Dust - 27 August 2008

The first Rivals try-out of a game Adrian plays with his boys - Dust, introduced to us as "Risks with Tricks". The backstory is a post-WW2 world where the Third Reich discovered and shared alien technology. A map of the world is marked with territories and supply centres highlighted and connected by fixed routes. There are over 800 little pieces of tanks, subs, mechs and planes - fortunately impossible to get more than a fraction of these onto the board during a game - but they are great models.


Five of us playing tonight made for lots of interaction - James getting the brunt of attacks to start with, partly due to his position in Europe but mostly to do with his early steal of supply centres on Kieron and Stu's doorsteps. The game had a neat feature with cards setting initiative, move and attack opportunities as well as providing a different special ability each turn. A fair bit of luck with dice rolling but a well-balanced and fun game. Definitely one to play again.

Kieron's return from his summer break in Central Europe led to a swift reformation of Team Balcarras and although we didn't have enough time to play through to the victory condition of 30 points, the final scores were Stuart 22, Kieron 21, James 18, with Adrian and David both on 16.

Ra - 6 August 2008

We had a strange couple of games of Ra this evening. In the first game, the initial Epoch was over in less than ten minutes as the Ra cards just kept coming, and neither David nor Stuart had bid on any tiles before the turn finished. Andy did manage to win three bids but ended up holding the three lowest bidding chits to start Epoch 2. The third Epoch was over almost as quickly as the first. Final scores were James 48, Andy 32, Stuart 28 and David (having a most un-deejous game) on just 13.

Fates turned in the second game. James started the game with the highest bidding chit but failed to actually use it until the third Epoch. Stuart built a huge number of monuments and a long River Nile, securing the much needed flood card in the last couple of turns. A virtual recount of Stuart's final score gave him the same score as David - 43 - with James on 35 and Andy on 27.

--- Rule 23 alert ---

However, a post-games night check of the rules shows that if players tie for the most fame (victory points) then the player with the highest sun (bidding chit) wins. I recall that David got the bonus +5 for having the greatest total across his three suns, so I think he may have won the game. (Standing by to be corrected...)