I probably should have spent this weekend at the Magic: the Gathering Grand Prix in Melbourne. Instead, I spent it playing games up in Ballarat. I had a fantastic weekend – two D&D sessions, and a lot of boardgames, but, on the other hand, I didn’t get to see Daniel place 52nd in the Grand Prix (and win $200). That’s 52nd out of slightly over 400 players – a fantastic job. My Sunday D&Ders were keeping track of his progress through the standing updates on the Magic site. Daniel went 7-1 (that’s 7 wins and 1 loss) on the first day, and then 2-4 on the final day to end with an 9-5 ratio.
While he was doing this, I was drawing with crayons on a map of Mars.
So, well done, Daniel! I hope you had a good time (and Sarah was properly appreciative of your efforts!)
I managed to play a couple of new games this weekend. Probably more significant was Martian Rails, one of the Mayfair Games’ “Empire Builder” series of crayon rail games. The play of the game is pretty simple: you get three cards which each have three delivery options on them (deliver Red Martians to Barsoom and get $40 million). You then build rail – drawing on the map in crayon to indicate what you’ve built – and move your train along the track, picking up goods at various places and them taking them to their destinations. Unlike the Age of Steam games, there are lots of different goods and places to deliver them. Rayguns? They’re only found at one place at the bottom of the map. Red Martians? Only two places have them!
A lot of the game is spent moving your (slow) train over the track to the places you need to go. I’ve now played it twice with Pat, and it’s surprisingly addictive. I wouldn’t want to play it with more than three players (and, Randy, Pat wants to play this game with both of us), but in its old clunky mechanics there’s a surprisingly fun game. What really makes the game is all the references to SF set on Mars – there’s the Pyramid Mars (Total Recall), Helium, Barsoom and trains called the John Carter and Dejah Thoris (Martian series by Edgar Rice Burroughs) and there’s a special delivery to Sam Parkhill’s store (Martian Chronicles; Ray Bradbury). There are a lots of references that I don’t get, but there are enough to make a SF-fan like me very happy.
I also got to play Scrappers, which Mick had bought. This is a light little game that reminds me somewhat of RoboRally, although faster and possibly more fun. You’re playing a bunch of goblins on a factory floor, who are darting around a conveyor belt, grabbing components off the belt and trying to build a contraption. Suffers a bit from Analysis Paralysis for new players, but there’s a good game in there.
On Sunday, we finished King of the Trollhaunt Warrens, so next session we’ll be moving onto Demon Queen’s Enclave. Josh wasn’t able to make it, so the remaining three players (and our NPC, Splug) managed to play through six combats in about 3-4 hours. Yeah, we’re getting quicker. I really enjoyed Trollhaunt, and I hope my players did too. The next adventure should have a bunch of roleplaying in it, I hope!
And, yes. I broke down and ordered a copy of Space Hulk from GW, which arrived on the weekend (along with Napoleon’s Triumph, Revenge of the Giants and BattleTech Technical Readout 3075). I’ve been assembling the minis between writing paragraphs of this. Now, I just need to find someone to play it with…
Happy Birthday! Data89, web data extraction.