Fire in the Lake 12 (and more)

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Had a great day at EGO with AS, it's been quite a while. We started with Fire in the Lake, then the Colony Wars version of Star Realms, then a couple of rounds of Zombie Dice.

Fire in the Lake went for 2 of 3 coup rounds; we played the short game and the second coup round cam up pretty quick after the first coup round. I played US/ARVN, and had positioned the ARVN for a win with adding Patronage during Govern activities. Worked out wells, ARVN took the win with a score of 53. This was actually pretty lucky.

My luck held through Star Realms where I put together a terrifying combo of Empire cards which took a couple of rounds to ramp up, then slaughtered. This was one of the first times I've played Star Empire and won against AS. He usually beats me pretty good at this game. It's probably because very few Blob appeared. If there had been more blob, he would have probably beat me.

We closed out with a couple of games of Zombie Dice, where once again, against all odds, my luck held out and I won both games. The first was a skunk. This is super rare, I almost always lose at this game against eveyrbody, and definitely against AS. We played with the Biff dice and the Lunch Wagon. My winning roll on the first game landed 3 brains on the Lunch Wagon. First time that's happened.

All in all, I won a bunch today, more than usual.

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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.