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not a bad gaming day..
we kicked off with Isla Dorada, played (for the first time) with my two older kids (15 & 12) while the younger watched - he'll be able to play but he needs to absorb the meanings of the cards first since his reading isn't quite good enough for the included reference card. I love the card art, like the board and the three plastic figures are gorgeous (if over-the-top.) I think we played everything right and I enjoyed the game - it gets very back-stabby very fast though - something my kids can get a little too caught up in..
I made one small rule tweak requiring players to reveal their relevant cards when a bid is placed - this helped spectators follow the game (we had several by the time we finished) and made it easier to remember what each player had bid, and I don't think it adversely affected gameplay.
Next we played King Up! - four players/four rounds - the game started slow'n'thoughtful and ended fast'n'chaotic as we all got caught by our own bluffs in the final two rounds. I think this game will be one of my favourites to teach to new players for a while at least..
Poison was next, at the request of a guest. I usually play this game with kids and find it can be a huge hit with some groups and leave others cold, depending how well they take to the theme (which is pretty pasted-on in this abstract card game.) Today it wasn't a success and our final (third) round dragged on and on and on...
(insert break here while I took a couple of kids to see True Grit, which I enjoyed but feel it is an unnecessary remake as the original still holds up well)
Finally, my twelve-year-old and I tried WarCraft: The Board Game (with expansion) for the first time. I picked it up in a trade ages ago when my kids were hopelessly addicted to World Of WarCraft and we never got around to playing it. Now we have. I like the bits - the wooden units make a nice alternative to plastic soldiers and while I found it painfully tedious to explain, the game playes fairly simply once all players know what they are doing. We played using the expansion with Creeps and Limited Resources but no Spell Research. In today's game we used the Racial Special Abilities introduced in the expansion but I doubt we'll do it again - the Night Elves moving bases are too fiddly to implement, The Alliance quick building isn't worth the drain on workers and the Orcs bonus when fighting near bases is nice but not useful often enough - this leaves the Undead with the only abilities I think are vaguely useful and as a result we'll be playing without Special Abilities in the future. We played a basic two-player battle today (Alliance vs. Night Elves) and the map felt a little limited - I imagine it'll play better with more players, or if we use one of the alternate scenarios next time..
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