Session - Seasons, Race For The Galaxy

19th of February 2013 (Tuesday)

Game(s) Played:
Seasons

Race For The Galaxy

I had to take leave from work to play house husband and take care of Padawan Mini-geek as the sitter was away travelling for the Chinese New Year holidays. Oh yes would-be-parents, even your leave is not sacrosanct and is one of the many items you should expect to be giving up in the name of parenting. Being the lovable siblings that they are, Milo & Mo decided to come over and help me scratch my boardgaming itch, seeing as it's been close to three months since I last managed to play boardgames with them. Today's session was definitely more challenging as we had to manage Padawan Mini-geek's needs to watch us play, drink her milk and take her naps whilst playing at the same time. Mo actually had to draw my cards and hold them up facing me so I could play the game whilst feeding Padawan Mini-geek at the same time. This certainly is a path of evolution in our boardgaming that I had not quite expected. It certainly took a little longer than usual but here's our session report for Seasons & Race For The Galaxy.

Padawan Mini-geek just before she took her nap, sho sweepy

Game #1 – Seasons

Player(s):
Hayen
Milo
Mo

When you haven't played games like Seasons which has text heavy cards in a while, the drafting stage tends to take a significant amount of time. Some rules clarifications and reminders were required particularly since this was only our second play of the game. Thankfully I've been taking a trashing on BoardGameArena a couple of times so at least I knew how the game was supposed to progress. I'm gonna throw out some Seasons heavy terminology here so if you need some reference, your best guide would be the pdf copy of the rulebook itself.

I drafted Yjang's Forgotten Vase, Hourglass Of Time & Tree Of Light to build my Energy Token independence (relying on the luck of the dice throw has been my undoing far too many times). Beyond that I only had a Season II combo of Amsug Longneck & Olaf's Blessed Statue to gain 40 quick Crystals and abusing my Energy Token independence through Kairn The Destroyer and a late game strategy of being Energy Token heavy on top of Power Card heavy to gain the full benefits of Lantern Of Xidit & Ragfield's Helm.

On the whole things worked out pretty well for me and I thought would have worked out excellently for me when my Amulet Of Fire drew me the Vampiric Crown which would dovetail very nicely with Lantern of Xidit. However I had no Power Card on hand and chose to draw a Power Card to utilise Vampiric Crown and picked up the Damned Soul Of Onys (which I quickly shoved off to Milo) of all things which instead netted me zero free Energy Tokens.

The only oddball here would be the Cursed Treatise Of Arus, which I drew later and couldn't get rid of

Milo had an early Figrim The Avaricious and then Titus Deepgaze which doubled the irritation of losing Crystals to her each turn. She transmuted her Energy Tokens for an early lead but couldn't really maintain it in the face of my repeated onslaughts of Kairn The Destroyer (I think I must have shaved 20-30 Crystals off both Milo & Mo). I personally think Milo must have forgotten her Wondrous Chest ability a couple of times but you can't really blame her because she discovered midway through the game that she had food poisoning. It's a wonder that she did as well as she did. She did surprise us with a last gasp Dragon Skull which left her hand empty right at the last turn, I really thought she was going to suffer the -20 Crystals penalty.

Who knew the innocent looking Titus Deepgaze could be such a meanie?

Mo bulldozed his way into Crystal lead through a Potion Of Life in order to capitalize on Sid Nightshade then used Arcano Leech & the accursed Titus Deepgaze to maintain his lead all the way to game end. He did draft the other Olaf's Blessed Statue (there were two initially) and also had Ragfield's Helm but not only could he not capitalize on it (I had far more Power Cards on the table) but he couldn't even summon it in time losing him 5 Crystals at game end.

The Air Elemental looks and is really cool, too bad he couldn't use it at a better timing, it didn't really affect either Milo or me

Time Taken: 90 minutes

Results Of Game
Before Game End:
Winna – Mo (58 Crystals)
Second – Milo (30 Crystals)
Dead Last – Hayen (28 Crystals)

After Game End:
Winna – Hayen (128 Crystals)
Second – Mo (89 Crystals)
Dead Last – Milo (83 Crystals)

Padawan Mini-geek joined us for the first time without destroying anything! Well done!

I scored an amazing 100 Crystals through my Power Cards alone to sneak the lead although I must say that without Kairn The Destroyer, the scores would have been a heck of a lot closer.

A cool sideways view of Damned Soul Of Onys

Rating: 9/10

Comments:
Seasons is definitely growing on me, particularly after getting owned by experts online at BGA. There's just so much depth to it largely due to the design of the card powers which is reminiscent of Magic The Gathering (MTG), particularly that ecstatic feeling when you discover a broken combo and unlike MTG, in Seasonsyou don't need to wait for multiple expansions to find that combo, Seasons comes chock full of mini combos waiting to be discovered to work for you.

Game #2 – Race For The Galaxy

Player(s):
Hayen
Mo

When playing Race For The Galaxy, you know you're in for a race when your opponent discards a Doomed World for an Imperium Blaster Gem Consortium on turn 1 and gets a Prestige advantage right from the get go. This was one of those days. I was literally fishing non-stop for cards that would give me Prestige and finally landed the Pan Galactic Hologrid which would give me a Prestige Point for a discard but I had to use the Explore Phase every turn until I finally retook Prestige advantage from Mo. By then the damage was done though, Mo was aiming for the First & Most Goals and took a good half of them whilst pumping enough military to grab a whole bunch of Alien Worlds for free.

Time Taken: 30 minutes

Results Of Game
Winna – Mo (90 Victory Coins)
Dead Last – Hayen (38 Victory Coins

Padawan Mini-geek was awake in time to play this round with me. Too bad she had to learn from the losing side though

Lookit Mo's tableau. Blergh

Rating: 9/10

Comments:
In a sense, this race was decided right from the get go and not for the first time, it was decided by Prestige Points, them Prestige Points are kinda getting me down and I'm not sure if they are an unfair advantage in an already tense and fast paced game as it is.