Games Night: Dave's

Monday night I went round to Dave's for some games again. I'd brought his copy of Border Reivers, plus my It's Alive! prototype and my Pirates of the Spanish Main fleet. Dave wanted to christen his copy of Border Reivers first - so we set up a two player game. Dave won the toss, and laid out a fairly constrained map with more scenery in the middle than I like. I chose the end further from the mine (not sure why) and then we were off. Dave got to the mine before me and put a lot of armies in there to defend it, while simultaneously start to clear land for a new settlement. It's worth noting that Dave got a free reinforcement of both types army and card (Market) in his first turn - so he was off to a flying start. Despite this is was actually a really close game. I managed to successfully attack the mine, Dave won it back and I got it again. We both used Insurrections to attack fairly undefended cities, and I used a Reiving Party to trying to steal from him, while he used Siege Engines a couple of times to aid his attacking of my defences. I managed to break away on the cash front, while Dave continued to spend and receive armies, forcing me to spend my large lead to defend myself. It was one of those back and forth games where it's not clear who's going to win at all. My favourite moment was when Dave used an Insurrection to attack my city, little did he know that I had a Militia to defend with! Dave attacks, I reveal my Militia: 'Ha! My grocers are armed with...' Dave: 'That's a Market not a Militia!' Me:'Arse! It looks they're armed with fruit. Houston, we're in trouble.' Even armed only with fruit they managed to defend themselves though - the city lived to see another day. In the end I managed to wrest an advantage and won - thought it was very close.

The second game of the night was Pirates of the Spanish Main which we'd played recently. We set up for a quick thirty point battle, and I made a decision to add a six point coin to the pot of available coins - my reasoning being that I'd use fast ships with small holds to try to track it down quickly. I ended up with three ships and three fairly cheap crew. Dave chose two ships (one four-masted beast) and a couple of expensive crew, including Admiral Morgan who had the potential to be brilliant. I set out to the nearby islands and quickly found my six-value coin, Dave raided one of the islands near him and started to close with one of his smaller ships armed with a firepot specialist. I brought my Captained ship to bear on that ship using it's longer guns and ability to move and shoot to quickly dispatch the small two-master. Dave's bigger ship came over to engage. Fortunately for me Admiral Morgan's ability to act twice on a particular die roll wasn't coming up for Dave, and though I had to run away to begin with, I brought a second ship over for back-up and managed to maneouvre my Captained ship into range of his ship while out of range of his shorter range front and back guns. I managed to sink that one too, so it was game over. In conclusion I think the Captain is priceless, Admiral Morgan not so much, especially with bad die rolls a factor - he's very expensive (five points) too.

We had time for a quick game of Carcassonne: The Castle after Pirates. Dave and I both drew for the largest house, so neither of us got the biggest open space bonus, and I foolishly wasted a 'score an unfinished road' counter I picked up near the end of the game. In the end the game was decided by the markets, and I had quite a lot, so I snuck my third win of the night. Final scores: me 91, Dave 76.

Another great night of gaming :-)

Session Report: Games At Dave's

I went round to Dave's again for games this evening. Dave had suggested Memoir '44, Pirates of the Spanish Main and Codename: Monster. I got there a little late and had to leave fairly early, but we had time to play another Memoir '44 scenario where the Allies parachute into a small town from both sides, and one game of Pirates.

I started playing the Memoir '44 scenario as the allies, and I was sorely trounced by Dave's single unit of armour on my right flank. I tried to stay away from the armour, but Dave chased me down one unit at a time and slaughtered me. It was ugly. Fortunately, we were going to play it the other way round, and this time I'd have the armour :-). Didn't help much. Dave ganged up on my armour and destroyed them in fairly short order. It didn't help that I had four cards, three of which were for the centre, where I had no troops after the first turn or two. At one point I even had four cards for the centre and I had to discard one to get something useful. Dave creamed me again, a convincing win for him.

Next up was Pirates, and I was keen to redeem myself. We played a thirty point battle, Dave choosing a bunch of crew and three ships, while I picked two three-masters, a single mast ship and a Captain. Dave started first and came for me with two ships and went for an island with the third. I went for the other island near Dave with my biggest ship, and for another island with my other big ship. My single mast ship sailed in support for the one going near Dave. I managed to pick up treasure from the nearest island to me, and then drop it off at my home island and bring my Captained ship to bear. In the meantime I had collected the gold from the island nearest Dave and sunk his smallest ship using the big ship and the little one-mast one. Dave brought his larger ship over, and sent his other back to base to unload and then come and help. Fortunately for me, I now had a Captained ship (allowing me to move and shoot in a single turn) and my small ship to attack his nearest ship and provide cover for the big ship who managed to pick up another island's worth of treasure and drop it off at my home island winning the game. But not before I'd sunk another of Dave's ships. Ah sweet, sweet revenge.

It was even better as I'm reading a lot of the Aubrey/Maturin series of books by Patrick O'Brien at the moment, about the Napoleonic wars - it really makes the game better as I've got a really good sense of what it would be like to fight such battles.

All in all another good night of gaming, I'm enjoying Memoir '44, and it was nice to break out Pirates which I'd not played for ages. It was a shame I had to leave early, and we didn't get to play Monster, but there'll be another time...

In other news I sent a draft contract to the designer of Monster, and the haggling has begun...