MerricB

Le Havre is a port city in France. Le Havre is the new game from the designer of Agricola. Guess which one I now own? Yes, alas, I don't own a town. However, in the stakes of really cool games, Le Havre is very close to the top.

The game is about developing the port city: building or buying buildings, harvesting goods and then manufacturing them into more useful commodities and - eventually - shipping them away for VPs. Sounds like Puerto Rico? Well, it's a long way from the game in how it's played. It's closer to Agricola or Caylus.

Unlike those last two worthy games, you only have one "worker". On your turn, you can either harvest goods or move your worker to a new building and obtain its effect (which can be converting goods to commodities, gaining goods, gaining commodities, building a new building, or a host of other effects). There's a couple of tricks here: the first is that you can't move your worker to a building that someone else has a worker in. This can be frustrating when you really want to build a ship but both wharves are currently occupied. The second is that you can use your own buildings for free... but other buildings cost. So, if you want to use your opponent's wharf, you have to pay him - either in money or in fish. Well, food. Most commonly fish.

I got to see part of the "simple" or "shortened" game played today by my students. Talk about frustrating - watching the game that I bought (for aus$96) being played by someone else! However, the game recommends it isn't played by 5 or more players; 3 is the sweet spot. They didn't get all of the way through the game - indeed, for 4 players, the shortened game still lasts about 2 hours! - but they got about 2/3rds of the way through... and now I want to play it more than ever!

The game is much less component-heavy than Agricola: only 110 cards, compared to over 300. However, it still has a lot of variety. The six special buildings are different each game (from 36), and the order the standard buildings come out can be very different.

I'm not sure when my first chance to play Le Havre with my friends will come. Friday night is D&D, Saturday is Worldwide D&D Game Day, and Sunday is more D&D. Hmm...

The poll for "best number of players" for Le Havre on BGG currently stands at:
solo - 3% best; 67% recommend, 30% avoid
2-player - 25% best; 69% recommend; 6% avoid
3-player - 80% best; 19% recommend; 1% avoid
4-player - 28% best; 62% recommend; 10% avoid
5-player - 0% best; 3% recommend; 97% avoid

At long last, I managed to play another game of Battletech on the weekend. It was Josh's and Rich's first game, but they learnt the rules pretty quickly and, I think, had a great time blowing up my mechs.

Two of my mechs suffered Ammo explosions, which was bad. Very bad. Goodbye pilots!

Meanwhile, Josh and Rich, playing mechs of Sorenson's Sabres, completed their mission. They only lost one mech during the battle - a Panther that was unfortunate enough to suffer three engine hits! They also had a Trebuchet with one engine hit, which wasn't that fun to pilot, though, in the end, it was very important for them completing the mission successfully.

The game took about 4 hours to go through; not too bad given new players and the opposition they were facing. With any luck, we'll get another game on this coming Saturday.

Our last session of the Friday Greyhawk campaign was not one of my better efforts. It didn't help that I had a couple of players missing (pulling out at the last moment), nor that I was dreadfully tired. It was also a transition session, where we changed between one style of campaign plot to another. Urgh. We had four short (and quite boring) combats, plus a little roleplaying. It did, however, serve its purpose and, with any luck, things will be looking up now.

There were a couple of good things to come out of the sesion, thankfully.

The first was due to Rich. I'd concocted the story of this band of university students finding an ogre's cave, getting beat up, and returning with the news of its location to the university. From then on, it became a popular dare to visit the cave and see the ogre. This group of adventurers (with prodding from a new NPC) decided to go and slay the ogre and take its treasure. Upon arriving, Rich's paladin entered first, with the rogue and ranger sneaking in behind.

Rich saw this menacing ogre growling at him, club upraised, and completely flubbed his Perception check. For the next few minutes, he tried to talk to an unresponsive ogre. Finally, his patience exhausted, he charged it... only to drop into the 20' deep pit before the stuffed ogre skin. Then the bugbears charged the others in the party!

That was a fun moment. Eventually, Rich climbed out and the combat turned in their favour.

The other important thing that occured was the introduction of Teresa Corthan, daughter of my original AD&D magic-user, Meliander. Nathaniel had expressed a wish for more elements of his homeland of Ulek to be used in the campaign. So, enter Teresa as an NPC - a 16 year-old girl, who'd been sent to Greyhawk to attend the same college as Nate's character.

Teresa will be a lot of fun; she's a NPC that I'll enjoy roleplaying, and she also provides a lot of interesting plothooks. She also firmly fixes the campaign in the timeline. If she's 16, then it must be 598 CY. I might add a couple of years to her age (and the timeline) once I've placed everything properly in the timeline... but I know she was born in 582 CY, so that's a firm dating point for everything else.

Now to see if I can design a better adventure for our next session!

With us getting back to speed with our roleplaying campaigns, I thought now would be a nice time to discuss the Castle Greyhawk campaign and where it's going. Because - as you might know by now - I don't have a clue!

The original concept for the game was mostly as a dungeon-delve campaign centred about Castle Greyhawk (using the Castle Zagyg material from TLG), with the option of more plot-based material being included as the campaign developed. It's been somewhat derailed of late with the inclusion of the Hall of Many Panes - although fitting the theme, not quite what I originally had in mind. I don't want to use much more of the HOMP at present, because it really wants you to be entering the Paragon tier. Yes, I do want to come back to it, because I think you'll enjoy it, but some of the threats really are too much for you at present.

Anyway, here's a summary of important campaign and personal themes as I see them. For my players, please add your own impressions of the campaign and your PC, and some suggestions as to where you'd like the campaign and your PC to go...

Campaign in General
The group began just as newbie adventurers, exploring Castle Greyhawk because it was nearby and had the reputation of a place you could find treasure(!). Slowly, you started doing small missions for people with an interest in your life - the church that uncursed Peggy; and, more recently, Peggy & Nate's tutor from Grey College, who was very interested in the old Chateau belonging to Zagyg.

PC-specific themes:
Martin - Martin made the mistake of telling me that his dwarf's (Gromley's) motivation was to pay off a debt to the thieves' guild. So, I decided to make the thieves' guild rather important to his character; sending him on quests and the like. I'm not sure if Martin wishes to keep up this relationship or not. (Me? I think it's fun!)

Nathaniel - as far as I can see, Will's main interest is in having fun; I've got minor plot threads involved with his tutor, Doctor Southey, but not much beyond that. Nate, would you like anything more for Will in the campaign?

Peggy - like Nathaniel, most of the plotting around Peggy has been incidental as part of being a student of Doctor Southey. Not really sure of much background, etc.

Adam - I don't know much about Adam's new character. Well, that it's a swordmage, yes, but not much more background after that. Adam's old character, the traitor, is likely to be an ongoing foe throughout the early part of the campaign. Which will be fun!

Rich - Paladin, and not much more known about him yet. (Deity is Heironeous, right, Rich?) I'll probably add a bunch more church-related stuff as the campaign shifts back to Greyhawk.

Foes and Friends
The Orcs of Iuz - these are the ones that Adam's old character joined. Led by a rather nasty priest of Iuz, they've been investigating the Chateau and otherwise proving troublesome.

The Church of Rao - a minor player in the campaign; this is the temple that healed Peggy's wizard from that curse she inflicted on herself, and, as payment, sent you on a quest to find a knight and his son who were captured by the humanoids of the Mouths of Madness (the caves around the base of Castle Greyhawk).

The Thieves' Guild - the thorn in the side of Gromley; they sent him to rescue a merchant from the caves. He rescued the merchant, and then the merchant was killed by a beautiful, female assassin (Jade). Oops. They're not so happy with Gromley as a result.

Jade - She killed a merchant. She's pretty. She's a mystery. I may have misremembered her name; my notes are at home.

Grey College - the academic institution that Peggy and Nate's characters are going to (under the tuition of Doctor Southey). They have an interest in artefacts of Zagyg, and they really can't wait until Adam delivers the toga of Zagyg. (It's a sheet they found in his chateau. Don't ask).

The Greenleaf Tavern - it's run by a couple of ex-adventurers (old PCs of Adam and me), and has been the base of the PCs for some of the campaign. It has good food, great booze, and gives a small discount to adventurers (compared to the rest of the taverns in the city, who mark things up for adventurers!) One of the owners is the high priest of Pelor in the city (Alvares Yulos), and may be a useful contact.

I've almost played 100 games of Dominion on BSW. Hooray!

The game is remaining entertaining, although there are times when interaction ceases and super-combo decks become standard. Just like Magic. Yeah, there are things I don't miss about Magic.

The Chapel (trash up to 4 cards in hand) has proven to be incredibly powerful - especially when taken early game. Getting rid of all the low value cards in hand makes your deck so much more efficient.

Talking of weird combos, I now have the new FFG version of Cosmic Encounter. Bitswise, it's great. 50 races, and nice plastic spaceships that are so, so much more usable than the recent Avalon Hill version. (They are little flying saucers that stack). They've also got plans for an expansion. Let's see how that goes.

I also have the upgrade pack for Talisman 4e. Now to get the Reaper expansion...

I also buckled and picked up the Road to Legend expansion for Descent. (Scott - did you ever finish that campaign you were running?) Don't know how often we'll get to play it; the drawback of our group owning somewhere upwards of 150 boardgames. Or 200. We need to find out.

I was happily reading the 4e Draconomicon and Manual of the Planes on the weekend. I've got a sneaking suspicion that they might be the best versions of those books yet. Yeah, I enjoyed them. 4e does some incredible things to the D&D cosmology - it keeps the best of the old, and puts in a lot of things that really resonate with me. Shadowfell and Feywild, I'm looking at you! (Oh, and the Elemental Chaos. Love that concept).

And I've just got to love any book that gives space to the Fomorians.

I'm 36 today. The years are speeding by now. I've had a very good year, all things considered, although this isn't my favourite day of it - I'm stuck at work printing report after report. Given that's also what I was doing yesterday and most of last week, I'm a bit sick of it now.

Happily, I've got two new boardgames: Dominion (currently #7 on BGG) and Battlestar Galactica. Unhappily, I'll have to wait a few days until I can play them. No, neither were birthday presents.

Present-wise, I picked up a couple of gift cards, a promise of new shoes, and a Doctor Who talking key-chain, which I really, really like. One of the gift cards has been turned into a Doctor Who DVD (The War Machines), the other will wait for either a trip to Melbourne, or - more likely - someone else's trip to Melbourne to be redeemed.

Oh, and my brother gave me a fabulous Folio Society Edition of I, Claudius by Robert Graves. I read the book many, many times when I was growing up, and I'm delighted to have a very nice edition of it - the old paperback copy has disintegrated, I'm afraid.

My friends and I celebrated my birthday on Sunday, after they endured several setbacks in getting out to my place with regards to transport. When they got here, we had a fun afternoon, playing several boardgames: Last Night on Earth: the Zombie Game, Transeuropa (with the Vexation expansion), Citadels, and Zooloretto. Vexation really changed Transeuropa. Rich was by far superior in that - he won every round. I won the other three - although for LNOE, I was the Zombies and the heroes almost won. But not quite.