Battle Line... what a surprise.

So tonight my wife and I didn't feel like going out. I decided to take Battle Line for a spin for the first time. Of course, again, she is not much of a gamer, so I wasn't expecting much....at the very least, it was going to be a chance to learn the rules.

The game took me by surprise. It is a light-looking and cheap, but oh-so-full- of-strategy-and-hard-desicions game that still had me thinking about optimal moves and strategies 1 hr after the game ended. It is definitively another Reiner hit. Yes, it basically is a poker/math game with a pasted theme, but the theme actually works better than in other "pasted theme" Knizia games like Lost Cities.

You basically have 9 red flags (the markers above) lined up side by side. You and your opponent play their troop and tactic cards on your respective side in front of the flags (max 3 cards per flag). Once you know you have a stronger 3-card formation on your side in front of a flag, you claim it. Tactic cards add an interesting twist providing all kinds of different "powers" (ie traitor card: take troop card from opponent's side and place it in one of your formations). Object of the game: be the first to claim 5 flags or 3 adjacent flags (harder to do).

First game score:
Me: 5 flags
Wife: 2 flags
I won easily. We used a lot of tactic cards to spice things up.

Second game:
Me: 4 flags
Wife?...... 5flags!!!!
It was an awesome game. I couldn't believe how it unfoiled. The score was 4 me, 2 wife, with 3 flags left. She ran out of places to play cards on, so basically I had three last rounds to finish placing 1 card in front of the last 3 flags. It took me a few second to realize that I couldn't beat what she had played in front of the last three flags. And....much to my surprise (because, again, she is not a gamer).... she was smiling. She knew what she had done. She beat me fair and square. I was shocked. She took the last 3 flags in one fell swoop. The coolest gaming moment with my wife.