After Action Report – Thursday Night Gaming @ Paradise Perks, October 24, 2013

Thursday Night Gaming at Paradise Perks was a good time for everyone.  There were 20 -25 people in attendance and 6 games were being played at any given time.  The weather is starting to turn a little cooler finally.  So light jackets were needed later in the evening in the enclosed patio where the game night is held, but it was still an enjoyable evening.

I was able to get two games in during the event, which has been the norm of late.

The first game I played was an old game called Viva Pamplona.  Viva Pamplona is a game about the famous running of the bulls in Pamplona.  The players control three runners that they need to try to keep in front of the bulls yet keep close enough to the bull to show their courage.  In addition the runners must get to the arena ahead of the bull to add to their courage.  There are also obstacles on the board that reduce a runner’s courage or move them back spaces on the board if they land on them.

Movement is determined by rolling two dice they dice have number 2 – 5 on one plus two arrows and 2 – 4 plus 3 arrows.  The player moves two runners one with one of the dice.  The amount of movement is determined by the number that comes up on the die.  If an arrow comes up the player and mover the runner 0 – 6 spaces forward.  In addition the player may use groups of his own runners to push another player’s runners out of a space that they occupy. The player takes a courage point from the player that whose runner he pushes.

Victory is determined by the number of courage points that they player has.  A player starts the game with 30 courage points.  They lose courage points to other players for being pushed out of the way.  They lose points if their runner lands one of the hideaway spaces.  The way that players gain more courage is during the scoring rounds when one of them comes up on the bull’s movement phase they the players score based on how close they are to the bull.  If a runner is in the same space as the bull, the player gets 3 courage points, if their runner is one space ahead they get 2 courage points, and if their  runner is are two spaces the player gets one courage point.  The player loses a point for each space a runner is behind the bull.  There is a bonus for reaching the arena before the bull as well.

The game started out like clockwork all of the players were doing a good job at keeping around the bull and pushing each other to different spaces where possible.  The first scoring came up and I was positioned well enough to get more than enough courage to replenish what I had lost.  Then the bull kept moving forward quickly passing the runners so that we were all trying to catch up to it. I was using my dices to try to get one runner in front of the bull and keep the others from falling too far behind by moving the runner furthest behind forward.  We were all expecting the next scoring card to come up but continued to be disappointed when it did not. 

I was finally able to pass the bull on the turn that was going into the arena and the second scoring card had not come up yet.  There was only one other player that got into the arena at the same time I did.  All the other players’ runners were still far behind the bull.  It turned out that all the players besides me ended the game with negative points because they were so far behind the bull giving me the victory in the game.

The other game I played was Helvetia.  Helvetia is a worker placement game where the players are managing the output of farming towns.  The players gain victory points by delivering goods to the market and developing their town.  In order to get access to the goods to delivery they will need to marry some of their own villagers into the villages of other players. 

There are five possible actions that they player may take each turn.  They may build a building, deliver goods to the market, reset their villagers, marry a villager into another village, or produce a new child.  The number of times they can do this depends on the number of action discs they spend on an action.  The more action disc they spend the more times they can perform an action.  The game ends when one of the players reaches twenty victory points.

My game started off well enough.  I was able to start delivering resources to the market in the first turn.  Then for some reason I became obsessed with capturing bonus points instead of doing the most important thing in the game and delivering goods.  As I kept on with this obsession I fell farther and farther behind.  Then in the final round of the game I corrected my focus on the game and was able to gain five victory points in the one turn, but it was not enough to dig myself out of the hole I was in and I ended up in last place.

My stats for this event:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Avg.
Viva Pamplona	1	1	-	-	-	-	-	-		1.00
Helvetia	1	-	-	-	1	-	-			4.00
Totals	2	1	-	-	1	-	-		-	2.50

If you are Interested in Purchasing These Games: