Gaming For The Week 28th March - 3rd April 2010

My cell had a connect gathering over the weekend. Most were non-gamers but they had a good time with Jungle Speed and Liar's Dice. Both games play nicely in the 6-8 range. With Jungle Speed, more players ramp up the difficulty since you have more cards to pay attention too but with too many, decks tend to rather thin and the endings of such games feel somewhat premature. I suppose getting the expansion solves this problem to some extent although I'm not sure if I would prefer to put the dough to a different party game altogether. I would say that Jungle Speed needs to be played quickly for maximum excitement. Over-deliberate flipping can slow the game down to a crawl and make it a far less enticing experience.

I organized a usual games session midweek and there was a nice turnout this time round with 6. The early ones started with a game of Dominion:Intrigue which I won with a low score. Once everyone arrived, we split into 2 tables, with a group of us playing Le Havre while the others took on Confucius. I broke my previous high with a 257 score for Le Havre but it was largely due to the fact that Ivan and Ben failed to challenge me for the use of crucial buildings since they were new to the game. Le Havre, like games such as Puerto Rico, is one that rewards repeated plays. Nonetheless, Ivan did well for his first game.

Both tables ended around the same time. Ivan, Ben and Jo proceeded with a game of A Game of Thrones LCG while the rest of us had a run at Nexus Ops. I heard the AGoT LCG game was a close one with Ivan taking the win by a point. They however couldn't play till 15 power tokens and decided to end the game on a pre-decided round. Marcus was first to 12 points in Nexus Ops. Nexus Ops is a nice alternative to Risk especially with its euro-elements. I like the fact that the objective of the game isn't to wipe out your opponents, but picking battles wisely in order to nab victory points. Nonetheless, the game can be prone to downtime and I can't imagine playing a game with 4. Perhaps playing in teams may help somewhat...

On Good Friday, the cell came over and before we began our themed dinner, we manage to squeeze in two games of Monopoly Deal which Van dominated and a game of Ra.