Poor Yellow, Indeed!

Taking a look at the picture I posted below earlier this afternoon, I was hurtin' badly in our first official by-the-rules game of Dust. I was doing okay, no big threat or anything, but I was dominating the oceans for several turns in a row with my strong focus on submarines. That is, I was doing fine until I was surprise attacked from the player who was probably furthest away from me. Emphasis on surprise here as it didn't seem to make a lot of tactical sense at the time. He went after one of my production plants and was able to conquer it. I was down, but not quite out as it was my turn next. I retook it, but the attempt cost me my entire turn and all of my resources.

I was never able to come back fully from that attack as the next two turns would see me lose an additional production plant and eventually my capital itself. The nice thing about Dust is that, since I still had men in the field, I wasn't out, but I couldn't win until I got that capital back, and it definitely wasn't in the cards for me to make that happen. Instead I did the best I could and came away with third place. Ouch. Regardless, it was still a fun game, and more importantly, I was happy with how the game play actually plays out since I've had it for over two years without actually being able to pull together a session of it from start to finish.

I grew up playing Risk primarily, so these kinds of games are right up my alley. I always try to find something that offers the rush of Risk with a more in-depth style of play and bigger amount of strategic choices to pull from. Dust definitely has shades of Risk, but I love the more complex resource, victory point-focus, and army construction system. I would also love to see an expansion that offers a different set of action cards (with different special abilities) as well as two or three extra units to choose from per color. Objective or scenario-based play would also be highly welcomed.

The other game we played this afternoon was our trusty old copy of Neuroshima Hex! I played the fan-generated army Mephisto again, which I enjoy playing quite a bit even though I've never won with it. Just like in Dust, I ended up in third place. Looking back I think it was actually the exact same win order. Just kind odd. Mephisto pulled through again in being fun and tricksy, but ultimately was too difficult to manage a competent defense.

I've been talking about this for weeks, but I'm really hoping next Friday to run my one-page adventure of Savage Worlds to introduce the rules system to The Group so we can get closer to making up characters for my Day After Ragnarok game I'm planning. We're also one step closer in playing Mike's Genius: The Transgression game, which I am also very stoked for. Wish us luck, I'm off to work on my upcoming article series for Eye of the Vortex exploring the factions for Warhammer: Invasion LCG.