After Action Report – Board Game Night @ Comic Quest, September 26, 2013

I made another appearance at the Board Game Night at Comic this Thursday.  After how underwhelming it was the last time I was there, I did not have high expectations.  My hope this time was to try and get some plays of some games that I have that I had not played in a while and avoid playing any cooperative games if at all possible.  There were 16 people in attendance at the event and there were 4 games being played at any one time.

The selection of games at the event was poor again so I was glad I brought the duffle bag of games I carry around just in case this sort of thing happens.  Because of this, I was able to play a number of games I had not played in over a year.

The first game I played was Bazaar, which I have played a number of times recently, but it is a great game to get started with.

In Bazaar the players are gem traders trying to fulfill gem orders from demand cards in competition with the other players.  They do this by using two trading boards that represent the exchange rates for the market.  For example one red gem can be traded for two blue gems.  The players use the exchange to fulfill the demand cards as efficiently as possible to maximize their points.

I struggled through the game this time like I did last time.  Another player got the first card I was attempting to get before I did and caused me to have to adjust what I was going for and delayed me in being able to get on the score board for another couple of turns.  Seeing a pattern emerging for me from previous games that I had lost, I decided to change things up and roll for gems where in the past I always traded after the first roll.  It did not help me and I ended up in third place in the game.

The second game I played was Lost Cities: The Board Game.  In Lost Cities: the Board Game the players are trying to complete archeological expeditions.  The farther along on an expedition track a player gets, the more points they score.  The player must be careful when starting an expedition because if they do not move at least four spaces on that track they will lose points. 

The players move along the track by playing out cards in the color of the expedition in front of them in ascending order.  The deck of cards has five colors.  Each color has two cards ranging from 0 to 10.  When a player plays a card in front of them it cannot be lower than the last card they played in that color.  Each time the player places a card in front of them they move their explorer up the expedition track.  As an alternative they players may discard a card that can be picked up later may other players instead of drawing from the deck.

The round ends when 5 player tokens are moved 7 or more spaces up the expedition track or when the deck of cards is depleted.

On each expedition track there are bonus tokens available that give out extra points, allow the player to move an extra space up the track, or give the player a monument.  The monuments are worth additional points at the end of the game.

We played the game with a variant rule where the player may choose to play the cards out in either ascending or descending order.   The order must be determined on the card is placed.

This game went very well for me.  The strategy I generally use when playing this game is to concentrate on two or three expedition tracks during a round.  If you try for more you will not get high enough up any of the tracks to get to the larger amounts of victory points.  During the first round I followed this strategy and started on three differ tracks since I had decent high cards in those sets and one low card.  The problem was I started play using the low cards instead of starting with the high cards with each set.  I did manage to salvage the round and get my high scoring meeple to the top of his expedition before the turn ended.

In the second round I concentrated on two tracks to begin the round.  As the round went on no one had started an expedition on the yellow track and everyone was discarding all of their yellow cards.  I took it upon myself to start picking up the yellow cards later in the round once I had finished one of my other expeditions.  I was able to get almost a full set of cards and was able to get the meeple on that track to the seventh spot and end the round.

The last round also went my way.  I was able to complete one expedition and get high up the track on two others before the round ended.  Having three great rounds plus 11 monuments allowed me to win the game.

Next up was Take It Easy.  In Take It Easy, the players have a hexagonal board which is divided in to 19 hexes.  Along with the board the players receive 27 pieces that each has 3 lines going through them.  The lines have a point value assigned to them.  The goal is to be able to make a line of point values run across the board in a row.  If the player can accomplish that they can score the points the line is worth times the number of spaces in the row. 

One of the players is designated the caller and turns their tiles face down while the other players keep their tiles face up.  The caller turns over the pieces one by one and all the players place the same piece on their board wherever they want.  The player who can place the highest value of lines across their board wins the game.

We played this game twice since it only took about fifteen minutes to play each game.  I was able to win the first game, but then came in second the second game.  In the second game I ran into trouble with the last three tiles when they did not have any of the lines I needed on them.

The final game of the night was The Haunting House.  The players are trying to be the first one through a haunted house.  Each player is given a set of ten cards which allow them to move through the house, find secret passages, fall through trap doors, move passages in the house and even move the exit. 

Each turn has two rounds.  The first round is the random round where the players chose a card randomly form their deck of cards and must perform that action.  In the second round the players selects 4 cards from the remaining cards and the players each take turns revealing the cards and doing the actions.

I made great progress to the exit and was there in five turns.  Then disaster struck.  Before I could get through the door, the exit moved away from me and I had to scramble to the other corner of the board.  Unfortunately another player was able to get their first and get through the door with me following in the same turn.

Here are my results for the evening.

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Avg.
Bazaar	1	-	-	1	-	-	-			3.00
Lost Cities: Board Game	1	1	-	-	-	-	-			1.00
Take It Easy!	2	1	1	-	-	-				1.50
The Haunting House	1	-	1	-	-	-	-			2.00
Totals	5	2	2	1	-	-	-		-	1.80