Game Report - Team Play

[munkymuddface]

I played an amazing 7 player game this weekend. 4 of the group and played before, and 3 were new to the game. Since we had such a large group, we decided to play teams, four teams of two. We split players so that each new person was paired with a vet, with the remaining vet playing two characters (that was me!). This worked out well because I was able to go over the core rules of the game, and left the vets to fill in rest of the details as we played.
This game was pure chaos! It would have been impossible to take proper notes for such a game, but I remember most of the high points. I will break them out by team.

THE SETUP
The Teams:
TEAM CHEN - Li Mei Chen and Duke Dudley
TEAM HARGROVE - Jacques Moreau and Shelley Hargrove
TEAM ZHUKOV - Dr. Zhukov and Sharon Hunter
TEAM CARTWRIGHT - Jake Zane and Alexander Cartwright (my team)
The goal: First team to 20 Fortune

TEAM HARGROVE
Moreau starts in Cairo, and there was a juicy artifact in Egypt. Unfortunately, there were also lots of Nazi in the area. Hargrove met him in Egypt and they spent multiple turns attempting to claim the artifact, but they each kept getting KO’d and sent home. Eventually, the villain Herr Teufel showed up and quickly ran off with it. They spent the rest of the game globetrotting with a lot of free trips home, and were in no serious contention to win.

TEAM CARTWRIGHT
Due to their starting locations and poor movement rolls, I was unable to get Cartwright and Zane to the same Artifacts so that they could tag team them. Cartwright spent the bulk of the game contending with other teams for the same Artifacts; unfortunately, he had cold dice and was often sent to his home city. Zane started off good for the team, quickly claiming an artifact… only to have Sharon Hunter show up in the same city and steal the Artifact before he could sell it. Zane then tried other avenues to collect fortune: a secret delivery and two raids on the zeppelin. The secret delivery only yielded 2 fortune. He was successful with the two raids, however, he only stole 1 fortune from each attempt. That’s a total of 4 out of 3D6, the dice were against me this game.

TEAM ZHUKOV
After stealing the item from Zane, claiming another, and successful raiding of a temple, they looked primed to win. Sitting at 15 fortune, they were ready to sell an item for 5, and had a Secret Delivery as insurance. Team Cartwright interfered with the Secret Delivery, canceling the card. Team Chen interfered with the sale of the artifact by playing “It Belongs In A Museum”, causing them to gain Glory instead of Fortune for the item. They had no choice, but to return to the field to get collect more Fortune.

TEAM CHEN
Li Mei Chen and Duke Dudley quietly amassed fortune by raiding tombs and cashing in Secret Deliveries, but they always seemed one step behind Team Zhukov. When they prevented the sale of what would have been the game winning artifact, they opened the door for a chance to win, and capitalized, becoming the eventual winners with 22 Fortune.

THE TEMPLE OF THE MONKEY GOD
One of my favorite moments was late in the game after victory had eluded Team Zhukov. The Temple of the Monkey God was placed in China. Initiative order went Chen, Hargrove, Zhukov, Cartwright. During movement, one member from each of the first teams found their way to the new Temple. Being last in initiative and having little hope of winning, I spent the Fortune to get Cartwright to there as well so that each team would be represented. Duke Dudley and Shelley Hargrove each passed their Dangers to collect 1 Fortune each, but they were both pretty banged up and decided to Camp Down to heal up. Sharon Hunter passed her Danger and decided to Press On. With three fortune remaining at the temple and two of the four teams Camped Down, Cartwright realized he had a chance at claiming the idol. Unfortunately, he failed his Danger, causing an immediate roll to check for collapse – which it did. All of the heroes escaped the collapse, the remaining treasure and idol lost in the rubble. Since I was unable to claim the idol, I was happy to play the part of spoiler for the rest of them.

POST GAME NOTES
- With twice as many Heroes on the board as Artifacts, it really pushed some teams to go for it when they maybe should have just Camped Down and collected their Glory. The teams that did well were the ones that kept a level head and did not push it too often.
- This setup was PURE CHAOS, but also incredibly fun. The game lasted 2.5 – 3 hours, but the time passed very quickly. I would not recommend this style of play out of the box since there is so much going on all the time. It really helped that half of the players had played the game before and could coach and fill their teammates in on strategy other minor rules as the game progressed.

[vikinglad]

Thanks for the report! I love everything I read about this game. I really hope I get it from somebody for Christmas. I have been totally good this year.

[Pred]

Yeah I was pretty sure I over herd Sarku and SamuriTrev say something
about giving away a brand new Fortune and Glory Game set for the next
up and coming contest they were planning so hopefully you or I could
get really lucky and win it!

[samuraitrev]

(09-26-2011 11:17 PM)Pred Wrote:  Yeah I was pretty sure I over herd Sarku and SamuriTrev say something
about giving away a brand new Fortune and Glory Game set for the next
up and coming contest they were planning so hopefully you or I could
get really lucky and win it!

Damn Sarku we'll have to sort our palantiris out

[Orguss]

I'm surprised FFP haven't given TZG some promo stuff.

[samuraitrev]

(09-27-2011 04:56 PM)Orguss Wrote:  I'm surprised FFP haven't given TZG some promo stuff.

Now there's a thought...

[Emp]

Indeed!