Thursday nights at the club

Well I missed a post last week, so here is 2 weeks worth. Alas no pictures.

A couple of weeks back 9 of us assembled round a table to play Legion of Honour, a card driven game.  6 of us were playing, the chap who owned the game acted as guide and rules checker, and 2 others sat at the table to help offer cheers and jeers to whatever was going on. 

Each player has a French Napoleonic character and at the start you generate various role-playing type characteristics; health, fencing skills, money, charm etc.  The game is played in a series of round each representing a year, beginning in 1792.   Each player in turn draws a card and acts upon it. Any action requires the player to roll percentage dice for the outcome - things like leading a charge or a mission, avoiding capture by the enemy - and so on.

However, a major drawback of the game is it has no player interaction (other than the occasional card driven fencing duel). Everything that takes place depends on each player rolling the percentage dice, and the outcome is only for their character. Essentially this is a solo game for up to 6 players. 

The only player interaction, if you call it that, is when a character is wounded, captured or, as in our game, goes to the guillotine. Then everyone round the table rolls about laughing at your misfortune.   

All in all, I don't think it's worth the effort as a multi-player game.  There are far better games out there. 


Anyhow, moving on - last Thursday we played Dystopian Wars.  Four of us playing and two watching, advising and checking rules.  We each had 750 points and the French and Americans fought the Brits and Prussians.  No-one went for super ships, instead using a good quantity of smaller squadrons.  Most fleets were one battleship, two squadrons of cruisers, several squadrons of smaller vessels and the 'free' tiny-flyers.

This was much more like a club game; fast and frantic, much rolling of dice, glee and despair. The British player brought some flying machine and it became a shell and rocket magnet.  I even think the Prussian player fancied having a crack at it too. But the British player was also able to use some special engineer rule that allowed him to repair a lot of the damage to the flying machine. 

We never actually manage to play too many turns in the evening because everyone just 'goes for it'. Losses can mount quickly. I think honours for the evening went to the Brits and Prussians. My Americans had lost several smaller squadrons for 2 Prussian cruiser squadrons, while the French lost cruiser and frigate squadrons for minimal losses to the Brits. 

Another excellent game, though we're still stumbling a bit finding stuff in the version 2 rulebook.  

Also at the club last time were guys playing a game of FoG, and others playing some SciFi thingy (I must learn what it's called).  

Next week - the Great Northern War using the Maurice rules for me while others will be playing ADG.