The Games We Play
Less than half an hour later we had probably dropped $400 between the four of us. I had found a copy of Blood Bowl boxed set for $40 cheaper than retail, completely new and unopened. Lister located a fistful of historical games and assorted boxed sets on sale and Audrick had gone nuts with some impressive looking games including Twilight Imperium, a gigantic box which looked to be a sort of SF space-setting Axis and Allies. He also picked up a French game in a wooden box called Master Thief.
We ambled over to the open gaming area and tried Master Thief. The game is something like the kid’s card game Memory, with some interesting play mechanics and a very nice presentation including a wooden drawer box, plastic gems and velvety gem pillows. Each turn the players choose a different role (Smuggle, Jeweler, Master Thief, Detective, etc.) which determines the play order. Each role has a different action they can perform on the 12-drawer box. Some can put gems into the box, others can take gems out of the box. Most players can twist the box’s levels (think Rubik’s Cube) or flip the box over. Each drawer has two sides so the idea is to open a drawer with jewels on the appropriate side for whichever role you’re playing. The game is pretty fun and didn’t seem to be overly hard core, so I imagine that even casual gamers could really enjoy it. It certainly looks impressive and we got more than a few passerby stopping and remarking on the game.
The next game I was involved in was Twilight Imperium. When I thought the game was like Axis and Allies, I was wrong. This game is far more complex than that. It took us at least an hour and a half to get through the first turn (from set up to the end) and the next two turns weren’t much quicker. After more than three hours of playing we seemed to finally be getting a rhythm down, but the hour was advancing and we wanted to get in a big ol’ game of Warhammer 40K before exhaustion overtook us. I think I’d like to try the game again when enough time is available to complete the entire thing but my initial impression is that the beginning stages of the game are kind of slow. It plays in many ways like a board game RTS, with resource management and a lot of advance preparation before any real war maneuvers or tricky diplomacy can get off the ground. Perhaps it is different with other races being played or when each turn doesn’t take an hour due to unfamiliarity, I don’t know.
Our game of 40K was epic: The unlikely alliance of Space Marines and Chaos versus a massive force of Necrons complete with monstrous C’Tan and a huge Monolith. It was 5:00 am before we got back to our rooms and we’d only made it through turn three. I don’t think the Necrons would have managed to avoid one of their special rules which makes them the automatic loser if they are reduced to 25% of their original forces, but Strahd (our Necron-playing buddy) gave it a serious go.
The next morning began early. The annoying whine of the hotel alarm clock roused me at a quarter to ten, giving me fifteen minutes to prepare for the Blood Bowl tournament that promised to take up most of the day. I wandered down the stairs, trying to avoid the bottleneck of the single bank of elevators which simply could not accommodate the comings and goings of that many gamers in a reasonable amount of time. The stairs led, oddly, down into the employee’s area. I wandered the back hallways, past break rooms and laundry services, eventually finding my way to the kitchens before turning back and trying the other way.
Walking through the cold hallways which had not been given the same luxurious facades as the public-facing areas, I regarded the concrete walls with their chipping green paint marking obscure directions with unspecific arrows. The passing employees barely cast me an eye, hurrying with their duties to make the day pass quicker. I finally found my way back to the lobby level, opening a pair of swinging doors into the calm chaos of a hotel in the midst of a convention crowd. The dull hum of voices blended with the crash of dishes and food preparation in the atrium cafe. The gurgle of water in the decorative fountain/waterfall was nearly drowned by the din of squeaking luggage cart wheels, the clatter of dice on a table and the ding of elevator direction lights.
A young man passed by in a loose shirt and breeches, three hefty leather buckles of his boots held the hem of his pants tightly against his shins and his greasy hair pulled back into a pony tail bobbed as he strode with a purpose borne of defiant self-awareness. Unlike the previous con where I struggled with the outward geekiness of the fellow convention goers, I almost didn’t notice him. Just another gamer here to enjoy the entertainment, to try and have some blasted fun between long stretches of responsibility, dull work and uninteresting requirements. I gave him a quick smile and a tiny nod of my head. He didn’t react much.
Down at the Blood Bowl tournament I came very close to defeating Lister. I played with Strahd’s High Elves in a stripped down variation (Blood Bowl 7’s) of the game and after launching to a quick 2-0 lead mostly due to Lister’s poor dice rolling, he crept back with some better strategy and a fortunate last-second touchdown run to end the first half. By the end of the second half we were locked up 2-2.
My team took a heavy beating in the sudden death overtime, dropping four players out of the game before turn 6. With less than half a team and only two turns to go before a chance to get them back, Lister pulled off another of his incredible last-minute runs to score the winning TD.
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