Wednesday Night Gaming

Tonight was gaming night and we managed to get in three Winsome games: Hover Tank, Kansas Pacific, and Wabash Cannonball. I'll post a brief session report before heading to bed.

Hover Tank: This is another of the early 90's Winsome releases playtested by guys wearing Viking helmets and smoking cigars. It is a unit based (?) war game where each player controls a range of vehicles from hover tanks to helicopters. The goal of the game is to destroy your opponents base and to occupy a specified city on the map. It is relatively simply (compared to other war games) and the tactics are a bit easier to grasp. Still though, it is a war game and war games just aren't my thing. I am happy to have played it, but I don't see it coming out again anytime soon.

Kansas Pacific: Once Dan arrived, we broke out Kansas Pacific. This is one of the new games from Winsome's 2009 Essen Set and I had been really excited to play it. Sadly, I think that the game fell flat on it's face after the first play. I ended up walking away with the game, which is not necessarily a good feeling in a stock based game. In essence, I had complete control over most of the game and that is pretty boring for everyone involved. I suppose that these types of games require intelligent plays at all points in the game, but especially during the auction. And I don't think that we knew how to value the shares in this game enough to make the intelligent plays. Thus, while some games can be labeled unforgiving, at least you may understand what you did wrong. When I play a game like this and screw up, I don't even know why. Anyhow, the game deserves more plays as the concepts are very interesting and I trust the positive reviews that it has received so far. Perhaps I just need to play it with 4 people, not 3.

Wabash Cannonball: Well, most of what I said above can apply to this game. Except that Dan walked away with this one. From almost the second or third round of the game I could tell that he was going to win. Mike and I were cash poor and Dan was loaded. It really seemed as if no matter what we did, he simply came out on top. Although this is incredibly frustrating, and I still can't figure out what I should have done in this situation, I am ready to give the game another play. Again, I think that I enjoy this type of game most with 4 players, so I may just have to wait until I have that player count before trying it again.

Tomorrow night Louis, Jef, and Dan are coming over for Age of Steam! I think that we will play the Steam Brother's China map for the first time.