I have been wanting to do some game reviews or some posts on board games for some time now. What’s been stopping me? I am glad you asked… well I will tell you. Mostly the fact that I am not the best teacher of games in the world. It doesn’t mean that I CANNOT teach a game, but more-so that I cannot spell out how to play in simple words. And to me, it seems that most decent reviews spell out so much of the game in good terms that I just don’t think I can do that effectively, so it kinda scares me to try and review a game. BUT if I was to tell how I feel about a game without going to crazy into the rules then sure I think my reviews would be just fine. I guess the difference between game reviews and movie reviews is that no one cares if you spoil any part of a board game.

So this past week at the board game night at my FLGS (friendly local game shop), Gamers Armory,  I got to play for the short stay. I usually try and go to board game night there (on Wednesdays ) when I don’t have to work that night so I can stay  there until 10pm which is there usual stopping time. Unfortunately, Mrs. Geekjock has had to work a few Wed. in a row 9-9 so that’s made my longer gaming on those Wed.s impossible. SO I have had to try and squeeze in some board game night fix on my work week, which is only so so b.c I have to leave by 845 to get to work so that kinda eliminates more then 1 semi-long game per night. What tends to happen most BG nights, even on the non-work weeks, is us gamers tend to do the high school kid thing…. “What do you want to play”, “I don’t care what do you want to play”… And this can go on for a while. So anyway, last week I knew a friend of mine was going to be there around 7pm, and I just bought one of the new hotness, of games Quarriors! from WizK!ds games. So we kinda killed some time till he got there and then we got a game of Quarriors! going.

In a nutshell, Quarriors!, is Dominion with dice. It’s a quickish (15-30mins) game and it’s real light hearted so don’t take it too seriously. I love the game tho mainly b/c I love two things in games a ton… DICE and.. CARDS… and well like I said this game has them… 130 dice to be exact. You start with 12 pre-determined dice in your pile which you then put in your bag and draw out 6 at a time. Then you roll them. You either roll Quidity (The money) or the basic monster on one of the 4 starting monster dice. You then will eventually start buying up some monsters or spells from the 10 randomly choosen middle available in the game (just like Dominion has 10 cards each game at random). Basically if your monster you summon lives till your next turn you score points. Certain number of points that person wins. It’s not that simple b/c of spells and special abilities but I have to say it’s just chock full of fun.

So before I try and remember the other games from BG night let me just tell about all the Quarriors! plays of this week. So that night I played 4 players with 2 SERIOUS board gamers, myself and one other friend of mine (the one who I was waiting on to show him). The 2 serious guys didn’t seem to enjoy it, I think , mainly b/c it’s not a deep strategy game. Sometimesyou just take whatever and have fun. You could sit there and agonize about what to buy but that rips 1/2 of the fun out of it. But dice roll them have fun… not much more needed. Myself and my lighter game buddy both enjoyed it.. I think the jury is still out till he plays it again but I will repeat htis100x I LOVE IT.

Quarriors Set up (image borrowed from baordgamegeek.com)

I then showed it to Mrs. Geekjock the next day and played it 2x with her, and she seemed to really enjoy it as well. Again, for the 1st game or two you just buy whatever till you get used to what the varying monsters and spells can do then you get that “AHHH” feeling to it, when it clicks. One quick not quite that high point of the game. And this could be the same for a bunch of other games, but sometimes it can be the race for the big bad creature die, and the one who gets it tends to win. Granted you still have to roll the creature with said die but still tends to happen. But, like I keep saying I love this game anyway. Another time I played Q, was even with my 7 year old. I figured she loves dice like I do, so why not give it a try. We didn’t water down the rules at all but all I did was tell her how much quddity she had to spend and which dice she could purchase and she picked. In the end Mrs. Geekjock won but my daughter did quite well and had fun at the same time. Score another victory for Quarriors.

Another game I got to play at BG night was Alhambra the card game. I had never played either Alhambra or the card game and we were looking for a filler so GAME ON! It’s an easy game to learn and play and went nice and quick and like almost every card game the guys at BG night have taken out to play it was fun and I would like to grab a copy if I see it somewhere. Add it to the good list like Bohnanza, Foppen, Citadels and For Sale for good card fun.

The last game of note that I got to play this week as always was Ascension. Yes it’s yet another deck building game and yes I have been playing the hell out of it but it’s among my favorite games right now and I can’t seem to get enough of it between the board version or the iPad app (which is simply the greatest app out there right now!). So other then the usual constant game I always have going with Todd (co-host with me on our podcast “The Geek Allstars” check it out on iTunes today!), where when the one game is over we simply start the next up, I also got to play some of the actual card game with the Mrs. on Thursday some as well. We were basically practicing some for the big day on Saturday. Yep, that’s right we went up to the Gamers Armory for an Ascension Game Days TOURNAMENT! The podcast was represented in full effect with all 3 of us there as well as Mrs. Geekjock there as well. We were determined to have one of us win the whole shebang!

Warning: This next little bit will have some technical stuff from the game so sorry if you don’t know or like the game and also sorry I don’t know the exact name of all the cards if I mention one or two of them.

This game is simply awesome (Img from BGG.com)

We first got our seat assignments for the start of the tourney. There were 16 players so we had 3 tables of 4 and the top 2 from each table was going to advance to the semi’s and then the top two from there for the finals. So we listened to the draws and it turned out that right away Todd, Red, and Mrs. Geekjock all ended up at the same table for round 1 with me at a different table. The good thing was, we were guaranteed a member of our 4 to be in the 2nd round, but the bad thing is we had no shot of getting all 4 of us to the finals (yeah I know greedy).

Round 1

We played without the expansion this round b/c we only had 2 expansion sets available at the time. I was a bit worried about this. I am a decent player in person with the base set but I get KILLED all the time on the ipad when I play vs humans (for whatever reason). And although I think I am a pretty good player with the expansion, I figured I was likely in deep doo doo in the 1st round. The board started off for my table as 5 monsters right away. The 3 guys at my table (2 strong players and one kid.. nice kid but seemed a bit new to the game and he was a bit over-matched) all decided they weren’t going to commit to all military for the game in case the board went monster dry. Me, on the other hand, I said screw it and went gung ho with the Heavy Infantry and slaughtered the monsters. One turn I killed the Avatar of the Fallen then used it to kill the Earth Tyrant (gives you 5 honor PLUS draw 2 cards). This turned to be a HUGE combo as I went on to get something like 13-15 honor in that turn alone, and with my 11 heavies went on to take the 1st table in 1st place.

At the other table with my 3 peeps, they had a local guy who pretty much lives at the game store. He’s a bit loud most nights I see him, real obnoxious and never wrong. At this table he asserted himself as if he was the only one who knew anything treating my cohorts like rookies (all three of them play A LOT) and almost trying to teach them how to play  the game. When it was all said and done it was the Mrs. Geekjock who won the table! In second was the Redheaded Pharmacist, and in last was the local loudmouth. He proceeded to pull a Phil Helmuth type tantrum and complain to a friend of his (whom I have happened to just be friends with for close to 5 years now) that the others at his table were “not buying what they were supposed to”. Haha this type of complaint always makes me laugh when I hear it in poker and even worse when I hear it in a board game tourney. Let them play how they want idiot. Unfortunately as I said above one person had to be on the outside looking in, and here it was Todd. Todd’s a REAL strong player and he usually kicks my ass on the ipad more then I win, so I guess things just didn’t fall his way. Alas, like I mentioned someone had to lose of my buddies ERGO we head to round two with 3 of the 4 of us alive….

Round 2

The round seat selection was set and Red and the Mrs GJ were together again and I was alone at a different table. We were using the expansion plus the base set for the rest of the tourney so I was pretty stoked at my chances to move on. The field was pretty strong on both tables and better yet, I knew all but 2 of the players who were left. One

Would this card win me two rounds?

was a strong player at my table who came to the tourney with the other real strong player, Ken, who came in 2nd at my 1st round table. Again the board came up monster heavy initially and I (again) said screw it and went in sword first in a HUGE military deck building strategy. Again the monsters kept coming out. For the second straight game I used the Avatar of the Fallen into Earth Tyrant combo to pump up huge points and had an insurmountable lead going into the end game adding up of scoring. I knew I was either 1st or second just by how I was playing and sure enough, I finished what was a tourney high 97 points and moved on to the final table. The fight for second was a tough one as Ken  (the guy who came with Sam) ended up edging out Marjorie (A strong player at everything she plays) for 2nd place and a seat at the final table.

Over at the table with my spouse and best friend… Sam (the guy who finished in 2nd place to me in round 1), was steamrolling the heck out of the table using his black hole (think that’s the name) to simply trim his deck down sooooo slim that at the end the only monetary card (I am not kidding) he had in his WHOLE deck was 1 single Mystic… no Infantry, no Militia, no apprentice… 1 Mystic!! I am not sure of the particulars but it turns out the battle for second went to The Redheaded Pharmacist again! So he would ride 2 second place finishes into a seat with me at the final table!

Final Table.

So here we were… Myself with Red, Sam and Ken. 4 pretty strong players. This time the board started off with only 1 or two monsters. I was going to abandon the military this game almost entirely. I got a Mechana Construct early and then on the second turn a Great-Omen Raven (you name a card, then turn over the top card. If you named the card correctly you gain 3 honor. Either way you get the card in your hand). I ended up drawing the Raven 4 times in the game in hand, and ALL FOUR times I guessed correctly. Well in all honestly the only time I actually had to guess was the 1st time, all the rest I knew what was on top b/c I put it there with another card, and one other time I had one card left in my draw pile and knew I had yet to draw my second militia. So that got me 12 honor right there. Ken on the other side of the table was doing those turns each round were you end up drawing what seems to be 10 cards into your deck each time. So I was fairly certain he was running away with it. His buddy was having an ok game but I felt he was stronger then me, and Red just had some of the crappiest luck with the center row that I have seen. It happens sometimes I guess. So after a few more rounds one of the owners of the GA, Scott came by asking how it was going and I mentioned I was fairly sure we were all playing for second place to Sam’s first. His buddy said he wasn’t so sure b/c I had been amassing a ton of Mechana constructs (I was but hadn’t really noticed it was a decent amount or not) and he felt I was in 1st. The last round a Reclamax came to the center allowing us to put a Mech Construct into our hand, which it turned out was MY reclamax and I put it in play, then proceeded to discard it and buy a 7 cost construct for 5 from the void (I had the construct that gave me 2 discount— see told you I was forgetting names). While I was doing this Sam had added up his points and he had 75. I thought he would have ended up with 90+ so hearing this I thought I might have a chance. Since we all four had about the same honor (give or take 4-5 honor) on the table in crystals at the end of the game, I liked my chances in the end game scoring of my cards. I added them up and had 88! Now it was just waiting for Red to finish his last turn and see how he did. He ended up with the construct in his hand that he could banish for an extra turn so he had a nice last round hand. He definitely improved his standing but he still was not able to get higher then Ken or myself so in the end….

GEEKJOCK COMES AWAY WITH THE TOURNAMENT WIN!

Yep, I am happy that I won a card game tourney. It was fun as hell and I felt I played well too. Oh and I ended up with a nice gift certificate

This one likely won me the whole tourney

to the Gamers Armory for winning, so I think I will be waiting for Blood Bowl to come in stock around here and pick that deck building gem (yeah I am a glutton for deck building).

So all in all it was a fun week in gaming. Aren’t they all when you get to play some games!

Go out and play some board games with friends and your significant other today!

–GJ out.

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