen if we'll return. However, we get plenty of gaming done here in the area, so even if we don't, I'll still have plenty to talk about in the future!