What I played at the Indy Boardgamers Convention
sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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I am sure that I will not be the only one who will be making a list like this, but the Indy Boardgamers Convention took place this weekend (March 20th-22nd, 2009). I was only able to attend for two days, but I had an absolute blast, and this is a record of what I played along with my thoughts.
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1.
Board Game: Le Havre
[Average Rating:8.09 Overall Rank:6]
sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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I showed up on Friday just after Noon, and with in half an hour, I was drafted to fill the fifth chair in a game of Le Havre. I know this is by the same person who made Agricola, but I have not yet played that game so I had no expectations for this one.
Le Havre was ok, but my goodness was it long. The game took a bit over four hours to play, and it felt it. The game had A LOT of down time, caused by analysis paralysis, which the game kind of encouraged.
I felt like I was losing the game terribly. I always had a shorter stack of resources, and twice I had to take out loans because I over extended myself with big purchases. However, playing with a narrow profit margin worked out for me because I was able to produce the most points in buildings. I finished second only because someone had a building (the storehouse maybe) that let them score their abundance of resources for some points.
I would give this game a second chance, but NEVER with five players.
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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After the Le Havre game I was looking for something considerably shorter and lighter, and the Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix fit the bill.
I discovered that I actually knew how to play this game, because growing up my family had the Daytona 500 that uses the same system. Of course I also found out that I grew up playing it completely wrong.
The first race I owned the black car, and my car spent most of the race in first or second. Unfortunately, as the race ended the home stretch I had gotten ahead, but then someone played a card that reversed yellow and black. This caused me to stall, and other cars got up. I was able to get one spot before the finish line, and then the red car made a surprise come back and captured the win. Green got second and I pulled down third.
For the second race, I found myself in a position where I was able to bid all of the other players up, so that everyone else paid more for their car than they wanted to. I owned the blue car for this race, and I got myself into a good lead. The black car made a push, but I still got the checkered flag. Unfortunately, the owner of the black car this turn had the green car the first race, and he beat me by 40k, so I finished second again.
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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I requested to play this game, and two people graciously answered my request, so I got to play it competitively for the first time. I was the playwright. This was my first time to use that character. The villain was the scarecrow, and he just about won the game. When the game ended the shadow track was down to three, and a permanent effect was causing it to advance by one every mystery phase. Several other permanent effect mystery cards stacked up against us, making it really rough.
It was kind of funny, because one player had built up his cunning and purchased the tools of science, but a Scarecrow surprise attack caused him to get wounded and the other player played an effect card that caused him to lose an item to resist the damage, and the person who played the card got to choose, so he chose the tools of science to be discarded.
During this time, I finally initiated a showdown, but I failed to finish off the scarecrow. The person who lost his item had been lingering at Town Hall trying to get the effect card that allowed him to retrieve an item. He retrieved the tools of science and won the game.
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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It may have been a little to late to get this one started, because the game did not end until after 1:30 am, but oh my goodness was it fun.
This was my first time to play Stone Age and I loved it. I really liked the worker placement combined with resource management. I did not play that well though. I focused on building huts and I built the most. However, I did this at the expense of buying cards. I discovered at the end of the game that getting the cards that give the most beneficial multiplayer is the secret to a good win. I finished third out of fourth, and I was fifty points behind second.
Of the new games I played at the event, this was my favorite and I really, really want to play it again.
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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This gets us to Saturday morning. I had invited a teenager from the youth group I work with to join me on this day, and I knew the first thing he would want to do is play this game. I played this twice, and both times we did the Jericho VII mission For the first game another person joined us and the two of them were on a team against me.
I won that game, because an ill fated melee attack by the Arbiter, and a good shooting position. The second game, I ran a Spartan and planted the bomb. I was then able to get all of my surviving units back to the staging area before the Covenant killed them to score my second win.
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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I appreciate the concept of taking Army of Darkness and making it a card game, but this is not a very good game. The problem is, with four people at least, it is impossible to win. When a person is about to win the result is everyone else works against that person. The problem is that it is to easy to combine and stop someone from winning. The only reason the game ended is because I decided to help someone else win.
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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I was really excited to play this one. I just recently read the first book in the series, and so I was given House Stark as my house to play, I was more than tempted to constantly say "Winter is Coming" with a grave seriousness. The player of House Lannister was very experienced and he immediately made for King's landing. The player of House Baratheon made it his personal mission to capture the Eyrie, and he was mostly successful in getting people to leave him alone while he did that. House Tulley quietly filled the south of the board, and did a great job at being everyone's friend.
I secured The north, and it become very evident that the clash in this game was going to center around Greyjoy. The player of house Greyjoy had to decide if he was going to move north or south. During one of the areas of influence bid, I mouthed off to the new king. He punished me by putting me in the last position on all the tracks. This made him look like a bully, and that convinced Greyjoy to ally with me and push south. I gathered forces to head south as did Greyjoy. The Lannister player, was able to take initiative and occupied Riverrun. The next turn Greyjoy attacked Riverrun and took it.
The following turn the Eyrie finally fell, Lannister attacked Riverrun again, and because of an error in not adequately supporting the position, Greyjoy was thoroughly routed. On this same turn, Tulley made a surprise attack at another Greyjoy position. Noticing the opportunity, I broke the alliance that I had made for my survival and attacked Greyjoy's finally major holding with my massed forces. This betrayal effectively put Greyjoy out of the game, and put me from the weakest player to a real contender.
For the next few turns people fortified their positions, and on the last turn all kinds of crazy fights happened. I began the turn in the lead , but I made a mistake and lost two cities because of it. This put Baratheon in the lead, but Lannister then made a surprise attack and captured Dragonstone. This gave Lannister the win, and I finished third.
I think that the description of "diplomacy light" is really good for this game. I really enjoyed all of the intrigue and tension. I actually played this game for more hours than Le Havre, but it did not feel like it. This is not a game I could bring myself to play with any kind of regularity, but I would really like to have another go at it sometime.
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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One of the cool things about this event is that they gave a way a mind boggling number of games in a raffle. I was lucky enough to win Ninja versus Ninja ( I really, REALLY wanted to win Shadow Hunters. . .but I get what I get and I won't throw a fit). I broke it out and played a couple of games.
One person observing this game commented that it is way overproduced, and that is true. The awesome little plastic ninjas are largely not needed. I looked this game up here, and discovered that Ninja versus Ninja is a re-themed abstract game. That makes a lot of sense, and I can see that.
I tend not to like abstract games, but I like this little game because it plays quick and the whole crux of this game is knowing when to make the most of one's luck.
I won both times. The first time I won by capturing all of the opposing ninjas, and the second time I won by scoring seven points.
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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I played a single two player game of Race for the Galaxy. It was kind of a mistake, because the person I was playing against had only played a few games. Of the twenty four points in the middle, I ended the game with twenty two of them.
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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Waiting for Wits and Wagers to start, I played the same person I just beat in Race for the Galaxy in this game, and he got retribution. In three fights he beat me by dragon captures. It was a brutal and merciless slaughter as the Hoax were burned by the Vulca.
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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A Wits and Wagers tournament was held, with the winning team each getting a copy of the game. A set of specific Indianapolis/board game questions were used. My team had a couple of absolute clutch moves, where our answer was the right one with high odds. On our wager we doubled down on our own answer and scored big. Sadly, it was not enough because we finished second by one point!
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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For this game of Pandemic, I was the Researcher. I knew we were in for it, when on the first turn of the first player he drew an epidemic. We made good progress on the cures. We got all of the cures but Red, but two epidemics really close together caused a very nasty string of outbreaks that caused the game end.
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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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My last game was Dominion. I taught two people how to play, so we used the beginner set up. I think the two people who were new got a little caught up in the fun of deck building, and forgot to buy victory points. By the time one of them bought one of the 6 VP cards, I had already picked up three. The game ended with my win, but both people said they really enjoyed the game.
So that is it for my experience. It was fun, and I am already looking forward till next year. In the event that anyone who was responsible for the Convention reads this list, thanks again!
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Indianapolis
Indiana