Session - Titan

14th of May 2011 (Saturday)

Game(s) played:
Titan



Player(s):
Mo
Nitsuj

Mo was feeling the itch to play a boardgame so he came over to my place. It was quite late into the night and I had to wake up early the next morning for church, so we decided on one game and Mo picked Titan to make it another Titan night, and what a night it was!

Game 1: Titan
Nitsuj:
Army 1: Titan, Ogre (2), Gargoyle
Army 2: Angel, Centaur (2), Gargoyle

Mo:
Army 1: Titan, Centaur (2), Gargoyle
Army 2: Angel, Ogre (2), Gargoyle

This is where I had just recruited my Ogre & Centaur

The game started extremely well for me where I managed to recruit a Warbear and a Minotaur on turn 2, having recruited both an additional Ogre and Centaur in Turn 1 and landing on the Woods and Hills respectively.

Followed by my Minotaur & Warbear... Mo was quite upset

It wasn’t long before my Minotaur army (Titan) managed to recruit Dragons, which is a historic milestone for my Titan set at least because it has never been accomplished before.

Woohoo, Dragons!

My Warbear army just couldn’t get to the centre circle but had the good fortune to grab a Unicorn and kept recruiting them through Woods & Hills terrain.

Mo was having a rough day although he had probably 3-5 more armies than I had. He got relegated to the outer fringes of the board although this resulted him in having a significantly powerful group of Jungle/Brush armies. Nevertheless he managed to get his Titan army to recruit a Giant (another historic milestone) and he was on the verge of recruiting another Giant (whilst planning his Jungle/Brush assault on my armies) when my Unicorn army struck him from behind in non-native terrain.

Mo just wanted to show off

I had absolutely no idea that it was his Titan army and we noticed that in the last three games of Titan we have played, the first engagement somehow involves either his or my Titan which I guess is a blessing in itself as even this round of Titan took 2 hours to complete, with only one battle taking place. It’s a good game, but it’s a long game.

Sneak Attack!

Nitsuj’s Army:
Angel, Unicorn (3), Warbear (2), Guardian

Mo’s Army:
Titan, Giant, Lion (2), Warbear

As we were both non-natives, none of our creatures could enter the Bogs in the Marsh, Mo decided on an ultra-defensive formation, choosing to corral his army between two chokepoints and use the Giant as a super range attacker whilst waiting for me to come in and dig him out. I guess he could afford to do that since I could not summon any Angels into the fray and since he’s a non-native, did not have a chance to recruit an additional creature in round 4.

My tactics were simple, just keep sending in creature after creature and rely on pure melee strength. Oddly enough, the dice favoured me to the extent that I took out both his Lions in the first turn courtesy of two Unicorns. Although Mo did manage to take down one Warbear and Unicorn in the subsequent rounds, the battle board looked something like this after that:

His Giant finally got taken down although it cost me dearly (2 Unicorns I believe) but his Titan was already damaged.

Mo was cursing the dice but somehow my fortune turned when my Angel came in to finish the job.

Needing only 2 dice of 6 to show 4/5/6, I only rolled 1, and Mo’s Titan lived to see another round. His Titan & my Angel double-KOed each other and that was the end of that.

Closing Thoughts:
I still love Titan, it has been a love for 17 years now but I think Mo is quite turned off about the luck-ish aspect of the dice. He thinks if you are one of those with the uncanny ability of rolling sixes, I think few Titan players would want to play against you and that’s probably true. I’m hoping Alien Frontiers and Troyes will change his mind about dice games but I can see where he’s coming from.

Once again, Titan was a tremendous experience, I loved every second of it and am looking at another variant called “Kings & Things” to see if that’s my flavour but also once again, I come away wishing I had enough time to reach the level where Colossi are recruited, Titan teleports change the game and ArchAngels make an appearance.

Note: See my thoughts on the game in my review from this session