It was a dark and stormy night and a few brave souls ventured out amid the flying debris to lock in battle.  We started with a ‘quick’ game of Dominion while we waited for everyone to arrive but this quickly degenerated into a ‘long’ game of Dominion and onto (for me anyway) a ‘terrible’ game of dominion.  I’ve since considered burning spy, thief and militia as the time sink cards they really are.  Boris won it with Brian close behind and me nowhere to be seen

Next up with the real meat and potatoes.  I’ve had a hankering to play CONAN the strategy boardgame for a long time

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/27848/age-of-conan-the-strategy-board-game

BY pure concidence the same bunch of players were assembled last night that attempted the game last time.  Now, Conan is a complex game, once you get into the swing of it it’s fine but it’s standard Fantasy Flight, lots of tokens, lovely artwork and a solid game.  I’d be lying to say interest was low after the last attempt but we set to and with the conan soundtrack in the background we all attempted to wear the jewelled crown of aquelonia upon a troubled brow. If you haven’t seen the game it’s a bit different, it’s a bit like warrior knights with a few twists. Conan features but he’s a force of nature that you nudge in a certain direction rather than directly control.  As the game continued it become more and more competitive and as we got to the half way mark it was looking like everyone was onboard for the long haul and due to the complex rules it WAS a long enough haul.

I don’t recommend attempting this game without someone to guide you and looking up half a dozen tutorials on youtube.  It’s a hard game to get to grips with.  Even with a good lash of it last time we struggled with some parts of it using the age old technique of we’ll figure that bit out later.

All in all this is an excellent game.  There’s a good bit to it and a lot of ways to win. I’m eager to have another lash of it having figured out all the rules.  Once you get into the swing of it, it can tip along at a nice pace.  Nice level of player interaction and back stabbery.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating and everyone stayed the course so we didn’t finish until 2am and the winner was a little in question, I reckon it was Borys, he reckonded it was me but no-one had a bad time…. Except maybe Brian On…..

There are three areas you can score points for  Mastery of  Treasure, Women and Monsters….

In the third age you can attempt to steal a march and end the game by getting Conan to your home kingdom and crowning him king of your realm.  It’s risky enough.  Basically you declare which area you claim mastery of and show your points tokens you’ve gained through the game, if you’re highest in that area you win.  So effectively Brian invited Conan to his kingdom and claimed to have the highest rating in Women in the whole world.  12 in this case, way higher than Bory’s 3 and Brian F’s 2 but…. Not as high as absolutle Babes from Aquelonia whom I had tokens for to a total of 15….

Conan was displeased, he beheaded Brian, marched off and his kingdom failed.  Not a happy bunny J

Great game, I recommend it, let’s play this again since we can now

More of that next Thursday

Huzzah!