Nine hours, eight games.

For the first time in a long while I hosted a board game day. It was just a small affair that involved Buddy, the boy, Sam and I (originally it was just suppose to be me and Buddy but it evolved). Traditionally I prefer to play long board games like Axis and Allies or Twilight Imperium (you know long games that usually end up killing over half of your weekend) but this time we decided to try and fit in as many games as possible.

The day started around 10 AM when me and they boy sat down for a game of Monsterpocalypse. We had both been looking forward to trying out one of the new boards from the “Map Pack”. After my son begged me not to use the Martian Menace faction (“No more space ships Daddy”) I decided to use the Terrasaurs faction (“fine I’ll play with the Godzilla dinosaurs then”). He quickly decided to play with the Planet Eaters. Our early game was on the slow side and his shooting units dominated my hand-to-hand units. Unfortunately for him, I was able to close with my monster very quickly. Before we knew it I had slammed, thrown, bashed his monster through about six buildings (making roaring noises and doing my best Hulk Hogan pose the whole time… note to self do not go over board on taunting ten year old). His monster was finished off when I actually did 4 damage to his monster in one turn.

After about an hour of M-poc we moved on to New World (a variation of Carcassone). My son really enjoys the Carcassone line of games and was extremely excited to be playing it (despite his constant eye rolling as I talk about having fun with Meeples) . This was my first time playing a Carcassone game with only two players. It was still very enjoyable but the game actually takes longer to play than normal and man those tile piles are huge. The boy got an early lead and stayed ahead for the whole game. I did almost catch up with him at the end but he still won out (I had to endure many yells of “I won” and a very long victory dance).

By this time Sam and Buddy had arrived. I pulled out Rumis believing that it would be a game that my sister would enjoy. Rumis is basically a 3-D version Blokus, if that doesn’t help think of it as Tetris the board game (it’s more fun than it sounds…really). The four of us got in two quick games. I won the first game and Buddy won the second. Sam loved the game so much that she wanted to know were she could pick up her own copy (the answer is Target, On-line, or Barns & Noble). Sam had to go back to Tampa so Buddy and I got down to playing a war game.

Recently I decided that I needed some two player war games, since it is very difficult to get a large group together to play a good war board game. One of the games that I acquired for this purpose was Axis & Allies Guadalcanal. This is the game that we decided to play (War of the Ring and Memoir ’44 were our other available options). I played Japan and Buddy was the USA. It was only my second time playing and his first so we had to go over the rule book pretty well. We both kept the game close but I did win out. This game plays completely different from a normal A&A variant and is really a whole new game that simple uses Axis and Allies game pieces. In the end, we both decided that the game was very balanced and was fun. The only bad thing is we think that the game will have a limited replay value. After about playing 4 times or so this game will probable end up on one of my game shelves for a year or two. To be honest this game is a bit overpriced for a game that has limited replay value.

After this game the boy came back out from the computer room to join us in a game of Zombies!!! I’ve talked about this game enough so I’m not really going to go into it besides….shortest game of Zombie killing goodness ever. The cabin, the tile that you win the game on, showed up on turn 6 and the game was over within 10 turns or so after that. I won but the most memorable part was the boy getting stuck in the pet cemetery for the whole game (after I told him to stay away from it as I ran away from it). Buddy knew he would have to leave soon so after this game we quickly played another game of New World. Not a bad day of gaming, and we got it all in by 7 PM.