2/19 report
DOOM avec expansion: We started late (1030am) because the DM (Jon) got there late. We had a lot of fun despite my demotion to simple 'cleric' 'casting' buffs on my fellow teammates (Michael, Ben). I did have a lot of fun as a regular marine, until I lost my valuable grenades. After that my character's best option (or....Michael with his evil coercive powers convinced me of it) was to transfer my Ready action tokens to my teammates as they needed it (I had the ability to do this). It is boring being the 'cleric' in a boardgame, but heck, it was towards the end of the game. We finished in about 2hrs. Unfortunately we weren't savvy enough to go after the corpse in the center of the last room, which would have blown up attacking the never ending hordes. Another bad day in Mars for the marines.This game does a great job at creating the ambiance, and at implementing the 'essentials' of Doom the computer game (weapons, buffs, monster behavior, etc). Great fun. May need this in my collection.
Perikles: Finally played with 5 players. Steve joinedus. I really like this game because of its combination of mechanics (combination of mechanics seems to be a theme for 2006... Perikles, Mission Red Planet, Leonardo da Vinci, etc). Like in any other area control game, this game shines with 5. Plus of course, the theme is cool.
Coloretto, Ruse and Bruse, Fairy tale, No Thanks.... Just great fillers to end my stay at DL today. The rest of the crew stayed for a game of Manifest Destiny. My brain couldn't handle a new 4hr-long GMT game. My wife was surprised I was home so 'early' (6pm).
posted by Rob @ 9:29 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Perikles and Doom were fantastic. Thanks to Jon for being the GM and withstanding the brunt of our whining and crying about how hard and unfair the scenario was.
Also, yesterday was good operational test of my latest dice tower design. I quickly identified an flaw in the tray design however, and I'll be producing replacement trays this week.
Essentially, my decision to go with only three ramps (vs. the previous design's five) in the tower makes the dice shoot out the bottom quite a bit faster and actually overtop the tray walls on occassion. To add mass to the trays I made the base piece out of extra thick wood, so this further decreased the tray's interior wall height. For the new trays, I'm adding 0.25" to the wall height and extending the tray length by 1.5". Hopefully this will do the trick.
Perhaps we can try the new trays on Saturday morning? Barring any immediate life emergencies, I should have new trays for Jon, Rob, and Simon by then.
In related dice tower news, Jeff officially now has a tower in the production line. I just picked up a couple new router bits, and I'm pleased I'll get to try these out on his tower.
Perikles was so good I ordered a copy last night. I love the subject matter. The big selling point for me was its suitability for converting battles in the game (normally quickly settled with competing dice rolls) into tactical miniatures battles.
It takes serious "testikles" to prevail in 5-player Perikles. I was particularly impressed with how challenging and cutthroat the diplomatic aspects of both the political and military phases. Somehow while we were all driving daggers into each other, new-comer Steve was able to waltz away with 18 VPs for Corinth.
Man, I missed out on some primetime whining... *sigh*
Sounds like y'all had a blast. Ufortunately, however, some one had to keep the economy running.
Ben: modifying the tray sounds like a good retro-fit, but you might also consider using a smaller angle on your last ramp for future towers. I'm partially guessing here, but the angle of the last ramp should have a strong influence on the forward velocity of the dice.
We've now seen that Steve is not only a swell guy, but he's a tough opponent.
Hmm.. two of the toughest opponents in wargames are professional military... Coincidence? I think not!
Ted: "Sounds like y'all had a blast. Unfortunately, however, some one had to keep the economy running."
Haha, very nice. That certainly made me feel better. Bravo.
Ted, your suggestion regarding the final ramp angle seems like a sound one and would be easy to implement. I was just wondering what I was going to do if the tray adjustment wasn't entirely successful. The one concern about decreasing the ramp angle is jamming the dice in the tower, but this shouldn't be much of a problem on the final ramp.
I definitely want to stay with three ramps, as its just too difficult (at least for me at my present skill level) to consistently rout five ramp slots on such a small piece of wood. To adjust the angle I'll just have to cut myself another router template which is pretty easy. I'll see how the retro-fit versions perform and go from there. You've given me a clear direction to proceed in.
Well, mind you, I won Test... Perikles. But indeed, it was Steve I was tied with. Nice to meet you by the way.
Ted, you missed how incompetently I played the colored reptile game.
Rob, thanks again for showing me Perikles. I handled the political phases like a Peloponnesian Howard Dean (wahhhhhh), but otherwise I sort of got it and really had fun playing.
Post a Comment
<< Home