Game(s) Played:
Although we are now firmly on the Gloomhaven hotness train, it's good to take a break and play other games during our regular monthly meet up. This way we get to brush the dust off some of our other boardgames and meet new and old friends as well.
Session – Majesty: For The Realm
Game: Majesty: For The Realm
Designer: Marc André
Players: 2 – 4 Players
Playing Time: 20 – 40 minutes (This Play: 45 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Card Drafting, Set Collection
Player(s):
Since we already had 4 Players present, we decided to go ahead with a quick game of Majesty: For The Realm. Because everyone was new to the game (Henry had forgotten he had played the game a month ago), the Players' focus was more solitaire-ish and less of sniping characters other Players needed. Even then the game was still engaging and exciting, and this was from my perspective as just a simple observer.
Even with new Players there is some agony over deciding which citizen to "conscript" into your kingdom
Players quickly learned to grab Brewers and Innkeepers because everybody gets a share of the points when Brewers and Innkeepers are hired (everybody parties when there's alcohol involved). Guards were quickly grabbed to prevent Knight attacks (Sorry Edward, I forgot that you hired a Knight on your first turn and didn't kill anyone).
Edward did really well with his Guards + Knights + Innkeepers combo to net many points
Results Of Game(s)
WINNER – Edward (109 VPs)
2nd – Louanna (107 VPs)
3rd – Henry (96 VPs)
LAST – Jimmy (87 VPs)
Session – Yokohama
Game: Yokohama
Designer: Hisashi Hayashi
Players: 2 – 4 Players
Playing Time: 90 minutes (This Play: 75 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Route Building, Set Collection, Modular Board
Player(s):
Yokohama was today's requested game by Edward. We had to shorten the game a little bit (by about 10 order cards) because Edward had to leave by a certain time but the end scores were still very respectable.
The route building mechanism makes me feel like the President is a Yakuza boss who never goes anywhere without his underlings
I sat in between the two games to help out with rules clarifications and surprisingly there were only very few. Edward having played the game twice (winning once) seemed to remember most of the rules although the last time we played was almost a year ago. They also played without collecting foreign agents, something I kinda decided on the spur of the moment, and Edward said it didn't take away much from the game. So that's a variant you can consider to reduce the complicatedness of the game.
I understand the customs and the church played a significant role in this game's scoring which is something rare for new Players to get into
Results Of Game(s)
WINNER – Henry (118 VPs)
2nd – Edward (98 VPs)
LAST – Sean (83 VPs)
Henry always surprises us in the most surprising of ways
Session – Harbour
Game: Harbour
Designer: Scott Almes
Players: 1 – 4 Players
Playing Time: 60 minutes (This Play: 60 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Worker Placement
Player(s):
We of the fun and happy times decided to revisit the town of Harbour. The market, simplistic as it is, is inelegant and was as usual difficult to explain until actually seen in action. I played as the Witch but totally forgot to use her power which balances out the fact that I stole the Privateer Ship building (had the Top Hat AND Anchor Symbol) from Jimmy whose Noble could treat Top Hats as both Top Hats and Anchors.
I can't believe we actually posed for this picture
I was actually quite fortunate with my goods and the market demand aligning up most of the time and for those times that it didn't, a little Privateer Shipping certainly helped. With Alison and Yoon Yi arriving, we decided to call it at 3 buildings which I managed to build right after both Jimmy & Louanna had just built their 2nd buildings so there was no chance of them building a 3rd on their last turn, giving me the comfortable win.
The Privateer Ship & Carpenter's Guild were very helpful in ensuring the high demand of Wood
Results Of Game(s)
Winner – Justin (24 VPs)
2nd – Jimmy (15 VPs)
LAST – Louanna (11 VPs)
Session – Glass Road
Game: Glass Road
Designer: Uwe Rosenberg
Players: 1 – 4 Players
Playing Time: 75 minutes (This Play: 90 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Role Selection, Tile Placement
Player(s):
This was surprisingly a rough start, I think because I was expecting to play Dungeon Petz so I wasn't at my usual level in explaining the rules of Glass Road. It didn't help that my rules summary sheet is craptasticularly WRONG. At least I finally fixed it this time when I got home. Later when speaking to Yoon Yi I found out she has played games like Troyes which is way more complicated so my rules explanation was just really bad this round.
Thankfully everyone started to get into the grove after one round of play
Surprisingly not many of our role selections coincided with each other in the first two rounds. Even when they did it didn't feel like being only able to take one instead of two actions was a significant detriment to the Players in general. We also decided to shorten the game by only playing 3 building periods instead of 4 and in the last period things started to heat up for Yoon Yi when both Jimmy and Alison stymied her last moves.
The Water Tower and Floodgate had good synergy but required way too much brick
I thought Alison was quite far behind but she picked up the Office (see above) in the last building period and used it with the Feudal Lord to min max her Glass and Brick factories to great effect.
Results Of Game(s)
Winner – Jimmy (15 VPs)
2nd – Yoon Yi (14.5 VPs)
LAST – Alison & Justin (14 VPs)
The half point is always crucial in Glass Road. I actually really enjoyed my game of Glass Road this time. I aimed for a strategy right from the start of scoring 4 VPs for every group of 4 forests in my board and would have done very well if we had played to the end of 4 building periods.
And a good time was had by all, thank you everyone for coming!
Having our meetups at McDonald's is also interesting because of it being a kid haven and similarly today we had a few kids from the next table ignore their food and gaze intently over our shoulders at the world beyond Monopoly and Risk being played by adults. What a time to live in.
Until next time, keep calm and play better.
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