Excerpts from the Diary of a Mad Overlord

by Ed Rozmiarek

Dear Diary,

It is a glorious day. After many long days of research and a couple of, shall we say, "educational" efforts, I have been successful in summoning and controlling the Demon Prince. This was the last piece I needed to start the overthrow, I mean, conversion of the land of Terrinoth. The signs in the heavens continue to guide my path. The great comet is coming and I must prepare the land for the changes to come. Just this morning I sent my faithful servant, Sir Alric, to the nearby town of Nerekhall. There he will begin educating the inhabitants of the heavenly signs. I have instructed him to start construction of the first of the needed new temples as soon as he can. I must look into sending him help when I find another trustworthy servant.

Dear Diary,

I have heard from my sources near Tamalir that there is a new group of foolish "heroes" causing trouble. The Lawlessness I have spread though out the land should slow these fools down if they wander around outside the city for long.

Dear Diary,

These adventurers have already started to cause trouble at the dungeon near the Starfall Forest. Legion, my skeleton master there, was able to send a report of these fools. They appear to be led by a large, goat like creature that goes by the name, now get this, "Steelhorns". There is a dwarf that went by the name of "Corbin" and another short hooded creature they called "Kirga". The last of the group was identified by Legion as Thorn, the Runemaster from northern Terrinoth.

The last message from Legion said he had the situation under control. He was able to take down the goat creature but needed the help of some Beastmasters and Kobolds. It seems the skeleton warriors that Legion was always bragging he could summon at will did not slow down these adventurers.

Dear Diary,

I have not heard from Legion since that final report, and I found out why. I have recently received a report from the staff of the Arena at Starfall that this same group was foolish enough to challenge the Ogre Champion. This means that Legion failed to stop them and they were able to figure out how to open the door to the portal. Ah, so long fools. Taking on the undefeated Champion. Fools indeed.

Dear Diary,

Two of my Dark Priests who were at the Arena were able report back on this new group of trouble makers. Although the priests did not see the beginning of the day's battle, they heard that the adventurers were able to quickly take out a couple of skeletons and a sorcerer. That roused the Ogre Champion who took matters into his own hands. The fools quickly learned why he was the Champion. The ogre was able to fling the goat creature and the dwarf around the arena at will, but they appeared to be tougher than they looked. But, they quickly found out that the Ogre Champion was tougher than he looked. Even after taking many hits and seeming to fall unconscious, he quickly got back up appearing fully fresh. Ah, how I love Undying creatures.

The keepers of the arena were able to bring up some Hell Hounds to guard the exit and then sent in a group of kobolds in the entrance. The kobolds were able to get through the dwarf's armor and sent him packing. The Dark Priests also got into the spirit of the battle even from the stands on the west side of the arena. They were able to take a few pot shots at the goat man and sent him to the Temple.

Little was seen of the wizard who apparently was running from bone heap to bone heap looking for treasure. He was able to find many potions that had been dropped by the previous combatants of the Arena. These adventures needed these potions to stay on their feet as long as they did.

Sadly, my priests ended their report with the fall of the Champion. With the door unlocked, the adventurers quickly ran to the exit. The revived goat man was able to remove one of the Hell Hounds. The other hound had the weakened dwarf in his sights but must have coughed up a hair ball because no flame ensued. Useless hounds. The priests jumped down from the stands and chased the adventurers toward the exit. They report that they were able to damage the "Kirga" character, but could not bring him down before they ran to the portal.

Dear Diary,

I have been thinking. This new group is becoming a distraction to my work. If they show up in the last part of the Starfall Forest dungeon, I will send some of my personal army down there to deal with them. I must be rid of these fools once and for all, for the comet is coming...

---

Box Score:
Avatar: Demon Prince
Scenario: Ascension
Week: 1
Heroes completed two levels of Starfall Forest
No cities razed.
Conquest: OL 14 / Heroes 16

Upcoming Gaming

by Susan Rozmiarek

The next few days are packed with gaming. Tonight we are planning to give Mark's new copy of Tinners' Trail a whirl. Our own copy is still somewhere between Texas and England. Given that I've recently played Brass and I'm about post a review of Toledo after several plays, Martin Wallace seems to be a popular guy around here lately.

What I'm really excited about, though, is all the dungeon-crawly goodness planned. Tomorrow night a few of us are trying the new Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition with Mike Chapel at the helm as the DM. I'm not quite as enthused about RPGs as the others, but it should be a fun evening and there's no way I'm going to turn down a chance to try it. The next day, Saturday, we will be kicking off our Descent: Road to Legend campaign. It will be interesting to play that right after D&D 4e and compare the two games. I just hope I can keep the rules separate in my head, which is in danger of exploding right now from reading up on all these different games.

Memorial Day Gaming - Brass

by Susan Rozmiarek

Well, our Memorial Day was not exactly the gaming bonanza that I was expecting. We had a huge crowd and it was fun, but I only played two games! They both ran a little long and I also got caught up in cooking duties. Still, I'd have thought I could manage more gaming in ten hours. Also, for some reason, Ed neglected (forgot?) to take pictures.

Fortunately, those hours that I did spend playing were definitely of the highest quality gaming time - Brass and the new Pillars of the Earth expansion. I'm just going to talk about Brass in this post.

Brass

Martin Wallace games were once automatic purchases for us, but we now proceed with caution, especially after Perikles which I did not enjoy at all. Even his much touted masterpiece, Age of Steam, is a design I admire but can't stand to play as its unforgiving economic system and brutal competition makes it feel like too much work. It's one of those games that practically reduces me to tears of frustration. Brass, however, fixes these problems for me yet remains highly competitive, boosting Martin Wallace back up on his pedestal for the time being.

Brass is about the Industrial Revolution in Lancashire, England. Players will be building industries like coal mines, iron works, and cotton mills in the various towns and building connections between them to move the resulting goods, either selling them at ports or using them to do more building. The game is played in two periods - a canal period and a rail period. Building is done through card play. The board shows which industries can be built in each town. Right here are two game attributes that I dearly love - route building and hand management.

There is a bit of a cooperative aspect that is really nice. When you build a coal mine or iron works, the resulting products can be used by anybody for free. The advantage for you is that once they are used up, the tile is flipped and you get an increase in income and the victory points. Thus, you'll want to build coal mines in towns that other players are connected to so they can use it. The same goes with the ports. Another player can use your port to sell their cotton, but it then flips and you'll get victory points and an income boost. A good strategy here is to not be cooperative and build your ports such that you use them yourself to ship cotton.

Victory points are awarded after each period for flipped industry tiles and connections between towns. Leftover money also earns VPs at the end of the second period.

There are several mechanisms that make Brass less painful and more enjoyable for me:

- It's much harder to get blocked in on the board as often happens in Age of Steam. You can play an industry card to build off your network, but you can also play a location card to build in a particular town even if you aren't connected to it. This allows you to jump to another part of the board and start building another network. There is a bit of luck here in drawing a location card that you want.

- If resources are scarce on the board, you can buy them for a price if you are connected to a port. Since this includes flipped (used) ports and ones that are fixed on the board, it is not that hard to do.

- Player order is determined in a very clever fashion. Players take turns based on how much money they spent in the previous turn from least spent to most. So, if you have a "big" turn, you will likely be going last in the next one and vice versus. This means that you have some control over the turn order which often drives your decisions on a given turn.

- Money is quite tight, but a loan can be taken as one of your actions on your turn. This causes a decrease in your income but can sometimes be timed so that there is less of an impact. Like Age of Steam, you get income every turn and are continually increasing how much you'll get. However, in Brass it seems easier to increase it due to these other things that I mention above.

There are a few other things in the game that I'm not going to describe but will just say that there is plenty to worry about and deal with in this game, making it quite strategic. I wasn't really sure what I was doing until I saw the scoring at the end of the first period. After that, things fell into place and I at least understood the flow of the game. The rules aren't that hard except for some niggly rules that are easy to forget. There appear to be several different strategies and I'm looking forward to exploring them.

My biggest worry is a comment from a player in our group who has played it a few times and seems to think that the few shipyards are too powerful and will determine the winner. I hope that this is not the case as this game has so many things in it that I like.

Before I wrap this up, I have to comment on the theme. I am really enjoying heavily themed games lately. Most games with a historical theme seem to be either Eurogames where the theme feels like it was merely tacked on for flavor or wargames, an entirely different beast. Brass breaks out of this mold with a strong non-war historical theme that plays like a heavier Eurogame. I'm hoping Wallace's new game, Tinners' Trail, is of the same type. I'm reminded of the Ragnar Brothers, also British, who have given us this same sort of game with Fire & Axe and Canal Mania. I'd definitely like to see more of these types of games.

One more bit of praise - I love the clean, attractive art and overall look of the game which is very evocative of the time period in which Brass takes place.