HF4A 59: The Assembly Assembles

Mar 1 2025

Tags

This was another great competitive game. I really enjoy how the patent system works competitively, it's so much better than how it works in the solitaire game.

My stack started out really crap, and I made the commitment to just get something out there, choosing Lutetia as a first target. Fortunately, I did claim it, and some lucky patent acquisitions had me building a 3 component M stack at Lutetia.

Getting a refinery with black +2 on drops made Vesta an obvious target with Saturn Aerostat to close out the game. I made a few more claims along the way.

Opponent started with a strong stack, except I had to poach the bomb reactor he needed. Otherwise he would have been a Thrust 3, Burn 1/4 rocket right from the start. That's a game winner. Having thrown a spanner into that, it took him a while to get back together. He went pretty strong but did get unlucky on some FINAO rolls.

All in all an excellent game!

Here's what the Assembly looked like at the end of the game. Neither of us had any faction advantage when I placed the final Legacy Vote (red disk) on Yellow.

Political assembly

Here's how the score worked out:

↓ Type	Andrew	Dave
Bits on Board	8	12
Factories	16	24
Glories	2	1
Bio/Sub	0	0
Politics	2	2
Booby Prizes	2	0
Futures	0	0
Contracts	0	0
Total	30	39

We didn't play with either Futures or Contracts, but I put them in as placeholders for future games for the table generator.

Here's the board state at the end of the game:

Board state

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.