My Initial WBC 2010 experience (first time there)
Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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Despite living around an hour and a half away from where the WBC is held every year, I've never taken the opportunity to get out and give it a go. I finally took Friday off this year and went out for Friday and Saturday to see what it was like...and this is what I experienced, both in games and overall experience.
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Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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I understand this has been a staple of the WBC for a large number of years now...and having nephews who absolutely love NASCAR, I definitely wanted to try this game. After getting to the WBC about half an hour before registration opened (this con is relatively quiet/dead in the mornings and really doesn't start until 9 most mornings...you can find a few games being played, but not many) I wandered around and acquainted myself with the place and checked out the games on display and ready for demoing in Cafe Jay. At 9, I headed over to the demo for the Stock Car Championship and learned how the game was played...and immediately entered the next heat of the game at 10. It was definitely a fun large group game (we had 10 racers)...and probably ill advisedly I played a low card and wound up starting towards the rear (9th I think). By the time the last laps came up, I had managed to work up to 5th, but was a bit disgusted with the lack of pass cards I had managed to draw thus far. Fortunately, in the final lap card/round, I managed to draw 2 pass cards, and the drivers of the 2 cars I passed had no way of blocking my pass, so I squeaked into 3rd place and qualified for the final.
It's a game I wouldn't mind owning and would enjoy playing again, however, the cost and the number of times I'd actually probably play it is causing me to hold off for now...I suspect my nephews would love the game, but we'd have to get enough to play...from my very limited experience, it seems this would be better with at least 6 if possible...and one copy of the game only comes with 4 driver decks.
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Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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After qualifying, I headed up to Open Gaming to check it out. I will say that while there is a large area dedicated to open gaming and usually alot of people there, as a more "reserved" person, I found it somewhat challenging to find others to play with. I would usually have to walk around the large room several times before finding a table with someone setting up a game and looking for players...it seemed a number of people came with friends and would often already have groups of players. Another year, I'll have to force myself to be a bit more outgoing and see if I could start a game (people will occasionally hold up a game to advertise they need more players).
At any rate, I eventually found myself playing a prototype of the Lawn Mowing Game with the designer and one other. Players were teenagers hired to mow the yard of a little old lady with her cat. There were pots, grass plots, weed plots, flowers, and garden gnomes on the board worth various amounts of points (-3 to +3), and players used a deck of 9 cards that showed movement options. Players would mix their deck and then draw 3 cards, and play them in turn trying to maximize their points. You played through the deck 2 times and the game was over.
The game was pretty well done, but not really my type of game...and I lost horribly ...
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3.
Board Game: Agricola
[Average Rating:8.25 Overall Rank:2]
Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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I had taken along my copy of Agricola to play in the final qualifying heat for Agricola, and so I sat down to play a 4 player game...using the K deck for the first time ever. We decided to eschew the card draft and just deal the cards...and I wound up with terrible cards (my past few games of Agricola is turning more and more to thinking a card draft is necessary). The game itself proceeded to show me that I still have ALOT to learn about the game (which I already knew
 ...I still have alot of work to do to learn when to take start player and maximizing my actions. I did enjoy the chance to see the K cards in play though! I wound up scoring around 23 points...good for 3rd in my game...with the winner scoring 42. I never got enough wood to build fences, so I had a number of empty spaces on my farm.
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Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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Found 3 other guys that were playing around with the new edition of this game (they gave the impression they'd tried it about 2 or 3 times and kept finding something they'd been doing wrong). I once again proceeded to find out just why I don't play many deduction type games as I had 2 of the 3 numbers for my first set wrong (and the right ones crossed off). I did eventually get one number right...but we all think either the rules were wrong, or they had interpreted them wrong...it seems play would be better if all the tiles were reset after one person got their number (we were playing we just kept going). I'll have to actually take a look at the rules myself to see what we might have been doing wrong.
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Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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This was one of the games I really wanted to try out at WBC. I had received my pre-order copy before I left and hoped to give it a play...well, I never played my copy, but I did wind up playing this game twice with other people's copies! I played a 4 player game where I managed to just pull out the win 27-26-22-? at the very end thanks to having the debate tokens for 3 of the tracks...and benefiting from a 6 point Benjamin Franklin play...
After finishing this game, I found another group that also wanted to play another game, so I joined them...along with a junior high? girl so we had another 4 player game. I wound up finishing 3rd with only one debate track won...and the young lady wound up winning when she used George Washington to end the final round...she'd evidently held onto George Washington from the beginning of the game...Final scores were 28-24-22-11. The fourth place player was bemoaning his card draws...and from the cards played, it sure seemed he got some poor draws!
I think I really enjoy this game - I enjoy card driven games, and I really enjoy all the interaction in this game. That said, you are a bit at the mercy of the cards at times, and it will affect the scoring...but I think one could mitigate that a bit if one is willing to put single delegation cards out...it's so tempting to wait until one gets at least 2 delegates from a state before declaring a vote...or 2 delegates with the same issue for the debate track.
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6.
Board Game: Agricola
[Average Rating:8.25 Overall Rank:2]
Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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Following the 2nd play of Founding Fathers, we wound up playing Agricola again, and it was the young lady's first time playing this as well...so we played the E-Deck...I finally got some decent cards to play, although I always struggle with finding a good time to get them out. The young lady wound up with a typical newbie score, but at least she did manage to add a room and a family member, which is more than many other newbie's manage. I never did get a really good strategy going though, and wound up finishing 2nd, with final scores of 37-27-22-10.
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Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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For my final game of the day, a designer was persuading passerby's to give his game a playtest, and I allowed myself to be so persuaded...and I really did appreciate/enjoy the game. It was a "real-time" war game, using sand timers similar to the way Space Dealer is "real-time". 4 sand timers were used and assigned to a unit AFTER they had moved/acted, and the sand timers had two medium times, 1 short time, and one longer time. One of the selling points was that a typical game would only take around 10 minutes...Each side had 5 or 6 regiments of men at arms (strength of 5) and 3 regiments of archers (strength of 3), and every unit in this setup had a move of 2 spaces. Objective was to eliminate all but 2 of your opponent's forces or to get one of your units to your opponent's rear line.
The game starts out a bit slow as you wait for the timers to time out, but once you get into the game a little ways, you keep very busy moving/attacking/flipping timers. Once a timer is assigned to a unit, you have to wait until that timer is expended to either re-activate and use that unit or you can move the timer to another unit and give that unit an order.
I wound up winning the game I played, but I'm not convinced that the designer didn't help me win (I could be wrong - there was no obvious gifts, although I didn't have much time to really think about what his strategy might have been).
Supposedly it's been presented to a publisher, and I hope it gets published. It's a very unique type of war game, and while I don't play alot of war games, I found it fascinating and alot of fun all the same!
At this point, it was nearly midnight and the open gaming crowd was thinning out so I also headed out for bed...but it had been a good day of gaming!
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Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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Saturday morning I headed over to the Adventurer's demo before a heat and decided to give it a try...and wound up winning the qualifying heat and moving on to the semi's...it was an interesting first game (5 player) as the boulder gained momentum and moved 4 or 5 spaces just about every time once it reached turn 5. As such, all of us were racing to stay ahead and not really looking for treasure as there was no time to...I eventually pulled out a close victory with 20 points of treasure...a lady right got out right before me with 19 points. Only one of the players wound up dying twice...everyone else I believe never even died once.
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9.
Board Game: Macao
[Average Rating:7.47 Overall Rank:132]
Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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This was a demo set up in Cafe Jay downstairs, and I had an interest in giving it a try after seeing some of the reviews on the Geek. We got a 4 player game going...and while I wound up with the best trade routes, I had pitiful cards and never got to a point where I was in position to grab cards that worked for me. In the future, I think I really need to work on staying first in the turn order...and choosing buildings better! I think I wound up being punished 6 times for cards (including left over cards at the end of the game...and -18 points will not help your score!). I like the wheel and the way it works, but I think I would change my play considerably in the future should I get a chance to play it again. I enjoyed it, but not enough to have much desire to buy it. Final scores were 75-71-46-40...and yes, I finished fourth...
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Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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Following Macao, it was time for the Adventurers semi final, where everyone played 2 games, and the winners in all 6 of the games would play in the final. I got to see the unpredictability of this game immediately in the first semi-final game as 3 of the 4 of us wound up getting squished between the walls on TURN 2! Needless to say, the individual who didn't get squeezed won, although he had a few hair-raising moments with the boulder...it came close a couple of times to a no winner game...I managed to finish 2nd getting my second adventurer out with very little treasure (9), but no one else made it out.
Game 2 wound up being a 3 player game as some left...but this time it was a much more relaxed game with the walls only moving once and the boulder deciding to take it easy for most of the game. I chose to take the river for the third straight time (I needed the points to try to win to make the final)...and would have won the game had I managed to climb out of the river on my first try...alas, I rolled a 1 and lost 3 treasures (and the lead)...and then proceeded to go over the waterfall as I re-rolled the 1 and got another...1.
I really enjoyed this light game and I think I will probably purchase it. Not only does it play up to 6, it's an entertaining time, even it is filled with a fair amount of luck with the dice involved. I think it would go over well with my game group as well as the junior high youth group I help out with at church. Until now, I hadn't really considered it as I really questioned the replay value...yes, somethings don't change, but with the dice rolls and cards changing, each game does often have a completely different feel.
One thing our groups never really saw a need for was the bridge...I don't think anyone used it as it seems relatively pointless...in our games, no one was at the point where they felt they had enough to win without going through the river or trying to pick the lock on the 6 point treasure. It's a neat idea...just not really placed well in my limited experience...
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Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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Played my first 3 player game of HT...and the more experience player won easily...but I enjoyed giving it a try...I think I enjoy the 4+ player game/map better, but I still enjoyed it. I did several blocking maneuvers, but it was too little too late and probably hurt myself more doing it. Final scores were around 70-45-40 (I finished a distant 2nd).
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Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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Following HT, I played Moongha Invaders with the owner of HT and his 2 friends. None of us had played it before, and while I think it is an interesting game and I'd like to give it another go, I found much of this game frustrating as we tried to figure out the rules as we went...it went longer than I was expecting (a Wallace game, I suppose I should have known better...). Somehow I managed to do enough to finish a close 2nd, with final scores of 26-24-22-18. Looking back, I would do alot of things differently...a couple of us were not aware until late in the game that damage cubes were a finite amount and just had fun obliterating a city, when all we really needed were a majority of cubes there...yes it hurts the owner of the city, but it also wastes alot of damage cubes better used elsewhere. The monster eating monster was really only utilized by one player (he wound up finishing 4th, as he attacked very few cities), but he got about 10-12 points from that monster.
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Garry Rice
United States
Perkasie
Pennsylvania
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In summary, I really did enjoy the 2 days I spent at the WBC and wouldn't hesitate to go back again. I am a bit disappointed that there aren't as many new games/publishers demoing there, but I realize it has scheduling conflicts with Gencon and that Gencon has a larger priority due to the interests of those attending. WBC has a larger focus on war games, and so the vendors for many of the games I generally enjoy aren't as present there (for example, Rio Grande was selling Prosperity at Gencon as I understand it, but there was only 1 demo copy at WBC)...I would have liked to try Defenders of the Realm or Battles of Westeros, but again, it wasn't present there as far as I could find.
It is a bit challenging sometimes to find others to game with in the open gaming...especially if you come by yourself...if you're a bit more outgoing, though, it may be a bit easier...I always wound up finding a game...it just took awhile sometimes.
WBC is also alot about tournament play...and it can be nice to have a game that you know you can play at a scheduled time against others who have played the game before.
Lastly, even if the most current games aren't there, there's still alot of games there that I had never played before that I appreciated the chance to learn. I think almost all the games I played this weekend were new to me except for Agricola and Hansa Teutonica, and even in those games, I was able to try something new.
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Posted Sun Aug 8, 2010 5:00 pm
...but I wasn't the start player. I returned the favor in the last round, but I probably would have been better off directing it at the first place player (although we really didn't know who was winning at any time since we really just glossed over the victory point rules and by that time I couldn't remember much of them...
Arlington Heights
Illinois
Suffolk
Virginia
In between GMing, my son and I spent our evenings trying game after game. I played Thurn and Taxis, Race for the Galaxy, Battleline, and 3 or 4 more. I only played in one tourney (Monsters Menace America) and came in dead last. I probably set a record in fewest total points.
There were plenty more games I wish I had time to try, but I was only there Friday and Saturday.