• Fort Worth Gamers: gaming session 12/26/17

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    Subject: Fort Worth Gamers: gaming session 12/26/17
    From: Michael Ward <mward258@gmail.com>
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    Tuesday, 12/26/17 6 to 8:45 PM at the Hulen Mall food court, at 4800 South Hulen Street, in southwest Fort Worth, TX.

    We had three gamers at one table this drizzly and chilly evening.

    Our first game was my The End of the Triumvirate, which was new to Connor. Duane had played once, in 2015. The turn order was: Connor / Caesar, Michael W / Pompeius, then Duane / Crassus. The first several turns were mostly players moving around and picking up gold from their provinces. Then Connor began whacking me. He occasionally attacked Duane, but he attacked me more. Plus, he always seemed to be rolling in gold, so he shot up the Political track. Duane mostly kept up with him there, as he had access to more gold than I did. I fell
    way behind on the Political track. Therefore it made it many times harder for me to manipulate the Forum. Even so, I tried my best, as I seemed to be both legion poor and gold poor. So politics seemed to be the only avenue even marginally accessible for me to possibly squeak out a win. Strangely, as to the
    Military track, all three of us basically ignored it!

    Duane won the first election for Consul after turn 8. I won the second, barely,
    after turn 16. Meanwhile Connor, who now had more legions than Duane and I combined, ran amok conquering provinces. I continued to do poorly in combat. I lamented several times that the only time my blue cubes were drawn out of the weapons bag was when I didn't have a dog in the fight at hand. At one point I had all 8 of my blue cubes in the bag and it still didn't help, as usually Caesar's red ones would emerge.

    I knew early on there was about a 95% chance I'd lose. Yet I soldiered on. I knew there was NO WAY I could win militarily. Nor was I ever going to get my Politics and Military cubes anywhere close to level 7, as I generated the least
    gold. So I put my slim hopes in massaging the Forum, hoping I could get enough
    Senators to vote for me. A longshot, but it was all I had to pin my hopes on.

    When I took what was my last turn I pointed out to Duane that all Connor needed
    to do was take two more provinces (as owning 9 was one way to win). Duane, who
    by now was becoming legion poor himself understood the danger I pointed out. But he couldn't do much about it. So when Connor then took his turn he easily grabbed two of my provinces (attacking me at 8 to 3, then 5 to 1). Game over.
    military victory for Connor / Caesar.

    This was my 28th game and I can't recall ever doing so poorly. And my woes began on turn 2. So I saw my defeat coming for over an hour, and seemed helpless to do much about it. Connor, who often applies what I'll call a random
    strategy to games he plays (and therefore loses 90+% of the time) seemed to immediately grok this game. I swear every turn he took he made the best possible move. (And the luck of the weapons bag often in his favor helped too.)
    That seemed to make him unstoppable.

    Victory to Connor via military conquest, in 22 turns. Duration: one hour and 22
    minutes. Which is fairly short for that many turns.



    Next up, Duane's Guillotine, which may have been new to Connor. I'd played at least twice many years ago (hoping to never see it again). It concerns making VPs off of those sentenced to death during the French Revolution. Players are the executioners who take turns cutting off people's heads. The only thing I could recall from the last time I played, which was a five-player affair, that with that many it was utter chaos. All players spent every turn undoing whatever the guy before them did. There was virtually no strategy, its all tactical. Just grab... something when your turn comes up.

    Tonight's outing was not chaotic for two reasons. First, there were only three of us. Second, and foremost, I took the first turn and played a card that nullified 90% of the cards in the Action deck, as it disallowed repositioning the nobles waiting in line to die. This seemed to rankle Duane a great deal. After we'd gone through a third of the Action deck I asked, what's the card that nullifies my devastating Callous Callers? He couldn't recall, but he knew there was one. Very near the end of the game I drew it (I think it was called Twist of Fate), and I saw no reason to play it. So we continued on through all three rounds (days).

    Near the end I could tell Duane was ahead, but I could do little to stymie him.
    When the last noble on the third day was executed the game ended and we added up our noble's VPs. Duane then rifled through the remaining action draw deck and couldn't find that one card that would have turned chaos loose, as it was in my hand.

    Scores: Duane 22, Connor 18, Michael W 18. Duration: 25 minutes.

    I would call tonight's outing my least irritating foray into Guillotine, due almost solely to playing that Callous Callers card on turn one, and no one else
    drawing the remedy card for it. The chances of that ever happening again are quite remote. Therefore I'd prefer to never see Guillotine again. My rating of "5" on BGG stands.



    See BoardgameGeek http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ for more information on the games mentioned above. And if you're in the area on a Tuesday night feel
    free to join us for a game.

    --
    Michael Ward
    Fort Worth Gamers
    And check out our MeetUp page http://www.meetup.com/FortWorthGamers/ .
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