Weekend

Legendary

After class on Friday a friend picked up a copy of Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game from Barnes and Noble and proceeded to convince me to learn it on Saturday. We sorted through the cards, separating out the heroes and S.H.I.E.L.D agents from the villains and henchmen and then set up for the tutorial scenario. The game consists of a set of cards and a board on which to play them (making it easier to set up). The box has a lot of extra space in it, so there is room for all of the expansions that add more heroes, villains and scenarios to the game. Every turn you pick up an entirely new hand of cards, which can spent to either attack or to buy additional face up cards for your deck. The competition is between the players as well as against the Mastermind villain and the rest of the villains and henchmen in play, meaning a balance of attacks is necessary. Because each player is building a deck during the course of the game, you compete with them for certain purchasable cards as well as attempt to earn the most victory points from fighting villains. This was a game I had not played before, but I ended up with more points than the person who was teaching (although that could be because he was giving out free advice for people who had really good hands about what order to play things in). I plan to play it again in the future, since I only got to see the powers of five of the heroes.

Power Grid

This game I taught over the weekend as a preparation for teaching it during the week. I have played a few times, the most recently being over Christmas break. Power Grid is a game in which players compete to build a network of cities powered by the power stations they purchase and supply with raw materials. While there seems to be a lot going on at once, the phases in each round keep things organized. Players purchase new power plants through an auction at the beginning of each round. Power plants have the ability to power different amounts of cities and require different amounts of raw materials. Raw materials go up in cost as the demand goes up, but the player in last position is given the advantage in this purchasing phase. The cities in a player's network are important because they earn money when powered using raw materials, but they also cost money to build. At the end of the game, whoever has the ability to power the most cities is the winner, regardless of how much money they have amassed. This makes it important to pay attention to the impending end game, because it can happen very quickly, as was the case when we played (and I won suddenly). While not exactly fast-paced or exciting, this game is a fun way to simulate the production of electricity through the use of coal, oil, garbage, uranium, wind, and fusion.

I learned some techniques I can use for explaining the combination of turns, phases, rounds, and steps to beginners in the future, and I learned that I really need to explain the end game better, so that other players can see it coming. After surprising the people I was playing with and winning at the end I am glad that in class I will be supervising the play instead of participating, because I am afraid I would be a bit too ruthless.