A Noise for Trouble

Nemesis was back on the table last night, as Adam, Laura Ian and I attempted to survive the six million ways to die on this cursed ship: wounds, contagion, fire, hull disintegration, slime, inertia, blind panic. I talked us through most of the rules before we dove in, gravelly-voiced and foul-mouthed, except for Laura who let the side down a little by saying Oh Poops when things went wrong. 

Games generally attempt some kind of USP and Nemesis' is that it's trying to kill you. Despite being lost, afraid and confused, players are unable to stop making noise as they traverse the ship, like a bunch of weaponized toddlers cartwheeling through a deadly library. You'd think being slimed might provide some kind of sound-cancelling lubrication, but no, you're now even even noisier. And noise is bad, because too much of it means the Intruders come out, so-named just possibly to avoid intellectual property issues with a certain movie. I was the scientist, Ian the captain, Laura the scout and Adam the pilot. We combined co-operation - working together can be very helpful, especially keeping the noise down - with independence, as everyone had secret, distinct goals. As with Thursday's game though (see prev post) we filtered out the nastier ones (eliminate player X etc) so the introductory game wasn't at 100% harshness: there's quite enough bad stuff without it. 

The captain was first to encounter an intruder, in the aptly-named Emergency Room. But it was the pilot who dealt with it, as Adam began, despite my advice to run, a campaign of killing, successfully wiping out no less than two (or was it three?) intruders, and happily reminding us of his success at every opportunity, with thinly-veiled digs at our comparative cowardice/ineptitude. 

My secret objective involved finding the nest, grabbing an egg, lugging it to the lab and analysing it, all of which meant I would win (although more than one player can win) if the ship didn't explode (engines) implode (fire/malfunctions) or go to Mars. Adam had check the co-ordinates and assured us it was headed for Earth, but could we trust him? There is a secret objective that asks you to steer the ship to the red planet... We decided we could, as he was happy to hibernate (on the ship) rather than evacuate (in an escape pod). Meanwhile more Intruders were popping up, the ship was littered with noise and we only belatedly, thanks to Ian, located the lab. Ian and I set off for it, dragging various dead things to be examined, trying to avoid being bitten, scratched or slimed on the way...

Adam's die-rolling luck had already ran out - ours never got going - when I was the first to die. Having picked up two Serious Wounds already, I succumbed under attack. I was texting Chris (who had requested updates) to tell him when Ian died as well. The ship was sinking! We didn't know what Adam and Laura's objectives were but at this point it didn't look good. They were both making their way to an evacuation pod when Laura, much to Adam's chagrin, triggered an encounter and picked up a contagion card. Displaying all the humanity of a billionaire playboy, he hopped into an evacuation pod and when asked if he had room for Laura, said 'No way' and left the ship. In fairness, and perhaps reflective of these viral times, Adam didn't want to bring Laura back to Earth if she was contagious. As it turned out, though, she wasn't, and they would have had a slightly awkward reunion a bit later at home. But at least they were alive! And what's more, they were alive victorious. Adam needed an egg and had one. Laura just needed seven items and had gathered them. It was a resoundingly triumphant debut from them, as on our side of the table mine and Ian's only reward was the sad reflection of our final hours being spent in a bowel-loosening panic, as Laura's cries of Oh Poops rang through the air. 

Nemesis is long, and a bit fiddly, with plenty of down-time. But I never felt impatient as I was always interested in what was occurring on the ship, and we agreed that considering the entire thing is a firefight, mixing in a bit of bunfight (the nastier objectives) might be no bad thing. Next time!

This Spaceship is Broken

Last night I wended my way to Chris' for a four player crack at Nemesis, with Paul and Stuart joining us. Essentially Alien writ large as board game, everyone has distinct, hidden objectives (although we discarded the eliminate player X type ones) but work at least semi-co-operatively to achieve them.

You also have a distinct deck of cards: I was the pilot, Chris the captain, Paul the mechanic and Stuart the scientist. On your turn, you take two actions, either discarding a card for a basic action (move, shoot, etc) or playing the action on the card itself (close a door, search for kit, scan for infections, etc) You might be scanning for infections if your deck contains unwanted contamination cards, which both clog it up and possibly kill you, but don't worry: it's just as likely you'll be dead already. 

We initially agreed to pair up as we explored the ship: the deadly intruders hear noise as you move around, so keeping together at least mitigated how much to some degree. If you make too much noise, they attack, springing out of the woodwork and towering over you terrifyingly. This happened to Chris very quickly. Paul was covered in slime, but had managed to shoot a larval intruder and wanted to analyse it, for science. Chris agreed to meet him halfway to the lab, but his unfortunate luck with noisy doors meant his way became barred:

Paul and Stuart both came to his aid - I was at the far end of the ship, checking the engines - but in their panic, they shot holes in every wall but managed to miss the intruder itself, who dealt a serious wound to Chris at the end of the round. In the following round he took another, then as Stuart scarpered the intruder lashed out wildly, and Chris bought it. We were only four rounds into the game!

Oh no

Our early luck in not triggering attacks now very much evaporating, we found the buggers coming out all over the place, and rooms we needed to use were malfunctioning. I managed to Send a Signal, which I needed for my mission, but I also needed that alien carcass analysed. The three of us reeled between rooms, getting hit by attacks as we ducked under flailing tentacles, and then we accidentally started the self-destruct sequence. Shortly after Stuart halted it - a one bright shaft of hope in the gloom, Paul bit the dust too. The ship was awash with noise.

Stuart plotted a course for Earth as I dragged a carcass to the lab. He needed to get to the hibernatorium; I needed a petri dish. Neither came to pass, as fire burst out in all the malfunctioning rooms and instantly spread, compromising the hull of the ship: the thing fell to pieces, and we were sucked into the vacuum of space. As it turned out, if I'd survived I may well have been infected anyway... it's an absolutely brutal game, this, with everything that can possibly go wrong almost certainly happening. I didn't help by getting the slime rule wrong either, but that was the least of our worries...

We followed the madness of Nemesis with something a little gentler in Rosenberg's fishing paean, Nusfjord. It's a very Rosenbergian thing of developing your fishing industry, using Elders for wisdom, Buildings for varied uses and a triplet of economies in gold, fish and wood. To be honest I don't remember a huge amount about it now, as my head was whirling from both Nemesis and Paul's Giant Chocolate Buttons, but I do recall the level of humour sank to schoolboy altitude, largely thanks to me. Apologies for that; there's just something about the way Chris says Trigger your bonus though. 

I eschewed issuing or buying shares at all and focused on buildings. I'm not sure why, other than they always seemed more alluring. Paul built shedloads of boats and Chris cursed his decision-making (so did I, in fact, about my own) whilst Stuart pondered his final moves cautiously. It's nice seeing your board come together, even if it doesn't quite have the same cosy vibe as Caverna. 

Stuart's ruminations proved worth their while: he took the win with a huge haul of gold:

Stuart 32

Chris 30

Paul 25

Sam 21

And with that we were done. So it's good night from me, and it's goodnight from him:

Nemesises

With loose talk of a Saturday night GNN in the air to experience the relentless doom that is Nemesis, I thought it worth running through the facets of the game as enticement/warning. Like the film Alien, you're on a spaceship - component parts unknown - and lurking within the bowels of the ship are the baddies - Nemesis calls them Intruders. Everyone begins with two secret objectives, which can be as straightforward as making sure you and one other survive, or as dickish as making sure player 3 is dead. I think for our first play we'll filter out the nastier ones, because Nemesis throws plenty at you without them, and co-operation is extremely helpful. Not everyone will survive. 

Whew! The ship is headed for Earth, with an alien race onboard

Players have different roles in the crew - captain, scout, mechanic and so on - and everyone plays with a bespoke deck of ten cards. It's not a deckbuilder, more a deckfucker: the only cards you might add are contagion cards, which may mean you're infected. Or they may just get in your way, if you're lucky. In each round you can expend cards to do basic actions, shown on the Scientist's board here:

standard actions

Or you can use the action on the room you're in, or you can use the action on the card itself, which is where the bespokeness comes in. The mechanic can repair things easily and move through the vents (technical corridors, to give them their technical name). The Captain can always reload his weapon. The Scout can move without making any noise - possibly the best ability there is, as like a nightmare version of Clank in Space, everyone is stepping, grunting, rattling and loudly whispering their way through the story, which keeps drawing the attention of the intruders. 

noise is yellow, obviously

Those yellow things in the corridors are noise markers, which steadily fill up the ship. If any corridor gets a second noise marker, it triggers an encounter. Encounters usually go badly. In the room itself there's a fire, which means if the Soldier ends his turn there, he'll pick up a light wound. Light wounds lead to serious wounds. Serious wounds first encumber you, then they kill you. Oof. 

If the noise and the intruders and the fires weren't enough, a number of other things can go wrong: including malfunctions. As we move about the ship we discover what each room does (including the room that used to do something but is now the intruder nest, and the room that was once something else but is now covered in slime) which are varied and helpful things like navigation, surgery, engines and so on. The first person to arrive flips an exploration token which gives you some circumstantial information about the room. Maybe a door closes behind you as you enter. Maybe you've been slimed. Maybe there's a malfunction. Malfunctions stop the room from - you guessed it - functioning, although players are usually able to get it working again if they want to. But their presence also signifies the integrity of the ship is compromised: if you're asked to add a malfunction marker and they're all on the board, the ship has disintegrated and you're all dead (unless you've evacuated!) It's a similar story with fire. You can never make too much noise, though...

disco death

You might have noticed earlier you can pick up a heavy object as an action. Fortunately most objects aren't that heavy, but your weapon is, and a dead player or intruder is, and so is an egg. Some of the objectives ask players to discover some science about the Intruders, which means dragging these heavy items to the lab and testing them. But meantime time is running out, Intruders are either attacking or moving, something might trigger the self-destruct and everyone has contagion cards. So much is going wrong!

But there are number of things in the players' favour. You can search for stuff: stuff is always handy to have. You can contain aliens by closing doors. You can 'control' where the noise is made by spending two cards (instead of one) for careful movement. and avoid triggering an encounter. can stick together: moving into an occupied room never adds any noise. You can pass: the danger escalates from constantly moving, so late-game especially (if you've completed your objective) it might make sense to sit pat. But mainly - unless those treacherous objectives are mixed in - you can work together. Co-ordinating efforts, from my four exploratory plays so far, seem to make a big difference. 

good stuff!

The game end arrives either with the aforementioned collapse of the ship, or when time is up, or when everyone's dead. Assuming you made it into an Evacuation pod, or hibernation, or you're on the ship but the ship is intact, you may have won (multiple players can win) as long as you're not contagious and the ship doesn't explode now, which it will do if more than one engine is malfunctioning. Also, it must be headed for Earth, otherwise it's assumed you're going to die shortly. If it's not you can only still win by being both alive and evacuated, but you still need to make sure you're not contagious: if you are, there's a finger-crossing shuffle-and-draw of cards to establish whether your immune system saw off the infection, or you got John Hurted. Assuming you - anyone, really, gets past all of that, there's now a grand reveal of objective cards. 

For transparency's sake I should say in my first three games nobody survived. In my fourth, two characters won, but this was aided by some spectacular dice-rolling for combat, a last-minute fluke of drawing a larva instead of an adult intruder, and accidentally skipping an event in the very first round. Had I played correctly, and/or had a little less luck, it could have been very different...