Gargoyles, Decals and Board Gaming...

Time to catch up on blogging a few odds and ends...been pretty busy. Two weekends ago, Thanksgiving weekend, was a weekend of gaming and football. Having to do the greater family thing on Thanksgiving, we get no leftovers...so...on the Friday after Thanksgiving, we always do our own turkey at the house and invite over some friends.

 While all were here, we played several board games, but I was only able to get pics of a few. We did a marathon session of the old game Balderdash, in which Matt proved his superiority to us all!

I do enjoy a good board game. Robust games with plenty of decisions, even if the game is a little dry, I enjoy being able to make sound - or ill - decisions. Puerto Rico, Goa and Caylus are a few of my favorites in this category, to name a few - always looking for more.

That said, I enjoy a good, lighter game too...one with plenty of opportunity for screwing over other players and fun interactions. Corsairs and Bootlegger are two in this category.

Anyway, beside Balderdash, these games made the table:Ysphahan, Cthulhu Gloom, Corsairs, King's Breakfast.

Also, I ordered some decal paper that goes through the color printer. I wanted to try to make a few of my own. Here is my first attempt, marking for Chinese shields. We'll see how it goes, they will go on the unit I am currently painting.

Oh yeah, Gargoyles. The baggage claim area at DIA has Gargoyles! Awesome! I love Gargoyles!

Weekend Boardgaming

It was a busy weekend for me...didn't work this weekend so I played some boardgames! Played five different games and a total of seven games:

• Cave Troll (played twice)
• Cold Wars
• Manoeuvre
• Scopa (played twice)
• Caylus

Several points to be made.

Cold Wars is, in my opinion, one of the funnest and best two-player boardgames on the market. I always enjoy this game. It was recently reprinted, so if you don't have it, get it.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=184

Scopa is the national card-game of Italy and is a blast. Beautiful cards too! We play using our iPads and the iScopaHD app. There are many decks to choose from and you can customize the rules a bit to reflect various regional differences. The interface works terrific and you can chat and send emoticons to your opponents. We like to play to 21. The second hand ended in "over time": 24 to 22! So close!

The Caylus game was one of the closest three-player contests of that game I have seen. six-points separated first place from last place!

Manoeuvre is a really good game! Napoleonic themed, the game is card-based for actions and uses polyhedral dice. So, lovers of Piquet games would find a fair bit of comfort in the rules. Try it, it is a fun game!

The Best Pirate Game

Two of my buddies have a copy of the board game "Merchants & Marauders"...and we have played it a lot over the past couple of months. I think it is the best "pirate themed" game out there - because I really enjoy playing it! This is not a review, pop over to boardgamegeek to read reviews, there are many. This is just a "yeah, buy this and play this" note (and some variant information).

The Box Cover

In the game, you can play as a pirate or a merchant - both are avenues to fun and victory - in fact, over the course of a game, you are likely to be both! Yes, captains do get killed in this game, when they do, you come  back as a different captain and are free to follow whichever path you wish. When your captain is killed, the only thing you retain is the number of Glory Points you have earned and the Gold Coins previously "buried" (which count as more victory points.

There are dice in the game that run combat and other "tests". So there is luck involved, but if you have been successful, you may have things/crew/tools that help you manipulate the dice. In spite of the dice, there is planning in the game and if you sail around haphazardly then you count only on luck and good fortune to accumulate victory points. So, you must plan things out. Also, you must make decisions each turn - after all, you're a merchant, privateer or pirate on the high seas - the choices of action are numerous.

I love the market mechanism for buying and selling goods (of course, you don't have to buy goods, you can take them from merchant ships you plunder). My friends and I play our own variant where when you buy goods, the local market does not offer the type of good that is currently in demand in that market. This means that sometimes you will experience a limited marketplace.

I also appreciate the mechanism for conducting merchant raids. First you have to "scout" to find a potential victim. Then you combat that victim using the cards provided. Your captain's "seamanship" is an important factor here. Of course, raiding merchants earns you bounties and limits your access to certain ports - and draws the attention of naval vessels of the offended nationalities.

Speaking of the naval vessels, the mechanism for introducing and moving the naval vessels (and non-player pirates) is really cool. Sometimes, the seas can be downright dangerous for an enterprising pirate!

If you read posts on various sites, there is a school of thought that it can be harder to begin the game as a pirate and that a good merchant player may be able to get a good start. I don't always agree, it really depends upon the circumstances of the game and how things develop. One thing is certain, that the pirate sloop can be defeated in a merchant raid due to a rating of "1" in a key area. My friends and I came up with a new starting ship type, the "Brig". It does not have a "1" so the initial survivability is increased. However, it is not as maneuverable as a sloop and we have have cases where prey has escaped! Ah, but these are the trade-offs of the decisions we make when playing!

Our Variant Ship

In addition, we have introduced a new pirate captain, none other than Jack Sparrow. This is why you don't drink rum, slip Pirates of the Caribbean into the DVD player and play a pirate board game all at the same time. Jack has some great advantages in certain skill areas, but he is disadvantaged in that he will always have an English bounty on his head - which can cause him some headaches. What Jack is pretty good for in the game is seeking out missions and rumors and earning Glory Points in this manner.

Jack Sparrow

Lastly, one of the two pals I mentioned that has the game helped to design a home-made pirate game that is strikingly similar to this board game. I guess that is another reason this one is so awesome to us, they produced everything we always wanted in a pirate game! Except for one thing: Carousing & Wenching.

Yes, carousing and wenching - the activities of seamen when they hit port after a long voyage and with a pocket of gold. We converted several of our cards from our old game to use in this game - but we wanted to be careful not to upset this game's mechanics. So we built a deck of about 100 cards, the vast majority of which are not too influential on the game. But, there are some cards that are good for you and some that are harmful to you. So, you do take a small risk vs. reward chance when drawing from this deck. Usually, it is not a good strategy to employ too regularly - but is helpful if you're stuck in port because of weather or nearby naval vessels and are looking for a way to spend an action. Below are the two most common cards.

The most common Carousing & Wenching Cards

That's it. A little under the weather today and needed a break from working...