Fall gaming retreat recap

I am out at my yearly gaming weekend with my friends, and wanted to write a bit about what I've been playing and doing here.  We are over in Deep Creek Lake, with a building full of boardgames, drinking, gaming, and having a blast.

A look at the building from the outside.

Pretty nice.

After we spent some time unpacking into the house, choosing our beds, getting groceries and alcohol, and getting ready, we set down and got to gaming.

Our first game was Quartermaster General.  This is a World War II game, and we had the following players: Matt as Germany, Dan as the UK, Scott as Japan, Mark as the USSR, myself as Italy, and Ben as the US.

The game uses different action decks for each player, meaning that, although I have plenty of options turn to turn, my overall capabilities are going to be somewhat limited to somewhat emulate what Italy actually did in WWII.

The game started with the UK and I getting into a brief sea war over the Mediterranean/North Sea section, as I tried to expand into Africa and eastward.

I was successful enough that I managed to gain a foothold, and started to look for options.  I decide to play Impero Italiano, which would give me additional victory points for either German or Italian armies in North Africa or the Middle East.  I make a few forays into the Balkans, but the USSR destroys every army I put there, and I decide to continue on.

I draw and play Italian East Africa, which gives me a way to spread out and start getting us some points.

The Italian high water mark.

I start contributing to the war in Southern Asia, killing the army in India, which puts a lot of pressure on the UK to rebuild it, or lose their entire foothold in the region.

I play Mare Nostrum, which gives me points for every Italian fleet on the board, and start getting some points.  The UK puts another fleet in the North Sea, and I try to destroy it, but he plays a response that saves it.  From there, he is able to destroy my fleet.  The USSR destroys more of my attempts to build an army, and I am pushed back further and further.

The Germans do their best to go after the USSR, but end up slowing down too.... and then it all falls apart.  Pushes from the USSR, US, and UK manage to basically destroy the Japanese pieces on the board, and then the UK and USSR manage to bottle Germany and I up in our own area.  A few turns later, the allies have 30 more victory points than the allies, and claim the sudden death victory.

Overall, I liked the game well enough- it was a nice quick (very abstract) treatment of World War II, and showcased, in a very general sense, the capabilities of each of the major powers of World War II.  Not a bad game at all.

I followed this by playing the new LCG from Fantasy Flight Games- Marvel Champions.  My brother and I bought this right before this retreat, and we were both excited to play.  We took a bunch of starter-ish decks, and played against the intro scenario- Rhino with the Bomb Threat.  I took Black Panther, my brother took Captain Marvel, Dan took Iron Man, and Ben took Spider-Man.

Back and forth the game went- we actually got off to a good start, and we all felt pretty good.  Over time though, various challenges presented themselves, and I faced setbacks that continually kept my board state less than ideal... but in the end, we won.  Re-reading the rules, we did get a few things wrong, but nothing that would've destroyed our experience, I think.

This is one that I really enjoyed- I can't wait for more releases to this system, and I can't wait for there to be enough cards for meaningful deck-building, and heck, more scenarios would be great (even though I haven't played the three included in the core set!).

My brother and I followed this with another card game- Star Trek Customizable Card Game- 2nd Edition.  We both whipped out a Borg deck (I was doing a mega-teaming, and he was doing... something a bit more flexible).  I actually got a pretty good start, using my dilemmas effectively to cut out his unique personnel, and start solving missions.  He concedes after a few turns of this, as I've set him back so far that he was going to have a hard time catching back up.

After this, we decided to head to bed, so we could get a nice early start on Saturday.

We woke up early, showered, ate, and got off to some light gaming with a game called Welcome To.... This game can play up to eighty (!?) apparently, and is a game where you are building a neighborhood, and getting points for accomplishing certain things, like building a lot of pools, park, neighborhoods, and so on.  I've never played it before, but it was quick, fun and I ended up in 3rd place with 47 points.  Scott won with 51, so I actually did pretty well!

My final neighborhood

Rob had brought a game that he was dying to play, and we ended up playing it off and on over the rest of the weekend- War Room.  This is game in the same vein as Axis & Allies (indeed, designed by the same guy), where you are playing the second World War, and attempting to do better than our historical counterparts did.  We managed to get six players, in two teams: Myself as the USSR, Rob as the US, Scott as the UK, Dan as Japan, Mark as Germany, and Ben as Italy.

This game is interesting in that you plot all your moves for the turn ahead of time (although you can cancel the moves when they are about to execute).  Combat is more interesting than Axis & Allies, as each individual unit can usually choose one of two ways to fight (either offensively or defensively, usually).

I didn't take notes for this one, but basically what happened was that the British fleets on the board got mauled on the first turn, putting us on the back foot.  We struck back, but not hard enough, and everywhere around the globe, the Axis made great advances, expelling the UK from Northern Africa and the Middle East, cleaning out China, and finally landing in Australia.  On my western border, Germany stalled a turn before attacking me, and when he did, he basically decimated the forces facing him.  We had a brief moment where we managed to make some progress, as we finally destroyed most of the German ships in the Atlantic ocean, and other allied units landed in Karelia to help me out... but it wasn't going to be enough- I was in trouble, as we were all over the map.  They accepted our surrender, and that was the game.

During some breaks, we did play other games.

First among these was Rising Sun, a game I own and backed on Kickstarter, but rarely play.  Dan had brought it, so we set up and started playing, with me choosing the Turtle Clan (who get moving strongholds who contribute to battles!).  Dan, Rob, and Scott also played, but I don't recall who was playing as which clan.

Normally, I'm really lousy at this game, but for some reason, this time playing went really well.  I had a moderately cohesive strategy (get Ronin, get things that give me money at the start of the war phase, focus on different provinces each time).

I ended up with 44 points, which I believe was my highest score ever.  It was good enough for 2nd place, which I know was my best placement.  Dan finished first, with well over 80 points.  Ouch!

From here, my brother wanted to try out Arkham Horror, 3rd Edition, by Fantasy Flight Games.  I had played the previous edition, and enjoyed it, but it was a bit long for my tastes, and really really clunky at times.  This version was played by Matt, myself, Rob, and Scott, and we were involved in dealing with a gang war in town.  I played Agnes Baker, focused on ward actions (removing doom tokens from the map), but I ended up being a very strong fighter by the end of the game, and used that to start killing monsters.  Unfortunately, the foes were too great for the rest of my team (aside form Scott, playing Jenny Barnes), and they managed to get two of us down.  We got in position to win on the following turn, but then spawned monsters who pinned us down, and we ended up losing.  Still, very close!

At this point, it was getting pretty late, so we broke out some lighter games.  The first one we went with was Hail Hydra, a Marvel themed game with hidden roles, villains, and super powers.  I don't remember who I chose, and it was a bit late by this point, but I'm pretty sure the heroes were narrowly defeated by the villains, coming down to the final boss, with us just narrowly unable to defeat him.  I think?  Probably should have written that down.

Next up was Goodcritters, a game which I also played once on Sunday, right before my brother and I left to come home.  This is a game where a bunch of animals are deciding how to distribute loot, with the boss (the one in charge of creating the loot piles, and then some backstabbing, negotiation, and so on.  Ended up being a really good time, both times we played, although I did not win either time.

Ben and I played a quick game of Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn, the card game from Plaid Hat Games, which uses dice as its core resource mechanic.  We each played one of the deluxe expansions starters, with me taking the Music Magic, but I lost, sadly.  I did misread one of my summons, which may have helped keep me in the game longer, but I think long term I was going to lose, anyway.  Sigh :(.

The final game I ended up playing was Warhammer Underworlds.  I got into a three player game with Matt and Dan- I took the new Sylvaneth warband from the Beastgrave box, Matt took the Beastmen from it, and Dan took the Profiteers, I think they are called.  It was a three player free-for-all, with Dan in the middle, which was pretty brutal for him to start, but he managed to do enough each turn to stay alive, and actually ended up winning!

And that was basically it!  I played a bunch of games, had a good time, and came home.  I will say, I honestly could have brought nothing, and ended up playing the exact same games, which is a tad annoying (ie, why do I bring anything at all?), but that's my only (minor) complaint.  Otherwise, I had a great time, and I think everyone else did as well.