Session

On Mars – Alien Invasion

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Gaming at Josh’s House

Date: 11/30/2024

Players: Josh, Chris, Thomas, Chad, Mark

Scores:

Mark, Chad, Chris, Thomas(Bad Guys) – 100+

Josh(Aliens) 9

The Game

We played the 1 vs many which is

I had not played On Mars since prior to Covid. This was one of the last games I played prior to everything shutting down

In this version, one player plays the Aliens and has their own board of actions they can perform. After every turn the humans take, the alien gets a turn.

Rules We Missed

[Setup]

  • The three mission cards are in play still as you can get crystals this way.
  • The starting Defense Tech doesn’t come in live. Still have to “Pick a Tech” action space to acquire it.

[Alien During Game]

  • Alien takes one action and/or one optional action (as the cost of one crystal) per turn. Much like a human taking a main action and/or an optional executive (as the cost of two crystals). So me at the end rushing red tokens may have balanced out the game a bit.

. . –Alien Rule Clarification from Vital Lacerda–

  • If an alien action cannot be taken (ie all blueprint cards are already taken) that action spot is considered NOT AVAILABLE.* So this means can reset and ignore a couple action spots. (ie Thomas covering all my alien shelters, since i can’t deploy to my shelter, that action spot is no considered not available.)

–Rules Update from Vital–

  • During Set up, the Alien player starts with the Shelter Tech
  • To remove a player placed sabotage token from the Alien board – pay two crystals at any time. The Alien keeps the Sabotage Tokens until the board is refreshed.
  • Abduction – Return the Scientist and card to the display. If there is a contract card, it is also returned to the display. Humans lose their points for that scientist.

Session

Oath

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Gaming at Unplugged

Date: 11/23/2024

Players: Kris, Brad, Chad, Mark

Scores:

Brad as the Chancellor won, when the 2 citizens tied.

The Game

As an exile, I made a deal with the Chancellor mid game to become a citizen. I was competing for the same goal as the Chancellor and I had the artifact that made sites controlled by beasts to become my sites. I felt I had a better chance to compete against Kris, who I thought was trying to collect artifacts.

In the second to last round, Chad made a last ditch effort to take the scepter away from Brad(as Chancellor). He rolled 7 attack dice against 15 defense dice. And he won.

His goal was to either remove my citizenship or promote himself to citizen. I spent my turn trying to keep him from removing my citizenship, but in the second to last round, I forgot to protect my banner of the Darkest Secret

After twice rolling to try to win the game and due to Kris discarding the wrong vision, the game proceeded to the last round.

Chad took my Darkest Secret, which created a tie for most artifacts.

Brad as the Chancellor wins on the tie with this as his final state

Rules We Missed

The only rules missed where rules on artifacts, sites or denizens. There is a lot to keep track of

Session

Black Orchestra

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Gaming at Sean’s

Date: 09/20/2024

Players: Joel, Mark, Sean Katie

Scores:

Failed

Rules To Remember

  1. Plot only takes one action

Joel tried three plane bombs with no success

Mark tried one plot

Sean tried the last plot. With 5 dice and two rerolls with the Military level at 3, we failed.

Session

Nations

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Gaming at Wegman’s

Date: 09/20/2024

Players: Jason, Chad, Mark, Tim, Austin

Scores:

Jason 47
Tim 42
Chad 33
Austin 24
Austin 18

Rules To Remember

  1. Famine is coming

Jason played on King mode while the rest of us played on Prince.

I leaned into military since my starting civilization was Rome. I failed to use the war action on my first turn which could have hurt Jason (playing Egypt).

Tim took an early lead by leaning into books.

As the game progressed everyone was able to get to military, so the military/war strategy just force everyone to keep up with me. Very few penalties were paid.

Session

Andromeda’s Edge

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Gaming at Jeff Knapp’s

Date: 9/17/2024

Players: Mark, Matt, Mike and Jeff

Scores:

Matt 170
Mike 128
Jeff 112
Mark 84

Rules To Remember

  1. Make sure to move that event marker. We only activated 3 planets, which kept the board pretty tight for developing

Matt was able to use his player powers. Almost every turn which allowed him to move up the red track easily and then he was able to also move up the yellow track.

My strategy was to build a module engine, as seen in the bottom left. We played the short game, so as Mike got within two turns of ending the game, I did not have any ships on the board. I elected to try to get some points by developing. The spots that could be developed already had ships on them and on both turns I lost the battle when trying to get into those.

I think with two more turns I could have gotten the ships out to run the engine and thus have had ample resources to develop, but would there have been enough spaces?

There are some familiar mechanics in the game. Pulling ships back and activating modules reminded me of Apiary. The tech track has some similarities to Teotihaucan.

Session

Unsettled

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Gaming at Home

Players: Mark R., Logan

Scores: Success

Rules To Remember

  1. Draw a card each time you compete a competence.

After failing on our first game, we set up to once again attempt the first task one on 001_Wenora

Game One

Without knowing what we needed to do and failing to keep very good track of the time track, we failed on our way back to the ship.

Game 2

This time we had a plan.

Even with a plan we got back to the ship on the turn where my rest action would have ended the game

Session

Res Arcana

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Friday Gaming at Wegman’s

Players: Mark R., Dave, Ilias, Tim, Curt.

Scores:

  • Dave – 13
  • Ilias – 12
  • Curt – 8
  • Mark – 6

Rules To Remember

  1. Discard from you hand, destroy from your tableau
  2. If you can not pay the life cost when attacked, loose 2 other resources of your choice

This was my second and third live play after a couple of online games at BGA. In the past I have enjoyed the game. This time the randomness of what cards are in your hand was exposed and makes for a very swingy experience. I have enjoyed previous plays, but this time, both plays suffered from inability to create a good engine.

Game One

As pictured, three cards are dedicated to a dragon strategy. This strategy has one purpose, to attack other players, which they can usually mitigate. Additionally with no blue production, and 5 of the 6 places of power requiring a blue resources, this was a race to get the only one I could save up to get. Which was purchased the same turn that I could have purchased it.

Game 2

Four cards required gold to play and 3 cards dedicated to getting a dragon out, which I did not have. With no cards available to generate gold, I was forced to discard cards for gold. This makes actually playing cards take several turns, so by the time you have any production, the places of power have already been taken. I was able to use my mage ability to get one free resource per round and another card that offered 2 resources to eventually get a place of power that generated gold.