Game Night

My good buddy Brian has one goal in life.

To do everything within his power to see that I don’t win at board games. He doesn’t care if he goes down in flames, it’s a “moral victory” for him if I don’t finish in the 1 spot.

Despite Brian’s quest for evil, he does have a good spirit and instead of being able to make it to game night last night, he was off to donate blood. However, he did leave a charge with Jon that he had to do everything within his power to carry on in his stead.

Sadly Brian, Jon let you down.

Game Night was a sweep for the home team. Bobby and Jon did their best to bring me down, but things got ugly in a hurry.

We started the evening playing a quick game of Orcz: Da Boardgame. In Orcz players are not only trying to defeat the good guys, they are trying to take a few of their own out along the way; after all, less of them and more for me.

There are four battle fields with various challengs that must be met before the game ends. Each challenge contains the amount of strenght it takes to defeat it, as well as the reward you’d get (goblin slaves) from the dark lord for winning. However has the largest army on that field gets the reward.

Each player lays down a rank (two troop tiles), one face up and one face down, on any of the 4 battlefields. Each player then follows suit taking turns placing up to 5 ranks (where ever they choose). After the placement, the rear rank has the option to rush forward (mowing down the row in front if it) and a struggle ensues.

In the classic paper-rock-sissors fashion, the battles are resolved. Grunts beat riders, riders beat archers, archers beat grunts. Link units are resolved by higher number.

If the WHOLE rank pushes through, the defeat rank is removed and a tribute of 1 slave is given to the winner (from the loser). If a partial victory, the left over pieces are set aside and a new rear rank is choosen. If enough pieces remain to defeat the battlefield, the largest army recieves tribute for the dark lord (slaves). Whoever has the most slaves at the end of the game wins (Orcz are so easy to please).

We started off the game with little conflict as we found our away around how things work, but the second round, battles raged all over. But the 3rd and final round, only 1 field remained to be defeated and all 15 ranks lined up to duke it out. But in the end it was no contest as the Yellow guys (aka me) turned out to be the master of all orcz. Bobby finished second having a net game of slaves. Jon on the other hand was ended with less slaves than he began. “You’re slow as a dwarf, cowardly as an elf, and clumsy as a human!”

From there we decided to break out Metro.

The game began very badly for Jon. Within a few tiles 3 of his trains were removed from the board for a grand total of 6 points. Things just got uglier from there. As Jon, Bobby and I battled out, I show how as the orange guy manged to pull out a few suprise connects and win the game handily (meaning more than 20 points). Jon some how managed to pull out a second place win and Bobby came in 3rd.

Bent on ending my evil plans for game night domination, we decided to have another go at Metro. This time we picked random colors.

From tile one, it was game on. After 4 trains each (and an average of 2 points per train) we took off the gloves and went hard core after each other. Every tile was an effort to destroy the other players. I manged to get a tile that ended 3 trains (2 Jon’s and 1 Bobby) for 2 points each, there was no joy in mudville.

I attempted to offer moments of grace, but Jon wouldn’t have it, so the battle continued. In a masterful stroke I managed to pull out a 25 point train and take the lead. There was no looking back as this game ended much the same way as the last one. Bobby redeemed himself and gave a great chace, but fell short and ended in second. Jon flounder somewhere around the bend in 3rd.

After all the tile laying we decided to break out Gang of Four and end the evening with some old school love.

The game was another drag out battle from the beginning.

Jon took the first round
Bobby round 2, 3, and 4.

At this point the totals were Jon:4, Bob: 8, and Bobby:4

From there things took a turn for the worst.

I captured rounds 5, 6, 7, but the game was still a toss up until round 8.
(Jon:13, Bob:8, Bobby:13).

In a stroke of pure luck, I managed to get the rainbow colored won and a hand to play as I tossed down my entire hand (gang of 4, full house, full house and a pair of 10s) unchallenged leaving Bobby and Jon holding the bag with 80 point hands each.

At this point, Jon decided to call it a draw . Final: Jon:93, Bob:8, Bobby:93.

Despite the lopside wins, a good time was had by all (even Link who decided to keep score).