Origins Day 1
Day 1 of Origins has come to a close and, as promised, I am giving you the skinny. Now, today is what I would consider the "warm-up" day. I arrived and was registered by about 9:30 and was among the first to show up. I got my first game in at about 11:30. More on that in a minute.
I don't have any pictures for you yet because nothing interesting was in full swing yet. Well, there was a game of Case Blue set up. The full campaign game. All 9 maps and 2,000 plus counters. It looks awesome. The Battletech pods were up and running and I caught a couple games of Federation & Empire being played. Looked like fun!
But what did I play? Well, a few new games!
The first was No Retreat! The Russian Front: 1941-1944. This was a fun little intro wargame put out by Victory Point Games. This is a treatment of the German invasion of Russia on the strategic level. Each player has a hand of cards that are used for events or replacing and repairing troops and the game is played in the traditional hex-and-counter I go-you go format. I lost around the 7th turn as the Germans due to not paying attention to my supply lines and leaving a large gap for the Russian player to exploit. It put my entire army out of supply and lost me the game. Oh well, I had fun playing! I am looking forward to GMT Games' version coming out with nicer components.
My one play rating for this game is a 7.
Next up was Dominant Species. Dominant Species is a game that I have been wanting to play for quite a while now and I am glad that I finally got the chance. In Dominant Species the players take control of one of six animal types: reptiles, amphibians, insects, birds, mammals, and arachnids. I was the insects. Each animal type has its own special ability, for instance, the insects could proliferate faster than other animal types. The game is primarily a game of area control, but it relies on adapting to the environments that your species exist in and taking away conditions that your opponents can survive in. It is a very "thinky" game, but very fun. Very fun. The screwage factor in this game is off the charts. This is a game all about conflict, as the theme would suggest. I want to pick this up.
My one play rating in this game is an 8.
The last game that I played tonight was Airlines Europe. This is a re-themed and streamlined version of another game by the same designer Union Pacific. The designer is Alan Moon. Eh, I don't know what to say about this one. It feels like a train game. Because Union Pacific, it's progenitor, was a train game. You buy flight paths (essentially track) and lay down sets of shares to invest in the different companies in the game. As you build the companies up, they advance around a scoring track that grows larger and larger. The largest owner of shares in a company at the time when the scoring card is drawn from the deck scores the most points, second place gets fewer, and so on. There are three scoring cards buried at random intervals in the deck. After the three scoring rounds the game ends and the winner is the player with the most victory points. Ugh. Really? I am not sure how I feel about this game. As I mentioned earlier, this is an airline game that feels like a train game. And you win with victory points, not cash. How does that make me feel like a mogul? It doesn't. The game is good. But after one play I am not a fan. I am willing to give it another shot as one of the players was dense as a rock and the other two wanted to end the game early.
My first play rating for this game is a 6.
Tangent: two out of the three games I played today ended before they were finished. What is with people not wanting to play a full game? When it comes to games, I don't care about how long they take to play, I care about the experience, the story that is told. Too many players are worried about length. Pro tip: don't play heavy thematic games! In the case of Airlines Europe, a game that takes about an hour, don't play at all! And now you know how I really feel. Ending before the game has played out really irks me. As far as I am concerned, two out of the three games I played today have an asterisk by the "winner's" name. At the least the people were nice.
I will be back with all of my day two action, and pictures!
Stay tuned and keep playing and keep winning!
I don't have any pictures for you yet because nothing interesting was in full swing yet. Well, there was a game of Case Blue set up. The full campaign game. All 9 maps and 2,000 plus counters. It looks awesome. The Battletech pods were up and running and I caught a couple games of Federation & Empire being played. Looked like fun!
But what did I play? Well, a few new games!
The first was No Retreat! The Russian Front: 1941-1944. This was a fun little intro wargame put out by Victory Point Games. This is a treatment of the German invasion of Russia on the strategic level. Each player has a hand of cards that are used for events or replacing and repairing troops and the game is played in the traditional hex-and-counter I go-you go format. I lost around the 7th turn as the Germans due to not paying attention to my supply lines and leaving a large gap for the Russian player to exploit. It put my entire army out of supply and lost me the game. Oh well, I had fun playing! I am looking forward to GMT Games' version coming out with nicer components.
My one play rating for this game is a 7.
Next up was Dominant Species. Dominant Species is a game that I have been wanting to play for quite a while now and I am glad that I finally got the chance. In Dominant Species the players take control of one of six animal types: reptiles, amphibians, insects, birds, mammals, and arachnids. I was the insects. Each animal type has its own special ability, for instance, the insects could proliferate faster than other animal types. The game is primarily a game of area control, but it relies on adapting to the environments that your species exist in and taking away conditions that your opponents can survive in. It is a very "thinky" game, but very fun. Very fun. The screwage factor in this game is off the charts. This is a game all about conflict, as the theme would suggest. I want to pick this up.
My one play rating in this game is an 8.
The last game that I played tonight was Airlines Europe. This is a re-themed and streamlined version of another game by the same designer Union Pacific. The designer is Alan Moon. Eh, I don't know what to say about this one. It feels like a train game. Because Union Pacific, it's progenitor, was a train game. You buy flight paths (essentially track) and lay down sets of shares to invest in the different companies in the game. As you build the companies up, they advance around a scoring track that grows larger and larger. The largest owner of shares in a company at the time when the scoring card is drawn from the deck scores the most points, second place gets fewer, and so on. There are three scoring cards buried at random intervals in the deck. After the three scoring rounds the game ends and the winner is the player with the most victory points. Ugh. Really? I am not sure how I feel about this game. As I mentioned earlier, this is an airline game that feels like a train game. And you win with victory points, not cash. How does that make me feel like a mogul? It doesn't. The game is good. But after one play I am not a fan. I am willing to give it another shot as one of the players was dense as a rock and the other two wanted to end the game early.
My first play rating for this game is a 6.
Tangent: two out of the three games I played today ended before they were finished. What is with people not wanting to play a full game? When it comes to games, I don't care about how long they take to play, I care about the experience, the story that is told. Too many players are worried about length. Pro tip: don't play heavy thematic games! In the case of Airlines Europe, a game that takes about an hour, don't play at all! And now you know how I really feel. Ending before the game has played out really irks me. As far as I am concerned, two out of the three games I played today have an asterisk by the "winner's" name. At the least the people were nice.
I will be back with all of my day two action, and pictures!
Stay tuned and keep playing and keep winning!
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