Cthulhu Wars

Tags

board games, Cthulhu Wars, game night, games, miniatures, table top game

Source: Board Game Geek

This past week at game night we got to play Cthulhu Wars. A guy from work brought it over, we got in part of a game finding ourselves having disperse the group before the game reached fruition. Victory is based on two conditions victory points and having claimed all 6 scrolls before the game ends; but I jump ahead of the wagon, let me go back and talk a little about the game before I jump straight to the end.

Each player gets 1 faction placard. Each faction is different, not just a little but they are so varied it seems like it wouldn’t mesh well as a game. Everything from unit cost to scroll abilities are different. At first glance it seems broken – like one faction has a significant advantage – but that is not the case. Each faction has such outrageous abilities that they balance each other out.

The game is broken nicely into phases and rounds. Each round consists of 4 phases – and I may not get their names entirely right but you’ll get the idea.

Phase 1 – Power Gathering
In this phase you gather power from your holdings on the board. 1 power for every Acolyte Cultist and 2 power for every Gate, are the main ways of getting your power.

Phase 2 – First player
This phase determines which player goes first. The player with the most victory points goes first if there is a tie the Cthulhu faction goes first. It just so happens that I was playing this faction. I went first 🙂

Phase 3 – Victory Points
This phase adds victory points to the point tracker. Players receive 1vp for each gate they control. This is also when you could preform the Ritual of Annihilation, in which you spend power to double those points. Be warned the ritual gets more expensive each time it is preformed so getting it earlier makes it cheaper.

Phase 4 – Action
This phase is where players get to take their actions, each action taking a certain amount of power. There are some special abilities that allow some factions to do unique actions that cost no power.

The game play is very easy to learn and seems simple. However, what sets this game apart, something I mentioned earlier, the unique factions – that is where the complexity of Cthulhu Wars is found. Every player gets a faction that is entirely different from all the others. This level of variation is beyond even Twilight Imperium. Whose factions are mostly the same except for a few technology differences. (Twilight Imperium is complex in a different way.)

So the game goes around round after round with players expanding, attacking opponents, and gathering their spell books. Every round points are added and the first player to reach 30 points on the score tracker ends the game. At that point players add in any hidden victory points and the player with the most victory points wins the game. Contingent on if they have all 6 of their spell books. If not, the player with all six spell books and the highest score wins the game.

Cthulhu Wars involves a lot of reading each factions abilities and figuring out which strategy would work best for that particular one. Each one varies so game play would depend on which one you had. I had The Great Cthulhu and in hind sight I should have focused more on claiming ocean territories and smashing opponents. Oh well something to remember for next time.

Like I said at the beginning we weren’t able to finish the game so I can’t give a full picture of the game. But we played long enough for me to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the game and would play again at the next opportunity.

But, who won? I’m glad you asked. No one. That’s the short answer. No one got thirty points to end the game and no one had all 6 of their spell books. But of all the non winners I had the most points. By one.

Until next time,

Running Man

P.S. – Here are some pictures of our game. I really liked the miniatures, very large and very detailed.

An Acolyte Cultist

Black Goat Faction

Cthulhu

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Get the Loot and Build your Dominion

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card game, Dominion, game night, games, Gardens, Loot, pirates, table top game, Thief

Game night Tuesday.

Source: Board Game Geek

We managed to get in 1 game for Loot and 3 games of Dominion. It was good to get in a bunch of shorter games. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good long game, Twilight Imperium, Catan with all the expansions, Carcassonne the same way. But there is something nice about quicker games that allow more than one winner for the night.

I won the first game we played. WHAT!!!?? you ask. Yes. Yes I did manage to loot the most merchant ships. It’s a fun quick game, easy to learn. Defiantly a good filler game. Then we broke out Dominion, no expansions this time. And the three games filled out the night quite nicely.

The first two games were very skewed as far as card values go. In the first game we had no cards costing more that 4 coin, which made for big decks. I don’t remember the final score but it was up there, I don’t think anyone scored under 30vp during that game.

Source: Board Game Geek

The second game was just the opposite. All the big value cards were out, nothing cheaper than 4 coin. So it was pretty much guaranteed that no one could buy anything during one of their first two turns. (We play with a house rule that doesn’t allow you to buy a treasure or vp card unless you have played an action that turn. Otherwise no actions would be bought.) The Mine was out during that game and my normal strategy is to get a couple of those to upgrade my copper to silver to gold. But the Thief was also mucking about and with no Moat available I forewent that and tried other avenues. I bought 2 or 3 Witches and was handing out Curses every other turn or so. That game ended with very few vp having been bought, the winner of that game totaled 13vp.

The third game had a nice balance of cards. I was able to pick up a few Bureaucratic cards and some Gardens which went a long way towards victory. I won that game too. Well, mostly… I tied for first with 31vp. That’s still winning right? I mean I did come in first, with someone else.

Well that was my game night this week. I also played a couple games with my kids. Two games I designed, a simple resource gathering game and an equally simple dice game.

Until next time, keep on playing the game,

Running Man

Frontier

Tags

frontier, game design, game night, table top game, tile game

This past week we had the chance to run through another play test of a new game I’m designing. The working name is Frontier and it’s a game of exploration, expansion, and holding your own. You build the board as you go but it still gets very small very fast. Everyone is pushing to expand their own boarders while trying to hold on to the areas they already have claimed. The game has some elements of territory building, tile and unit placement, army building, and a little bit of bidding thrown in just for fun.

This was the first play through that we didn’t make any changes to the rules for the next play test. But it still needs work. A good polish or two. There are some different scenarios I would like to try out. What if we… Hmmmm. Now there’s a thought,

Until next time, keep imagining,

Running Man

A bowl of nuts and a Dungeon Delve

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board games, Delve, dragons, fantasy game, game night, games, monster, orcs, print and play

I sat down the other night for a little bit of quiet time. I rediscovered a print and play that I had played a while back and thought it sounded like a good way to pass the time. So with my nuts in a bowl and good nut cracker I sat down and began…

Delve – The Dice Game

  The idea behind the game is you control  a band of adventures who find themselves crawling through a maze of tunnels fighting the monsters they encounter. All you need is a pencil and 6d6 (that’s six 6-sided dice for those of you who don’t know) and a printed copy of the game. I chose to use chits from Hero Scape as health markers instead of marking up the paper with a pencil.

The game has simple rules to learn and an equally simple mechanic. You role 6d6 up to three times. You try to get certain combinations as you roll so set aside any dice you want to keep. After you finish rolling the dice decide which adventurer’s ability you will use, but you can only use each dice one time. The Fighter hits on 6’s, the Rogue hits on 1’s or a full house, the Cleric can use straights, and the Wizard uses 3,4,5,or 6 of a kind. Once you apply any damage to the enemy you roll for them and take any damage to your party, you choose where. And so on through out the game until your group dies or you win.

The first monsters you face are Orcs, three of them. You can see I use the tokens instead of marking up the paper, it adds more pieces but keeps the paper board nicer. The Orcs are easy but the game gets progressively harder, but about half way though there is a Treasure Chest which is filled with all sorts of goodies. Just roll the 1 die and get your treasure – usually an item that will help you later in your quest. But beware of the Blast Glyph – roll a 6, kill an adventurer.

Delve the Dice Game. Fight your way through Orcs, Giant Spiders, Skeletons, and finally slay the Dragon; or die trying.

In my opinion a good solid solo game, simple but with enough variety to play several times before you get bored. Especially if you don’t win the first time. And what game doesn’t have an expansion? In this case The Sands of Time – a second adventure more difficult than the first. And If you master both try moving directly from the Starting Adventure to The Sands of Time without healing your party first. Just to make things interesting…

Well that’s it for me, until next time slay a Spider for me,

Running Man