So we travelled down to Kernow to Snake-eye’s crib for a quick game of a Study in Emerald. While we waited for Tiger-King to arrive, Steedo, DK, Snake-eyes and myself plan a couple of games of Skull (I believe that DK and Steedo won a game each).
We settled down to start the main event game with a frenzy of beige snacks - never a good thing.
Early game or start - the game is interesting as we have secret loyalties, which mean that if one of your “side” is in last position you will lose even if you have the most victory points - very frustrating. You also have to spend part of the game working out who is on your side - well you should, but I was fiction what I was doing, so it was only later in the game that it became apparent who was what. You have to decide if you collect points by controlling cities (which can be taken away from you with their points) or to collect agents and cards to build your hand.
DK made the early running followed by Steedo and my good self - Snake-eyes and Tiger-King holding off scoring for a while. The main scoring was by controlling cities, which DK getting to 21 points by around 10:50pm - might be an early night - 22 points needed to end the game for final scoring. But he was pegged back and the lead switched between DK, Steedo and myself, with Tiger-King stubbornly sticking to zero points. Steedo decided around this time to switch allegiance and come over to the loyalists to the cthulhu and Tiger-King left as the only humanist in the game. Now you would think that 4 versus 1 would give the advantage to the 4, but as we were all trying to win Tiger-King was all but ignored as we tried to get to the elusive 22 points to end the game and win. While we were distracted Tiger-King was moving around the board killing the Cthulhu royal and bagging potential points for the future, quite quickly - I tried to intervene but my vampire turned out to be a double agent and the killing spree continued … the penny them dropped that Tiger-King would win if one of use was in last place! One of the stupid rules is that if a loyalist to the Cthulhu is in last place, all the other loyalists are disqualified and the humans win - as there was only one of these left …
Anyway time was ticking on - approaching 1am, so Steedo played the great Cthulhu card and destroyed Paris and DK’s points there … I then triggered the all out war track, causing game end conditions … there had been a number of calls to make the game stop …
The final scores on the doors 29 to me, 23 to Snake-eyes and Steedo, 22 to Tiger-King and 19 to DK … a moral victory to me, but because the rules say that if a loyalist is in last place the rest are disqualified it was a technical (rules lawyer) victory to Tiger-King.
A good time was had by all - an interesting and fun game, with lots of depth and complexity, but one that I think shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
Thanks for hosting Snake-eyes and for Nic (his better half) for supplying pizza and coffee!
Morts
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