Leaders of Small World

Since I've had this tradition to tally up any expansion purchases for board games, let's add Leader's of Small World to the pages of this blog. No idea when I'll get to use this expansion in an actual game.

Last Smallworld of 2016, I suppose

Over a week ago I was visiting some friends in another town.

I brought Smallworld with me and we played a four player game.

All the extra races were used, including Royal Bonus and Spider's Web.


Scoreboard:

Diplomat Orcs/Historian Skags/Catapult Ice Witches: 81

Underworld Slingmen/Seafaring Pixies/Fireball Igors: 81

Dragonmaster Homunculi/Ransacking Leprechauns/Fortified Elves: 90

Alchemist Skeletons/Lava Humans: 92

Ice Cream Now In Swamp Flavor

While visiting friends at Vaasa, we played a three player game of Small World.

The game had two new mini expansions, Royal Bonus and The Spider's Web.

New powers, races and their combos had impact in the game right from the start. First picks were Were-Giants, Flying Goblins and Lava Elves.

Lava Elves were rather annoying, because the lava makes conquering regions easy for elves. With a good declined race that would probably be quite devastating. Flying Goblins tried to fight the Giants a little so that they wouldn't spread all over the map uncontested, but that just didn't work out. Two giant tokens were removed before it was the second (even) game turn. So the giants conquered everything nonetheless, and goblins were pretty much crippled because of the onslaught.

First great decline wave was Lava Elves into Hordes of Tritons, Were-Giants into Fireball Barbarians and Flying Goblins into Behemoth Ice Witches. Were-giants and Fireball barbarians seemed to be dominating the game, though Behemoth Ice Witches tried their best to both kill active race tokens and reduce points gained from decline races. Though that race combo wasn't bad, they were suffering from the failures of goblins.

Hordes of Tritons were demolished by the barbarians, and winter tokens were reducing points gained from elves. Soon enough Tritons were deemed unworthy of an empire, and lo, one of the more terrifying combos emerged. Seafaring Shrubmen. With a little planning they would easily be able to conquer spots that'd be completely immune to enemy attacks. Suddenly the onslaught of barbarians didn't seem so threatening, after all.

As was the case with Were-giants, Fireball Barbarians quickly dominated a maximum number of regions. They entered decline, and new race pick was Ransacking Slingmen.

At this point it looked like it was a duel between Slingmen and Shrubmen for the victory. Goblins and ice witches had been getting so few points throughout the whole game, that their only option seemed to end it all with a bang. For the very last turn of the game Ice Witches entered decline and picked Underworld Pixies, who devastated great batches of land. But not enough. Far from it.

Final scoreboard:

Were-Giants/Fireball Barbarians/Ransacking Slingmen: 83
Lava Elves/Hordes of Tritons/Seafaring Shrubmen: 77
Flying Goblins/Behemoth Ice Witches/Underworld Pixies: 66

Victim of some marketing tricks

Well, yet again I wanted another stamp on the Fantasiapelit board game coupon.

This time it meant I bought both expansions for Small World that were released just this month: the Royal Bonus and Leaders of Small World. And, well... also one expansion for the Small World Underground. Though I don't have Small World Underground myself.

But!

Here is a catch. All the races and special powers in the Spider's Web expansion are playable in the original Small World board, too. At least I didn't find any game term from the expansion rules that were exclusive to Underworld only. So... why not? I got another stamp.

Yaaay.

A stamp.

Dwarf skipping

Last weekend I took part in a four player Small World.

Game started with Pillaging Trolls, Dragonmaster Giants, Mercenary Pygmies and Flying Amazons. That's actually the turn order, too.

Pillaging Trolls and Dragonmaster Giants had no contact, but Pygmies were bordering with the Giants. Flying Amazons were everywhere, as was to be expected. Main body of Amazons, however, locked Pygmies up in a corner along with the Giants, and disappointed with the race, Pygmy player went in decline right after the first round.

A couple of turn later there was a big decline trend, and new races and combos were (in vague order of going in decline):

Mercenary Pygmies/Mounted Ratmen
Dragonmaster Giants/Commando Pixies
Pillaging Trolls/Spirit Orcs
Flying Amazons/Swamp Tritons

Ratmen took out Giants and Pixies had a revenge on, well, just about everyone. Spirit Orcs carved an empire in between the ashes of remaings of Pygmy and Giant civilizations, as far from original position of Trolls as possible.

However, combined efforts of Tritons and Ratmen took out all but one of the Trolls, so Spirit Orcs went in decline quite soon. With such quarrelsome races around all over (actually all but the dwarves had some kind of mechanic for conquering regions cheaper) another great age of decline was soon in the horizon.

I think new order was this:

Commando Pixies/Were-Sorcerers
Spirit Orcs/Imperial Ghouls, which would have been a pretty nice combination if everyone didn't beat the Orcs...
Mounted Ratmen/Catapult Elves

Tritons were still continuing because of their awesome decline race of Amazons.

Sorcerers entered play during night, so they removed most of Ratmen and a lot of Amazons, too, finally arriving close to Spirit Orcs.

Imperial Ghouls just played one turns and went in decline right away, because why not? There was a maximum of only one troll remaining. Ghouls started from a corner where they could kill as many sorcerers as possible. However, this was happening near the end of game, and whatever new race would be, it would only play the last turn.

Catapult Elves also considered Sorcerers to be a serious threat, so most of their attacks were directed that way. Sadly the Spirit Orcs had their share of attacks nonetheless.

Finally enough Amazons had died, so Tritons went in decline.

Before it was last turn also Sorcerers went in decline, and they continued to play with:

Were-Sorcerers/Fortified Humans
Swamp Tritons/Barricade Dwarves

Everyone had been jumping over the dwarves on a regular basis, so the player who picked them got seven victory points just from that. And Barricade Dwarves is one of the only combinations that might be worthwile for that sorry race. I think all of us were trying to get the dwarves by then, but they ended up with Triton player.

Humans started clearing rat infestations, and as has been hinted, game was nearing end. Also Catapult Elves went in decline to play one last turn with a fresh race.

Spirit Orcs/Imperial Ghouls chose Marauding Goblins as the last race, and those guys really stormed the board full of decline tokens.

Catapult Elves took Hill Homunculi that had two extra race tokens.

After counting final scoreboard was:

Flying Amazons/Swamp Tritons/Barricade Dwarves: 113
Mercenary Pygmies/Mounted Ratmen/Catapult Elves/Hill Homunculi: 96
Dragonmaster Giants/Commando Pixies/Were-Sorcerers/Fortified Humans: 85
Pillaging Trolls/Spirit Orcs/Imperial Ghouls/Marauding Goblins: 75

Funnily enough, that is exactly the inverted turn order.

Jolly Good Genocides Before Christmas

I had also packed up Smallworld with me when I came to spend some Christmas time.

We had time to play two games, one with four players and one with five. Descriptions will be brief, because it's been quite a while since these games were played.

As there was a person who had not played Smallworld, first game was played with no extras.

I'm not quite sure what happened there. Mounted Skeletons/Fortified Wizards combo won the game. It's very rare to see someone triumph by going in decline only once, but here two such players got pretty decent points. If the race combos would have played other way around (Fortified Wizards/Mounted Skeleton and Diplomatic Sorcerers/Dragon Master Pygmies) I think both would have scored a lot more points.

Again I noticed how much the Kobolds suck as a secondary race. They pretty much need to be either first race or chosen when your In Decline race is all but destroyed.

Final scoreboard:

Mounted Skeletons/Fortified Wizards: 87
Wealthy Elves/Seafaring Kobolds/Merchant Leprechaun: 85
Dragon Master Pygmies/Diplomatic Sorcerers: 78
Peace-Loving Goblins/Forest Orcs/Mercenary Amazons: 71



Game2
Second game was played with full board just a day before Christmas. This time we had the Tales and Legends card deck with all the cards shuffled and drawn randomly.

For reference I'm writing down the cards and the turn where they were in effect:

2. Forbidden Forest
3. Flooded!
4. The Art of Combos
5. Gift from the Sky
6. Wizened and old
7. Necromantic Elixir
8. Forest Clump

Three first turns were quite interesting, because both turn 2 and turn 3 had effects that made certain regions unconquerable. For that reason Flying Trolls were a pretty damn good choice, and Heroic Sorcerers, too. Fortified Tritons could've been quite nice too, but they were pretty much beaten and mauled by other races in just one turn. They went in decline right on turn 2.

The Art of Combos on 4th turn was the Imperial special power. Were-Amazons switched to Goblins and they won the auction too. So we were looking at Corrupt Imperial Goblins with a huge fallen Were-Amazon empire to back them up. I believe other players should have already started to beat Amazons at this point, but everyone was busy wrecking Sorcerers and in-decline Trolls by then. Goblins reigned unopposed.

Once Sorcerers went in decline, Seafaring White Ladies tried to cleave four lenght unconquerable in decline empire, but their actions were thwarted, and Sorcerers were surrering pretty much by Barricade Gypsies (a horrible combo, by the way! Would be pretty succesful as a second race) and Mounted Wizards.

Wizened and Old cleared a lot of old races away from board. Last of trolls and sorcerers disappeared.

Corrupt Imperial Goblins won the auction for Necromantic Elixir and they went in decline right away.

Gypsies had finally started anew with Swamp Orcs, who finally started attacking the Amazons of old. But that was way too late. Barbarians had tried to kill some Amazons too, but they went in decline when they were still controlling 5 regions, and punishing Amazons stopped right there.

Mounted Wizards gave way to Catapult Pygmies, and Stout Barbarians picked Berserker Dwarves from the start of turn 6. Nobody really attacked the dwarves, so they could just build their lilliputian mining colony. Berserker Dwarves could've been pretty bad choice otherwise, but they had been skipped six or seven times already.

Anyway... once the goblins went in decline (still fully functional!) and emerged as Hill Ratmen, the game was pretty much over already. The player was getting 18-20 points per turn during turns 6-8.

After counting up there were no suprises - those damn goblins really won the game.


Final scoreboard:

Were-Amazons/Corrupt Imperial Goblins/Hill Ratmen: 103
Flying Trolls/Mounted Wizards/Catapult Pygmies: 91
Fortified Tritons/Stout Barbarians/Berserker Dwarves: 87
Barricade Gypsies/Swamp Orcs: 78
Heroic Sorcerers/Seafaring White Ladies/Historian Giants: 66

Where do all these little wizards come from? (Smallworld)

Uh, makes me wonder if it's worth to drag an entire biggish board-game to another side of my country just to play one game?

Apparently it is. I played a game of Smallworld at my friends place in Salo, Finland.

We got three players for this game. I had forgotten Tales & Legends card deck at home, so it was a vanilla game with all the races from expansions.

First race combos chosen were Mounted Ghouls (which is slightly disturbing thought), Commando Giants (even more disturbing) and Stout Skeletons.

Ghouls went in decline right at the start of turn 2, but giants and skeletons played a little longer, though for skeletons that didn't matter much.

Corrupt Humans continued Ghouls' legacy, and it turned out this pairing was quite nice. No-one wanted to attack Humans because of their Corrupt special power.

Commando Giants were replaced by Peace-Loving Ratmen, and Pillaging Pygmies started stomping around right where the skeletons left off.

This was a curious part of the game. War was waged on Decline races rather than active tokens, thanks to Peace-Loving and Corrupt being on board at the same time.

When just about all the giants were taken out, Ratmen went in decline and the player took Barricade White Ladies, that in fact had quite nice stack of victory points from previous skippings. Pillaging Pygmies went away next and Heroic Priestesses entered the fray.

Ghouls/Corrupt Humans had eventually go to decline too, as just about all ghouls were wiped out, and even a couple courageous attacks had diminished the number of still living Humans. Swamp Barbarians was the new race chosen.

Both of the Barricade White Ladies and Heroic Priestesses went in decline so that they could play last few turns with a fresh race. Giants/Ratmen/White Ladies chodr Hordes of Wizards, and damn, there were some wizards, then.

Priestesses took Cursed Orcs that had 6-9 victory points on them.

And then it was time to count the points.

Mounted Ghouls/Corrupt Humans/Swamp Barbarians: 118
Commando Giants/Peace-Loving Ratmen/Barricade White Ladies/Hordes of Wizards: 114
Stout Skeletons/Pillaging Pygmies/Heroic Priestesses/Cursed Orcs: 99

... so all in all rather close game, with every player scoring quite a lot of points every round.

Language Barrier (Smallworld)

Uh.

I know I can express myself somewhat well in English language. At least if I'm given the time.

However... things become a bit complicated when you have to explain rules of a game in an understandable manner without your native language to another person in a language, that isn't that persons native language either!

This was the set-up of a 4 player game of Smallworld a little while ago.

At first things really seemed a little desperate, but luckily this game is much easier to play than to explain. Telling by example works quite nicely in Smallworld.

Trying to keep everyone constantly updated with plethoras of new rules was so hectic, however, that I didn't really have time to keep as detailed notes about this game as I usually try to do. I didn't, for example, get to write down the race combos used. I remember that Commando Barbarians were quite force to reckon with, and the early game was dominated with Pixies and Orcs beating the crap out of each other.

Final scoreboard was: 92, 82, 80 and something. That, however, doesn't tell anything since the scores can't be associated with the race combos used.

... and on Wednesday gods totally flipped out! (Smallworld)

Next day we played two more Smallworlds with Tales & Legends expansion.


Game 1:

This time we played blindly drawn cards from deck with only cards that supposedly had completely game-changing(breaking?) impact. Lordly Legends or whatever they were called.

Cards that were drawn in turn order were:

2. Great Ride
3. Blue Genes
4. Golden Age
5. Wheel of Misfortune
6. Kobold God
7. Necromantic Elixir
8. Oldies but Goodies
9. Ungodly Bribe
10. Handle with Care

Starting combos were Hill Barbarians, Mounted Orcs and Catapult Amazons. Bloodshed was unavoidable with such militant races. And it really didn't take long until Mounted Orcs and Catapult Amazons went In Decline. Hill Barbarians played a little longer and they claimed Blue Genes. Hordes of Skeletons would be the next race, which was somewhat horrific thought.

Anyway, Mounted Orcs came out as Pillaging Giants, such brutishness. At least Catapult Amazons were followed by a lot more sophisticated race combo... the Berserk Wizards.

And soon after, Wheel of Misfortune came up from the event deck.

Pillaging Giants went to the Berserk Wizards player, Berserk Wizards to Hordes of Skeletons and skellies marched now on the side of former Pillaging Giants.

Pillaging Giants turned into Barricade Sorcerers and started to tease Skeletons. Berserk Wizards overextended themselves and went In Decline, becoming Stout Trolls. And started teasing Skeletons. So while they still held some land, they went In Decline too and emerged as Seafaring Homunculi.

All remaining skeletons were eradicated way too fast, so game now nearing end, they too went In Decline, last few rounds playing as Imperial Gypsies.

Two players made one final sweep by going In Decline during turn 9 and wreaking havoc on turn 10 with all new races, which were Ransacking Ratmen for Troll player, and Wealthy Halflings for Sorcerer player.

Final scoreboard for this match:

Mounted Orcs/Pillaging Giants -> Hordes of Skeletons/Seafaring Homunculi/Imperial Gypsies: 109
Catapult Amazons/Berserk Wizards -> Pillaging Giants/Barricade Sorcerers/Wealthy Halflings: 98
Hill Barbarians/Hordes of Skeletons -> Berserk Wizards/Stout Trolls/Ransacking Ratmen: 92


Game 2:

In this game we took away the already used Lordly Legends cards and took missing cards from the "medium" impact deck.

Cards were:

2. Tabula Rasa
3. Tea Time
4. Philter of Forgetfulness
5. Puff of Smoke
6. White Queen
7. Decline and Fall
8. -whoops, forgot-
9. -forgot this one too-
10. Chicken Lake

A short summary here, as my notes are rather sub-par here. I guess I started to get a little bit tired of writing everything down.

Starting race combos were Forest Elves, Wealthy Wizards and Marauding Ratmen.

Marauding Ratmen were able to get maximum number of regions in just two turns, and were replaced by Diplomatic Giants. Not nice.

And I see a horrible thing here in my notes. I haven't written down which race combo Wealthy Wizards picked next. However, Elves went In Decline and picked Swamp Skeletons to bog around. That pun calls for an euthanasia.

Puff of Smoke took away plenty of ratmen.

On 5th turn some mystic race that came after Wizards went in Decline and were followed by Corrupt Halflings. That joy didn't last for long, when Decline and Fall forced everyone In Decline. Swamp Skeletons picked Imperial Barbarians, halflings took Dragon Master Trolls and giants took Flying Leprechauns.

Imperial Barbarians were a horrible race combo. They worked together perfectly.

Both Barbarian player and Leprechaun player decided to get a final push in last round, Barbarians switching to Hordes of Dwarves, gaining pretty much nothing. Leprechauns picked Commando Goblins that pretty much conquered every area with 1 race token, because there were so many decline tokens on map!

Final scoreboard was:

Forest Elves/Swamp Skeletons/Imperial Barbarians/Hordes of Dwarves: 98
Wealthy Wizards/???/Corrupt Halflings/Dragon Master Trolls: 84
Marauding Ratmen/Diplomatic Giants/Flying Leprechauns/Commando Goblins: 83

And that was it, phew.

Gods Have Gone Insane (Smallworld)

A grand total of four games of Smallworld were played in Salo.

Here are two of them. We used Tales and Legends card deck in every game with higher (= more random) stakes in every consecutive game.

Game 1 (Tuesday):

First, we just shuffled whole deck and had upcoming event revealed.

Cards for every round were:
2. Wizened and Old
3. Barbarian Invasions
4. Wheel of Misfortune
5.  Baby Boom
6. Forbidden Forest
7. Tremors
8. Going Down
9. Handle With Care
10. Philter of Forgetfulness

Races and combos that started game were: Mercenary Giants, Flying Gypsies and Bivouacking Tritons.

All races were pretty good starting races, especially Flying Gypsies got to make nice use out of their special ability.

Mercenary Giants were the first to go in decline, mostly because of upcoming Barbarian Invasions.

And truth be told, Merchant Barbarians that followed were atrocious combo. (Heh... barbarians emerged in barbarian invasions? How fitting...)

Bivouacking Tritons went In Decline next, and then came the ultimate mess-up even: Wheel of Misfortune. Merchant Barbarians continued to conquer in the name of Triton player, Gypsy player got to pick a new race, and barbarian player got Flying Gypsies.

Gypsy player took Fortifired Pygmies.

Next Merchant Barbarians decided to go In Decline, and no Gypsies had died, so only player who got anything out of Baby Boom was Pygmies.

Barbarians switched to Ransacking Orcs, but we played Ransacking wrong. The symbol made us think it was Pillaging, which would essentially mean it was double Orc bonus. I guess proper term is to talk about Pillaging Orcs in this case, then. However, one of the largest points score happened I have seen for a while, a horrible amount of 20 victory points for Merchants/Orcs.

Slowly Mercenary Giants were eradicated from the face of current world, so Flying Gypsies lost their wings and finally settled down. Catapult Wizards invaded in their place.

Pygmies found their time had come, too, and their crumbling society gave way for Diplomatic Sorcerers.

And the original Triton player made one final fell swoop in last round with Hill Amazons.

Final scoreboard:

Bivouacking Tritons -> Merchant Barbarians/Pillaging Orcs/Hill Amazons: 108 victory points.
Flying Gypsies/Fortified Pygmies/Diplomatic Sorcerers: 99 points.
Mercenary Giants/Merchant Barbarians -> Flying Gypsies/Catapult Wizards: 99 points.

Game 2 (Tuesday):

For this game we were drawing cards blindly from Tales & Legends deck so that the upcoming even was unknown.

Starting race combos were: Forest Ghouls, Heroic Orcs and Peace-Loving Kobolds.

Cards that shaped the world were:

2. Lost Treasures
3. My Land
4. Decline and Fall
5. Plague
6. Art of Combos
7. Gift from the Sky
8. Small Time Coup
9. Oldies but Goodies
10. Wealth Redistribution

Decline and Fall made all active races go in decline, but Forest Ghouls had already gone In Decline the round before. That was somewhat nice, because Historian Ratmen were able to score 3 points just because of that.

However, Historian Ratmen were not so happy when Berserk Trolls and Fortified Pixies started wreaking havoc all over. Especially Trolls were on a horrible berserk spree, giving bonuses on almost every region they attacked.

Pixies did what pixies do - vanished quickly from the face of the continent. However, next combo they picked was a nasty one. Alchemist Skeletons - that extra two points per turn really combines well with Skeletons' survival power!

Historian Ratmen finally died too, and Barricade Pygmies tried to carve an empire instead.

After Trolls had been raging long enough, there was very short-lived empire of Wealthy Gypsies, who in just few rounds were replaced by the very same race & special power combo that proved so superior in last game - the Merchant Barbarians.

Final scoreboard was:

Peace-Loving Kobolds/Fortified Pixies/Alchemist Skeletons: 106
Heroic Orcs/Berserk Trolls/Wealthy Gypsies/Merchant Barbarians: 103
Forest Ghouls/Historian Ratmen/Barricade Pygmies: 95

Only 11 point differece between highest and lowest points. Pretty even game then, especially when events were completely random and impossible to try to plan ahead.

It's a plane? It's a bird? No, it's an ORC! (Smallworld)

Okay, I did a weird and rather spontaneous visit to friends at Salo.

Despite my leaving being a bit hectic and very unarranged, I still picked up Smallworld with me.

And yesterday we played two 3-player games of Smallworld.

By the way, I see that a lot of random "googlers" come to this site with queries if Smallworld is good enough for just two players.

I've played only a couple of such games, and I played those with Tales and Legends event card deck. I think that the games were nicely chaotic and had weird occurences, but really, even with the card deck Smallworld is really at it's best with larger number of players.

But anyway, now to actual write-ups.

First game had following starting races (in turn order):

Wealthy Skeletons, Bivouacking Wizards, and Stout Amazons.

Stout Amazons were actually a damn good combo. They were last player in turn order, so they could choose where they landed their first conquests with little fear of reprisal. Because of that they played a second turn too, and went In Decline with amazing number of regions. Race they chose next was none other than Heroic Elves.

Elves in general are a horrific race if you got a good race In Decline. Amazon/Elf player couldn't have made it better, I must say (and it wasn't me, I'm not flattering myself here, heh).

Skeletons gave way for Corrupt Halflings, and Wizards soon forgot their spells and played only card tricks. They were switched to a mind-baffling combo. Flying Orcs! That's one fantasy cliché we haven't seen too much of yet.

And it wasn't a bad combo either. That meant that if there was only one region anywhere with only one defender, orcs would score another point from conquering it.

The emergence of flying orcs made other races less interested in leaving only a few tokens to defend their regions, so, for example, Corrupt Halflings didn't want to overextend their military might when slaying amazons in decline.

It took plenty of turns for Halflings and Orcs to whittle down the ancient and mighty empire of amazons, but eventually it happened and Elves were finally put into decline. About then, at the same time, Halflings went into decline too, because Orcs. Just because, orcs.

And then Orcs went in decline too.

Last races were (continuing Elves): Hordes of Giants. Halflings got Pillaging Trolls as their new active race, and Flying Orcs cut off their wings and Historian Dwarves started to speculate if they did ever actually fly fly.

Hordes of Giants and Declined Elves took a lot of casualties every last turn, but this didn't actually matter them much. Their player was scoring 10 or more points nearly every turn.

It was a nice and close game. I'm not sure if I've played a game where there was so few points in between 1st and 2nd place... Though if I felt industrious, I guess I could search whole this blog for Smallworld games. Heh.

Final scoreboard for game 1:
Stout Amazons/Heroic Elves/Hordes of Giants: 85
Wealthy Skeletons/Corrupt Halflings/Pillaging Trolls: 82
Bivouacking Wizards/Flying Orcs/Historian Dwarves: 71

Game 2:

Well, one game just wasn't enough. We played a second one straight away.

Races drawn (in turn order) were Imperial Tritons, Spirit Pygmies and Hill Pixies.

Because Imperial Tritons started the game, they had it easy to get perfect spots because of their racial benefit. They started to score Imperial extra points on the first round of the game.

Pixies were a weird race to play. They easily claimed a lot of Hills for them, but because of Tritons's racial ability they took always a serious beating on next round. This soon made tritons to go In Decline... and their legacy continued in a really horrible combo. Marauding Skeletons. With two rounds of attacks, they could somewhat easily get TWO skeleton tokens more per round, and certainly at least one.

Pygmies and Pixies both played perhaps one round too long. They finally went In Decline, but this only meant an extra turn for Skeletons to farm more bodies... Pixies took Dragonmaster Homunculi next, and Pygmies took Fortified Barbarians.

Together they were able to destroy enough Skeletons (and of course each other) that during last rounds of the game all races went in decline. Skeletons continued with last game's favorite combo, Stout Amazons. Homunculi could have continued maybe, but still decided to switch to Ransacking Trolls to get a fresh race for last turns.

Fortified Barbarians, whose fortresses had been brought down by Dragons and swarms of Homunculi, switched to Commando Giants. How the hell does that combo even make sense? How will giants infiltrate places unseen? Unless the meaning here is that they assault places while going commando or something...

However, it looked like we had a clear winner. Imperial Tritons/Marauding Skeletons and finally Stout Amazons were a tough combo of race combos (That sentence sure makes sense to the uninitiated...)

Final scoreboard for game 2:

Imperial Tritons/Marauding Skeletons(!!!)/Stout Amazons: 89
Hill Pixies/Dragonmaster Homunculi/Ransacking Trolls: 74
Spirit Pygmies/Fortified Barbarians/Commando Giants: 71

Late night massacres (Smallworld)

Heading back home from my trip I stopped at Orivesi to meet some old mates.

I had brought Smallworld with me. Originally we had it planned for Salo, but other stuff came up there so we didn't have time to play there.

But we got a game in at Orivesi with three players.

Since it was a new game for the people there, Tales & Legends wasn't used.

Game started with Swamp Ratmen, Diplomatic Ghouls and Spirit Goblins in that turn order.

Diplomatic Ghouls picked up Ratmen as their allies and goblins just... spread around.

All races went into decline rather soon.

Mercenary Tritons emerged to continue the legacy of Spirit Goblins. Stout Orcs played just one turn after Swamp Ratmen, because once-so-populous Ratmen were reduced to just one decline token.

Diplomatic Ghouls that became just ghouls caused some problems on the other side of the board and Wealthy Priestesses began constructing their ivory tower.

Stout Orcs were replaced by Heroic Wizards, which guaranteed them two extra points every turn.

Mercenary Tritons conquered huge swathes of land in just two turns and got replaced by Hill Homunculi (with 2 extra racial tokens), and this is where Spirit Goblins started to shine. Sure there weren't many of them left, but having two races in decline scores... points.

Wealthy Priestesses managed to construct a nice 5 point tower and Barricade Sorcerers came to support that tower.

It was actually a nasty combo of having one big near unconquerable tower and sorcerers. Sorcerers managed to steal four areas in total during the whole game, so there was no exact rush to go into decline, despite of some losses.

But when Hill Homunculi decided to go in decline and emerge as Peace-Loving Kobolds, the ivory tower was crumbled. How can they be so peace loving if they come and destroy such historical monuments?

Game started to near end, and Heroic Wizards changed to Cursed Barbarians. There were six victory coins on barbarians, so it didn't really look that horrible.

Because sorcerers lost their tower, they went into decline too and played the last round as Corrupt White Ladies.

So, in the end, the scoreboard was:

Diplomatic Ghouls/Wealthy Priestesses/Barricade Sorcerers/Corrupt White Ladies: 118
Spirit Goblins/Mercenary Tritons/Hill Homunculi/Peace-Loving Kobolds: 104
Swamp Ratmen/Stout Orcs/Heroic Wizards/Cursed Barbarians: 7? (question mark because last digit was forgotten...)

Small world too big for two players?

My sister came to visit me today, so what's the best thing you can do with vague things called "sisters"?

Board games, of course!

At first I was hesitant to try Smallworld with only two players, as I felt the game mechanics wouldn't fit too well for only two. I thought you would be able to calculate things too well, and some special powers and races could actually be too powerful and difficult to harm.

But then I thought the Tales & Legends expansion could be the answer, bringing a lot more chaos into the board. So we played actually two games with only two players, using the Tales & Legends card set with only "current event" showing up.

First game started with Diplomatic Dwarves and Mercenary Wizards duking it out.

Mercenary wizards, being second player, killed as many dwarves as possible on their first turn before dwarves' diplomacy started having effect.

Round 2 card: Decline & Fall. All races go into decline.

So, that's what dwarves and wizards did.

Round 3 card: Wheel of Misfortune.

Well, this card didn't actually have any effect at all, as earlier card had forced us to go in decline. Dwarves continued with Wealthy Amazons, who beat up as much in decline wizards as possible.

Wizards chose Seafaring Kobolds, which were pretty nasty for amazons. They erased whatever was left from the dwarves.

Round 4 card: Plague.

Plague took heavier toll on Kobolds, but both active races were spread thin this turn.

Round 5 card: Puffs of Smoke.

As it happened, both players thought it was best to go in decline with their current race. Kobolds still had one decline wizard token on board but it was on top of a mountain that could erupt because of the card drawn. Both races left a good number of decline tokens and kobolds had conquered one lake and one ocean square.

Round 6 card: Drakkars from afar.

Both races in decline at the start of turn, so this card had no effect at all.

Amazons turned into another aggressive race combo: Mounted barbarians. They took a heavy toll on kobolds, though obviously they couldn't invade to water spaces.

Kobolds chose Imperial Homunculi that had been skipped 3 times, meaning 11 race tokens. They started far away from barbarians, deep in amazon territyory, so they had plenty of time to make their imperium...

Round 7 card: Forbidden forest.

Not being able to conquer forests actually had a little effect, as it blocked the bloodthirsty homunculi from getting too many barbarians into their teeth.

First time seeing barbarians in action the barbarians weakness became apparent. If you don't have a keen eye when you ready your troops to war, you will forever defend that particular area with only one race token.

Round 8 card: Magic is in the air.

Barbarians had a huge empire by now so they went in decline. Homunculi, however, continued their imperial schemes and started scoring like crazy. Seventeen points in one round!

Round 9 card: Art of combos.

Special power for auction was Barricade (if you control 4 or less regions you get 3 extra points).

Well, for homunculi it was really no other interest, except for not giving it to the barbarian player, who had yet to choose a new race. Barbarians offered 2, homunculi 3.

New race for barbarians was destined to be Ransacking Gypsies, who conquered 3 regions from homunculi, causing them to go in decline.

Round 10 card: War is sexy.

Every region conquered would bring 1 more point. So it was kind of a cool ending card.

Homunculi player, as this was the last round, chose Fortified Whie Ladies as a new race. The combo had a whopping 5 race tokens, so it had gained quite a few victory coins when people had skipped over it.

Well then, the final scoreboard:

Mercenary Wizards/Seafaring Kobolds/Imperial Homunculi/Fortified White Ladies: 71
Diplomatic Dwarves/Wealthy Amazons/Mounted Barbarians/Ransacking Gypsies: 68

So... A three point difference. Could almost say that neither player dominated the other. Could it actually be that Smallworld was playable with only two players, despite my prejudice?

Well, another game to find it out!

Game 2:

This time it was Pillaging Giants versus Hordes of Ratmen.

Pretty strong combos, both of them and both had a good start.

Round 2 card: Tremor.

So, all conquests were one race token steeper in price. Harsh for both, but more to the giants, because there were such a huge number of rats around. Giants conquered one region, rats two. So not exactly awesome progress there...

Round 3 card: Philter of Forgetfulness.

This rounds card caused giants to lose the optimum time to go in decline, as the effect was bad. In decline races wouldn't give any victory points. So both races were forced to strain their empires a round longer.

Round 4 card: Great Ride.

Great Ride didn't actually have any effect, as both giants and ratmen had next to no army to ride with... both races went in decline.

Round 5 card: Flooded.

Giants got a horrible race combo in regards to the massive, decline ratmen empire. Mounted Goblins. So, they stroke straight into heart of ratmens most populated area, conquering 4 regions with only one race tokens per region. All in all, seven ratmen and one lost tribe tokens were removed from board by the goblins.

Ratmen didn't do any worse, as they were exchanged for Bivouacking Kobolds, who in turn punished the goblins for their wicked deeds.

Round 6 card: Tough love.

Tough love was auctioned to kobolds for 3 victory coins. However, all it gained for them were the maximum number of regions they could conquer any more.

Mounted goblins were busy with the declined ratmen.

Round 7 card: Famine.

Famine caused all the races to go in decline, as it affected only active races, though rather harshly.

Round 8 card: Going down!

Underground trolls started popping up all over, continuing the story of mounted goblins. Mostly they just tried to dispatch as many kobolds as possible.

Then there was a nice row of 3 unconquered regions for Merchant Elves and they managed to conquer one more with remaining 2 race tokens and reinforcement die.

The current card saw some effect, one kobold token managed to conquer one goblin region.

Round 9 card: A gift from the sky.

Card really didn't affect game much when it came this late. Both could keep their extra point area for the rest of the game.

However, at this point the elves started to be a real annoying pests, setting up their market stalls everywhere. They had 6 regions under them, which meant 12 victory points.

Round 10 card: Small time coup.

And last rounds card had absolutely NO effect, as neither player really wanted to auction off for the first player's position in the last round...

Trolls trolled and elves were pansies. Round 10 was almost similar to round 9. It was time to count the points.

Scoreboard:

Hordes of Ratmen/Bivouacking Kobolds/Merchant Elves: 98
Pillaging Giants/Mounted Goblins/Underworld Trolls: 90

So... all in all, these two 2-player games were quite entertaining after all. Random card draw with only current event shown worked pretty fine, bringing some uncertainty and chaos to the game. And at least in both of these games the point difference wasn't too big.

Boardgaming after a while (Smallworld)

Today I found the courage to actually go to board game evening at Jyväskylä's Fantasiapelit. I brought Smallworld with me and we played a game with four players. I actually played another game this evening, but I'll write about it in a separate post.

Well, the races and combos that were drawn were Forest Orcs, Flying Elves, Merchant Wizards and Mercenary Priestesses.

Obviously orcs and elves rocked the first few turns. Priestesses, as they were last in turn order, got to pick quite a good spot for them to start building their ivory tower too, but there were Dragon-Master Goblins already coming up.

Well, on the second turn both wizards and priestesses went into decline, wizards because, well, their possibilities weren't really that awesome and priestesses because wizards went into decline.

Next turn even elves went into decline and wizards came up as Dragon Master Goblins and the board looked pretty awesome for them with all the races in decline. They promptly ate a lot of elves and wrecked priestesses' tower with their dragon.

Priestesses, who entered the game with Pillaging Pygmies took revenge for the priestesses and wiped all the wizards off the map.

Elves turned into Catapult Trolls and started wrecking orcs, who went very soon into decline because of that.

Goblins were left alone for a long time and had a nice little empire of theirs, until a new race, owing fealty to the controller of former orc, Swamp Amazons butchered way too many of their tiny green bodies and hilarious, colorful hats. Into decline.

Combined efforts of goblins and pygmies put trolls into decline too (though, to be honest, their pitiful effect on that decicion is a stretch - they had many areas because of catapults cheap conquests.)

Pillaging pygmies decided their time had come and entered the game again as Peace-Loving Ghouls, who conquered a couple of former troll areas.

Swamp Amazons sticked around for a long time and for last turn they were switched for Hill White Ladies, not because they were a super choice, but because 6 victory coins rested on it.

Before that Catapult Trolls were switched to Heroic Dwarves and ghouls were turned put into decline just after one round of playing. Which was pretty awesome choice, as the player was able to play two last rounds as Marauding Ratmen.

Well, to continue the story of goblins, after their bloody encounter with the amazons they started again as Mounted Humans. Decline race and new race were pretty good but timing was bad. On last round of the game there was no time to go into decline and all that was left from the awesome human race was one zone, three tokens and two in decline goblins. Whee. You can guess who played that one.

Heroic Dwarves with earlier trolls in decline actually started scoring pretty nicely and dwarves controlled three mines at the end of the game despite their low numbers.

Final scoreboard:

Flying Elves/Catapult Trolls/Heroic Dwarves: 89
Forest Orcs/Swamp Amazons/Hill White Ladies: 87
Merchant Wizards/Dragon Master Goblins/Mounted Humans: 78
Mercenary Priestesses/Pillaging Pygmies/Peace-Loving Ghouls/Marauding Ratmen: 64

Be not afraid... it's only the necromancer!

Well, got two expansion for the price of, well, two.

The expansion "Be not afraid..." was priced rather horribly high for the content it brings to the game. Only five new races and five new special power badges.

New races look like fun though.

But the new special powers are named quite poorly. For example "Barricade Elves" don't sound good at all. Neither does "Catapult Orcs". I've always thought the special powers define their race somehow. "Hordes of" special power, for example, is a real good example how special power badge defines its attached race.

But Catapult? Sure, the mechanic is nice but the name is bad.


But then, Days of Wonder, the published of Smallworld, has made one other expansion, Necromancer Island, available too. It is a free expansion, though. And I managed to get that one. Here in Finland you could get it from a retail store by buying enough other Smallworld products. "Be not afraid..." was priced high enough that you needed to buy only it and you could then get the Island for free.

Seems a bit weird, though, that such an awesome expansion is given for free. Because it adds new mechanic, play style, to the game. And expands the possible number of players to 6. Expansion like these are what I would rather pay for than new races and badges.

Anyway, looking forward for next game of Smallworld!

25.12. Smallworld in Kuhmo

Probably last game of Smallworld here in Kuhmo finished now unless we find enough time in tomorrows hurries.

Anyway, we used Tales and Legends again.

The cards that were in effect through the game were:

2. White Queen (obviously not affecting anything at turn 2...)
3. Puff of Smoke
4. Philter of Forgetfulness
5. Wealth Redistribution
6. Tough Love
7. Youth Powder
8. Necromantic Elixir
9. Mercenaries
10. The Great Curse

Game began with Commando Orcs butchering up some Lost Tribes, scoring 7 points for first round which was quite unusual.

I managed to pick Flying Amazons and was that combo horrible... Sure! But did it leave other players feeling I was "winning" the game? Yeah, I think so too.

Dragonmaster Wizards attacked the orcs and left the ugly guys in decline pretty much there and then.

Orcs were replaced by Diplomatic Elves.

Philter of Forgetfulness caused races in decline not to score points on round 4.

That caused Flying Amazons to go to decline too, replaced by Fortified Trolls. That trend was followed by the wizards too, who in turn got Peace-Loving Ghouls around.

Trolls wreaked havoc on the remains of wizards and ghouls were feasting on amazons. The Elves were pretty much left on their own because, well, you can't do much to them.

Wealth Redistribution didn't affect anyone because all the races - Ghouls, Trolls and Elves went in decline that turn. Obviously the upcoming card, "Tough Love" that gave commando ability looked like a promising aspect to all the players...

Well, on round 6 there were Stout Sorcerers (previously Fortified Trolls), Marauding Goblins (Elves earlier) and Bivouacking Humans (ghouls) bidding for some tough love.

Some love fell for the Sorcerers.

Goblins killed all the trolls, though. Sorcerers dealt a payback: 4 elves killed and 5 regions conquered.

Ghouls shuffled away from farmlands they had been roaming in and there was a disgusting alliance of humans and in decline ghouls.

Well, next was Youth Powder in effect. I had my Stout Sorcerers who could go in decline after their full turn of activations. And Youth Powder gave extra points if you went in decline that turn, so the choice was easy.

Other players started scoring about 10 and over points at that point.

I chose Alchemist Tritons as my next weapon.

Necromantic Elixir was auctioned to goblins who went in decline instantly at that turn. Heroic Dwarves was another chosen race.

Mercenaries made it possible for Tritons to beat the humans' teeth in even when they had their camps around in there. Same went for humans too, though. The one and only farm I managed to get was conquered easily back. Also, a collaboration of necromantic goblins and heroic dwarves with mercenaries caused me to lose 4 of my 6 in decline tokens.

Last turn had the Great Curse in effect.

It meant that no-one could use their special power badges, though racial bonuses still applied.

Not much happened, dwarves continued to expand and humans and tritons bickered themselves. In the end the scoreboard was:

Dragonmaster Wizards/Peace-Loving Ghouls/Bivouacking Humans: 83
Commando Orcs/Diplomatic Elves/Marauding Goblins/Heroic Dwarves: 80
Flying Amazons/Fortified Trolls/Stout Sorcerers/Alchemist Tritons 69

Decline and Fall

Two games of Smallworld just played, now we're having a pause of sorts (which I obviously used to write things up!)

Both were three player games.

Game 1:

First races used were Diplomatic Skeletons, Forest Wizards and Heroic Amazons.

Amazons and Skeletons were kinda paired up, though diplomacy prevented amazons from attacking the skeletons and the heroes were blocking skeletons attacks against them.

I with my Wizards tried to stay as far away from such killer combos but sad thing was that the skeletons and amazons had both taken the side of the board with most forests and magic sources.

Skeletons played for long. No-one could really challenge them. Amazons didn't have to fight them, they could just spread wide and go in decline.

Poor Wizards were soon seized by the incoming skeletons and were put in decline too. I chose Historian Dwarves as my next race, thought of getting few mines and going in decline with them too real soon.

Amazons went in decline too and chose Swamp Tritons next.

Swamp Tritons carved a rather nice spot in to the middle of the Skeleton empire. Skeletons lost 4 regions and 4 tokens but still they had as many tokens as they had when they started the game... So that meant a bit of a weird thing happened. Skeletons were as strong as ever so they didn't go in decline after such a staggering blow. They just continued to kill stuff. And made an alliance with the Tritons, meaning the only way for Tritons to expand was to conquer their own in decline regions.

Skeletons had pretty much devoured my in decline wizards so I decided to go to decline with Dwarves too. To get rid of those horrible skeletons I picked Mounted Kobolds.

However, Tritons had been mauled to near extinction and they went in decline too. Alchemist Orcs came next.

And then when there were two fresh races coming up real soon the Skeletons were finally put to decline too. New race combo was Fortified Goblins.

Goblins destroyed all of my Dwarves in one fell swoop.

Kobolds conquered around 7 regions in one turn.

After all, it's a world of slaughter?

Game was nearing end and I put my kobolds in decline so I could play the last round with Merchant Priestesses, which was rather nice as I was the last player.

Final scoreboard for game 1 was:

Heroic Amazons/Swamp Tritons/Alchemist Orcs: 89
Diplomatic Skeletons/Fortified Goblins: 87
Forest Wizards/Historian Dwarves/Mounted Kobolds/Merchant Priestesses: 86

Pretty close.

Then it was time for:

Game 2:

Now we decided to use the Tales and Legends expansion.

Tales and Legends cards that were in effect were:

2. Baby Bloom
3. Greedy Gob
4. Tremors
5. Decline and Fall
6. Tabula Rasa
7. Handle With Care
8. Flooded!
9. Wealth Redistribution
10. White Queen

I won the starting roll and opted for Hill Sorcerers.

I thought that it would be a good choice but I guess I didn't take the other options into account that were available. I did check other choices that much that I saw that other options wouldn't benefit from upcoming Baby Bloom.

Well, other races that came up were Heroic Priestesses and Bivouacking Wizard.

So, both had easy access to immunities to my racial power.

Also, Wizards were far far away from the Priestesses and Priestesses were able to block my advance to them so they were building up a pretty damn impressive tower there though they didn't score many points.

Greedy Gob made it quite a race between Sorcerers and Wizards. In the end both scored 10 points so no-one gained anything from that card. Both Sorcerers and Wizards were spreading quite thin so entering decline was drawing near.

Priestesses did enter decline though and built up a 6 priestess tower.

And the new race chosen was Hordes of Elves. It was then when I realised how horrible that combination was.

But then the upcoming event was realised: Decline and Fall. It meant that all active races would go into decline at the start of round 5. It was a nasty turn for Sorcerers and Wizards who had spread themselves all over the board. This would have been the optimal turn to enter decline.

Also it wasn't too awesome for the priestesses either... that awesome tower, only to vanish next turn because Elves with only a few regions were to decline.

Well, the joy only escalates!

When every race went to decline next upcoming event was revealed... Tabula Rasa. I had the effect that all In Decline race tokens would be discarded.

Not. Nice.

New races chosen that round was transition of Sorcerers into Alchemist Goblins, Elves into Berserk Orcs and Wizards into Seafaring Humans.

Handle with care didn't have that big impact. It decided that I would go in decline with my goblins too because they got hit pretty hard in the head by both orcs and humans.

Goblins were left alone in the big small world and a new race of Fortified Ghouls came up.

During the course of floods that shaked the area an evil race of Swamp Ratmen emerged and Humans were put out of their misery.

Also Berserk Orcs had conquered something like 7 regions even when they hadn't succeeded in almost any of their berserk rolls. So away went the orcs too and Underworld Amazons came around, just in time for round 9 and Wealth Redistribution.

Only my poor Ghouls were alone in the map at the start of round 9 so I couldn't attack any active tokens. In the hindsight I should have probably went in decline, don't actually know why I didn't... I wanted to build castles I think.

Well, Ratmen carved an empire of 4 regions that included 2 swamps.

Amazons conquered two of my regions and destroyed one of my beautiful castles.

Last turn there was an auction at White Queen.

It was bought for the once-berserk orcs. That meant the ratmen could only get only few empty regions and amazons could only tease ghouls. Ghouls could do nothing.

Scoreboard:
Bivouacking Wizards/Seafaring Humans/Swamp Ratmen 101
Heroic Priestesses/Hordes of Elves/Berserk Orcs/Underworld Amazons 80
Hill Sorcerers/Alchemist Goblins/Fortified Ghouls 80

'tis season to crush nations.

After all the christmassy stuff we played a 3-player Smallworld here in Kuhmo.

We didn't use the Tales and Legends expansion because other players were playing Smallworld for the first time ever (by the way - I with my magnificient 6 game experience managed to get less points than anyone else).

Anyway, the combos were rather interesting from the start.

The first, free choice was Spirit Priestesses which seemed to be insanely good.

After that was Cursed Ratmen.

After Ratmen were Mounted Giants.

So the first player obviously took Spirit Priestesses. I was next in line and took Mounted Giants which in fact seemed like quite awesome race too.

Last player picked up Berserk Halflings.

Halflings picked their first two spots rather unsportingly so that Giants and Priestesses were against each other. Giants could actually only expand to Priestesses territory. There weren't even neutral zones available.

Well, because of such a scheme the Priestesses couldn't do their impossible dream of an awesome unassailable tower that wouldn't go away after second race goes to decline.

The tower wasn't any cool at all, in fact. Only three priestesses. Though that was three points that wouldn't go away easily.

There were six points on Cursed Ratmen at the moment and Priestesses were exchanged to them. The player got lucky and managed to conquer 4 regions with only one go. After only one turn of doing their stuff they were put into decline and Historian Kobolds entered. But that was later in game.

Around that time the Mounted Giants were exchanged for Dragonmaster Goblins and even Halflings didn't feel that berserky any longer and gave way for Ransacking Amazons.

So there was carnage.

Goblins butchered 2 ratmen and 1 halfling and the dragon crumbled Priestesses' tower.

Amazons retaliated and the co-joined efforts of Amazons and Kobolds drove Goblins in decline almost as soon as they entered the fields.

Seafaring Trolls tried to eat as many in decline halflings as they could but it was no good. There were too many even for trolls' insatiable appetite.

Once all the Ratmen were eradicated some Flying Elves arrived.

Ransacking Amazons had taken only a few casualties but they were spread to 8 regions and there were only trolls with their awesome defense and kobolds with their awesome numbers to ransack so they went to decline too. In came Wealthy Humans who got pretty easily two farm fields under their iron heel.

Game was nearing end and all the Goblins had been killed so I decided it was good to put trolls in decline and fight on last round with a fresh combo. I chose Commando White Ladies who had 5 points on them already.

Well. Humans managed to get even one more farm for them.

Then it was time to count the points.

Berserk Halflings/Ransacking Amazons/Wealthy Humans: 97
Spirit Priestesses/Cursed Ratmen/Historian Kobolds/Flying Elves: 88
Mounted Giants/Dragonmaster Goblins/Seafaring Trolls/Commando White Ladies: 81

20.10.2010 - Salo, friend's place. 4 player smallworld.

Game started with Peace Loving Giants which was a pretty darn fine starting race because you will easily get the peace bonus. However, next player picked up Bivouacking Sorcerers that proved a real, you know, PITA to deal with. They snatched one territory from giants on first round.

That made me think that if somehow Sorcerers remain unpicked up for the last player on round 1 then all hell would break loose. Well, this was not the case but it's always nice to imagine things.

Anyway, then I got Berserk Orcs and started from close to giants. I didn't make even one succesful berserk roll and I got really lousy start.

Last player took Hordes of Dwarves and went to the side of playing board where was no other players and some mines close by.

Giants were harassed by both Sorcerers and Orcs. I tried to kick a bit Sorcerers too but Giants were in between. After I conquered Giants I failed all the Berserk rolls again and could do nothing to Sorcerers.

All the while Dwarves were scheming and mining and drinking beer.

Giants turned soon into Alchemit Wizards and Dwarves into Mounted Halflings.

Both started getting pretty scary amounts of points per round so I decided that I needed to go to decline too and pick a better race and leave Sorcerers to themselves. Historian Amazons had picked up a few victory coins so I chose them. I hoped that their sheer number would bring enough in decline dwarves and active wizards down.

But then Sorcerers felt a bit abandoned to that one corner of the board and emerged again as Dragon Master Goblins.

Yes, there was blood on the streets.

Everyone was butchered to pieces. However, the hardest toll fell on Giant/Wizards because so many Wizards died and had to be put in decline pretty soon which meant very little point scoring for a round.

On last rounds of the game Wizards turned into Seafaring Ghouls. Goblins killed last of the Dwarves and so Halflings went in decline and a horror that's known as Merchant Ratmen came into being. The player scored 18 points in one round which was kind of harsh.

I put Amazons in Decline too so I had one round of fooling around with Hill Gypsies. It didn't really save me.

Final scoreboard:

Hordes of Dwarves/Mounted Halflings/Merchant Ratmen: 101
Bivouacking Sorcerers/Dragonmaster Goblins: 72
Berserker Orcs/Historian Amazons/Hill Gypsies: 68
Peace Loving Giants/Alchemist Wizards/Seafaring Ghouls: 66

7.9.2010 Jyväskylä - Friend's place

Played a game of Smallworld, this time with all available expansions.

Tales and Legends had little impact on this game, however, First two cards that were drawn were one that denied going In Decline (not many are going In Decline on second round of the game...) and the second card that came into effect on turn three gave some give & take bonuses from In Decline races. Also one card made spaces with Lost Tribes more valuable to conquer but at time there were no longer Lost Tribes around...

Anyway, I won the starting roll and bought an amazing race combo. Hordes of Amazons. That meant 13 amazon race tokens with additional 4 tokens on conquests.

Other race combos that entered play were Heroic Goblins (hey, how's that possible?) and Seafaring Ghouls (Well... maybe they didn't sail on ships, they rather walked on the bottom of the ocean?)

Three player map made those two hero tokens quite important. Against only one player (for example if the other one is far away) they can make nasty blockades.

Hordes of Amazons went into decline on turn three and it got me thinking that amazons are an annoying race. They can spread over almost the whole map and go in decline quite easily with the situation that you have one token per region. It's difficult for opponents to conquer those regions and they're giving the controlling player nice amounts of victory coins, often more than what your active race brings! Anyway, I had placed my "Hordes of" tokens and lost two regions because of it when I went to decline.

I chose Merchant Ratmen as my new race and it proved to be a killer combo too. Merchant power gives only two race tokens but Ratmen got dozens of them already. These two races scored me staggering amounts of victory coins... but there was a price to pay on turn to come.

Somewhere here Ghouls went into decline too and were replaced with Hill Orcs.

Goblins were ditched too (I think it was Summer of Love when they did so) and Swamp Kobolds were raising their ugly head.

Well, about that time there was this Tales and Legends card "Bling bling" that forced players to count their points and reveal them to other players. Well, I had the most points at that time because my merchandise (I just wonder what the heck ratmen are selling that the other races so enjoyed? Well, on the other hand... other races were Ghouls and Goblins) had gathered me quite a many points.

Next turn all but one ratmen... or ratman, should I say? were wiped off.

So I went in decline with that lone token and got Berserk Halflings to wander about. I scored one point that turn.

Hill orcs and Swamp kobolds started to score over ten points per turn then.

Halflings were a funny story, though. They managed to do only two succesful Berserk rolls in the whole game if I remember right. First one they made when they entered the playing field - imagine a whole nation of bloodthirsty, red-eyed Halfings bursting from the ground. Then they played a couple of turns not succeeding at any rolls. Last region they conquered in the whole game was a Hills region that was empty. Other player pointed out that there were sheep pictured in the space.

My poor Berserk Halflings were brave enough, barring the outburst, only to mess up with sheep.

Swamp Kobolds and Hill Orcs scored steadily but I think they didn't embrace going into decline enough. Well, Hill Orcs had ghouls in decline that had managed to capture all water regions so it's understandable that the player didn't want to lose them. (The ghouls were funny, though. They had four tokens and three spaces - they tried to conquer one occupied region every turn, but mostly failed. Funny imagining that too - zombies rise out of the water, only to be kicked back.)

Anyway, final score board was:

Hordes of Amazons/Merchant Ratmen/Berserk Halflings: 99
Seafaring Ghouls/Hill Orcs: 86 or 88
Heroic Goblins/Swamp Kobolds: 83 or 84