Pandemic, Hive and more non-wargames
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At the moment, I don't have the time or set up space to deal with my usual wargame fare, so I'm playing through a number of lighter games. It feels like cheating to get my games played count and H-Index up, and perhaps in a way it is. I may separate out wargame stats from total stats in the future. In the meantime, I rather enjoy Hive and Pandemic, so I'm not sure why I give a damn.
Hive
Another round with the AI on medium setting, and I lost by one move. The AI is working that beetle hard on the medium setting, and I'm starting to do the same. While it sucks to lose to a machine, it still feels pretty good to see the endgame several moves ahead. In this game, I was pretty sure I had lost it about 3 moves before Black's final move. Even better, I know Black was going to sink the beetle, and that's exactly what it did.
Game 2: At YTO f2f against BB, just barely won.
Game 3: At YTO f2f against JT, he handed me my ass despite never playing it before. It was embarrassing. He did mention later that his grandfather pounded him at chess for years, which may be why he's so good at looking many moves ahead.
Flash Point
6 player basic game at YTO, pretty fun, we won it. I'd like to get this group into the standard game, even into the expansions maybe in the future. We'll see how it goes.
One benefit is that it played out pretty fast.
I still have problems with rules.
Pandemic
Solo play with 2 hands, the Contingency Planner and the Quarantine Specialist.
I think I won it, although the first couple of turns I forget to draw cards and infect. I did well enough to have 11 Event ards left in the stack, and played 3 of 4 Epidemic cards. I may have missed advancing Outbreak and Infection Rate by 1 or 2, but these had plenty left in the track so there was no danger of losing from those.
From what I've read, Pandemic is regarded as somewhat simplistic, and certainly isn't to everyone's taste, but I think I like it well enough, and it seems easy enough to play with general audiences.
I do have a hard time playing this solo as I forgot who's "turn" it is. I get absorbed in the game play and lose track. This should be easier playing it with others.
Hapsburg Eclipse
In a departure from my normal practice, I'm not logging the entire play for this game of Hapsburg Eclipse. Instead, I'm playing each card very carefully, and checking through the rules.
This has already been productive, as I just learned from the first card that I've been playing Loyalties wrong: I've been moving the Loyalty track automatically instead of making a loyalty check roll. The token only moves towards revolt if the check fails. I can still attempt to move it back right during the Action phase if the check fails. This really helps the game play.
Got part of the way through the Yellow deck, but finally lost on National Will. The Polish and Carpathian Fronts occupied the flag spaces, which really adds up the points. Good game, I learned more of the rules.
Betrayal at House on the Hill
JT brought this over as a present for BB, so we played a 6 player game of it. Our situation resolved into ThFiddler (Number 9), and I got to be the first Bad Guy. By the end of the game, we had one dead, several bad guys, but QA pulled it out with some super lucky rolls. Otherwise, Team Fiddler would hav won it for sure, namely, my character.