They Come Unseen - Osprey Games ... Some thoughts

Way back in February I was given They Come Unseen. There are a couple of reason for taking 6 months to get in to the table: 

1 - the components were incomplete and it took awhile to get replacements, which Osprey did so no complaints there. 

2 - we have too many games and not enough time to play them ...

The game parts are really nice and it is a well produced game (which all the Osprey games I have are) - would have been nice to have little ship models but the card ones do the job well. 

The game is a challenging one of hidden movement, reasource management and timing. The theme is NATO subs try to destroy Soviet ice stations in the Cold War - there are 6 stations, 4 of which (randomly selected) the NATO player has to destroy - the Soviet mission is simples, destroy the subs. 

NATO had 2 subs and 2 sets of mines (the NATO player can't directly attack Soviet ships), the Soviets start with 2 destroyers, 1 supply ship (which can refuel and/or re-arm the destroyers at sea) and 2 container ships which can move supplies about the ice stations and resupply the supply ship at sea. 

Destroying the different ice station affects the Soviet supplies they have available. 

There are weather rules - but we haven't tried them yet as we felt we needed to get to grips with the basics first. 

On Thursday Steedo and I played 2 games, once each as the subs and then the destroyers - the results were NATO 2 wins and the Soviets zero - didn't even manage to sink on sub between us!

We were seriously worried about the balance of the game and if the Soviets had a chance of winning at all. 

So Snake-eyes was able to make a visit down oh Friday (after his early departure from the last session), so after a quick run through the rules (well about half an hour) he took on the role of the Soviets versus me as the NATO subs. The game progressed as Steedo's and mine had the previous evening, with 2 ice stations taken out without Snake-eyes making any contacts .... Then Snake-eyes changed tactics and started overlapping the sonar zones of the destroyers and before I knew it ....

He sank my sub! (To paraphrase an old advert)

I managed one more ice startion destroyed before he sank the other sub .....

So we played another game this time Steedo and I having a sub each versus Snake-eyes as the Soviets again .... This time he was on us very quickly using the "Snorts" (the NATO players resource management is to recharge the batteries by coming to periscope depth, but this leaves a reference point for the Soviets)  to pinpoint the location of one of the subs - and within 3 turns had sank one! Steedo ploughed with the mission and with some well placed mines and an ice station destroyed left Snake-eyes with only 2 salvos to destroy the last sub .... Which he managed! 

Two impressive wins to Snake-eyes!

So 4 games in two evenings 2 wins to NATO and 2 to the Soviets - the game is balanced then. I would like to try this with more players (it says up to 5) as the communication between players would be interesting to observe. Overall a good game with lots of replay ability.

We also managed 2 games of Arboretum, which is an interest German card game about trees ... Could be anything which you have to create runs of cards to earn points. Suffice to say I only had a vague idea of the rules (but enough to come up with a couple of strategies ... Mainly holding on to high point cards to stop others scoring), but managed to win both games - Yay me!

So Friday stood out as a rare thing - no wins for Steedo!

Morts