The Re-Review: Foiled Again

Blood Rage

• 1 play with 3 players
• Played before
• Part of my 2016 10x10 Challenge

Blood Rage continues to be a really fun game. In this particular game, the winner ended up with an insurmountable force in the second age and myself and the other player never managed to get around that, though I did come within 10 points of the winner. I know there are cards that help the loser gain points, but I don’t recall seeing much of them. Ah well, next time.

7 Wonders: Duel

• 1 play with 2 players
• Played before
• Part of my 2016 10x10 Challenge

I really do enjoy 7 Wonders: Duel, even if it made me realize that any game with small cards needs to be sleeved just for ease of shuffling. In this particular game, I managed to win via Science with my very last card draft. If I hadn’t managed to claim that 6th symbol, I’m fairly certain my opponent would have won. Always a bit of a gamble to go for military or science victories.

Roll for the Galaxy

• 2 plays with 2 players
• Played before
  • First time with Roll for the Galaxy: Ambition
• Part of my 2016 10x10 Challenge

My wife and I played two games of Roll for the Galaxy in a row, namely because she did so well and I did so poorly in our first game that I had to have a rematch. In that particular game, she managed to create a money generating engine that allowed her to not really have any dips where she wasn’t rolling gobs of dice, whereas I had turns of rolling one die. It’s no fun to lose, but it was even less fun to have one tiny decision while your opponent is trying to decide what to do with their ten dice.

In our second game, it felt like we traded places to some degree. She had that same dip where she had very few dice to roll due to a shortage of cash while I had a tiny engine that kept me at least rolling three dice a turn.

I’m still happy playing this game, but this was the first time where we both saw a less-than-fun side of this game.

Clash of Cultures

• 1 play with 4 players
• Played before

There’s nothing quite like taking a tiny little civilization and seeing it grow and expand. I have many 4x games, but I really do like the technology tree of Clash of Cultures, I like how you can strategize your advances to fit your strategy or the strategy of your civilization (oddly enough, Rome became known for their seafaring). The end scores were pretty close in our game, though I felt like I could have done better if I had been more aggressive with my military.

Homeland

• 1 play with 3 players
• New to me

Homeland promised to take some of what makes Battlestar Galactica interesting and pare it down to a 90 minute length. I’m not a huge fan of the Battlestar license and I’ve only played the base game once, but I do think Homeland does an admirable job of taking the suspense and double-guessing of Battlestar and greatly reduce the play length. In our particular game, I was a (bumbling) agent and between me and the other agent, we managed to succeed at two plots, both worth no points. While the terrorist player managed to win by scoring out multiple plots worth quite a bit. Definitely a game I want to play again, though I’d suggest playing with more than 3.

Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game

• 1 play with 3 players
• Played before
• Part of my 2016 10x10 Challenge

I’m getting closer to understand how to play Warhammer Quest: ACG, though I’m not quite there yet. I think I’m still making misplays as I haven’t managed to win the first quest yet (I’m replaying it until I feel comfortable starting the campaign). Still, I like the mechanisms in this game and the simplicity of play, although there are plenty of little rules and things to remember after not playing the game for a month or so.