Round five is the final round in what is best described as an epic punch-up. All of us - Ian, Adam, Andrew and myself - controlled five provinces each at the start of the game, and you pretty much come out swinging and keep swinging for the duration. In each round players get six tokens that have varying degrees of power, from 1 to 5 more in Army, a less-impactful (and less common) navy, plus a few special tokens: Blessing, Raid, Shinobi and Diplomacy.
Everyone takes turns placing five tokens face-down on the board: either defending provinces they control, or attacking from them. The Shinobi can attack anywhere they like: they're kind of a travelling ninja troupe, intent on destruction.
The catch is, however, that every token - bar the Blessing, which bestows extra strength and immunity - is played face-down, before all being revealed simultaneously - then defenders versus attackers are resolved, with the winner claiming or keeping the province in question. If the defender wins, their defensive strength improves as a result, and the province gains extra 'honour' - points value.
Into this mix come the previously-mentioned special tokens: the Diplomacy brings peace to a province and it cannot be attacked, but the controlling player can't attack from it either. The Raid essentially razes a province to the ground, rendering it obsolete. Additionally, everyone has a bluff token, which can be used to misdirect your intentions and encourage opponents to spend tokens needlessly. And controlling all provinces in a territory grants you a special card that can only be played once - if you cease to control the territory, you cease to own the card as well...
What this all amounts to is a tense, swingy, obscenity-laden, four-way punch-up, with everyone relishing the moments when someone else was attacked, and indignant with disbelief when they were. Adam's attempt to establish peace was undone when Ian razed him to the ground before diplomatic talks could even be opened. Ian returned from the loo to find Adam and I had both attacked him - although I was bluffing. Andrew managed to spread his wings reasonably well, though as it turned out this wasn't actually want he wanted to do...
Players score a considerable bonus for controlling a territory at the end of the game, and we all have a secret objective too, meaning you really cannot tell who's won until the final count-up. As it turned out, the winner was me, as not only did I control a territory but I also hit my secret objective which got me a whopping ten points. Ian came second and Adam - who was perhaps targeted more than anyone else due to his habit of Winning The Games - trailed in third. Andrew had the double-edged sword of only hitting his objective if he controlled the least provinces - but having expanded successfully, he couldn't get us to attack him enough!
Sam 39
Ian 23
Adam 18
Andrew 10
A modern classic! But one you do need a recovery period from, and with that in mind we played competitive team sushi-stacking game of Maki Stack. It was Adam and Ian versus me and Andrew, racing to be the first to score points. Each point is a card that demands you stack various pieces in specific fashion, with the caveat that you either (when the card is yellow) do the stacking using one finger each, like chopsticks, or one team member wears a blindfold whilst the other instructs them.
It was hilarious: silly, rapid and over in ten minutes:
Andrew and Sam: top stackers!
Adam and Ian: bottom stackers
After that we moved swiftly on to non-team Push It, playing the official version of furthest-from-the-jack plays next. Ian and I surged into early contention as Andrew found his pucks flying everywhere but close to the jack. Adam kept inadvertently helping me by knocking me closer, and this played no small part in my eventual victory:
Sam 11
Ian 7
Adam 4
Andrew 3
Then we played four-player 6Nimmt. I'd not even considered this with four, but as it turns out the same Nimmty moments are present and correct, as it only took us three rounds to go from giddily optimistic to aghast and destroyed (Andrew) or giddily relieved (me)
Sam 15
Ian 35
Adam 51
Andrew 68
A fine ending to a very fun night, even if we probably had a few more crisps than even hardened gamers should ingest in 24 hours... but who's counting?
Four in a row Sam! What was that about Winning All The Games?
ReplyDeleteYou're not seriously comparing one night of chaotic games to a decade of mid-to-heavy Euros!
DeleteThanks for blogging, Sam. That was a great night. Battle is pretty much all combat, although I avoided most wars until round four, which is not what I wanted given my secret mission of least provinces. Maki Stack was good, too, and I realise we should have come up with a code for giving instructions in the blindfold round like Ian and Adam did. Still, we won anyway.
ReplyDeleteWas a great night, thanks all.
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed Battle for Rokugan. I like how direct it is, combative right from the start.
Yeah, there's no getting your ducks in a row. Something very appealing about that!
ReplyDelete