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Larry Welborn
United States
Anderson
South Carolina
Way to go, Bubba.
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Thanks to my BGG Secret Santa, two new games hit the table.
Friday night saw the family attempt to destroy the ring in Lord of the Rings.
Melissa and I played this 20 or more times when it first came out but we haven't played it very often since. My kids watched the first movie of the trilogy last weekend so I thought it was a good time to introduce them to this game. They both like cooperative games and quickly picked up on the game play.
We started Sauron on the 15 spot since it was their first game and we had a ridiculously easy time on the first two boards. In fact, on our first 5 or 6 die rolls, nothing happened.
As we advanced onto the last two boards, things started getting tough and we almost lost Pippin (Melissa) in Shelob's Lair, but we were able to save him with the help of a Gandalf card. Sauron had moved fairly close to us by the time we got to the last board. But things went well for us and we were able to march up Mount Doom and destroy the ring. My duaghter reminded me to point out that she actually destroyed it. Final score: 77.
Saturday we got in two games of King of Tokyo.
The first game was me, my son and daughter. The game was very easy to pick up and the kids had no problem learning the game. You win the game by being the first to earn 20 damage points or by eliminating the other monsters. In the first game, my son went for some big card combos but spent too much time and effort on it to the exclusion of healing himself and collecting damage points. As a result, he got caught with a powerful attack from my daughter and was eliminated. My daughter had a lead in DP so I had to forgo collecting DP and attack him. It went back and forth before I finally eliminated her, with only 2 health points left myself.
Melissa joined us for the second game. This time, no one was eliminated although I was down to only 1 health point. I had a huge lead in DP so I gambled for the win, knowing that if I failed I would be eliminated before I got another turn. The dice rolled in my favor and I claimed a DP victory. Final scores: Me 20, Melissa 11, daughter 9, son 6.
This is a great family game and I will be writing up my impressions in the next few days.
We also got in a game of Ticket to Ride.
Everyone had played before so we were quickly up and going. The game was going along in a fairly normal fashion, but my daughter was seemingly playing in a sub-optimal fashion. She routinely drew blindly and some of her routes made little sense. Despite some friendly advice, she chose to ignore us, and continued playing her bizarre game.
I ended the game with what I believed would be a comfortable win. My daughter and I had the two longest tracks but mine was a couple of trains longer so I got the 10 point bonus. I had a huge lead in trains scored with 74 versus everyone else in the 50s. I was last however in completed destinations and my daughter surprised me with the most. I was also surprised that my daughter was the only one with no uncompleted tickets. I wish I had known this in advance because when we added up the scores, we found that I beat her by 2 points. I would have gladly flipped the score if I knew it was that close. Afterwards, she said " I told you I knew what I was doing." Final scores: Me 97, daughter 95, son 65, Melissa 55?!?!? Melissa's score was quite surprising as she usually wins.
Sunday night Melissa and I played our first game of Innovation.
As expected, neither of us really knew what we were doing and I expect it will take a few games before it will click. I do think the game has potential, especially as a 2 player game. I won with 6 achievements.
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