I return to my hometown, Kota Kinabalu, 2-3 times every year, and every time I will visit Carcasean boardgame cafe to play new games. Sometimes even to play old games. Every time I return to KK, this boardgame blog will have a flurry of activities, because of the many new games played. In fact, I have a backlog of games to write about. Here are some games played which I have written about in the past.

I played New York Chase recently, and wanted to try Scotland Yard too, which is the older original version. This time I requested to play Mr. X, the fugitive being hunted by the detective team. Chong Sean and Michelle played two detectives each. Playing Mr. X is very different, and very interesting. But I got caught on Round 5. Pfff... (sound of balloon losing air...)

That was rather anti-climatic, like watching The Fugitive (a movie starring Harrison Ford) and having the hero caught in the first 10 minutes and then sent to jail and then that was the end of the story. In hindsight, I was too big a risk taker. I wanted to make some unexpected moves to throw the detectives off my scent. But they were conservative and they closed the web slowly and did not rush in (which was what I was trying to tempt them into doing). It wonder whether Mr. X should always try to take the safe way and not the risky way, hoping to bluff the detectives. Should Mr. X always try to run away as far as possible, since the longer you survive, the harder it will be for the detectives to calculate you position? Your possible locations will grow. But then wouldn't you become too predictable? I need to play this more to learn how to best play Mr. X.

I have played That's Life before. It is quick and fun, and the decisions are interesting, despite lots of die rolling. I quite like it. However, lately I am starting to feel that I should not buy any more fillers, i.e. short and simple games, no matter how good they are. As a hardcore gamer, I simply do not plan game sessions around fillers. Fillers are not filling. I need a medium or a heavy game to feel satisfied. If I only have a little time for playing a game, I should probably just not play and choose to do something else. So fillers would mostly only come in handy at odd moments like when you are waiting for guests to arrive, or when there is still a little time left before your guests have to leave.

Still, I think That's Life is a rather good game, just unfortunately one I likely won't buy.

I finally got to play a non-2-player game of A Game of Thrones LCG, which means the titles come into play. Titles give you special benefits, e.g. increase in strength in a particular aspect. There are also some restrictions and incentives introduced. Some titles prevent you from attacking another player holding another particular title. Some titles award you extra Power if you succeed in attacking another player holding another particular title. In our game, the most handy aspect turned out to be the attack prevention bit.

This was my fourth time playing this game, and I still felt rather clueless. There were a lot of details to keep track of during the game, and because I was struggling with that, I wasn't able to maintain a grasp of the strategic level of the game. I ended the game dead last, at 0 Power.

We later found out that we made some mistakes. We determined turn order in a wrong way. The player with the highest initiative decides who will start. It does not necessarily have to be himself. Turns are then taken in a clockwise order. We had thought that turn order is simply determined by the initiative on your Plot card, with highest initiative going first, and lowest initiative going last. I think I suffered for this, because I tended to go first. We found that going last gives the most flexibility, and it is easiest to plan what to do, because the other players have already issued any challenges they can issue.

I still have difficulties learning and appreciating A Game of Thrones LCG. I probably will give it a few more attempts. I think this is a game in which you need to invest much effort in order to fully enjoy. I'm not sure I have the patience and endurance to do so. I'll keep on trying.

I played a 2-player game of Notre Dame against Chong Sean, who likes the game a lot and is definitely a veteran. I have played this before and quite liked it then. I still find it pretty good. Less urge to buy it than before, but I still find it interesting. Definitely worth more plays.

The World Cup Game is about the football (UK English speakers) / soccer (US English speakers and Melbournians) world cup. I shall just call it football, since I am a UK English speaker. If you are a football fan, you'll probably like this game. It is very thematic, and it is quite simple. Some knowledge of how football works and how the world cup works will be very helpful in both immersing yourself in the theme and in understanding the rules.

At the start of the game, all players randomly draw a number of teams. Throughout the game, your teams compete and try to advance through each stage of the world cup competition, and try to eventually win the world cup. Just like the real world cup, except you do this in about 35-45 mins, while the real world cup takes about a month.

The game board shows all the matches of the world cup event. Each team in each match has 2 to 5 slots, depending on whether the team is a strong team. Strong teams get more slots. During the game, you have a hand of 3 cards, and you play cards to place round tokens onto the slots on the board. The tokens can represent goals, attacks, defenses, and penalty kicks. Some cards allow you to nullify effects of other tokens played by flipping them over. Teams with more slots have a higher chance of winning, because there are more slots to place goals and attack tokens. Each stage of the competition ends when the draw deck is exhausted. However, the results of the matches are not deterministic. You still need to roll some special dice. For each match, goals count as goals, and attacks count as half a goal (round down). When the dice are rolled for the just-completed stage, every occurrence of your team's colour in the die roll result gives your team an additional half-goal, which can be added to the attack tokens your team has. The colours of the dice are not distributed evenly. Stronger teams have a higher chance of their colours appearing. This is another way the game tries to push towards the historical, or at least a realistic ending.

This may sound like a bad thing, because if you only draw lousy teams, then your hopes of winning the game are dashed. But then I find that I don't really mind it that much. Somehow when playing this game I prefer it to feel real.

I quite enjoyed this game. It was a pleasant surprise. I also learned a few things about the world cup. The world cup rules in 1930 (the year that we played) were actually rather different from the rules in 2002. E.g. in the first round, winning a match earns your team 2pts instead of 3pts. The game comes with two "scenarios", 1930 and 2002. There are many expansions, which are basically the other years the world cup was held. The game doesn't really change all that much, but for a football fan, it would be fun to collect all these expansions, and to re-live so many different world cup finals.

Cosmic Encounter is an old game that has gone through many versions and publishers. The latest version is published by Fantasy Flight Games, and I think they did a good job.

The game is quite simple. Every player has 5 home planets and some spaceships. You win by establishing 5 foreign colonies on other players' home planets. On your turn, you make one or two attacks (called encounters). You don't choose your target. It is determined by a fate deck. Attacker and defender get to invite allies. If you join an encounter as an ally, you gain some benefits if your side wins. Spaceships that are lost go to the warp - a play mat at the centre of the table. Every time your turn comes around, you can retrieve one ship back from the warp (that's not much though).

What makes the game interesting is the various unique powers of each alien race. These powers vary greatly and will likely greatly impact how you play the game. They also have interesting interactions. In the game I played, I had the kamikaze power. Whenever I lose ships to the warp, I can drag along ships of other players. Han had a powerful ability - the strength of his race increases every time he has an encounter, win or lose. Chong Sean's ability was instead of adding his card strength to his number of ships in the encounter, he multiplied. That could make his fleet very powerful, but it also meant he needed at least two ships in an encounter to benefit from this unique ability.

Another aspect of the game is managing your hand of cards. There are encounter cards which you need for resolving encounters (battles). Some encounter cards are negotiate cards, which means you will lose no matter what, but you get to take cards from the main attacker's hand. It can be painful when you are doing well, but you suddenly realise the only encounter cards you have left are all negotiate cards. There are some flare cards, or special power cards. These are very handy, and you can keep using them, until you need to refresh your hand (when you run out of encounter cards). Then you have to discard them.

We played a 3-player game, which is probably the least interesting number of players. I suspect the game is best with 5. But at least I got to try the game, which I have been wanting to do for a while. With 3 players, there is very little diplomacy in the game. It lacks the fun of shifting alliances.

We were very aggressive in the early attacks, which caused our ships to dwindle quickly. Combined with poor cards towards the later part of the game, it became more like a game of pitiful survival than glorious space conquest. I think we played rather mindlessly. Well, at least I did. I just had too much fun dragging others into the warp with me. Then when I was left with very few ships not in the warp, it didn't seem so funny anymore. I think I have not been making good use of my special power.

I'd like to play Cosmic Encounter again, with 5 players. Or maybe with at least 4. I think there's much more to explore than what I've seen in my first game.

I played Minion Hunter with Han and Chong Sean on 5 Jul 2009. At first sight, I thought this was a game from the 80's, but it was actually published in 1992. The Monopoly-like outer track made me a little suspiscious at first, but the game turned out to be more innovative (for a 1992 game) than I had expected. For one thing, this is a cooperative game.

America is being invaded by 4 factions of enemies. The players need to work together to fight these enemies. Every time an enemy faction makes a successful attack, its marker advances on a damage track (I forget the name). If any of the four enemy faction markers reaches 20, the players lose (a little like Sauron in Lord of the Rings!). Attacks (and other events) appear from the plot deck. At the end of every player's turn, a plot card will move from the plot deck towards a discard space. Once it reaches the discard space, it will take effect, usually causing one of the enemy faction markers to advance. Each plot card is specific to a city. To defeat the plot card, the players need to visit that city, and use their abilities to defeat it. If you win, you keep the card. If you lose, you go to the hospital. It will take at least 3 turns to recover from your injuries. To win the game, the players need to last until the last event from the plot deck takes effect or is defeated.

Minion Hunter is also a role-playing game. Each player character has 4 traits - combat, empathy, contacts and stalking. In the early game, every character is at skill level 1. You need to train your character up before you try to defeat any enemy. That's where that outer track come into play. The outer track represents a kind of training centre. You start in one corner, and you roll a die to move along the track in either direction. Some spaces increase you skills. Some spaces give you equipment. Some spaces throw challenges at you, and give you a reward or a penalty depending on whether you succeed at the challenges. Some spaces allow you to move to a city on the map.

In our game, we tried to specialise in different skills. Han and Chong Sean got rich very quickly. When you draw an equipment card, you can either spend money to buy it, or you discard the card and gain some money. They both drew some very expensive equipment (one of them was a jet plane) early, and thus were swimming in cash. Other than buying equipment, money can also be used for traveling quickly on the map - bus tickets or plane tickets. If you're poor, you walk.

We did quite well in fighting the enemies, despite ending up in hospital many times. I joked about pretty nurses, and then to my delight, found that there actually is a hospital recovery die roll result about a good nurse who helps you to recover quicker. We eventually won the game. The Fey faction did come close to defeating us. It's marker was at 19. Another successful attack would have caused us to lose, but if I remember correctly, by the time that marker reached 19, there were no more Fey events remaining in the plot deck (but we didn't know at the time). So the game probably wasn't as close as it seemed.

Minion Hunter is definitely full of flavour. There is a lot of die rolling, and looking up die roll result tables. There are decisions to be made. However overall I think it is quite tactical. You can't really plan very far ahead. The plot cards move very quickly. They move face down, so you won't know what they are or what skills are required to defeat them until a player encounters them. So there is a fair bit of luck. The game can get a little repetitive, because you are always responding to urgent threats. To have a longer term or more strategic view, I guess it is possible to count how many plot cards for each enemy faction have appeared, which can help you assess how big a threat the remaining plot cards for each faction are.

This game is probably out of print. But if you get a chance to play it, just immerse yourself in the theme and enjoy the ride! And say hi to the nurse.

Rabbit Hunt was an unexpected discovery. I have read about this game at Bruno Faidutti's website, but it didn't trigger enough interest for me to want to try it. Then on 5 Jul after playing Minion Hunter at Carcasean, I asked Chong Sean to suggest a quick game, and he brought out Rabbit Hunt.

This game is designed by Taiwanese designer Pan Shen-Yang, who also designed Fuzzy Tiger. Players are farmers, each having 3 rabbits. You try to hide your 3 rabbits from the other farmers, while trying to hunt down theirs. If all three of your rabbits are caught, you are out of the game. When time runs out (i.e. the card draw deck runs out), if you have any rabbits remaining in your hand, you lose. If a winner hasn't been determined yet by this point, then you check who has caught the most rabbits. Tied? Then check who has the fewer of his/her own rabbits caught. Tied again? Then check who has a remaining rabbit closest to the barn.

This all sounds rather complicated, but the game is actually quite simple. Just remember your goal is to hunt down the others' rabbits, and to keep yours from being found.

The game starts with the barn set up at the centre of the table, and 6 cards placed surrounding it, representing the field around the barn. You have 3 rabbit cards in your hand, and 5 more cards. On your turn, you place one card face-down, growing the field area, and then you do two actions. You can do any combination of the following:

1. Collect 1 carrot.
2. Draw 1 card.
3. Move your farmer by paying carrot(s). If your farmer lands on a face-down card, turn it face-up and do what it shows (sometimes good, sometimes bad).
4. Pay 3 carrots to look at an opponent's hand.

You need to think of when to place your rabbit card. Place it too early, and it may be caught by your opponents easily. Play it too late, you may lose the game, or you may be penalised. There are some event cards that cause you to lose all your carrots if you have not yet placed all your rabbits. There are some event cards that force all players to show their hands. If you happen to have placed one or more rabbits between two such events, your opponents will know that the cards you have placed during that time contain rabbits. So there is a bit of psychology in the game. You need to guess where your opponents have placed their rabbits, and when you place yours, you have to pretend to be not nervous at all. It's fun and exciting. There is also a memory element to it, not just in remembering the positions of the cards placed by your opponents, but also the cards you placed yourself. It's rather difficult to try to remember every move, so you'll probably have to settle for just a rough idea.

In our 3-player game, Han, Chong Sean and I were rather conservative and held the rabbit cards in our hands for quite long. Only when the draw deck started to dwindle (and the field started to grow rather big) we reluctantly started placing our rabbits. Chong Sean and I found each other's rabbits first. Later Han also caught another one of mine. I was only one rabbit away from losing instantly. Then I made a lucky guess and caught Chong Sean's 2nd rabbit. I'm not sure why. I just had a gut feel it was that card, and I was right. I was leading 2 vs 1 vs 1, so the best strategy would be to quickly end the game by exhausting the draw deck. There weren't many cards left.

Han and Chong Sean saw it coming, but thankfully they couldn't stop me or find my third and last rabbit. Then in a surprise last move, instead of exhausting the draw deck, I took an irrational move, and moved by farmer to a new space instead. And I caught one of Han's rabbits! I must be possessed by some hunter spirit that day. I looked at my hand in awe and muttered, "Hand of God" ("

On 18 Jul 2009, two new players joined a game session at my home for the first time, Keith and Simon, both my colleagues. I have played games with them before separately on different occasions, but this was the first time they came for a game session. Han was also in town and came to play. I recently received Automobile, the new Martin Wallace game about the early car industry in America, a complex Euro game. This was the first time I have ever pre-ordered a game by myself. I was keen to play, but struggled about whether I should be introducing such a complex game to new players. Eventually I couldn't resist the urge to play it. But I did start with a medium complexity game - Traumfabrik (a.k.a. Hollywood Blockbuster / Dream Factory), as warm-up.

I have not played Traumfabrik for a long time. I have a home-made copy, which I made (with much effort) a few years ago before the game was reprinted. I quite enjoyed the game. I should play this more often. Keith and Simon enjoyed the game too. I think the movie-making theme helps draw them in. Han won the game decisively. He had one very good movie that won lots of awards. He had 90pts and the rest of us had 69pts, 68pts, 68pts.

One pleasant surprise was a few days later Simon asked to borrow Traumfabrik so that he could try it with his wife, whom he described as having a fear of boardgames. Simon likes trivia / word / party games, so maybe Grace dislikes boardgames only because she doesn't like trivia / word games, which rely on your knowledge in certain fields and your language skills. Eurogames tend to be quite knowledge- and language-independent, so maybe this will be an entry point to recruit a new gaming partner.

On to Automobile. We started Automobile at 10pm. Explaining the game probably took 20-30 minutes, and the actual game (first time for all of us) took slightly less than 2 hours. We ended at 12:20am. Automobile is an economic game about producing and selling cars, and, of course, making money. There are only 4 rounds in the game, and you don't get many actions each round, but every decision that you make has implications. Even turn order can have big implications. So you need to plan ahead and think about what you want to achieve.

There are three types of cars - high price range cars, mid range and low range. They have different demands throughout the 4 rounds, and you have to decide which range(s) you want to compete in. There are three ways to sell cars - (a) via Howard, a super salesman, one of the characters in the game, (b) via your network of distributors, and (c) to the general public. Each round there is a fixed number of cars in each price range that can be sold via distributors. So using distributors is a more predictable approach. However, because the number of cars that can be sold this way is limited, if the players employ too many distributors, some of the distributors will fail to sell, and will get fired (which is a bad thing, of course). There is also an interesting mechanism which slightly restricts the types of cars a distributor can sell. If a distributor is experienced in selling luxury cars, he will be able to sell mid range cars too, but not the el cheapo cars. Similarly if a distributor is experienced in selling el cheapo cars, he can sell mid range cars, but not posh cars. If a distributor is experienced is selling mid-range cars, he can sell cars of all price ranges.

As for selling to the public, at the start of every round, each player secretly draws some tiles with numbers on them ranging from 2 to 5. These numbers together determine the demand of the general public. This means you have partial information only. So you have to think carefully how many cars to produce. You can observe how optimistic or pessimistic your competitors are, to guess what kind of tiles they have in their hands. If you produce too few cars, less than what you would have been able to sell, you miss the opportunity to make money. If you produce too many cars, more than what you can sell, you lose the money that you have spent producing the cars. Cars in this game are like bread. By the end of the round, any that are unsold go bad and you have to remove them from the board.

There is an interesting concept of obsolescence. There are many different models of cars, and it is always better to be producing newer models. They usually sell quicker, and they give you less loss cubes (an abstract concept in the game, which I'll talk about soon). However the cost of building factories for producing newer models get more and more expensive, but the profit margins for selling newer models are no larger than those for older models. So when to spend R&D (research and development) on developing new models, and when to close down old factories, are interesting decisions. Are you willing to spend the money and (limited) actions just so that you can be producing the new and shiny models? Sometimes this is needed to gain a competitive edge. Sometimes this may even be necessary for survival.

One abstract concept presented in the game is the loss cubes. You gain loss cubes if you are forced to fire your distributors, if you are unable to sell all your cars, and if you own factories of older car models. At the end of every round, you lose some money per loss cube, and this loss rate increases from turn to turn. The only ways you can discard some loss cubes are closing factories and making use of some of the character powers. During the game I was probably overly worried about the loss cubes, which affected my decisions. I probably should have worried less about them. However, one mustn't completely ignore them. In Round 4, the amount you have to pay for loss cubes may be the difference between winning and losing.

The game allows you to take up to two loans. At first it didn't seem necessary. You start with $2000. But by mid game we gradually realised that you do need to borrow money to make more money. The automobile business is an expensive business. So much money is tied up in your assets - your factories. You need money to fully utilise the production capacity of your factories. Soon all of us had to take loans at some point in the game. Money is quite tight. For whatever amount that you earn in one round, you use most if not all of it to buy factories and produce cars in the next. Cash flow is very important. Be prepared to beg from the banks.

Competition among the players happens in many aspects of the game. Your distributors fight over limited slots to sell cars. Turn order is a constant consideration. Sometimes you want to go early, sometimes you want to go late, and sometimes you want to do both! E.g. going early gives you first choice for Executive Decisions (an aspect of the game that helps you sell more cars or allows you to close a factory), but going late allows you to build factories later which means you will likely be able to build newer models. There are six characters in the game who give you various benefits, and your choice of character determines turn order. So sometimes you are torn between getting the turn order you want and getting the character you want.

You have the chance to cut your price, which can help you sell cars faster, but at a smaller profit margin. Sometimes it can be painful to have to make that decision. You do not have full information about the market demand. If you cut your price and manage to sell all your cars while others fail to do so because demand turns out to be low, you'll be laughing at your competitors. But if you cut your price, and later find that there is sufficient demand for everyone to sell all cars anyway, you'll be kicking yourself. If you decide not to cut your price, you have to worry about losing sales to an opponent who cuts his price. It can be a game of chicken.

There is a lot to think about in this game, and yet you have very few actions. So it's quite an intense game. However, at the same time the actions that you do are intuitive and logical, so Automobile is easier to grasp than Brass, another recent Martin Wallace game which I like a lot. That one can be a little tough to grasp at first.

At the start of our game, most of us had not much idea what we were supposed to be doing, probably except for Han. At least he started with a strategy of trying to go last in turn order, so that he would be building a factory later, and thus would be building a factory for a newer model. My first factory, which I had built on the 3rd space, suddenly seemed so obsolete. I had 3 car factories and 1 parts factory on that space. Then during the Executive Decisions stage of the round, I closed down my factory, which surprised everyone. In hindsight, that was probably a bad move and not a bold move (well, maybe a bold bad move). I was overly afraid of loss cubes and obsolescence. From Round 1 to Round 2, I earned a total of $100 (when you close a factory you don't recover the full cost). That's 5% (start money is $2000). Baaaaad investment.

Han and I competed in both mid-range and low-range cars. Keith was the first to go into the luxury car market. I think he sold either very expensive or very cheap cars. Simon joined the competition in the high-end market, and also had an interest in the mid-range market. The mid-range market was a killer. I produced too much and was burned in Round 3. We kept underestimating (or maybe underproducing for) the low-range market. There was a slight overproduction in the high-range market only in Round 4.

Han was first to build a distributor network, and soon we all started to see the benefits of a reliable sales channel. Competition was fierce in Round 3, and distributors started losing jobs. Things stabilised in Round 4, since no one wanted to escalate the distributor war.

The final scores were close and were mostly around $3000, which I suspect is not very good. Hopefully we'll do better in the next game, when we have a better idea what to do.

I think Automobile is a good buy and I am glad that I had pre-ordered it. I hope to get this played more often, which can be a challenge since I usually only have 2 players. There is a 2P variant, which I hope to try soon. If it works well enough like the Brass 2P variant, then I'd be quite happy.

On 26 Jul 2009 Han came over for a 2-player wargame session. Not that it was what we had intentionally planned. The few potential players all couldn't make it, so it was just the two of us. Coincidentally he had two new 2-player-only wargames, so the timing was perfect. We played Waterloo and Warriors of God, both wargames involving the French and the English, from different eras.

Waterloo is a new game from Martin Wallace, designer of Automobile which I had just played the previous weekend, but this is a completely different animal. It is, of course, about the famous battle where Napoleon suffered a defeat. One player plays the French, and the other plays the Allied forces (English, Dutch, Germans, and a separate army of Prussians). The game plays over 9 turns, each representing an hour, from 12noon to 8pm. The French wins by conquering a town on the Allied side of the board, or by killing 13 Allied units (excluding cavalry and Prussians). The Allies win by conquering a town on the French side of the board, or by killing 16 French units (excluding cavalry), or by simply surviving until the end of the 9 turns.

You have 4 types of units in the game - infantry, cavalry, artillery and leaders. They all behave very differently, and there are many different rules that make them very unique. The game flow is quite unique and interesting. Every turn, each player has some discs in 3 colours, that are used to execute different types of actions. You don't take turns to use these discs, instead you get to use 2 to 5 discs, before passing the initiative to your opponent. The tricky thing is you don't know how many discs you get to spend at any one stretch, but your opponent does. He will tell you only when you have used up your discs allowed for that stretch. Consecutive actions are important for setting up positions and then executing a big assault, but you can't be sure how many consecutive actions you'll get. So do you gamble that you will have enough actions to execute a master stroke, or should you be conservative and plan for a surer but less spectacular move?

Another interesting thing that you can do is deliberate time wasting. You probably want to do this only if you are the Allied player though (who wins by surviving until game end). A turn ends if initiative passes to a player who no longer has green action discs. So you can deliberately use up your green discs quickly, to force an earlier end of turn. I did this on turn 1.

The actions allowed in the game are what you would expect - different types of movement, artillery fire, formation changes, assaults etc. Assaults are a key part of the game. This is when infantry and cavalry rush in to an enemy occupied space to fight, and this is where most people get killed. There is a very specific combat resolution procedure you need to follow to resolve an assault. Formations are mostly applicable to infantry. Normal formation allows movement. Defensive formation prevents movement but allows your infantry to switch to square formation if attacked by cavalry, which is important. However square formation is bad when you are being shot at, because you are standing very close to your fellow countrymen like bowling pins.

The game feels quite realistic. You do feel like you are in the shoes of the commanders of that famous battle. The game is also a bit complex, especially in the different behaviours of the different troop types and the procedures for combat resolution. There are so many reference tables to look up, and so many modifiers for die roll results. It is daunting. All these modifiers are realistic, no doubt about it, but there is a lot to remember. So it will take some time to get used to and to remember. The reference sheets provided are handy. You will keep needing to refer to them.

The game starts with the French outnumbering the Allies, and the Allied infantry all in defensive positions. The French has better artillery, and also has more leaders, who improve the effectiveness of their army. Leaders allow troops in the same area to be activated twice, or allow troops from two adjacent areas to be activated at the same time. On Turn 4 (i.e. 3pm), Prussians start appearing at one side of the board. They would be a much needed reinforcement. They bring two more leaders onto the board, so that both sides will have the same number of leaders (if none are killed yet). The Allies get fewer action discs for the first 4 turns, and only get the same number of action discs after the Prussians arrive.

Our game started with Han (as the French) aggressively attacking the strong points at the centre of the board which started off being held by the Allies. The initial assaults were not very effective though. I brought my troops from the back up to the front, to hold up the front and to counter-attack. The battle quickly turned rather bloody. Unfortunately it was mostly the blood of my soldiers. It didn't help that I drew quite a number of "5" tiles during Han's initiatives, which meant he could spend 5 consecutive actions to mobilise and attack. I think it was only the end of Turn 3 when I conceded defeat. Han was already positioned to destroy one more of my artillery units at the start of the next turn, which was the 13th and last kill that he needed to win. So my Prussian units never had the chance to turn up for the party!

In hindsight, as the Allies I probably should have played defensively or even retreated, giving up the three strong points. I should be employing every delay tactic to wait for the Prussians to turn up. I win automatically after Turn 9, so there no urgency at all. If I keep moving injured soldiers from front to back, and sending fresh ones from back to front, I could probably last much longer. I suspect this is the "right" way to play. Otherwise 13 kills (or 16 kills) would be rather easy. I think Han and I have been playing Waterloo with an Axis & Allies mentality, where units often fight to the death.

We also seldom did artillery bombardment. We mostly went straight into deadly assaults, like bloodthirsty barbarians. Napoleon probably would be turning in his grave watching us play. But at least Han changed history and the French army won the day decisively.

I made one very expensive mistake in the game. I made one assault with overwhelming force, but underestimated how devastating cavalry could be to infantry. Halfway through that particular assault, I had 5 infantry remaining, and Han had 1 cavalry remaining. However, because my infantry couldn't hit that lone cavalry, they suffered tremendous losses, due to morale checks. It was a painful lesson on how different cavalry is and on how they can and should be used. Martin Wallace was successful in capturing the different characteristics of the different troop types. I think Waterloo captures the feel of Napoleonic warfare quite well, although the designer himself stated that he took liberty with some details of that battle.

My main gripe with the game is the many look-ups I need to do, and the rather complex turn sequence and combat resolution procedures. Seasoned wargamers may find this simple though. Other than this, I find the game to be very thematic. I'd gladly play this again, and I'd want to play the Allies again, at least to see whether I can survive longer. I'll definitely be employing a different (and hopefully better) strategy next time!

Warriors of God was the second game that Han and I played on 26 Jul 2009. This is a game about the Hundred Years War between the French and the English. Again, Han played the French and I played the English.

Warriors of God uses the same victory point system as Twilight Struggle. Every round (there are 12) both sides score victory points, but you only take note of the accumulated difference, and mark that accordingly, as opposed to tracking the actual score. If the point difference reaches 30, the leading player wins an instant victory. There are a few ways of scoring victory points, like controlling provinces, killing enemy leaders in battle, and capturing and holding enemy leaders.

The game is all about the leaders. You need leaders to lead troops and to fight battles. In fact, you need leaders to prevent troops from disappearing (or you can call it "being disbanded") and from being snatched away by enemy leaders. You also need leaders to establish control over provinces. Leaders are the most crucial aspect of the game. And they die all the time. In a way, it's funny. Every round new leaders will appear, and all old leaders (some may be just 1-round-old) will need to do a medical check-up thingy (a die roll) to see whether their "time is up". Leaders will live for at most 6 rounds. Because all your actions and planning pivot around your leaders, sometimes untimely deaths can really spoil your plans. Some complain that this is bad, but I like this. In the grand scheme of things, historical leaders do come and go frequently. I like how this more-or-less constant change in your leader portfolio forces you to be flexible and to not get too attached to any one leader. It makes the game quite dynamic. It creates an ebb and flow in the fortunes of the two nations at war. It is also funny to see how some big shot general die young before being able to do anything for his country (I imagine some stupid hunting accident). Even funnier when some old fart keeps going and going and going when you expect him to croak any minute.

Movement and battles are quite straight-forward. Most information that you need are on the leaders. Their rank determines how many troops they can lead. Their bravery determines the effectiveness of their troops - normally you need to roll a 6 to kill, but with a leader with higher bravery, you hit on a lower number. Their leadership (not sure whether this is the right term) determines the efficiency of their armies, i.e. how many units can fight at the same time, which translates to how many dice you can roll at any one time. There are some rules about special unit types, like knights, mercenaries, archers and gunners (canons) but they are quite simple. There are rules for sieges, which are also relatively straight-forward.

Sometimes leaders are captured when they lose a battle. You can decide whether to pay a ransom for their release. If you don't, your opponent will score victory points for holding your leaders. You can hope they'll die in prison (not that it's something you'd do in real life, I presume), because when they're dead, they don't give your opponent any more victory points.

When the game started, we didn't have much idea what to do. There weren't many leaders on the board, and there was little that could be done with so few leaders. We fought here and there. Then Han saw the importance of establishing control, before I did. He started working towards this. Establishing control is important because it gives you victory points every round, it allows you to hide in a castle if attacked (i.e. you can decide to have a siege), and any leaderless army in the province cannot be "stolen" away by your opponent. This was one of the three reasons that I lost the game eventually. I was never able to catch up in victory points per round.

The second reason was sieges. Both of us forgot about sieges in the first few rounds. We fought every battle on the field. The English did quite well in the early game, and I had brought a huge army to Paris to try to take the French capitol. Halfway through the battle, we realised that we had forgotten completely about the option to siege. The first round of fighting didn't go well for the French. We decided to bend the rules and allow the French to start a siege then (normally the defender must declare a siege before fighting starts). The English failed to storm the castle, and had to retreat. Paris was safe. Unfortunately London wasn't. This was the third reason of my loss. I had intentionally vacated my home base to tempt one big French army to attack it instead of moving to defend Paris. Since I had control over England, the French army wouldn't have been able to gain control over England quickly. I had expected to be able to fight it off soon. Unfortunately my plan only half worked. The part about luring the enemy worked. The part about kicking the enemy away didn't. Oops. The French squatted on London and later even gained control.

Sieges are an interesting decision. It can be tempting to hide in your castle, because it is hard to storm a castle. The attacker needs a strong commander (with high bravery) and gunners (cannons) to have a decent chance. However, hiding in your castle can be risky. If the attacker gets lucky, you will lose all your troops. It is probably worthwhile for an attacker to attack even if he thinks the defender will avoid battle and start a siege, because if he gets lucky, he will eliminate the whole defending army without losing any troops. There was one turn when I made three seperate attempts at different locations to storm castles defended by Han. Unfortunately, no success.

Controlling the enemy capitol gives an extra victory point. Combined with the earlier control that Han had already achieved over other provinces, I was unable to catch up or turn the tide. We didn't manage to complete the game because I had another appointment. We only played 6 (out of 12) rounds, but it was clear the English was in a rut, and I conceded defeat.

One funny thing that happened in our game was our first kings both lived very long. They both lived until Round 5. They outlived many other younger leaders, even Joan of Arc, who died young (but maybe not as young as in real life). We had some leaders who died pretty young. I had one young Irish joker who died on me when I was expecting to have him establish control over Ireland for me. Leaders can help you establish control over their home province easily.

There was one round when many of our leaders died (maybe there was a plague?), leaving few leaders and many leaderless armies. The board dynamics changed significantly. That's one thing about the game that I find very interesting and exciting. You really need to have a strategic plan, and not rely too heavily on individual leaders or tactical victories. Leaders are short lived. Province control is more lasting. Usually.

I really like Warriors of God. It is a very interesting recreation of the Hundred Years War. There can be a lot of drama and surprises and unexpected twists of fate. It gives you a high-level, sweep-of-history feel. As a wargame this is not complex. I don't have the stomach yet for "real" wargames, but Warriors of God is accessible enough for me.

The game comes with two scenarios. The one we played had Joan of Arc. The other one has Robin Hood. Interesting? Just remember not to get too attached to your leaders.

I bought Bonnie and Clyde on a recent business trip to Singapore, at Paradigm Infinitium, Midpoint Plaza, Orchard Road. Chee Seng was the one who recommended this shop. I remember I have been to Paradigm Infinitium before, but the surroundings did not seem familiar. Maybe they used to be at another location, or this is a different branch. They have a very good selection, but prices are a bit steep. Well, I guess if you are Singaporean or earning Singapore Dollars they are OK, but for a Malaysian the prices are steep. Yet, I couldn't resist buying this, because I am a fan of the mystery rummy games designed by Mike Fitzgerald.

Bonnie and Clyde, like the other mystery rummy games, and like gin rummy, have you making melds (playing 3 of a kind), making layoffs (playing cards after existing melds), and try to "go out" by playing all the cards in your hand. Like all other mystery rummy games, it has the concept of gavel cards - cards with special powers but you can only play one during a turn, which means that they are handy, but they also make it hard for you to go out quickly. This time there is only type of gavel card - Ted Hinton, the sheriff, but you can use it in 3 different ways - draw two cards from the draw deck, pick any one card from the discard deck, or peep at one of the 10 location cards.

Location cards are the unique element in Bonnie and Clyde compared to other mystery rummy games. This game has a board, depicting 10 locations where events in the criminal life of Bonnie and Clyde took place. At the start of the game, the Bonnie card, the Clyde card, and 8 other regular cards are shuffled and placed face-down at these 10 locations. During the game, the players try to peek and pick up cards from these locations, in particular they will try to catch Bonnie and Clyde, the capture of each awarding you 10pts. There is a car marker which starts at location 1. When melds are played, it advances. When layoffs are played, you can choose to move it forward or backward. The location of the car and when you play melds or layoffs is very important, because you can only capture Bonnie or Clyde when you play a meld or layoff for the location where the car is located. I guess that translates to you, being a police officer, being at the right place at the right time. Also if the cards you play match the car position, you score double (4pts per card, as opposed to 2pts). The car position is also important because the player who goes out also scores a bonus based on it.

Like all other mystery rummy games, there is a shut out condition. If you capture both Bonnie and Clyde, and you are the one to go out, then you shut out all your opponents. They don't score.

So far I have only played 2-player games (the game supports 2-4). I quite like the game. It is quite simple. I'd say roughly the complexity of Mystery Rummy: Jekyll and Hyde. There is a tendency to hold back your cards and wait for the right moment to play them to score big, but that can be a risky thing to do, because your opponent may be doing the same, and may suddenly go out before you can play any of your cards. I find the manipulation of the car position interesting, also the bluffing of where Bonnie and Clyde are. I find that I rarely use Ted Hinton cards to peek at cards. I often use it to draw more cards, and occasionally to pick discarded cards, but almost never for peeking. Maybe there are some tactics that I have not yet explored.

Among the mystery rummy games that I have played, I'd rank them in this order: Jack the Ripper, then Jekyll and Hyde and Bonnie and Clyde, then Al Capone and the Chicago Underworld, and finally Wyatt Earp (not officially part of the series, but is similar). Al Capone is just OK for me. Maybe I was traumatised and thus biased by that 11-1 losing streak that I once had when playing with Michelle. I only played Wyatt Earp once, a long time ago, and don't remember much about it, other than that I didn't really enjoy it. In complexity, I'd rank them Jack the Ripper, then Wyatt Earp, then Al Capone, then Jekyll and Hyde and Bonnie and Clyde.

This is probably going to be one of the geekier posts, which probably only the more hardcore boardgamers will appreciate, and the more normal people will just shake their heads or roll their eyes and think "geek", or "nerd", or "wierdo". These are the things that I usually do when I open a new game.

Punching - I enjoy punching cardboard pieces from the cardboard sheets. I do it with some care, so that I don't tear anything. The pieces must be punched from one specific direction, the direction where you can see the grooves. The other side is the flatter side. You must punch from the "groove-side" because it helps to reduce the risk of tearing. I find that usually games made in Germany have very good cardboard punches. Quite often some of the pieces have already fallen off by the time you open the game box, and the rest are very easy to punch out because they are cut so well.

Sprues (cardboard) - I used to keep them all in a bag, and not do anything with them except occupy space. Then I evolved to keeping them under the box insert. This lifts up the box insert slightly, so that when you close the box, the lid fits very snugly, with minimal space. Your components won't fall off their compartments and get mixed up if you store your games upright (which I do in most cases). Now I give the sprues to my children to play with as stencils. Sometimes I dump them into my recycling bin (for waste paper).

Bagging - I have many zip-lock plastic bags that I bought in Taiwan in 2004, varying from size #2 to size #6 (not sure whether there is an industry standard). I still have not used them up. Most games do not provide bags or do not provide as many bags as I would like, but that's no problem at all. In fact sometimes I prefer using my own bags, so that I can use a standard size. I prefer to use the same sized bags, so that after playing a game, I don't need to worry about which bag to use for which components. If that's hard to achieve, I try to use just two sizes, so that at least it's easy to tell which size for which components. E.g. for Agricola, only one bag size. 1 for all the animals, 1 for resources, grain and vegetables, 1 for round cards + begging cards + major improvements + ref cards, 1 for occupations (2P ones, as I mostly play 2P games), 1 for "used" minor improvements, 1 for "unused" minor improvements (Michelle and I shuffle all minor improvement cards to play, and we make sure we have played all of them before we shuffle all again and start again another cycle), 1 for each player's pieces - people, fences and stables, 1 for all cardboard pieces - food, guests, multiplier markers, 1 for wooden/clay rooms, 1 for stone rooms/ploughed fields.

No rubber bands - One of the basic laws of boardgamegeekdom. Rubber bands melt or disintegrate over time and leave stains on your cards. I bag my cards. I have heard of some elastic bands / elastic tapes which are suitable for cards, but I have never seem them before in Malaysia. Bags work well enough for me.

Box inserts - I usually keep them, but sometimes I throw them away if they are troublesome. I threw away the one for Through the Ages (2nd edition, i.e. FRED 1st edition), because I think it looks nice when you open the game, but it's not helpful when you want to organise the components well. I threw away the one for Race for the Galaxy: Gathering Storm so that I can put both the base game and the expansion in it. A Game of Thrones LCG because it's silly to have an insert which can be used only for your 4 decks of cards, and you have to hide all the other components under the insert. Power Grid because I want to put the France/Italy expansion, Benelux/Central Europe expansion and Power Plant Deck 2 expansion in together. The inserts for Lord of the Rings: Battlefields expansion and Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation Deluxe Edition are poor, but I can live with them.

Catalogues and foreign language rules - I hide them under the box insert. I can't bring myself to throw them away, even the Fantasy Flight Games or Rio Grande Games brochures which I have so many copies of. I have some German version games. Usually I print the English rules or English translation downloaded from the net, and I hide away the German rules that come with the game.

Card sleeves - I usually do not sleeve my cards. Not even for Race for the Galaxy which I have played 200+ games. Actually, especially because I am playing it so many times. I find them a nuisance when playing and when shuffling cards. I can live with some wear and tear, as long as they are uniform. Well, with the Gathering Storm expansion added in now, if I want to I can tell whether it's a new or old card by looking at the card back only, but when I play, I intentionally avoid looking too closely, so that I wouldn't know. I apply the same principle to Carcassonne, which I have a mix of older and newer tiles. I do sleeve cards which will get heavily used - e.g. the role cards in Citadels, the major improvement cards and the round cards in Agricola.

Concise reference sheets - This is something I have been doing since I started getting into the hobby seriously. I do these quick ref sheets which I find handy when I need to teach a game and when I need to look up rules quickly (e.g. how much money you start the game with, or how many cards each player gets at the start of the game). Quite often before I buy a game, I have already researched it and have made a concise ref sheet for it. I'd print it out and put it in the box. I'll do some self-promotion here - the latest set of my concise ref sheets are uploaded to BGG, here.

Shelf space allocation - One of my relatively recently applied policy is that I have assigned one particular section of my boardgame shelves to be the hot section. This section is right at eye level and is easily reachable. Newer games which I expect to play more frequently go here. Some favourites, which I also tend to play more, also go here. I find this system quite convenient. Games which I think I will be playing less will get moved out from this hot section.

Update BGG - I keep my collection on BGG up-to-date.

Maaan... I just love opening new games.

Do you have any peculiar thing that you do when opening a new game? Smell the game? Record the box fart?

I can probably count A Game of Thrones LCG as the 3rd time that I am trying a CCG (collectible card game) or CCG-like game, the previous two being Blue Moon (not really a CCG but an "expandable card game") and Magic: the Gathering (free copy of a Romance of the Three Kingdoms-themed starter set). I have played 30+ games of Blue Moon, and own all 11 decks (8 main races and 3 special expansions). I quite like it, and am starting to grasp some of the strategies, but I don't really play it often enough to be able to fully enjoy it. I have only tried Magic once, and can see how its simple system can expand to be very rich and interesting, but am far from appreciating the strategies involved. And of course, I have not tried deck-building at all (unless playing Dominion counts as a simple form of deck-building).

I was interested to try AGOT LCG mainly because of the novels, and also because of its new LCG format, that publisher Fantasy Flight came up with. I wouldn't say it's a completely new idea. This idea may have come from the Blue Moon model (also published by them). Han also likes the novels. Both of us bought AGOT LCG. When Han was in town on 17 Apr 2009, we gave it a go.

In AGOT LCG, you need to gain 15 power to win. The game starts with no power. Power comes into the game in different ways. You can earn them. You can grab some from your opponents. Sometimes power also exits the game, e.g. a character which has power tokens on him/her gets killed.

At the start of a round, all players select 1 plot card (out of 7) to play. Plot cards determine how much money you get for this round, initiative / turn order and how big the effect is when you win challenges (e.g. how many opponent characters you get to kill). All plot cards also have special rules which often affect all players for that round. Knowing your plot cards and your opponents' plot cards is an important aspect of the game, and you should plan the usage of your plot cards well.

You then put new cards into play by paying their costs. There are four types of cards. Character cards are the main type. They participate in challenges against your opponents. Attachment cards are things like weapons, pets, titles etc that can be attached to characters. Location cards usually give you extra money, or influence, and sometimes also some other benefit. Event cards do not have costs. They are usually powerful one-time-use cards. After everyone has put characters in play, each player take a turn to initiate up to three challenges. If you win a military challenge (as attacker), one (or more) of your opponent's characters get killed. If you win an intrigue challenge, you randomly discard a card from your opponent's hand. If you win a power challenge, you take one power from your opponent. Characters that have been involved in a challenge are "knelt", which means "used up for the round" (equivalent to "tapped" in Magic). After every player has had the chance to issue challenges, there is a dominance round where the player with the highest remaining strength among standing (i.e. not knelt) characters gain one power. That's basically how the game works.

However, almost every card in the game has some special text, describing some special power. Many cards also have one or more keywords like Renown, Deadly, Lord, Night Watch, Creature, Stalwart, describing some special ability or trait. Some cards also have an icon, e.g. a ring meaning noble-birth, crossed swords meaning an army. There is a lot going on, a lot to read, a lot to learn, a lot to remember.

Han and I played two games, in the first one he played House Stark and I played House Lannister. I was lucky with my early draws, getting Tywin Lannister (head of the house, and very powerful) and being able to play him. I was quite rich (Lannisters are rich). However, Han played the Valar Morgulis plot card, and killed off all characters, mine and his. That was painful. In hindsight I should have thought of that, since I had read all the cards beforehand. I should not have played so many good characters so early, or I should have tried to protect them from getting killed. After this "reset", House Stark's strength started showing. They are militarily strong, and tend to win military challenges. So they kept killing off my characters, and I could not slow their momentum. Han won decisively with about 16 power. At the time I only had 2 I think.

In our second game Han played House Targaryen and I played House Baratheon. Again I was quite lucky with my early draws. I had the three Baratheon brothers in play from quite early on - Robert Baratheon (the king), Stannis Baratheon and Renly Baratheon. I also managed to get many location cards early, which helped in providing additional income and influence. Han was not so lucky with his early cards. However we both had many cards in the early game. Han played a plot card that allowed us to draw extra cards.

House Baratheon has many characters with the Renown keyword, which means when they win a challenge, they earn a power in addition to the normal reward, to be placed on the character card (instead of the house card). Robert Baratheon's Renown power is double the normal! So I gained power at a great speed. House Targaryen has some characters which are hard to kill, or can easily come back after getting killed. It also has dragons, which are quite powerful. Gradually, Han started killing off my characters, and I could not keep up in trimming down his characters. One decisive play was him being able to take control of one of my armies of strength 6, which has both military and power challenge abilities. That was painful. Eventually, Robert Baratheon was killed (i.e. I lost all the power that he had accumulated), and then Renly Baratheon (I have been making use of him a lot, because he could stand up and fight again and again by paying influence), and finally Stannis Baratheon as well (also a lot of power on him). At the time Han was leading at about 9:6, but I conceded defeat. He had around 11 - 13 characters in play, and I only had a few left. No way I would be able to catch up. The closest I ever got was 12 power I think. I think House Baratheon's best strategy is probably to gain power quickly and reach the finish line before your opponents could do anything to stop you. Also you need to protect those characters who are accumulating a lot of power. I should have protected them better. Not sure whether I could have, but I think I should have worked harder at it.

Having played two games, I don't know yet whether I like the game. I definitely enjoyed seeing the many characters and aspects of the novels come to life in the game. The gameplay is more complex than I expected. Much more complex than Blue Moon or the version of Magic that have I played. This is because almost all cards have special text. This is daunting for first-time players, and I think it will turn off non-gamers. Having played the game now, I can completely give up hope of ever being able to convince my wife to play this. I'm not complaining about the game being complex. Just stating a fact. I wonder whether having special powers for every card is a tendency of CCG's. Afterall, a small pack of CCG is not cheap, so maybe having special powers (and not ones that exist for the sake of existing) helps publishers make customers feel the cards are worth their cost.

One thing I can definitely say about AGOT LCG is it is very rich. Maybe that's a more positive way of saying it is complex. I find that there is a lot to explore, and I am interested to explore it further. I think the game will get better when we get more familiar with the various cards and their powers, very much like Blue Moon. We will be able to anticipate what cards will come. We will learn the strengths and weaknesses of each house. The different houses play differently, and feel quite different. I like that. At the moment the many different powers of the cards are daunting to me. Our 2 games progressed very slowly because we need to read all those text, and also let each other read the text on our cards, or at least explain what the cards do. But my gut feel is each card has its uses, and there won't be many (if any) cards that are completely useless. I have a feeling that there will always be a strategy that you can weave a card in.

Han suggested that we try deck-building. He lent me his Lannister and Targaryen decks, and I lent him my Stark and Baratheon decks. So we focus on learning to play two houses each. We'll only have at most 2 copies of the same card (rules allow up to 3), but I think that should be good enough for our exploration. This will be the first time that I truly dabble in deck-building.

I have some doubts about whether I will be pursuing AGOT LCG further. I found out that their chapter packs cost RM55 (~USD16) each, which is not cheap, and each chapter pack will have 40 cards, 3 copies each of 10 cards, then 1 copy each of 10 other cards. That means you only see 20 new cards in each chapter pack. I think there are already about 8 to 10 chapter packs already released. And I am sure there are many more to come. That looks like a very deep hole to get sucked into, the very reason that I am not keen about CCG's. I will probably just stick to the core game for now, until I have played it many times and get very familiar with it. If I like it well enough, then I probably will buy some chapter packs or other forms of expansions that interest me, e.g. getting cards for House Martell and House Greyjoy.

AGOT LCG may be quite different, and probably better, with more players. With two players, some cards lose some effect. Also the gameboard and the titles are not used. Titles give special bonuses and abilities for the round in which they are chosen. You can use them to prevent an opponent from attacking you. You can use them to gain additional rewards when you attack someone. I think the game will be more interesting with more players, because there will be alliances and betrayals (just like the novels), and it is harder for one single house to dominate the game because the other houses will work together to stop the leader.

So, no verdict yet for AGOT LCG from me. I'll write more thoughts after I play more.

On 18 Apr 2009 Han and I played Space Hulk, a copy he bought from eBay I think. This is a classic (old and well-liked) game, and I was surprised to find that it is still in the top 100 at BoardGameGeek.

The background story is that humankind (which has settled many planets and star systems) is being invaded by an alien race called the genestealers. These aliens send their invasion force in large spaceships called space hulks to human-inhabited planets. One of these space hulks has been intercepted, and the space marines (humans) are now boarding it to try to wipe out the genestealers. The genestealers and strong and fast (just like the aliens in the Alien movie series). The space marines are armoured and armed and can shoot from a distance, but are not as fast or nimble. There are very many aliens on board the space hulk, and they attack the space marines wave after wave. The space marines need to survive the onslaught and complete their mission before they are overwhelmed. 6 scenarios come with the game. The human player wins if the space marines succeed their mission, the genestealer player wins otherwise.

This is the setup of the first mission - small rooms, narrow corridors and doors (the green stand-up cards). There is a team of 5 marines at the top right. They need to make their way to the room in the lower right and blast it with a flamethrower in order to complete their mission. In this scenario there are 6 points where genestealers can appear - the open-ended corridors on the left half of the board.

Genestealers first appear as blips, i.e. moving and blinking spots on the marines' radars. Each blip token has either 1, 2 or 3 on its hidden side, which only the genestealer player knows. The blips get "converted" into real life aliens when they move into a location where they can be seen by the marines.

Each space marine team has 5 members. 3 regular guys who can shoot regular guns, 1 captain who can shoot regular guns and is slightly stronger (but still not as strong as the genestealers) in hand-to-hand combat, and 1 flamethrower guy who cannot shoot regular guns but has a flamethrower with 6 shots. The flamethrower is a very powerful weapon. It often kills everything in its path, and the flames block entry to a whole room or a whole corridor until the next round.

I played the space marines and Han controlled the aliens. Normally the human player has a limited time in taking his turn, but since this was my first game, we played without this rule. This rule is to simulate the chaos and to create the tension of a mission, when the humans really do not have much time to think.

The markers that come with the game:

• Top left: blips, which show 1, 2, or 3 aliens on their hidden side.
• Top centre: command points chips. There are 6 such chips numbered 1 to 6. In each round, the human player randomly draws one and looks at it, but hides it from the genestealer player. For that round, the human player gets that many extra action points which can be used on any marine, and can also be used during the genestealer player's turn. This is an action point game, where you need to use action points to move, turn, shoot, fight, unjam your gun, open a door etc. Marines get 4 APs, genestealers get 6AP. This means the aliens are faster and nimbler.
• Top right: Overwatch marker, showing the jam icon on the other side. When you order a marine to set up an overwatch, he takes a defensive position and points his gun in a direction. On the genestealer player's turn, this marine on overwatch gets to shoot every single time a genestealer moves. Obviously this is important for the marine player considering how few APs he gets. However during an overwatch the gun may jam, and the marine won't have any more free shots, and will need to unjam his gun next round before it can be used again.
• Bottom: Flamethrower markers. There are 6 each for marine teams A and B. Some scenarios have the marine player controlling 2 teams.

My team of marines. I think they come unpainted, and you need to paint them in order to tell them apart. Han bought this second-hand, partly painted. He only painted the grey ones, just to set them apart as the regular marines. The unpainted marine will be the captain, and the already-painted-in-red one will be the flamethrower marine.

Genestealer and marine on two sides of the door.

Now, onto the mission itself.

My team of marines quickly moved through the first room. One marine opened the side door and set up overwatch for any genestealers, while the rest continued to file out of the room. Indeed the genestealers came. Thankfully the marine on overwatch managed to shoot them down before they reached him.

As the marines proceeded to the branch in the corridor, I realised how restricted movement and line of sight are. In the narrow corridors, only the marine in front can see and shoot at genestealers. The other marines behind him can't help much at all. If a genestealer reaches and kills that first marine in melee combat, the second marine will have little time to aim and shoot at the genestealer, before he himself is engaged in melee combat too, a very dangerous thing.

I had my captain lead the way down the branch, the flamethrower marine right behind him. One regular marine set up overwatch guarding the main corridor.

Han's genestealers started to grow in numbers, and they hid behind the corners, just out of sight so that I could not shoot and could not tell their numbers. In the photo above, one blip (i.e. unknown number of genestealers) and one genestealer are hiding just out of sight of the marine captain. The humans are always the ones under time pressure. They do not get reinforcements. One new genestealer blip appears every round, so if the marines do not act quickly to complete their mission, they will eventually be overwhelmed by the genestealers.

Knowing the time pressure on my marines, I forged ahead. I, being the cold-blooded commander, decided that someone has to "take one for the team", i.e. die, in order to complete the mission. My captain, who had been quite a good shot, and who had even defeated a genestealer in hand-to-hand combat, was the brave one to push ahead to allow the flamethrower marine to come up. He got himself killed. The flamethrower marine used quite a number of blasts to kill genestealers and also to set the corridor on fire to prevent them from approaching closer. However, ammo was running out, and he must keep one last shot for completing the mission - destroying the control room.

The flamethrower marine made took two shots to kill the two genestealers right in front of him, then quickly moved into that final short corridor leading to the control room. Another brave, ready-to-die marine moved up to the corridor junction to hold that position, and to block the advance of the other approaching genestealers. But we all knew he would probably only be able to slow down the genestealers for a few seconds, using his own body as an obstacle. And a few seconds was what I needed for the flamethrower marine to open the door to the control room, and to blast it with his last shot. Thankfully flamethrowers do not jam in this game.

The remaining marines probably wouldn't make it back out alive, although they have completed their mission (and won me the game). Now I have to think of how to explain to their families how I had sent them to die.

I liked the game more than I expected. I have played Descent: Journeys in the Dark once before, also Han's game. We didn't complete the game due to time constraint, but from that half-game I thought it was just so-so. I liked Space Hulk. Maybe because of the simplicity. The game felt fast and furious. It may be because of its simplicity, which allowed the turns to be played quickly. I imagine if I play with the full rules which sets a time restriction for the marine player, it will be even more fast and furious. No wonder it's still a BGG Top 100 game.

There were some rules that we weren't very sure about. The rules were not clear enough. So we had to play with what we agreed was logical. If the flamethrower marine stands at the mouth of one corridor at a crossroads junction (let's say the 1st space of the southern corridor), and shoots at the mouth of the next corridor (let's say 1st space of the eastern corridor), how does the fire spread? Does it spread only down the eastern corridor? Does it spread down both eastern and western corridors, including the single space at the junction itself? We agreed on the former. We had already agreed that the flamethrower can shoot at 45 degrees in the first place, making this scenario possible. Can anyone confirm?

Every once in a while I take a series of photos of my collection of boardgames. I find it fun to compare these snapshots with earlier ones. The last time I did a snapshot was Jan 2008.