Joe, Jaime, Louis and Kevin joined us on Saturday for some new games. I had picked up Nightfall: Martial Law last week, and Louis had brought Small World: Underground. I hadn’t played Small World in ages, so I was pretty excited for that one.
We started the night off with Nightfall. Jaime sat out so we had the five players. I had a very powerful wall minion in Legion Ten, but I wasn’t able to consistently get him into play. Joe was able to build up a big army, but even then it wasn’t enough. He made himself a bit of a target, so everyone ganged up on him. I had left myself too open and took a few big hits. All the while, people were pretty much ignoring Gina. She finished the game with only three wounds, for the victory. Kevin was a close second with five. Nightfall with five players is a bit crazy. I think if we played it a bit more, we’d get the strategies figured out more, but right now, there seems to be a few people that get hit hard, and one or two that get ignored and end up winning. It can be a bit odd at times.
After that, Jaime joined back in for a couple games of 7 Wonders. The first game I was doing quite well with a bit of everything. I was able to get to 60 points, but Joe edged me out with a 62 point game made up of mostly Guilds, Civilian buildings and military points. In fact he had 30 points just from Civilian buildings alone. The second game I ran into a bit of a snag. I was really limited for resources, and while I was trying to go with a Science strategy, it just wasn’t going my way. On the final turn, I was able to grab a couple more Science structures and scored 34 points on them, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Louis’ 64 points.
For the final game, we setup for some Small World: Underground. Jaime sat out again, so it was just the five of us. I started out the game as the Wise Ogres. My plan was to use the Ogres ability to attack with fewer tiles and spread out quick, then go into decline and use the bonus from the Wise ability. Luckily I was able to get a bonus location early that basically my one of my regions immune to attack, so I was able to ride that bonus for the entire game. Sadly, my second race was less than effective. I had taken the Vengeful Liches because everyone had been skipping over, so there was a bunch of points on them. I didn’t get to use either of their abilities, and the points I was getting from the Ogres was too good to pass up at that point. At the end I had a respectable 83 points, but it wasn’t anywhere close to Louis’s 104 or Kevin’s 99. Both of them had been able to consistently get 15-18 points each turn. It was a lot of fun. I really like Small World and Underground added a bunch of fun new combinations and Relics that add a bit more excitement to the game.
Overall it was a good weekend. Good games were played, and I was able to get my ‘Ard Boyz army finished up, so expect a post on that before the big tournament next weekend.
Until next time, happy gaming.
Meandering the Dune Sea 
I recommend using the Leaders expansion for 7 Wonders. It helps you plan your strategies better. For example, if you were going with a Science strategy, there is a leader who can make your sciences cards worth one less resource to build. There is another which makes sets of three more points.
Its funny, because in our last game of SMU, we also had Wise Ogres! I’m finding that my favourite races in the new game are Mudmen and Flames. What about you?
I’ll definitely have to look into the Leaders expansion. I’ve seen it, but I wasn’t quite willing to jump into an expansion before I had more plays with the base game.
As for SMU, the Mudmen and Flames didn’t come up until the very end. The Mudmen did look pretty cool, but no one got them in our game. The Flames looked neat, but I didn’t realize their power fully. My wife got them, and put them to use quite well.
I need to play it a few more times to really get a good feel, but I like the addition of the relics and locations. Some of them seem a bit too powerful (Joe managed to get a “Magic” race and both the Sword and Flying Doormat, so he was bouncing all over the place) but not really game breaking. Plus they definitely added some more random fun to the game.