1st Military Victory!!!

10 x 10 Challenge - Plays 1-2
1 x 100 Challenge - Plays 11 - 12

Let me tell you a little bit about this game. It's a two-player game based on another game called 7 Wonders where you are building some of the ancient wonders and a civilization. The one with the most victory points at the end of the game wins. 7 Wonders is a great game, but the two player option for this game is not that great. This game is a genuinely wonderful two player experience.

There are three eras in which you get more  advanced resources and civilization improvements. Ultimately there are three paths to victory:

1. Civilian (Earning the most Victory Points)
2. Military (Getting to the end of the Military Track)
3. Scientific (Acquiring 7 different Science Symbols)

Up until now, Mark and I have only managed to beat each other with Civilian victories. Play #11 gave us our first Military Victory. It came on the last possible play of Era III. I took the last card of Era III and the last of my money and bought the resources to build the Statue of Zeus. This gave me the last needed shield to gain a military victory over Mark. He was surprised. I was gleeful. It was good.

Play #12: I won in a Civilian victory with a score of  64-59 against Mark.

#1/52: A game that take 4+ hours to play - Firefly

The first Saturday of every month is Open Gaming at Great Escape Games in Sacramento, CA. Last Tuesday Elle Dowell asked me to bring Firefly to Great Escape so that she could try it out. Because this is one of my favorite games of all time, I was more than happy to agree!

Firefly is based on the 2002 TV show that only aired 12 episodes (14 were made). Fox really messed this show up by airing episodes out of order, not showing the pilot episode first, and pre-empting the show for sporting events. It was also put into a lousy time slot. Regardless, it was a fantastic show with great writing, acting, and directing. The outcry at its cancellation was so great that the creator, Joss Whedon, was able to talk the network into allowing him to make a feature film, (called Serenity) in 2005 which tied up some of the loose ends left by the series' cancellation.

This game is imbued with the flavor and theme of the TV show. It's a pick-up-and-deliver-game where you are trying to avoid the corrupt Alliance (central government) and the insane, barbaric Reavers who are out to savagely kill anyone they find. There are also pirates, ship break-downs, space-based hazards, and crew personnel issues to deal with.

Each game has an end goal or series of goals that you are working to achieve before the other participants do. In this particular game, we were racing to complete jobs from five different business contacts first. My husband, Mark, won with me coming in second place. We were the most experienced players at the table, but this is not always telling. The last time I played this game, an utter newbie who had never even watched the show ended up winning the game. Each game is very different. The only consistency is that the game will be very long. This game started at about 3:00 p.m. and ended at about 7:50 p.m.

#49/52: A game based on or turned into a TV show - Battlestar Galactica

I rang in 2016 with a game of Battlestar Galactica with my friends. This game is number 49 on my 2016 52 Game Challenge List - A game based on or turned into a TV show. What a great way to check the first game off of that list!

In this asymmetrical, cooperative game with a traitor component each of the participants plays a character from the 2004 reboot of the 1978 classic TV show. Each character has a list of skills, abilities, and flaws that impact how that character is played during the game.

Each player also gets a Loyalty card that determines if that player is a human or a cylon (the bad guys). If a player gets a cylon loyalty card, his or her job is to sabotage the human's attempt to reach their safe haven (Kobol (the planet of origin of all humanity) or Earth (the destination of the missing 13th colony)) and die in space.

The only flaw we had in this game was that we had one newbie playing the game and it just so happened that she got BOTH of the cylon loyalty cards and didn't understand what to do with them. When we discovered that (after the game was over) we created a new house rule. Whenever we have a newbie playing they need to reveal their loyalty card right away IF they are a cylon. If that is the case, all loyalty cards will be gathered up and re-dealt. No newbie should have to be the cylon on his or her first game. They should see how it's played first.