We decided on Wallenstein for this evening's entertainment, if you can call it that. This cross between El Grande, Risk and Diplomacy is popular but still not fully understood by many of us GNNers. Especially since the first few times you pay it, you usually get the rules wrong.
Anja and Steve, however, are much more up to speed regarding tactics. We began by drawing territories at semi-random. I stayed in the north, Sam in the west, Steve in the east, Anja in the south and Adam set up camp bang in the middle. This, as it turns out, was a mistake.
I still haven't got the hang of Wallenstein: when to consolidate and when to expand. There's an awful lot of sledging going on as almost every move is accompanied by Adam asking why would you want to do that, and I couldn't help but tut at Steve's tactic of shuffling his armies from one region and then back again. Meanwhile, Anja grew in strength and numbers while her neighbours, Adam and Steve, pretended to be more concerned about the threat of me and Sam. Steve even went so far as to try and convince everyone that Sam was in joint first at one point. Nice try, buster.
The game is a bit of a beast, and as the end of the game rolled into view, it was almost midnight. In the end, Anja won. In fact, she got as many points in the second round as me or Adam got in the whole game. Let's never play again.
Anja 47
Steve 38
Sam 31
Adam 27
Andrew 25
Meanwhile, on the form table, Steve manages to extend his lead as we head into what is probably the last week of the season. I manage to fall a place, despite being already pretty low. By the way, I've only just noticed Joe's perfect "countdown" combo on the form table, as his recent results go from 5 to 1 in order.
| Points | ||||||
| Steve | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 |
| Anja | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 10 |
| Sam | 3 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 11 |
| Adam | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 13 |
| Joe | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 15 |
| Hannah | 1 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 17 |
| Paul | 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 19 |
| Andrew | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 20 |
| Jon | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 23 |
| Chris | 6 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 23 |
Yeah, I didn't quite get why Adam and Steve insisted I was 'one of the leaders' - although I had a nice little patch to myself I didn't really have any room for expansion without totally leaving myself open - and I had bugger all buildings. I think they wanted you and I to destroy each other Andrew...
ReplyDeleteI would be hard pressed to describe Wallenstein as 'fun' with 5 players - as Andrew intimated it's pretty fraught. I'm still coming to terms with Adam going to war with me for not promising to never attack him for the whole game.
I did enjoy it, but it's a different type of enjoyment to, say, Galaxy Truckers. There, death and destruction seems comparatively light-hearted.
Oi vey, sounds gruelling! Back to City of Horror next week then?
ReplyDeleteOh no I've traded it - for Snowdonia!!