Cabin Con 2021 - Part VI

 Cabin Con 2021 - Part VI

I mentioned previously that I was looking forward to teaching my buddy Josh how to play Star Wars Armada. And that's exactly what we did first thing on Saturday morning! Apologies to anyone who's actually trying to keep track of the chronological order of games - I more or less threw that out the window when I covered Twilight Imperium in Part V of my Cabin Con recap. But in this case, I'm certain that Saturday morning was spent with Armada. I had brought the Republic starter set, squadron packs, and upgrade card pack that I'd picked up for him, as well as some promo stuff (including a really excellent Venator alt-art card, courtesy of JOtto over at Jotto.Alts@gmail.com) and some excellent range rulers (set in Republic colors, of course!) courtesy of Admiral Tater's Ship Shop. Seriously, these guys make ridiculously quality stuff; check out their awesome Armada swag/gear!

Anyway, we set up the game with two test fleets I'd built for the Republic and Separatists. They're listed below. We played without commanders and without an objective so that we could just cover the basic mechanics of the game.

Josh has played X-Wing for years and is quite good at it (took 2nd at GenCon the last time there was a GenCon in person!), so he was able to translate some of that experience and skill into learning Armada. As he chose to invest in Republic, I obviously set him up with the Republic learning fleet, listed below.

Republic learning fleet (60/253/300)

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Venator II-class Star Destroyer (100 + 5: 105)

· Clone Captain Zak (5)

Pelta-class Transport Frigate (45 + 3: 48)

· Munitions Resupply (3)

Armed Cruiser (37 + 3: 40)

· Swift Return (3)

Plo Koon (24)

3 x V-19 Torrent Squadron (3 x 12)

I keep my teaching fleets simple while also trying to employ some of the most fun and iconic elements of the faction. In this case, I obviously included a Venator, as well as a Jedi and some V-19s. Since Josh was flying Republic, I obviously was going to fly Separatists, so the below covers my own learning fleet.

Separatist learning fleet (55/255/400)

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Recusant-class Light Destroyer (85 + 4: 89)

· Shu Mai (4)

Battle Refit (52 + 7: 59)

· Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)

Transport (47 + 5: 52)

· Foreman's Labor (5)

General Grievous (22)

3 x Tri-Fighter Squadron (3 x 11)

In my mind, there isn't much that's iconic of Separatists other than droids, so I included them in the squadron game. You can see how we deployed above. There's not a whole lot I can remember about this particular match except that Josh won by low double-digit points. We talked our way through squadron engagement and how issuing squadron commands through dials was key. It didn't hurt Josh too much because he didn't have bombers (intentional on my part so that the bombers wouldn't be stuck with nothing to do if a squadron dial was not used), and my squadrons were all too happy to engage his for a fun dogfight! It was a good time, and we'd clash on the battlefield again at the end of the weekend. This time, with 400 points of our own building.

I think it was Sunday morning when we played Pitch Car, if I'm not mistaken? And this was maybe the only game of the weekend of which I didn't take a picture...

...so I stole one from Shut Up and Sit Down, which is a great source for game reviews and playthroughs!

It's a damn shame I didn't get a picture of our track, too, because it was pretty cool and featured a decently epic jump (that I failed to make through I don't know how many attempts...). I'm not generally one for dexterity games. One of the few is Flick of Faith, which I found to be fun and fast. So when the guys were all talking up Pitch Car during Suf's bachelor party weekend (see Part I of this recap!), I was dubious, but would obviously play along. By the time Cabin Con 2021 was rolling around, I was really looking forward to Pitch Car! Here's the thing: I'd never buy it for myself, nor would I want to set it up. But the creativity with which Drew and other folks in the Cabin Con crew build a track each year really makes for a terrific time. So with this group, I'm all too happy to play this game, which is really pretty simple: each of us gets a little disc that represents a car, and we race around the track by flicking the disc. I think Drew just absolutely murdered us in this one, beating everyone else by an insane distance once he made the big jump. I finished last and got lapped. Like, a bunch. I think that's because I did well in Flick Car the previous year...

Speaking of dexterity games: Handimonium. Or as I had heard it called all weekend leading up to it, "Tiny Hands." I had no idea what the hell "Tiny Hands" was. But I do know that it is a lot of fun. Basically, two players each get a pair of tiny hands with which they have to execute different tasks. It can be played cooperatively or competitively. We decided to play it competitively to see who could stack up the most wins. I really can't stress enough how hilarious this ended up being. At least, as an observer. As a player, I found it stressful, and was all too happy to pass on my turns after one of my tiny hands put a scratch in the table while trying to peel an orange. I maybe tried to dig at the orange too enthusiastically. So, you know, the playing surface should be a consideration...

Look at those tiny hands!

LOOK AT THEM!

So my task was to peel an orange and I had to play against Josh. I gave up quickly when I scratched the table, so Josh got the win by default. But he proceeded to peel the orange with those tiny hands anyway. It was real impressive. In that first picture, Johnny is attempting to draw a picture, but dropped the pencil from the start and had a devil of time picking it up again. By the time he got it back to the table, Mike was real far ahead of him and ran away with the task. That second picture is of Josh celebrating his ingenuity. I can't remember who he was playing against, but they had to push a mug across the table. Josh basically got that mug sliding all the way across in one go, and it just wasn't even close.

There are a number of games I really enjoy watching, but don't so much enjoy playing. I was excited to play Handimonium, but after scratching the table, I was tapped out for the rest of the game. I could've tried to continue playing and just been more careful, but it was too late: I was already stressed about doing more property damage with these tiny doll hands. But this is a game I'm all too happy to watch and enjoy, so I highly recommend this particular dexterity game, so long as you've got a card table or some such that you don't mind tearing up a little bit while enthusiastically peeling an orange, picking up a pencil, or whatever task you get stuck doing!

Finally, speaking of games I'm all too happy to watch, I want to discuss Crokinole.

If you aren't familiar with Crokinole, I'm not at all surprised. I wasn't either. But I'm here to tell you that you'll be doing yourself a favor if you learn about it now. Ryan brought up this beautifully crafted game and had mentioned it throughout the weekend. As Ryan had the longest trip home and had to leave the cabin earlier than the rest of us come Monday morning, we broke this out on Sunday evening to make sure we got it in, and I'm SO glad we did.

Basically, we played with two teams of two, which meant each player got 6 discs. The first player tries to shoot their disc into the center “20" hole. If it successfully lands completely within the hole, the disc is removed and set aside to count as 20 points at the end of the round. If it does not land in the “20" hole, but is still on the playing surface, the next player must shoot at that opposing disc in an effort to knock it into the “ditch.” If they miss or their disc does not in any way touch that opposing disc, their disc must come off the playing surface and be put in the ditch. Caroms (bouncing off a post or other disc) or combination shots are allowed. In a caroms shot, if the opponents disc is not touched, both the played disc and any of the shooter’s same colour discs that have been moved will be placed in the ditch. A shot that goes off the playing surface and bounces back on is considered out of play. It is removed to the ditch. Any other discs it may have touched will remain where they are. A disc that touches the “shooting line” (after it is played, or has been hit) does not count and will be removed to the “ditch.”

When that particular round is finished (all discs having been played), the person sitting to the left of the player who started the previous round will begin the new round, and so on with each round. The game itself sounds a little more complicated from a scoring standpoint than it actually is. It helped to have Ryan teach us so we could just start right away and learn as we went. Again, I'm not usually for dexterity games, but this one is a lot of fun! Also, Ryan's set is just beautiful. I enjoyed the game so much that I looked into buying one, buuuutttt quality costs money, so I've decided to keep playing on Ryan's set.

Calm down, Morpheus; I brought plenty of games to share. I'm allowed to mooch off of Ryan's game...

I'm pretty sure I was on Josh's team for the first game and that we ended up outscoring our competition in the first round. By the time we got to the second round, some other folks were around and hadn't gotten to play yet. So I tagged out from my own team while Suf tagged out from his. At this point, though, we were really enjoying watching everyone else play, but decided something was lacking. After some brief discussion, it became clear that what this game was missing was commentary. There's commentary for curling, so why not for Crokinole? Frankly, I thought we were doing a great job. But after a little while, it became clear that we were missing our "reporter on the field." At that point, Drew stepped up to complete our team, complete with post-game interviews. I'm not sure there's room for any more awesome in what transpired here, but I know we're gonna try and cram in more awesomeness come Cabin Con 2022 Crokinole!

Only 8 games left to cover (9, if we include the Armada rematch between Josh and myself); hope you stick with it through to the end, because I'm really looking forward to sharing the rest of the weekend with y'all!

**Just a reminder: if anyone reading this is interested in this most excellent group of adventurers and their exploits, you should check out their Twitter! They're the Champions of Valinwood! 

https://mobile.twitter.com/ValinwoodHeroes/status/1417585561817260038