Meetup Recap Series (#6): August 27, 2015

This week's session started off slow, back to our typical mulling around trying to decide what to play. I believe it was a smaller group as well, with perhaps people taking vacations with what summer we have left. But another week, and another good set of games played. 

Joe:

Frank, Danny, Jana and I took on the roles of leaders of the Corps of Discovery in Discoveries, a fun dice placement game with some very fine art where players earn points by journalling about their geographical, biological and ethnological encounters on their journey.

Next, Danny, Frank, Steve and I tried to colonize some planets in Alien Frontiers. My fellow colonizers were not very friendly.

Kurt:

I dug out my son from in front of the computer to play "space trains", alternative name : Firefly: The Game. This is one week after Xia: Legends of a Drift System so Louis and Niall had the chance to compare and contrast. I'm still not sure where I fall on the "better" game side of the coin. They are quite similar in theme and tasks although only Xia allows for true exploration. Firefly has a little more story with the character cards and the story mission. I then did my usual poor job covering the full rules explanation. I think the summary sheets and rules overview pages helped there so wasn't too long to learn. We played the first time out story card and I gave too many missions on the first game so Louis spent many turns making trouble with no crew, trying to complete a Niska mission. Turns out it was worth his time as the rewards gave him a quick victory not long after completion. My son was embracing the story mode of the game by collecting a party ship with a compliment of pros^H^H^H^H companions, an accountant to keep track of the money and some hired muscle. I just seem to spend most of my games never quite getting anywhere fast enough and always on the wrong end of the rewards. And trying to teach at the same time had me distracted. That is my excuse...I'm sticking to it 

As that was relatively quick we started a second game with the Firefly: The Game – Pirates & Bounty Hunters expansion but still playing the intro game. That led to a quick victory for Niall although Lois, the other bounty collecting player, was hot on his heels money wise, just didn't collect the 2nd solid reputation to rush for the win. The PvP aspect added was not too overpowering (nice to have options to stop a player), although I think the bounties on the shorter game were overpowered. Still, not bad to get a feel for the game, would have to try some of the longer missions to get a better feel for how they play out. Also considering getting the map expansions and the single roll out map. Must get the ships to the painting table. That would improve it five hundred times. To add to my efficiency engine woes, I did manage to make a wonderful fuel run where I spent more money on fuel than I received in reward. At least I didn't have to pay crew. Just have to figure out how to make money next time. 

Dan:

Ah my 4hr game streak has been broken. This week we started off playing my copy of Galaxy of Trian with Maryeve, Jonathan, and Bob. Simplest description of the game is that it's a more cutthroat version of Carcasonne ... in space. Rules explanations was a bit rough on my part with many things I just didn't remember and others I forgot to mention. I blame it in part with the rules themselves--something about the game just doesn't seem quite as polished as Carcasonne. I'll definitely need to print out some player aids, because some of the ship movement restrictions are pretty arbitrary. Oh wells, the game at very least is pretty, a shame I had forgotten to take a picture of the galaxy we created. The game played out a bit more tame than the one other time I had played, with only a few mildly aggressive moves. In the end, Bob (I think to his surprise) squeaked out the win.

With the same group, we ended the night with a quick game of Medieval Academy. Another game that I've played one other time. It's a nice card drafting, multi-race game that's really well done in its simplicity. There's enough meat in the decisions, where you agonize which card to select that it makes for a good game that can be played quickly. I believe I ended up winning by ignoring the Dragon tile (which was fiercely contested by the other 3 players), and scored two sets of 12 pointers on the King tile, and scraps here and there on the others.

Jana:

Joe, Frank, Danny and I played Discoveries, which Joe brilliantly recapped in a post above. I quite enjoyed this dice chucker. Although my strategy of getting lots of neutral dice and Native American experience cards lead me to a 4th place finish. I liked that the game didn't outstay its welcome but had enough depth that you had to make meaningful decisions all along. Would play again. Thanks to Joe for the rules explanation.

I finished off the night playing Black Fleet with Rod (who made it even if his car didn't - that's dedication) and two other folks that I can't remember their names for the life of me...sorry  Quite the game of take that. It reminded me a bit of Jamaica, but I think in theme mostly and the attacking park. The game components are really really nice. Rod won the game and the rest of us weren't that far behind.....really...honest  Would play again.