13 Days Card Game

Okay, everyone, after one play and the expectation of playing again tonight, I would like to give a quick review of 13 Days.
13 Days is a two player card based area control game. Wow, now that I write the description out I can see how many adjectives that game description has, but I digress. You are playing through the struggle of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The general way it works is using influence in different arenas (military, political, and opinion) to gain prestige based on your opponent’s and your own chosen agenda for the round. You will have a hand of 5 command cards, you may play a card for a command or event benefit, using command to add or remove your own influence from different parts of the map. However, if at any time you place more than one influence in one place from a command action you also move your Defcon marker up for each influence beyond the first. You also have a hard cap of 17 influence total and 5 of your influence on each of the 6 locations. If you choose to use the event on a card matching the country you represent (US, Russia, or either can use the UN cards) you just do what it says on the card, often changing influence without changing the Defcon level.

There is a twist to this though, when you play an opponent’s faction card (which you will have to do), you must use it for the command and they have the option to use the event for free on your turn. This really requires you to think about which card you will have left over at the end of the round. After you play through 4 cards each going back and forth you place your last card in an aftermath pile. After three rounds you go through the aftermath pilot and whoever has the most command down based on their factions cards in the aftermath pile gets two additional prestige.

Overall the prestige you get at then of each round and the end of the game is more of a tug of war. You can never have more than 5 prestige over your opponent and each prestige move the marker closer to your side of the scoring track. The game ends either by a person reaching Defcon 1 and staying there until the end of a round or having all of their Defcon markers (3) in the Defcon 2 area causing them to lose, or 3 round are completed and the person with the most prestige after the aftermath wins. If the scoring marker is in the center, the person holding the personal letter token wins (which is how I won).

This is definitely comparable to the game Twilight Struggle, but a much lighter implementation. It has the same feel, the cards have historical images, and there is even a booklet to discuss the events of the Cuban missile crisis. The mechanism is very similar to Twilight Struggle as well. However, 13 Days took 45 minutes instead of 3 hours. It is a much more focused game with a number of choices and a lot of thinking and planning based on what your opponent might do, but it is not nearly as broad or deep as Twilight Struggle which goes through the entire Cold War and deals with the all the world.
I like 13 Days a lot, I know Jennie and I will be playing way more often than Twilight Struggle just because of the time requirements if nothing else. We also will be keeping Twilight Struggle though, the amount of depth and interactions in that game make it worth it, even if it only happens once a year. I would give 13 Days an 8.5 out of 10, I think it great and works well for a two player quick game that requires some thought.

Oregon Trial Game

Remember the old Oregon Trial computer game?  I know I played it middle school all the time!  Anyway, they put out a card game about it!  The game isn't that great - it is co-op and you will die most of the time. It is pretty repetitive and very random.  But for nostalgia is a great game - it feels like the computer game.  We both died first time out!  Anyway, if you remember the computer game with fondness, this is a fun game to try out and for the price point is well worth the experience as it is cheap.

New Year's Resolutions

So last year we aimed to play through our collection and we did pretty good. We have a wall of unplayed still, but we have kept it down and it is mostly relatively new stuff.  This year our goal is 10 games that we'll play 10 times.  So this year we are going to quality and getting the numbers up there.

My 10 are:
7 wonders Duel
Carcassonne (I want to be able to say I've played all the expansions)
Dice City
Dominion
Harry Potter Hogswarts Battle (I want to get through all the decks)
Imperial Settlers
Saint Petersburg
Suburbia
Ticket to Ride (again, all the expansions!)
Viticulture

Ray's 10 are:
1812
Artificium
Carson City
Eminent Domain
Islebound
Lords of Waterdeep
Powerplay
Run, Fight or Die
Imperial Assault
Warhammer Quest

Islebound

This was a kickstarter from Red Raven Games.  It is one of our new favorite games.  It is worker placement and works great two player.  We love the different set ups and the cool choices with the islands.  These games are also just so gorgeous.  There are tons of great choices here so if you like worker placement, you should like this one. 

Game Days

We have a great game group going.  The main thing we been working on is keeping an assortment of games that can play large enough groups.  We usually want to start and end together so that's been a challenge.  7 Wonders has gotten a lot of play recently!  The main thing is to have a good selection and good people!

Other Kids' Games

This is Bugs in the Kitchen - this is quite cute and was a friend's thrifting find.  It is pretty random but teaches trying to get the hexbug to move the way you want with the right patterns.  

Minecraft card game - pretty quick and easy. It really is just resource collection with card sets. 

Old oldest ADORES the Star Wars Risk game and is quite good at it.

Pokemon

Well it happened....the Pokémon CCG entered our lives.  Andrew ADORES it. Like obsessively.  I told Ray that he got his mini gamer in Adam, and it seems he got his eventual Magic player in Andrew.  The hit of Christmas morning  - the Pokémon pack in his stocking. Seriously. 

 

As to the game - it isn't bad.  The deck building is set at 60 and is pretty standard.  The game also is just played to 6 KOs so that's much easier than the life points in Magic.  It really is Magic lite. 

They seller "trainer" decks and it worked really well for teaching the boys the game.

My First Journey (Ticket to Ride Junior)

I was suitably impressed with this one.  So Ticket to Ride isn't hard - my kids COULD do it. But it is too long. They don't have the attention span for a game that takes that long and some of the long routes are just too much for them to concentrate on (especially the 6 year old).  This came keeps all routes simple (less cities on the board) and speeds up the game.  It works really great. 

Andrew - no prompting - decided to do his own Dice Tower reviews!

We brought it on Christmas Eve and got Grandma and Great to play!

X-Wing

Adam is also getting into X-wing. The shorter games are good for kids.

War Gaming

Adam love the war gaming.  He's played a number of games now with Dad.  Andrew still really isn't as into it, but he likes to hang out with the others.