F:AT Thursday - Ascending Empires and the Best Laugh of the Year

"Sir!" booms the voice of the lord of the manor. He stands in the luxuriously appointed parlor of the ancestral mansion bequeathed to him upon the death of his father. "What is the meaning of this? Explain yourself at once!"

The butler steps back allowing the newcomer to fully enter the room. He says nothing but the disapproval upon his face shows his disdain more than any words he might utter.

Upon the couch, the lady of the house fans herself. Her eyes wide with shock and outrage. She lifts one gloved  hand to her forehead as if she might swoon.

"I uh...uhm...that is..." the man in the door stammers.

"Out with it!" commands the lord.

"I was told, that is I understood that there was to be boardgames?"

"Indeed, of course, but you arrive in this disheveled fashion. How dare you. Where sir, is your black tie, where is your evening coat?! Are we animals, sir? Do we take our leisure like savages?"

It is F:AT Thursday.

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Uba and Al once again misplaced their priorities and decided that attending their daughter's school play and there-by being loving and supportive parents was more important than hanging around with a bunch of uncouth louts. It says something about the state of things when such obvious lapses in judgement occur as if they were the most natural things in the world. I for one protest! Somebody make a note.

However, to make up for the gaps in our roster, we had another guest starring appearance of Matt "Fantastic" Loter. He was up in our neck of the woods to perform a wedding and stayed on for some gaming.  Always a welcome addition.

Seeing as the Roses were out, the setting was my humble abode. One benefit of this was that my wife, who loves guests and loves to make food for them, was home and provided us with some tasty treats while we played. She doesn't like games herself unless they have "cute" pieces and though I never force them on her she is always welcome to join us but most often she is happy to play "Mine Craft" on the x-box while the rest of us hurl insults at each other around the table.

So with gourmet quality tapas and some cold beers we settled down for some gaming.

First up was yet more Legends of Andor. Matt was interested in trying it out as he had never played. He is a sharp dude when it comes to learning games and within a few minutes he had it down. It's easy to teach a game to somebody who has the touch stones of experience and understands the jargon we gamers use when describing something.

We played the 3rd scenario again, which if you will remember is the one with a lot of randomness in set up and objectives. We had it all set up and ready to go and were crushed in two turns. I mean totally wiped out. Not a chance in hell. Stomped. Bathed in shame and disgrace.

This could not..WOULD not stand.

We set up again. The randomness provided a substantially different experience as we, without changing our play style much, were able to triumph without much difficulty.

I am all for randomness but the disparity between the two games was really evident. I appreciate a scenario that is designed to allow for some replay and perhaps it was chance that we got two games in a row at the polar opposite ends of the spectrum but it seems my concerns about re-playability might be justified.

Let me clarify a bit. The game is relatively cheap by today's standards and if it provides a great time, even only once per scenario, it has earned it's keep. 9 or 10 really fun plays is actually quite a lot. Then once done, a person could trade it or sell it.  So when I speak of "re-playability" please remember that in a game such as this it isn't as prominent an issue as it might be in another style of game.

Ascending Empires! What a really fantastic game. I mean it. It is such a shame that this game's production issues were such that it wasn't the financial success it could have been. Many times you will see others say it is great "even with the warped boards" and they are right but if you have a good board (as I do thanks to my wife who crafted one for me) it is one of the best games of ever.

I would put it into the same class of games such as Nexus Ops. Not that the games are similar in play or feel. But both have just enough strategy, just enough randomness, just enough of everything good and everything tedious and bad stripped out that they are close to being perfect.

Matt and Josh were neck and neck through the whole game. I, on the other hand, once again demonstrated that having a lack of vision and no grasp of simple tactics and strategy is seldom conducive to obtaining victory. My poor Blue Guys were the laughing stock of the galaxy. Relegated to back water worlds and asteroids. In the end, I scored 19 while Josh was 33 and Matt had 35.

Did I mention that this game is great? If I didn't, let me just say this game is great.

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One of the best things in life happened on Thursday. It can't be planned for and usually strikes when you least expect it.

The actual trigger is difficult to describe because it doesn't really translate well into written words. We were talking about the recent movie "The Amazing Spider-man" and my wife chimed in by saying that she liked the scene where all the crane operators swivel their booms so that Spidey can web-sling up the street. Josh eager to get his idea out there, dismissed this opinion as being wrong in an abrupt manor. Now, listen, he didn't mean anything by it and he'd be the last person to offend my wife AND she didn't even hear what he said.

We could have just ignored it and never thought twice about it. We could have but we didn't. Matt and I spent the next five or ten minutes twisting and contorting what Josh had said until he would seem the most misogynistic bastard on the face of the Earth if you had just walked into the room. All this as Josh was becoming more and more flustered and protesting that "that is not what I said" or "I would never..."

By the time we were done we were all laughing so hard, breathless, stomachs hurting, tears streaming. Those moments, shared with friends, are some of the best in life.

Games are nothing. It is the people, and the time we share with them, that are everything.