Had some games over the weekend.
Friends were over on Saturday and we played Vampire the Masquerade: Vendetta, which I always enjoy, even if I am getting stomped. I was the Gangrel, one friend was the Tremere, the other the Nosferatu, and my wife the Ventrue. Everyone had some good plays, but the Tremere ultimately won with 26 points, my wife had 24, shockingly I was in third with 18, and the Nosferatu brought up the rear with 17.
We followed that up with a quick game of Kingdomino, using the variants for bonus points if your grid is complete and points if your castle is on the center square. I won this one with 64, the Tremere player had 57, my wife 51, and our fourth player was in last again with 47.
They left and later my wife and I played Lost Cities which I won.
The next day we played Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game, which I won as the Rebels, getting some heavy hitting cards and managing to remove four of my starting cards, giving me a rather slim deck with lots of damage. Took out her second base in one go after she only got to use it once, which helped immensely.
We followed that up with another game of Lost Cities, which I again won thanks to a good first round, getting the 20 points bonus for having 8 cards in my blue expedition.
Wrapped up with two plays of a new game, Kiri-ai: the duel, which I really enjoyed. I had broken this out a few days ago just to show my wife how it worked, but we didn’t really play then.
The game is just 16 cards and represents a duel between two samurai. One card is the battlefield, consisting of a line with five diamonds on it. Two cards are a samurai for each player, and they start at opposite ends of the battlefield. Those cards have two stances depicted on them, Heaven (high) and Earth (low), and whichever side is on the battlefield is the stance you are in. Both start in Heaven stance. The card is also two sided, as if you take a damage, you flip the card to the other side, and if you get damaged again, you lose.
Each player has five identical cards representing movement, stance change, or attacks. The remaining three cards are special attacks, each player gets one and the third is secretly set aside.
Every round, both players will choose two cards from their hand to play, placing them face down on the table. Both then reveal their first card and resolve them. Movement happens first, and then attacks. Possible moves are stance change, one step forward, two steps forward, or one step back. The samurai cannot pass each other, so at most can end up on the same space. Each player has the same three attacks, one that hits two spaces ahead of you and requires Heaven stance, one that hits one space in front of you that requires Earth stance, and one that hits the space you are in and can be in either stance.
The three special attacks are a counterattack, that will hit your opponent instead if they successfully hit you, one that hits both your space and the one in front of it and requires Earth stance, but changes you to Heaven stance afterward, and then one that hits two and three spaces ahead of you, requiring Heaven stance and switches you to Earth stance.
If both players play an attack card that would hit the opponent, their swords clash and no one takes damage. If a player is hit, they flip their samurai card to the damaged side, and if it’s their second hit, they lose.
After cards are resolved, players take the first card back into their hand and the second card is set aside. Going forward, players will take their first card and also the card that was set aside the previous turn back into their hands at the end of the round. Special attack cards are removed from the game once used, so that will not go back to hand or be set aside. Then the next round begins.
My wife’s dyslexia was kind of kicking in here, as she had to repeatedly ask which card came back to her hand and which was set aside, but otherwise it went really well, I thought. I won the first game, but she was still coming to grips with the iconography. She ended up winning the second game, partly because I was still doing the same. :). But she outplayed me fair and square. It was fun, and there’s a lot of yomi involved.
