Game(s) Played:
And so we're finally back! I've been looking forward to playing King Of New York on the back of all the hype so we made it the central game of our session today.
On top of that, Padawan Minigeek makes a guest appearance today & will look to be making more regular appearances in the future.
Playground time is the little incentive for her to come along
Session – For Sale
Player(s):
Jimmy
Justin / Padawan Minigeek
Louanna
We had one of those really rare draws where there was always properties from both ends of the rich / poor spectrum on display. The space station (30) actually showed up on the first draw & Louanna ended up paying $11,000 for it in the first round. We always say to not go all in right from the start but someone has always got to give in to temptation (here's looking at you Jimmy) then its cry havoc & let loose the dogs of war.
Padawan Minigeek helped me with deciding how much to bid & which properties to auction. Which turned out to be a surprise because we did REALLY well.
Time Taken: 15 minutes
Results Of Game(s)
Winna – Louanna ($68,000)
Second – Justin / Padawan Minigeek ($67,000)
Dead Last – Jimmy ($57,000)
Session – King Of New York
Player(s):
[Game 1]
Before we started, Gideon made an off-hand comment. Something about Sean's rolls being "godlike". Little did we know.
So we pick our favourite looking Monsters
So here's where the rest of us newbies made a mistake. We have Gideon & Sean sitting in Manhattan with both next to each other in the turn order AND the rest of us are not exactly at maximum health. So Sean rolls 4 attacks followed by a similar roll by Gideon, wiping the rest of us out in two blows. In response, Sean utilizes a power card ("Next Stage") that drains all his VPs to gain life & energy cubes for each VP lost, shrugs off Gideon's supposed killing blow then destroys Gideon for the win.
The final showdown
The Mantis is dead, long live the Mantis... Padawan Minigeek lost interest part way through
Our first "King" of New York
[Game 2]
Seeing as how fast our first game ended, we decided to do another round with Moses taking my place.
We didn't really learn our lesson about not attacking 2 Players in Manhattan who have simultaneous turns (Sean & Gideon, again). Sadly, the Mantis was the first to get crushed again due to having to move into Manhattan with a low life total & being subsequently attacked.
Traffic in & out of Manhattan was nightmarish as usual
At this point, it didn't look like the game would be resolved by someone reaching 20 VPs first
Godlike rolls indeed
[Game 3]
Gideon had to go & Sean had to leave soon as well. So we did another round with just 4 Players.
Somehow it felt much, much slower with 4 Players. I wasn't playing but I really thought that it was possible to win the game by getting 20 VPs through the Superstar card. Most of us were really chicken now, moving into Manhattan for one turn then fleeing when being attacked. I don't remember anyone reaching upper Manhattan at all.
In the end, Jimmy & Sean were both in Brooklyn with Louanna in Manhattan. Jimmy basically kamikazed with rolling 2 skulls when there were 3 army units in Brooklyn & both he & Sean were both below 3 life. This was actually pretty hilarious.
The Sheriff shot his deputy then shot himself
Jimmy was actually just rubbing his eyes but it does look like he's lamenting his loss next to the smiling Queen of New York
Time Taken: 120 minutes
Results Of Game(s)
[Game 1] Winna –Sean
[Game 2] Winna –Sean
[Game 3] Winna –Louanna
Rating: 8/10
The "Good"s:
- There's actually a fair bit of strategy involved where you need to monitor the board & life totals of other Players in deciding what you want to do on your turn
- Having said that, turns are short & even with 5 Players you can't go on a toilet break before its your turn
- Some of the cards are awesome & honestly this aspect of the game was not really explored enough even though we played 3 games
The "Meh"s:
- Playing with 4 Players felt more strategic but there's definitely a feeling of slowdown coming on the back of two 5 Player rounds so a tip might be not to play with reduced Players especially after playing with 5 or 6 Players
- There is the issue of Player elimination but it doesn't tend to last much longer after the first Player is eliminated
Session – Dominion: Intrigue
Player(s):
Jimmy
Justin
Louanna
Moses
I actually wanted to play Harbour but hadn't had time to actually really learn the rules & do a play through on my own (first rule of boardgame evangelism) so we switched to Dominion: Intrigue.
The card text of Dominion: Intrigue does make the game a little overwhelming to new Players when compared to vanilla Dominion
[Strategies]
Jimmy - More or less went straight for Silvers then Golds with some late game Barons
Justin - I went for the Scout + Wishing Well + Masquerade combo although the Masquerade was more in response to Louanna's Swindler strategy
Louanna - Mining Village + Baron + Swindler which was actually pretty evil
Moses - Mining Village + Scout, yeah I didn't get it either
Just to show how the Scout + Wishing Well + Masquerade strategy works. Edit: Sorry the Scout should be played before the Wishing Well
Time Taken: 30 minutes
Results Of Game(s)
Winna - Jimmy (36 VPs)
Second - Louanna (25 VPs)
Third - Moses (17 VPs)
Dead Last - Justin (14 VPs)
Dominion was said to be broken due to the overwhelming strength of the simple strategy of buying Treasure Cards over anything else. I'm not sure if the later expansions fixed this but it does seem to be proven when playing with vanilla Dominion / Dominion: Intrigue.
No comments:
Post a Comment