by J. R. Tracy
We had a very crowded house last night with fifteen gamers, resorting to a couple big multiplayer options to absorb the bodies.Brother Paul paired off with Sam, fresh off his move from Austin to Brooklyn, for a little ASL. They opted for J146, Ragnarök, set in Berlin in May '45. Sam's Germans had to fight their way through a screen of Soviets to delay the inevitable for one more day. Sam had ten squads and a pair of halftracks against Paul's nine squads and three Sukas. The Germans run the gamut from conscripts to SS stormtroopers, but they only need to exit some combination of three leaders, squads, and/or vehicles. The urban terrain offers a lot of defensible chokepoints for the Soviets, and they have the potential of reinforcements semi-randomly popping up in the face of the German attack.
Wallyloo and ASL
Sam gambled early, racing an SPW through a gauntlet of machinegun fire for an early exit. After that, Paul's defense tightened and Sam found himself held up several hexes short of the board edge. The dice were hot by both sides, with well-executed fire attacks met by clutch morale checks. On the last turn, Sam still needed to exit two more pieces. His path was blocked by a Soviet leader in a stone building, so Sam attempted an SMC overrun with a 9-1 leader and two 658 squads. The leader passed, as did one of the two squads - Sam was able to roll through the tovarich and off the board for a very tight win. This is a classic Pete Shelling card - not too small, plays fast, and features a couple twists to separate it from run of the mill tourney fare.
Twilight, perhaps, but these are no gods
In honor of the 198th anniversary of the battle, Dutch taught the Wallace Waterloo to Hawkeye, with Dutch naturally taking the Anglo-Dutch. A large French force was caught out in the open near La Haye Saint, and the resulting casualties slowed the Imperial assault. The two sides traded blows up and down the line, slowing expending their cavalry until only the Allied reserves remained. Dutch launched a strong concentrated cavalry charge in the center that successfully pushed back the Guard, effectively ending the game. By that time Hawkeye had a handle on the subsystems but this is a tough one to grasp on the first pass. Though I admire and enjoy the game, watching it in action just makes me appreciate Treefrog's Gettysburg all the more, and it remains my first choice of Wallace's wargames.
Uxbridge goes all in
Scott, Dr. Rob, Bill, Dave, and Conrad got in another session of our Risk: Legacy game. Without a win under his belt, Scott started with a VP token and made the most of it. With Greenland under a toxic cloud, Scott drove east and rolled over Conrad in Eurasia. Dave resisted Dr. Rob's puppetmaster antics so it was left to Rob and Bill to stop Scott. Both failed miserably and Scott advanced to victory through the ashy wastelands, sealing his victory with the capture of Bill's HQ in East Africa. This one blitzed to a conclusion in 45 minutes, a new record. The board is acquiring some real character beyond the basic/classic Risk geographic choke points - both Greenland and Indonesia are toxic, killing an army per turn of any force unlucky enough to be stationed there. The Mediterranean is rimmed with compromised territories, making the whole region difficult to defend. Cities are popping up around the map, and several territory cards now have added bonuses, generating some strategy wrinkles. As hoped, each game is a little more interesting than the last.
Hail Muldoonia!
After Risk, Rob headed hope and the rest tried Pax Porfiriana, a first for Dave. Economies boomed around the table, with several cards in front of each player. At one point Dave was maxing out his income. They played through three topple cards, with the regime surviving despite getting clipped with a defense penalty each time. Unfortunately the crew had to break up before the fourth topple came out, but it looked like Conrad would've been able to stymie the topple and still have enough cash on hand for the win.
Conrad's inland empire
Herr Fuchs has been sky-high on Sentinels of the Multiverse so Chris, Campoverdi, Jim, and I all humored him with a session. David played Wraith, Campo had Mr. Fixer, Jim had Ra, Chris had Bunker, and I had Tachyon. We faced Citizen Dawn, a master-race nutjob, and her band of sun-worshiping psychopaths. She has a ton of hit points and spits out a steady stream of minions. Once five of her minions have been vanquished, however, she becomes invulnerable until another four are deployed, at which point she loses her immunity. We were fighting in a lab with a variety of vats that would enhance or mitigate damage inflicted.
Wraith, Ra, and Bunker
We started out like gangbusters, hammering Dawn with body blows and mowing down her minions. It looked like we were coasting to victory when either Chris or David said the fateful words, "It looks like we have this one wrapped up." From that point things went south. Dawn went into Immune mode with the defeat of her fifth minion. As Tachyon, I was zipping around my personal particle accelerator and had built up a massive 18-point attack, just waiting for Citizen Dawn to pop her head back up. Unfortunately, that was a long time coming. Her new minions trickled out of the deck but still inflicted niggling damage on all the heroes. The environment cards hurt us more than the bad guys. On top of everything else, Dawn started deploying minions with complementary powers (Assault and Battery; Blood, Sweat and Tears; etc), including one that lent immunity to the whole pack of them. Thus, when Dawn re-emerged I was forced to burn my super-punch on a minion instead of the main target. Even that was a wasted gesture, as the minion soon reappeared as Dawn was retrieving two minions a turn from the discard pile. Our dreams of glory died as we succumbed one by one, with Wraith the last to fall.
Citizen Dawn's all-conquering army
My initial take on Sentinels was that it is a great system saddled with no-brainer game play. I still feel the decision-making is obvious but this was a much more dynamic game, with card and equipment losses forcing fresh thinking, and the variety of minion powers gave Citizen Dawn's crew a new look every trip around the table. As before, the cooperate construct had a true team feel to it, only this time the pressure of a resurgent villain made for a tense and therefore more enjoyable game.
Finally, we wrapped up with the new edition of Glory to Rome. I stumbled a bit as I tried to both remember the game and explain it to Jim at the same time. I got the gist across but the truth is one's first game of GtR is going to be a ball of confusion even if you have Richard Feynman walking you through the rules. I added a Craftsman to my clientele early and this allowed me to surf the builds of all my tablemates while using my own turn for more selfish ends. I completed a fistful of buildings and stuffed my vault as well - David tracked the former, Campo the latter, but the combination was enough to yield a tidy win for me. I remain partial to the garish original but everyone else prefers the austere art of the black box set.
Next week, assuming less than a dozen show, maybe some more two player wargaming action.
JR