Attendees(11): Steve, Sharon, Warren, Michael, Matt, Jaimie, Eileen, Adam, Troy, Cheryl, and Andrew
I got to Steve's house early and we had time for a quick game of Hellas. This is a two player game in the Kosmos series (which has produced many excellent games). It is a light war-game that allows for some different strategies. the board is made up of various city tiles and each player has ships (for exploring) and soldiers (for fighting). The game is driven by 3 decks of God cards that give special powers. Neptune helps exploring, Ares helps in fighting, and Zeus helps by "breaking" the rules. Some tiles have temples on them and the player with the most temples gets to take 1 extra action each round (4 instead of 3). This is a huge benefit and the other player must quickly level the # of temples are fall too far behind. It's a fun light game if you don't think too much and just enjoy it for what it is... I got lucky in this game and dominated the board quickly and Steve was unabl
Bang is a card game set in the West where players have different roles with different objectives. One player is the Sheriff (and everyone knows who the Sheriff is) and her job is to shoot all the outlaws and the renegade (but not any deputies!). Everyone else's roles remain hidden until they lose all their life and the number of roles varies with the number of players. The outlaws win if they shoot the Sheriff, the deputies win if the Sheriff wins (a joint victory) and the renegade can only win if he is the last player standing (which means kill all outlaws and deputies and then finish off the Sheriff last).
Players take turns "drawing" cards and playing cards. Some cards give you guns to shoot people further away, barrels to hide behind, or even a stick of dynamite. BANG cards allow you shoot at others while missed cards avoid being hit while beer cards give you more life. There are many different types of cards but they are all fit the Western theme and the game plays quickly. Each player also plays an individual character with special abilities that break the rules.
I enjoy Bang! as a fun filler but sometimes it can run a little too long. It has a neat element of "guessing" what everyone's role is and this adds to the fun. The other issue with Bang! is that it is a player elimination game. So if you are killed early, you may have to wait a while before the game ends.
Game 1: Sharon was the Sheriff, I was her deputy, and Andrew (Renegade) shot her a little too much giving the outlaws (Eileen, Matt, and Steve) a quick victory -- so we played another round...
Game 2: Eileen was the Sheriff this time, I was the deputy again, Andrew was the Renegade again, and the rest were outlaws. Matt and Steve were taken out early and then Andrew was eliminated. This left Adam, Eileen, and me and I thought we had him but I ended up in jail (so I couldn't use a Saloon card to give Eileen some more life) and Adam was able to shoot the Sheriff and pull off the win!
Adam taught me, Andrew, and Eileen this game about acquiring Oil fields and shipping and selling oil to various companies. It has some interesting mechanics that force the players to value different actions and select action cards that allow: (a) to move their truck, (b) to move their train, (c) draw cards for bidding when selling oil barrels, (d) get extra oil, and sometimes (e) push other players trains backward.
Moving trucks allows players to claim good locations and drill for oil more effectively (more production). Moving the train saves on shipping costs for the oil they produce. Bidding for selling oil can be critical when the markets are good so these cards are very useful, but you have to have a lot of oil first. The extra oil is okay but moving other players trains can be very effective late in the game where it costs them a lot of points to move them back.
I think that there is a huge advantage in going first each turn and that the game would benefit for an auction to determine the start player (either at the beginning or maybe each turn), however, it does already run fairly long and this might increase playing time too much.
I didn't play the game particularly well and that may have tarnished my opinion but I just didn't feel any tension in the game and each turn was fairly repetitive with no "build up".
Andrew proved to be the "JR Ewing" of our group and won with 94k, Adam was next with 83k, and Eileen and I finished well off the mark with 44k and 54k respectively.
Cheryl and Troy enjoyed playing this game at our house a few weeks before and they played it again at Steve's. Father Michael was guilty of Brother Adelmo's tragic murder but Brother Troy accused him correctly and won the game with 4 pts. Warren had a correct revelation for 2 while Cheryl must have missed on a revelation and finished with -2. Jaimie and Sharon were tied with 0 and kept their vows of silence.
Matt was the best Pirate with 31, Steve 25, and Danielle 23.
Steve dominated the rails with 162, Matt 112, Danielle 104.
This is a game that I have never played. Warren won with 2 stations, Troy had 1 station but finished before Sharon who also had 1 stations. Jamie had 0 stations and Cheryl died (whatever that means...)
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