Let's Talk Solitaire.....

Just played solo Cuba Libre very frickin' exciting. I played the commies but Batista prevailed! He thwarted a General Strike in Havana, used the CIA to train up his police and eliminated all rebels from Havana itself. At the same time the Mob were muscling in and supporting Batista's attacks on the insurgents (the fuckers).

The Government won on a close run fight. Another turn and I would have removed Governmental support from the villagers by shooting them. The plan then was to take over the casinos by force, eliminating the enforcers on the way. The students from Directorio put up a good fight and had control of Havana at one point but foolishly called a General Strike and got absolutely fucked by the police who destroyed their HQs in the city while mopping up some random commies.

The fight really revolves around Havana but Havana is a long way from the communist jungle bases and a pain to get there in time. Added to all that, at one point, the bloody students stole some armored cars from the regime and just totally burned down my jungle bases. The bastards. If it wasn't for them interfering, I could have completed the revolution. Well good luck with the repressive dictatorship you dumb students. You'll be the next up against the wall.

As you can tell, the narrative is excellent and memorable. I suck at playing it though.

In between tow jobs this weekend I played a solo game of Mage Knight using the latest expansion/dude Krang.

He is one ugly bastard, I'll give him that. He was interesting. His special abilities work different than the other knights. Most flipping over when you use them and then having an associated cost to flip them back (unlike the others whose ability flips back at the end of the turn). Thus they are more expensive costing a mana or an "action" but can be used far more frequently.

His unique cards are pretty cool, one giving you mana crystals by discarding cards during movement and the other giving a sizable boost to influence when hiring on minions.

I didn't use any of the Lost Legion stuff except for the updated cards and the additional monster tokens. The game is tough enough without the General. Anyway, I located both cities and attempted an assault on one, defeated one of the white defenders but couldn't take out the other three before time ran out. Total score: 76

Have you been able to use Krang's skill where he reanimates tokens that he's defeated and uses them in a later battle? That's my favourite skill in the game.

Yet another play of Cuba Libre. Unbelievably, I had taken Havana as the Communists and it all looked set to win. The final card play and two of my guerillas defect to the Government, I lose control of Havana and the government bribes everyone in Havana back to happiness. I end up coming last. Fuuuuuuck.

All on the last card. What.The.Fuck.

Now a quick game of Andean Abyss before I tackle A Distant Plain. COIN are the shit.

I'm working on a trade for AA. I think that one is falling through though, so time to hunt down another.

A very fun game of Andean Abyss today.

For once,I managed to keep the Cartels under check with their predilection of building cocaine labs all over the fucking place. They ended up with loads of resources but not many labs. I just kept spraying the fields.

The fascists (AUC) got together in the mountains and formed up a HUGE army and spent most of the game fucking over FARC by trying to assassinate and ambush them all the time which suited me (I'm playing the hapless Government of Columbia).

To be fair, the really good card to get, which I will do anything to get my hands on, is the one where the police and military finally cooperate and you can conduct guerrilla sweeps with the police. Like I say, do ANYTHING to get this ability. This meant I could civic action a few places in the first Propaganda Round which you usually can't do because you usually can't mobilise the police anywhere outside the cities. Once the Army started cooperating with them, all was well. In addition to that I managed to attack a couple of shipments of coke and use them to fund my guys operations.

Good stuff indeed. Scraped a +3 win.

A Distant Plain is now setup for me to learn. Looks daunting but I'm up for it.

New COIN game on the horizon in P500, Gallic Wars about the Roman Empire. Sounds fun.