Cangames - Friday

Cangames started on Friday afternoon, & after getting thru registration I quickly ran into 2 buddies (Glen & Richard) who snagged me for a game of Eclipse

 

To be fair I had never even heard of this boardgame, but then my focus has mainly been miniature games.

 

Out of the box, this game looks daunting with lots of bits, ships, tokens etc. Glen is sitting to the left, Richard to his right, the other fellows I don't recall there names, sorry.

 

As this was the first time for  many of us, we all played humans

 

The player board is where the player keeps track of all his expenses, learned tech, resources, etc. Its quite a smooth layout once figured out.

The board is composed of hex tiles which form the universe. Each player begins with 1 hex, deploying his resource "cubes" to the map tile. As players explore, they can colonize newly found planets (more resources), battle aliens, find tech. The players may perform 1 action before it switches to the next person, they may then continue performing tasks, keeping in mind their expenses & costs in doing so. Once all players have passed, the turn ends.

 

The galaxy is eventually completed & then it becomes a battle, as players then begin battling one another. The game relates to Twilight Imperium, however this game does have a definite limit of 9 turns, so its doable in a typical convention time slot.

 

It was a pleasure to play again with my buddies & it wasn't long before the banter had us laughing at one another's misfortunes. Oh & yes the game was good!

 

Friday Evening Game

 

My evening slot was spent playing in the -

 

Operation Chastise - The Dambusters 70th Anniversary event. This rule set was homegrown & run by Bernhard.

 

The game pitted 8 players flying Lancaster's, avoiding both natural hazards, German defence's & lastly a success on getting the bomb on target.

 

Photo by Richard Dufault -  Thanks Buddy!

 Players rolled to see whom would make the run first. Players then chose which height to fly at, High, Medium or Low. Each level had its own inherent die rolls which would be made.

Players flying High, would be rolling against Night Fighters, Searchlights & 88 AA guns. Medium height rolled against Night Fighters, Searchlights & 20mm AA guns. Low height had to roll against terrain/obstacles, 20mm AA Guns & searchlights.

Players also received a deck of cards which could be used to negate having some effects occur, would repair malfunctions or most notably, effect the die roll at the dam (if you had any cards remaining)

Players then began flying 1 at a time for their bombing runs.

Below is a photo of an actual Compass from a Lancaster.

As I encountered it seems my guns were gummed up for most of the flight. I did fly the entire run at low level, as this would give me an opportunity to return fire.

I managed to make it 2/3rds down the board before taking any damage. Below is a shot of the plane I controlled. I was the last in the run.

The players had to do 6 damage points to the dam to blow it. We lost 2 of our Lanc's on the way in. By the time I was doing my run, we needed just 1 point to succeed. Lucky for us I had 2 bonus cards to use to modify the dice roll, for if I hadn't we would have failed...but as the image below shows...the dam was blown!!!

 

This ended my Friday night at the con. Off I went to grab a few hours of sleep & then it would be "Game On!" But those posts will need to wait until I return to Edmonton tomorrow.