Sorry for the lull in posts, it being the holidays and all we can't seem to get together as often as we'd like. At any rate, on with the report...
This past Monday we played a new FFG game, Thunders Edge. Check out FFG's site for details on this game, but let me quickly say that it is an intense futuristic-strategy game using hexes and chits to represent the world of Thunders Edge and your armies. There is also an expansion to Thunders Edge called Demon Canyon, but we don't own it yet so we didn't play with it.
The Setup: We each chose a color of chits (James-Blue, Dan-Red, Cooper-Purple, and Mike-Green) and then were randomly dealt our factions. The factions were dealt in the following order and these are the starting unites we purchased:
We then setup Centor with the four other random hexes and dealt out the remaining hexes, setup the board, bought our units, and started dropping!
The Game: I rolled highest so started off by
dropping a conventional force down on center, dropping then proceeded
in a clockwise fashion until we were all done. At the end, it
seemed that Mike had been dealt a good hand of hexes as he controlled
2 population centers, a refinery, and an outpost all nestled on
one side of the board. I controlled Center, two refineries and
an outpost sort of in the center, Cooper controlled 1 population
center and 1 refinery, and Dan had control of 1 outpost and 1
refinery.
Alliances were quickly formed, via the alliance card, between
Cooper and myself, and Dan and Mike. I secured my foothold on
center and my other areas, and Mike did the same for his population
center. Fighting then broke out between Cooper and Dan for control
of Cooper's population center. Dan initially took the location
from Cooper. Cooper then spent several turns laying siege to the
population center. Dan was unable to break the siege and so it
fell into Cooper's hands and remained so for the rest of the game.
While battle raged on one side of the board, Mike and I continued
to build our forces and posture. Being separated by volcanoes
and mountains meant that this was going to be a long cold war
between us. As the game progressed, it was interesting to note
that each of us four were consul at least once.
Finally, on the fifth turn, I made my move against Mike. I used
a two pronged attack strategy. Although I was unable to take any
locations, or even a hex with a location in it, I was successful
(and extremely lucky) in destroying a large number of units of
both Mike and Dan while suffering only moderate casualties and
making a little head way into Mike's territory. Unfortunately,
we had to end the game there, it being a Monday night and us needed
to get our beauty sleep. At that point in the game, no clear winner
could be declared.
Conclusions: We like Thunders Edge! Now that we have had attacking clarified, we expect the game to be much more fluid; with cities and hexes being traded back and forth. We are also very excited to get and try the expansion for this game. The game impresses us as being somewhat like axis & allies, but with more depth added by the randomness of the hexes, senate phase, off-world locations, missions, and alliance rules. So, if you are looking for a good evening's worth of fun and like strategy and tactics, then this game is for you.