Jon Grantham
United States
University Park
Maryland
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After trying out Cave Troll ( http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/316851), Christina headed off to do some reading, so Ben and I broke out Duel of Ages, one of our favorite games lately. It was getting towards 10:00 on a Friday night. We both had tiring weeks at work, so we decided to set midnight as the limit. We used 3 platters and 6 characters each.
Team White (Jon): Boris Andronov, Martians, Titanium Renegade, Siennya, Ace Cannon, Pvt. Sanchez.
Team Black (Ben): Flicker, Agent 911, Cpl. York, Cassie Sashay, Enrak the Fury, Joshua Jordan.
During setup, I decided to make the Colonial Labyrinth hard to get to, since I had no colonial characters. Ben did the same thing with the Future Labyrinth. I'm not sure I'm going to try that again. I had the option to include the Lith Alliance on my last placement. I decided against that. In previous games, there was a lot of Lith Alliance activity, but since none of it generated cards, I felt it slowed the game down compared to the Labyrinths.
We finally got underway at 10:14.
10:19. Flicker got in the main gate of Team White's base. White 0, Black 0.
10:24. Flicker AMAZEs Team White's vault and steals both cards. We have yet to play a game where the vault is used by the home team; it seems mostly something for the other guy to steal. White 0, Black 0.
10:43. Boris Andronov fails to get into Team Black's base. Turnabout may be fair play, but it's more difficult than anticipated. White 0, Black 0.
10:47. The Martians fail at Stalag Breakout (Modern). White 0, Black 0.
10:48. Titanium Renegade fails at Turk Horse Archer (Ancient). The rolls are not going my way. White 0, Black 0.
10:49. Boris Andronov gets in Team Black's base on the second try. Maybe my luck is turning around? White 0, Black 0.
10:53. Boris Andronov's attack on Black's HQ PASSes. I had been trying to engage in melee with some of Ben's characters, but nobody laid a scratch on anybody else. Maybe this is a good time to press the advantage. White 0, Black 0.
10:54. Siennya AMAZEs Turk Horse Archer (Ancient). I get to draw two cards and give one away. Getting the Max Runner to Titanium Renegade seems really useful. His speed jumps from 4 to 7, and he can tear through the rough that's making the Future and Colonial Labyrinths hard to get to. Taking an early lead is not a bad thing, either. White 1, Black 0.
10:56. Ace Cannon SQUEAKs Stalag Breakout (Modern). No points, but a long rifle. White 1, Black 0.
10:58. Agent 911 AMAZEs High Noon, Main Street (Colonial). A 2?! How did he roll a 2? Sigh. The worst part about this is that the AMAZE lets him put all of my guys back in domes. Not only does that mean I have to start all over again getting to labyrinths, but my attack on the HQ is wasted. White 1, Black 1.
11:08. Flicker PASSes Gauss Rifle Debut (Future). White 1, Black 2.
11:09. Cpl. York FAILs Stalag Breakout (Modern). At this point, we're getting pretty sick of Stalag. White 1, Black 2.
11:20. Cassie Sashay PASSes Stalag Breakout (Modern). Unfortunately, we forget to move Stalag Breakout to the bottom of the pile. What can I say, we were tired. White 1, Black 3.
11:21. Enrak the Fury SQUEAKs Trebuchet Duel (Ancient). White 1, Black 3.
11:25. Siennya AMAZEs Trebuchet Duel (Ancient). She shows Enrak how it's done. Unfortunately, this puts more cards in the vault, which is ripe for Black to raid. White 1, Black 3.
11:26. Titanium Renegade FAILs Stalag Breakout (Modern). White 1, Black 3.
11:32. Joshua Jordan AMAZEs Spiders As Big As Your Fist (Ancient). More bad news for me, as he becomes a superhero. White 1, Black 3.
11:38. Pvt. Sanchez AMAZEs Fairy Gold (Ancient). I probably shouldn't keep sending guys after the Ancient Labyrinth, but Agent 911 moved half the characters to where it was inconvenient to head anywhere else. Sanchez gets some weaponry and a sentinel. White 1, Black 3.
11:40. The Martians SQUEAK The Sphinx Has a Riddle (Ancient). White 1, Black 3.
11:41. Boris Andronov FAILs Stalag Breakout (Modern). White 1, Black 3.
11:55. Ace Cannon PASSes Stalag Breakout (Modern). White 1, Black 2.
At this point, we only had time for Black's turn. Since there was no way I could catch up on his turn (unless he got a character killed), Ben chose not to move. He had actually surrounded Pvt. Sanchez with 5 of his 6 characters. We played it out to see what would have happened. He rushed all 5 guys at Pvt. Sanchez. Pvt. Sanchez had a 5-damage, 1-use area weapon (I forget the name)...and missed all 5 guys. Cassie Sashay tied up Pvt. Sanchez to prevent his attack, and out of the other 4 guys...one damage happened. That would have been the only damage of the game.
MVP: I'm going to have to go with Agent 911 here. Scoring the point on the Colonial Labyrinth combined with messing with all of my characters secured the win. Runner up is Flicker for the combination of raiding my vault and scoring a point in the Future Labyrinth.
Impressions: I more or less gave away the game by not contesting the Colonial or Future Labyrinths. The Titanium Renegade was headed there when the game ends, but that wasn't good enough. If I had been able to do better in the Modern Labyrinth, I would have been able to send it into overtime, but that was short-sighted. In the future, I don't think I'll go into the board-building trying to make anything inaccessible (except possibly my base). It doesn't help me, and it makes things less exciting.
I still don't get the vaults. It's a complete pain to get stuff out of your own vault...you have to get a card, and then you have to trade it. It seems easier just to break into the other guy's vault. I think this game is well-designed, but I'm beginning to think the vault is an exception.
1:45 is probably too short for a game, although playing on 3 platters definitely helped. I feel like we had a lot more to do, and I was “just getting started” with my characters. I think next time we play, I'll push to set aside a minimum of 2.5-3 hours.
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Slyvanian Frog
United States
Lakeville
Minnesota
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grantham wrote: I still don't get the vaults. It's a complete pain to get stuff out of your own vault...you have to get a card, and then you have to trade it. It seems easier just to break into the other guy's vault. I think this game is well-designed, but I'm beginning to think the vault is an exception.
Somewhere (and I forget where), I believe one of the designers basically said that (that your vault was far more of a target for the other person to raid than something for you to use for yourself).
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Matthew M Monin
United States
Branford
Connecticut
8/8 FREE, PROTECTED
That guy
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SlyFrog wrote: grantham wrote: I still don't get the vaults. It's a complete pain to get stuff out of your own vault...you have to get a card, and then you have to trade it. It seems easier just to break into the other guy's vault. I think this game is well-designed, but I'm beginning to think the vault is an exception. Somewhere (and I forget where), I believe one of the designers basically said that (that your vault was far more of a target for the other person to raid than something for you to use for yourself).
Definitely so. Your base is all-around more useful for your opponent than it is for you. Breaking a character out of your opponent's prison is far better than interrogating one in yours. The vault is more lucrative to break into than it is for you to use yourself (unless there is an absolutely awesome combo-rific item in yours). And of course blowing up your foe's HQ is far better than being able to place the very random jump-pad.
Still...all of that makes defending your base that much more important!
Great session, BTW. Instant thumbs up just for including an image of the board layout!
-MMM
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David desJardins
United States
Burlingame
California
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If you're going to log at this level of detail, it would be interesting to know how many turns were actually played.
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Jon Grantham
United States
University Park
Maryland
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DaviddesJ wrote: If you're going to log at this level of detail, it would be interesting to know how many turns were actually played.
I estimate 10. I'll add it to my record sheet for future plays; it should be easy enough to track.
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Ben Stern
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
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Good logging as always. And, definitely think DoA is my current favorite game. The randomness in the setup and trying to establish a strategy for the characters received makes much of this game for me. I also really enjoy the calculations of success with characters attribute level compared to the attribute level of the foe (be it an adventure or other character.) Very well designed game.
My one comment about this particular game we played - I was getting rediculous roles. Having a character with a black (the worst) ranking having an adventure that was white (the best) and then rolling two 1s on two six-siders, the only roll that gave me success, was crazy. And, that role really determined the outcome of the game. Jon was well on his way toward both the future and colonial labryinths and could have quickly tied the game if I had not amazed that adventure and returned all his characters to a dome. But, it still ended up as a good competitive game.
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