All night long....

I know that I haven’t posted in a very long time so I figured it was time to start up again. Last night we had our last gaming night at Nate and John’s Sandford apartment before they move out. I got to the apartment around 7 pm and the night was already in progress. Nate, John and Gilbert were in the middle of their third game of Magic the Gathering. I was desperately trying to get through the rules for Descent: Road to Legend but it quickly became obvious that it was going to take me an hour to get the rules down so we decided to play Zombies!!! 4: The End instead. After going over the rules with Tim and Gilbert we were off to kill zombie dogs! The Zombies!!! Series of games is a very fun “beer and pretzels” game that I have discussed here before. I suspected before that this game would be made better with the consumption of alcohol and now I know that this theory is correct (not to say that alcohol is required to play this game since I was stone sober). We finished the zombie game at about 10 pm and not wanting to start a game of Descent that late at night we decided to move on to Magic. We played “rainbow magic”, a special five-player variation of Magic, where each player has a different, single-color deck. You win by killing the two players playing the opposed colors to yours (i.e. a green deck wins if the black and blue players die). Everyone agreed that it was the best game of Magic that we had played in a very long time (I won with a white deck). That game took about 90 minutes so we decided to change colors and play again. Well this game took forever. I was killed pretty early and actually was falling asleep while Gilbert and John tortured Nate and Tim, both of which could do nothing against the blue and white decks being used by John and Gilbert. After that game I was waken up as Tim left. John had also gone to bed but I decided to play “one more game of Magic” with Nate and Gilbert. Well about 6 games and three hours latter it was 4 am and I went “crud, I have to be up in about five hours”. It was a good all night gaming session like I haven’t done in years. We did decide that we need to get together about every six weeks or so and try to play a Descent: Road to Legend campaign. It looks really fun. Well hopefully I’ll have more updates between that and the other hobby stuff that I’m doing currently.

Another Monday night

Last night at Nate’s and John’s we played what I consider one of the most balanced three player board games, Original Trilogy Star Wars Risk. Most three player board games quickly become two versus on affairs that are not particularly fun for the guy that ends up fighting against two opponents. This is not true in Original Trilogy Star Wars Risk because each player has a unique victory condition that prevents the dreaded two on one match-up. To win the game the Rebel Alliance player (Nate) has to find and destroy the Emperor, the Empire (John) has to destroy every last solder in the Rebel, and the Hut player (Me) has to take control of 10 out of the 13 resource planets.

Like most games of Risk this was a quick and violent game (What else would you do in a game only about war). Nate secured the Outer Rim in the first turn and I conquered a small sector at the bottom of the board. We both made these areas strongholds that we could use as bases of operations. Meanwhile John took over the core world zone and began to viciously attack Nate. It seemed like John would get a quick win but he overextend his forces and Nate was able to launch a counter attack that about knocked John out of the game. Meanwhile, I slowly built my empire by conquering one territory a turn from both Nate and John. Eventually, I saw my chance and was able to take over the last resource planet that I needed when Nate did not notice that I could make a chain of attacks to take it (in a roundabout way). It was a good game overall and is a great excuse to use all of those Star Wars quotes that you know. My only complaint is that I’m ready to play as either the Empire or the Rebellion in one of these games.

After we were done with Risk we began to play Magic. We only got in one game that John easily won (Revenge for star Wars?). I was killed first and never really stood a chance but I was hoping that Nate would be able to pull out a win (Sorry John but I hate your Magic Decks….yes ALL OF THEM).