Game Report - Alexander Cartwright and the City of the Ancients

[munkymuddface]

As promised, I took some notes during one of the games I played this weekend and snapped some pics.

Set Up:
Starting Artifacts:
- The Heart of the Sacred Stone (4 Fortune/ 3 Dangers) in the the Bayou
- The Eyes of the Gods (3F/2D) in the Heartland
- The Hammer of Loki (6F/4D) in Persia
- The Mine of the Golden Mummy (Temple - 8F/3D) in India

The Heroes:
- Alexander Cartwright - Reclusive Novelist
- Doctor Zhukov - Master of Science
- Shelly Hargrove - Racecar Driver
- Duke Dudley - British Lord



Round 1:
-Duke Dudley moves to New York. City Card - Fully Heal.
-Shelly Hargrove moves into the North Atlantic.
Event card - Lost temple of... the Pale Moon (6F/3D) in Australia.
-Doctor Zhukov and the Mine of the Golden Mummy
Danger - Agents of Evil. Villain Franco Fedicci joins the adventure. Doctor Zhukov sneaks by and camps down, collecting 1F and 4G.
-Alexander Cartwright moves to Cape Town.
City card - secret.

Villains:
-Franco Fedicci claims 1F from the Mine of the Golden Mummy.

Round 2:
-Bailing on the Mine, Doctor Zhukov moves to Persia. Doctor Zhukov and the Hammer of Loki
Danger - Ancient Puzzle, passes easily. Danger - Mountain Climb, failure. Cliffhanger - Avalanche!
-Alexander Cartwright remains in Cape Town.
Drawing an event, another Lost Temple of... the Azure Jewel in the Southwest (6F/2D) Who knew there were so many ancient treasure in North America? City card - secret.
-Duke to the Bayou. Duke Dudly and the Heart of the Sacred Stone
Danger - Stow Away on a Zeppelin, choosing to Fight. Draws the villain Herr Tuefel, adding him to the adventure. Passes, Camps down.
-Shelly Hargrove moves to New York.
City card - Secret.

Villains:
-Herr Tuefel claims the Heart of the Sacred Stone from under Duke Dudley.
-Franco Fedicci continues to plunder the Mine of the Golden Mummy, it does not collapse.
New Artifact:
- The City of the Ancients (temple, 10F/3D) in the Ancient Mountains

Round 3:
-Event place 3 Nazis on empty spaces. Duke Dudley and the Eyes of the Gods
Danger - Occupied Territory, chooses to Fight draws the villain Colonel Stahl, adding him to the Adventure. Camps down.
-Shelly Hargrove and the Temple of the Azure Jewel
Danger - Stone Guardians. Fails, Cliffhanger! Stone Guardians.
-Surviving the Avalanche Doctor Zhukov presses on.
Danger - Stow Away on a U-Boat, success. Camps down.
-Alexander Cartwright remains in Cape Town.
Another secret City card.

Villains:
-Franco Fedducci claims the idol of the Mine of the Golden Mummy.
-Colonel Stahl claims the Eyes of the Gods.
New Artifacts:
-The Valley of the Crimson Hand (temple) in Egypt.
-The Shadow of Poseidon (3F/5D) in the Andes.

Round 4:
-Alexander Cartwright and the Shadow of Poseidon
Danger - the Riddle of Nardu, solved.
Danger - Secret Ritual, sneaks by.
Danger - Car Chase, success.
Danger - Ancient Puzzle, passed.
Danger - Perilous Bridge, passed.
Claims the Shadow of Poseidon.
-Duke Dudly moves to Washington DC, using his glory to purchase an ally - Personal Butler, and gear - Dynamite.
City card - mobsters show up in Chicago and Los Angelas.
-Shelly Hargrove attempts to fight the Stone Guardians, but is knocked out and returned to Paris.
-Close to claiming the Hammer of Loki, Doctor Zhukov faces his final Danger - Maze of Caves, getting Lost in the Dark (cliffhanger).

Villains:
-The Zeppelin drops Nazi troops in the Heart of Africa.
New Artifact:
-The Tempe of the Dead (temple) in Manchuria.

Round 5:
-Duke Dudley and the Temple of the Azure Jewel
Danger - Poisoned Food, he powers through it with his iron stomach. Danger - Cargo Plane Mishap, pass, camp down.
The temple collapes and Duke is unable to escape, knocked out, he is returned to London, and loses all but his Personal Butler.
-Shelly Hargrove and the Hammer of Loki
Danger - Occupied Territory, fails into the cliffhanger.
-Doctor Zhukov finds his way thru being lost in the dark and claims the Hammer of Loki, to the dismay of Shelly.
-Alexander Cartwright finds an Ally, a Mechanic. Moves to the Ancient Mountains.
Alexander Cartwright and the City of the Ancients
Danger - Maze of Caves, finds his way through and presses on.
Danger - Boat Chase, evades his pursuers and camps down. Collecting 2F and 5G.

New Artifact:
-The Amulet of Atlantis in the South Pacific Islands.

Round 6:
-Shelly Hargrove and the Amulet of Atlantis
Danger - Underwater Diving, fail! Cliffhanger - Giant Squid attack.
-Doctor Zhukov moves to Hong Kong.
Before he is able to sell the item, he finds trouble. Danger - Rooftop Chase. He is not agile and misses his jump -Cliffhanger!
-Alexander Cartwright and the City of the Ancientscontinues...
Danger - Agents of Evil. Icebox Eddie is added to the adventure. Cartwright sneaks passed Icebox, and presses on, sneaking by again.
Danger - Car Chase, Cartwright evades the Pursuing Eddie, presses on.
Danger - Alpine Trail, success, presses on. Sneaks passed Icebox Eddie.
Danger - Assassins, passes. Sneaks passed Icebox Eddie.
Danger - We are not alone, success. Sneaks passed Icebox Eddie.
Danger - Dark Deal, chooses to Fight and defeats the order of the Crimson Hand. The temple collapses! Cartwright escapes leaving Icebox Eddie in the rubble.
-Duke Dudly moves to Eastern Europe.
Draws Event card.

Villains:
-Zeppelin drops nazi troops in Arabia.
New Artifacts:
-The Caverns of the Damned (temple) in the British Isles.

Round 7:
-Doctor Zhukov fails his cliffhanger, and falls from the rooftops. He is returned to Moscow, and awakes to find that the Hammer of Loki is missing.
-Alexander Cartwright uses the power of the Shadow of Poseidon to move from the Ancient Mountains to New York city. There, he sells the Shadow and delivers a Secret Package. Giving him 17 fortune. He flies to Rio de Janeiro.
-Duke Dudley and the Temple of the Dead
Danger - Ice caves, fail.
-Shelly Hargrove is unable to fend off the squid and is KO'd, again returned to Paris.

-Alexander Cartwright ends the game in his hometown with 15 Fortune and proves once again that Cartwright is Forever.


Post game notes:
-This was our first game playing with the advanced set of rules where the temples and villains were used. We underestimated the villains, allowing them to retreive three items.
-HOT dice won this game. Cartwright never encountered a Cliffhanger. The only time he was in dangerous predicament, was when the City of the Ancients was collapsing, but that was after he cleaned house on 9 of the 10 fortune there.
-Shelly had a rough go this game. She only made it to two adventures, and failed right off the bat both times, then failed her Cliffhangers.
-On that note, with all these new rules we were using, we totally forgot about exerting during cliffhangers to roll extra dice. While this would not have affected Cartwrights success, it may have effected the play experience for the other players (Zhukov, for example, may not have lost his Artifact).
-This game actually should have gone to an eighth round. You can only fly during the Movement phase, but Cartwright did it during his Adventure phase of Round 7. We didn't catch it, and I don't think it would have changed much.
-The zeppelin did not come into play much, and I think that is because we were playing it wrong. The way it should be played: Each turn it moves D6 spaces towards a random location. Everytime it moves, it collects 1F. If it reaches its location, it drops a Nazi soldier. We were playing that it only collected the 1F if it drops the soldier.

In this report, I broke the play down round by round. I think next time I will break it down by character. I think it will be easier to tell their stories that way.

Hope this was a somewhat informative and enjoyable read.
Cheers!

[Old Dwarf]

Oh..Oh..Oh...I knew I should have sold a Kidney & got the FFP preorder instead of being practical & going with CoolStuffInc.
This just blows me away & I'm probably a month at least, away from getting my copy.

Thanks for the Session Report.

OD

[samuraitrev]

Thanks for the report It sounds a blast!
Was it really good fun?
How long did it take?
What's the going rate for this game?

[mqstout]

It'll be exciting to get it. It's quite unfortunate that [the most reliable] half of my usual board gaming party has moved away this summer.

[munkymuddface]

It really was a blast and good fun. After our two games Friday night, one of my gaming buddies said that this was now his favorite Flying Frog game. His prior order of preference was ATOE, LNOE, IFOS. My prior preference was LNOE, ATOE, IFOS, COPE; this one is up there, but I can't quite decide if it is before or after LNOE.

This game of four people and seven rounds lasted about two hours. But this was also a game where we were referring to the Rulebook often since it was the forst game with Villains and Temples. The second game we played with three people also took about two hours, but there were probly about double the game rounds.

[Cimex188]

Thx for the report i'm soo excited about this game. Great stuff!

[Canadian Pittbull]

Great game report and yes the game is awesome!