Billabong Boardgamers - 28th November, 2000
Present: Alan, Andrew B, Andrew H, Craig, David, Debbie, Donna, Julian Warner, Roger, Steve Cane
Alan Stewart writes:
Welcome to Andrew B and Steve Cane.
Games played: Battlelines, Chrononauts, Galaxy (the Arena), Lord of the Rings, Medici, Mu, Ole
CHRONONAUTS
Players: Alan, Craig, David, Debbie, Julian, Steve
With 6 players it was fairly chaotic, but the game moved fast enough. Very little patching, lots of artifacts played, and Julian achieved his mission by playing the correct artifacts. I think it was a new mission, as he changed his original one.
MEDICI
Alan, Craig, David, Debbie, Steve
A new game to Steve, but he seemed to pick it up pretty quickly. David was buying cards very cheaply, and picked up 70 points in the card total bonuses over the three rounds. Debbie usually completed her purchases early in each round, and there were always some cards passed in, with not enough left to satisfy everyone in the last round.
In the end a couple of medium card total bonuses and maintaining the lead, or equal lead, in two commodities was enough for me to edge out David in the final round.
Alan 121, David 117, Steve 107, Craig 97, Debbie 86
GALAXY
Players: Alan, Andrew B, Andrew H, Craig, Steve
With a quick run through of the rules, the game started. We weren't sure if Garrisons could only be played during the first round, so played it that way. Not much combat, but the Governor's powers were used a fair bit.
In the end Andrew H still had 4 tokens on the board, which earned him the win. Andrew B eliminated the last world, which contained one of his tokens and two of mine. With 5 players I did not get a chance to play in the last round, as I'd played last in the previous round.
Andrew H 14, Alan 12, Craig 5, Steve 4, Andrew B 2
I think only 2 garrisons survived.
Julian Warner writes:
BATTLE LINE
Julian W. and David C.
David offered to play Battle Line with someone and I accepted, having played the similar Schotten Totten before. The essence of BL is that two players try to build up 9 competing "poker hands" of cards each, with "hands" being compared one for one. The complete pack of cards consists of six different-coloured suits with cards numbered 1-10 in each suit. Each rank, 10, 9, 8, etc represents a different military unit in a typical Greek / Macedonian army - so you have elephants, cavalry, hoplites, peltasts etc. Each of the competing "hands" is of only three cards each (with one possible exception). The "hands" are ranked in a way similar to poker but in every case, the numerical value of the cards counts to determine a victor.
The mechanism of the game is that there are nine "flags" (which look like the usual vaguely phallic generic game piece) to be won. The flag is won by placing the best hand of three cards next to it. The two players are dealt seven cards each and they place cards one by one, in turn, on their own side of the row of nine flags, so that they build up nine sets of three cards. The art of the game is in deciding which flags to compete for strongly and which to relinquish if you feel that the other player has a stronger "hand". If it is obvious, from the cards which are already played that one player must have the superior "hand" next to a flag, then that player can claim the flag. The easiest example of this is where one player has 8,9,10 of one suit next to a flag and the other player only has two cards down. Even if those two cards were 9 & 10 of the same suit and the player could potentially have an 8 to play, it is decided on who plays the best cards first.
Not only can a player win by the obvious means of winning five separate flags, it is possible to win by securing three adjacent flags. This leads to strategies designed to perhaps concede some flags to prevent an opponent from gaining flags in more critical positions.
All of this is basically identical to Schotten Totten. The big difference is the existence of the Tactics cards - of which there are ten. Normally the players would play a card and then draw a card from the stock deck. However, players may choose to draw from the Tactics pile instead of the stock. Each Tactics card is different except for the two generals and allows some sort of unusual action. The generals are basically wild cards and can represent any other card. There are "multicoloured" 8s, wilds which can only represent 1, 2 or 3, a "deserter" card which takes an opponents' card out of play, "environment" cards which change the winning requirements - all sorts of fun stuff. A player may put down a Tactics card instead of playing a normal card, but only if they do not have more Tactics cards in play than their opponent. This is a useful limiting factor so that you can prevent your opponent from playing more by not playing any yourself. Once you get to know what evil the Tactics cards can perform, you may want to restrict your opponent's ability to use them! An unplayed Tactics card in a hand is dead weight.
There's a couple of other rules here and there but this is not a rulebook!
Anyway, David and I played and took quite some time for what appears to be a very simple game. There is luck in what cards you draw but there is a lot of space for good strategy and there is a degree of bluff too. I'd like to be gentlemanly and say that I won 5-3 and 5-2 out of sheer luck in drawing cards but I'm afraid it was all pure skill that defeated Generalissimo Coutts and left him dangling on the pointy end of my phalangist's pikes.
Ah! There's nothing like a good, bloodless fight with long pointy sticks.