CabinCon 2022 - Part III

 CabinCon 2022 - Part III

Last time you joined us, I had started talking about Project: ELITE. Lots of tower defense here as we try to achieve objectives whilst defending against wave after wave of alien minis. It's a co-op game in which we have very limited communication that we can only share while we are in the middle of the action. I think if the game were more complicated than it is, this limit on communication would also stress me out. But truth be told, I feel like it's easy enough to prioritize targets and tasks, roll the dice, and still communicate effectively with others. It adds to the chaos of the moment and while this is normally the kind of thing I just don't like while playing a game, it really works for me here! I played as Voker, whose special ability is extra movement when he rolls movement on the dice. The first round went okay as we dipped our toe into the game - we completed the Event card, but accomplished little else. We had all agreed on our various objectives based on our abilities and weapons and then proceeded into the second round.

At this point, it behooves me to point out that our objective was to exterminate all the nests out on the battlefield before returning to base. We'd agreed that it made the most sense for me to take forward positions and work on exterminating the nests because of my mobility. The second round went pretty well! We eliminated a bunch of enemies and killed off one of the nests. But I also got caught in a forward position because I'd used all of my dice to exterminate a nest. I hadn't really thought about that cost of my attacking the nests solo, so it really bit me when I got caught within attack range of 4 different aliens. 3 of them ended up hitting me, dropping me to only 3 health, which meant I had also lost a die (as characters get wounded, they lose dice they can roll for actions) while still caught behind enemy lines. Despite being stuck back there, I did manage to take out several more nests before Drew was able to get over to me and offer support. At that point, I was able to run like hell (especially with the help of the Alien DNA item that Johnny handed off to me while he was mowing down enemies.

Going into round 7, we had exterminated all of the nests and were headed home. We had two rounds to get back to base, so it was looking pretty good at this point. By the end of round 7, everyone but Josh and Ryan were in the extraction zone, so we were easily able to win in round 8. It was fun! I'll be honest: I had doubts going into this one because the theme seemed pretty generic to me and, again, the time thing. I've mentioned before that I'll happily play XCOM, but it stresses me out unless I'm playing the scientist. Mostly because I understand the role, but also because it's a support role and an easy one: I ask and assess what people need, then prioritize those cards. Boom. Done. So I wasn't stoked about this one. But the stress it created for me was fun rather than distracting from the game. I enjoyed playing instead of just hoping it'd be over soon, such as when I've played Set or Magic Maze. There are other objectives to play and such, but I'm glad I got to play someone else's copy of this game because it's not really one I'd personally keep on my shelf. Mostly because it's got a decently big footprint for a game that doesn't do anything new for me, either from a theme or mechanical standpoint. But I also wouldn't hesitate to play it again!

The guys continued playing beyond Project: ELITE, but I was ready to call it a night. So I crashed and missed whatever came next. But I can't say I minded, as one decent night's sleep later, I got to open a day of gaming with that white whale I've been pursuing for a little while now: Rising Sun.

That's right. I've been painting the minis in this Eric Lang game for far too long, and wanting to play the game for even longer. Josh, Ryan and I sat down and I took to setting it up. I've owned it for quite awhile and read the rulebook I don't know how many times. I had already thought it looked damn cool, but one of the guys who works at a game store I frequent talked about how excellent it was and I was easily sold. It's not a game with an insane playtime or huge footprint on the table, and it seats 3-5, which is reasonable. I just couldn't get it to the table. Most of that was the pandemic, but some of it was simply that it was just sort of never in the cards. When picking a game to play, I think there's more to the process than just picking the game I most want to play. Who are you playing with - are they up for learning a new game? What kind of games do they like? Is this the kind of game you want to play with this person or these people? How much time do you have to play? Did you pick the game the last time y'all got together, or did they? It can lead to a bit of analysis paralysis and I know not everyone functions this way. But for me personally, I do try to give these things thought before selecting a title or getting into a game because like any relationship, it's worth considering the other person.

Sorry if that sounded a little preachy, but I think it just came up a bunch this weekend. We were all asking what other people wanted to play and what their priorities were. Sometimes it slowed us down, but honestly, we each come to the cabin with games we're anticipating while also trying to be considerate of others and extremely flexible. Which is super cool! But if you knew each of these guys like I do, you'd also understand that every single one of them would be perfectly capable of not playing a single game they were excited about playing if they knew everyone else was enjoying them. So I think we just kept checking in with one another, especially if we knew we'd just played something someone else didn't like or if one of us hadn't suggested a title in awhile. Everytime in past years the guys had played Champions of Midgard, Josh had somehow missed it. So while we gave him shit about how we'd play it while he was cooking dinner one night or while he was outside exercising, we made sure we got to it and that he got to play.

So up until this point, breaking out Rising Sun on my own gaming table just wasn't in the cards. I had specifically painted all of the core Monsters (except for the Oni of Spite, who I find difficult as hell to paint well! And I just ran outta time) for the weekend, so I was really high on getting it to the table. Honestly, I also think I'll be pushing it on my buddies Biff and Cush when we get together for games, but this was a great start. So Ryan, Josh and I sat down and they picked out clans while I set up the game. Ryan went with the Dragonfly Clan, later explaining that he'd picked it because the logistics are so good. Josh picked the Moon Clan because they're bullies and get strength bonuses. I agonized for a moment, but decided on the Turtle Clan just because they look cool. Also, I have the Kickstarter components, so they've got those cool plastic Strongholds built on the back of giant turtles.

Honestly, it didn't matter which clan I chose, since I pretty much knew my strategy: buy ALL the monsters. I'm not saying it's a sound strategy! But I had painted them, so I wanted them to be out there on the board! Also, this is where I need to point out that my impending victory was not really a legitimate one. Josh had picked the Moon Clan, which can't purchase Monsters. The Moon and Sun Clans come in an expansion with a special kind of Monster called Lucky Gods. Whenever either of those clans are in the game, the Lucky Gods should also be in the game. But when I mentioned that I needed to break them out, Josh told me not to worry about it. I didn't realize it was a requirement, though, so we just sort of pressed forward. Ultimately, had Lucky Gods been part of the game, it's possible the results would've been different.

It was really interesting learning about the flow of the game because combat just sort of isn't like any other combat I've experienced. So major props to Eric Lang for his design, because it's absolutely different from anything else I've played or seen before. It felt a little counterintuitive with regards to rewards earned from battle and such, but honestly, I'd come to really like and respect it by the end of our game! While I was stockpiling Monsters, Ryan was focusing on purchasing cards that would buff his Bushi and Josh bought cards that gave his warriors more strength. Since it was my first time playing, the full implications of what they were buying didn't really hit me until later. At which point, it was nearly disastrous! Since we were all sort of feeling out the game, it was more or less a civil game full of alliances and careful avoidance of too much conflict. I allied with Josh in the second round and Ryan in the third and while I was tempted to go with Betrayal, I thought I was ahead enough on points that I didn't need to tempt fate.

In the final season, I thought combat with Josh was basically a forgone conclusion because I wanted the province for my set and I easily had him outmuscled, even if he managed to take one of my monsters as a hostage. It had already happened once to my Oni of Souls so I couldn't score a bunch of points for beating Ryan in an earlier battle. I figured even if Josh did capture my Oni of Souls, I still had the strength to beat him, score the province, and add the token to my set. But clearly, I wasn't paying nearly enough attention to his tech, because what I thought was a Bushi was his Daimyo, and his Daimyo was buffed all to hell. I had thought about putting my coins on Imperial Poets so I could just score the points if he managed to knock out my warriors, but I got greedy and threw them all on Take Hostage. Josh had way more money than I did, but I thought I might be able to catch him if he got greedy and split it up for points from Poets, Take Hostage, and maybe Ronin to keep up with me. Man, I completely misjudged the situation. So he took my Oni hostage. Actually, two of them, because I forgot he had that upgrade card purchased. And then it turned out that when it was all said and done, he actually did have more strength than me. So I still lost everything and got absolutely nothing for my folly. It was brutal.

We entered the end game and I still felt decent on points, especially because my end game scoring card gave me bonus points for monsters, and I had four or five of them. But the score ended up much closer than I anticipated, as Ryan came in third with 39, but Josh and I tied at 54. It's funny: I'd been looking for opportunities to lose Honor throughout the game in order to strengthen my Oni of Skulls. But it never felt like the right moment for Betray, and so I maintained my Honor from the beginning of the game, which meant I was still on top of the Honor stack, which meant I won the tiebreaker. Again, I think things are very different if we play properly with the Lucky Gods, but it was still fun to have our first game come down to the wire.

I think that, at this point, not everyone was up for games owing to work or whatever else, so I was asked what we should hit next. This was easy because it was definitely time I introduced folks to Planet Unknown. So we're leaving Japan and headed to outer space next time on this CabinCon 2022 recap!