There's been a considerable amount of dice rolling going on recently.
Up first was an absolute mammoth game of Risk: Game Of Thrones, which consisted of 7 players, meaning we needed to use the 2nd map as well.
While this was not our first game using both maps, the first game only went a few turns as we were limited on time.
Unfortunately, we were not able to fully finish this game either, but it lasted a lot longer at four hours.
Northern Westeros start
Southern Westeros start
Western Essos start
Eastern Essos start
The game started pretty well balanced, with everyone receiving 5 armies per turn except the reds who were picking up 6.
A few players quickly picked areas of the map to focus on, but some of us were too spread out to really get a foothold anywhere.
I spent most of the game trying in vain to take the Andalos region with my little green dudes, a task I only completed about 2 turns before the end of the game. This was because I finally managed to bring in reinforcements from cards for the first time in the game, so few attacks did I succeed in.
Then disaster struck. As it was getting way too late, rather than wait for the Valar Morghulis card, we instead set a turn limit. This meant we all knew exactly when things were going to end, and so everyone got very aggressive. It also allowed the reds, who were dead last in turn order, complete freedom to attack with impunity, and they stomped through my hard fought Andalos in huge numbers, and pretty much wiped me from the game.
Northern Westeros end
Southern Westeros end
Western Essos end
Eastern Essos end
- Final score
-
Red: 34,
Orange: 27,
Blue: 26,
Yellow: 20,
Black: 13,
White: 12,
Green: 7.
A game that didn't get a look in all last year, despite me working like a dog on it throughout 2022, was Super Dungeon Explore.
While I'd got (a little) time, I dug out the rules and set up a solo game with 4 heroes.
Like every time I try and make new rules, there are always some good things and some bad.
One of the good things was that I think it only took 7 turns to complete the first level. As I want the game to be snappy and quick, this should have seemed like good news.
However, playing it still felt way too long. Yes, a lot of my time was spent re-reading the rules to remember exactly what I had written, but still.
The heroes advance into the dungeon
Things quickly turn sour
Clover is healed by a buffed Sophia, then hacks down the Shamble Priest
A concerted effort from Clover and Korinee finally brings George down
Unfortunately, I was too busy to finish the run before needing to set up the tables for some 40K action, so didn't progress beyond level 1.
Still, the basic gameplay seemed way better than my earlier efforts. But if it's going to take hours to finish a 4 level game with 4 players, what will be the point?
More than three years after I played through this game using the solo variant, I finally managed to get it to the tabletop so that other people could have a crack at it.
This time, I would be playing the role of "The Chisel", as the other players went back in time to 1940s L.A. to hunt some murderers in Detective: City Of Angels.
My task for this game would be to respond as the players questioned the suspects, and hand out information if they found anything during their searches.
Technically, it's possible for the Chisel to win the game if they can mess with the Detectives enough so that they can not solve the case. However, I informed the other players beforehand that this was not going to be the way I was going to play it. Instead, I wanted to try and keep the game as close as possible, mostly messing with players who I thought were doing better.
In addition to this, as I got a bit more used to playing the Chisel role, I also started to mess with players a little if I thought they were on the right track with their questioning, while not really hampering their efforts if they seemed to be barking up the wrong tree. Whether or not the players picked up on this tactic I do not know. Though if they actually read my website, they may know this for the future.
By the end of the first case, none of the players were able to find the solution, as they all missed some vital info about how the victim got shot, which may have led them down the correct path.
We went straight into the 2nd case, as it pretty much follows on from the first. This time, the players were much more on it, and Gareth solved correctly with 2 days left. As he did this, both of the other players revealed their answers, and they had also both pencilled in the correct solution, so either would have won if it was their turn next.
At the end of the day, I was happy that I was managing to keep them all quite close together in terms of information.
The unfortunate Scoob tries to get information out of the hotdog-lovin' Dum DiCaprio
The players scatter all over the city in their attempts to root out more information