Duel of Meloch, Thunder Road: Ignition, and Deus

I’ve been getting lots of messages from friends seeing the sights in Indy. To pass the time, and commiserate on our misfortunes (not really; both of us attended at least one major convention this year so no worries), we got back in the Gumbo Pot to play some games.

First, a tiny bit of backstory. Of all the gamers that I play with in Acadiana, Mitchell is one of the most dedicated to keeping a VERY small shelf of opportunity. When he gets a new game at the FLGS or in a trade, it is burning a hole on his shelf, staring at him silently but with a mission to be played. Luckily for me, one of those very recent arrivals was Duel of Meloch designed by Jamey Stegmaier and published by Stonemaier Games. As a big fan of Scythe, I was definitely intrigued when I saw the announcement. But I held off on buying it (I picked up Wingspan Pocket instead) to see what the results were.

I am happy to report that this is not only an interesting two player game, it is very faithful to the original games. In a way, as Mitchell noted in our playthrough, it’s almost too faithful. The rules assume you remember how to play Scythe and Expeditions — and while I have played Scythe exactly two dozen times, it’s not like i have the rules down cold. But back to the gameplay. Both sides take on the role of the player of each game: I played a game of Scythe and Mitchell played a game of Expeditions, but we used the same small well done neoprene mat AND we had a new star system to contend with. 

Each player raced to get four stars out on the row, but the ingenious thing, and one of the most unexpected things about the game, is that we are competing for the spots but with slightly different goals in some cases. I needed to build three buildings or capture two encounter tokens. Mitchell wanted four encounter tokens. Getting any of those stars down locked the other person out of that goal. So clever and it created a lot of tension. And there’s some lagniappe. Each player’s faction is perfectly usable in the base game of Scythe or Expeditions, so in essence, you not only get a two player game with asymmetric factions, but you also get to add these factions to your games. This one gets a thumbs up from me, and now I want to try the Expeditions side. 

Next up, we played the brand new retail edition of Thunder Road: Ignition. from Restoration Games. The team at Restoration took the original TRV and distilled it down to throwing your dice, taking one bonus action, and moving your cards down a track with brand new curves to the finish line while avoiding hazards and staying out of the pit area. No special power cards, or moving the tracks forward, just a breezy play that eliminates player elimination. When players take too much damage on their cars, the cars go to a pit stop area on the side of the board, and need to be moved back in on the next turn or round. 

From set up to teach to play took us less than 45 minutes, and yet, it felt like a big game of TRV. Yes, I told Mitchell that if I had my choice, I would play Carnival of Chaos instead, because I love that track and all the wackiness that happens. But this is the way newcomers to the hobby at the big box stores should experience our hobby of gaming. The rules are easy to teach, it looks amazing on the table, and the turns are snappy. This is the kind of game we would have played all day every day as a kid and I am glad that the new generation of gamers have access to productions like this.

And finally, we played Deus from Pearl Games designed by 
Sébastien Dujardin. I got this game from 2014 in a trade because I had always heard so many good things and played it with my wife last week. After a quick teach, Mitchell and I jumped in. Essentially, players are trying to create a large empire over a set of interconnecting land tiles by building buildings, moving little army units and making offerings to the gods (which is just activating the special powers of the gods to get money, resources, cards, or buildings.) 

The twist is that every time you build a new building, you not only get to activate that building’s special power, but every other previous building of the same type. Plus, there is a sixth type of building (the temple) which can score you big points at the end if you manage your empire correctly. What a great game, what a great little hidden gem (at least in this area of the country). My only complaint is that the game looks a little bit dated now, but that’s a pretty picayune complaint considering the awesome gameplay. I really want to try this at a higher player count, and throw in the Egypt expansion cards that my buddy Jay Bell sent me. 

Great night of gaming and looking forward to seeing more stories of GEN CON from our friends. 

Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from blurve doblive (<– that one’s for Board Boy Rob)

** Complimentary copy of Thunder Road: Ignition was provided by the publisher. **