HoodedHawk

Family


    

  

Preston and I are getting into  Dice Masters lately. This is a collectible card/dice tabletop game. Like other collectible card games, you buy booster packs and never know what you will get until you open them. Preston and I love the thrill of cracking open a new pack to see what you get.

It’s nice when you get a box (of 90) booster packs to open with your son, and a single card more than pays for the whole box (or would if sold). The Full-art, ultra-rare Black Lantern Batman (see picture) we snagged is currently going for about $100.00 on ebay and CoolStuffInc.com. From what I can determine it is the priciest card/die currently in the Dice Masters universe. Nice! WizKids only just started such ‘ultra rare’ (purple stripe) cards with the Age of Ultron expansion (we didnt get any ultra-rares from that set), which was released just prior to this new ‘War of Light’ expansion…

Yeah, as soon as this baby was opened, it was double-sleeved and then put in a hard plastic collectible card holder. :)

rollforthegalaxy


I have never played Race for the Galaxy (the game upon which this one is based), but the new Roll For The Galaxy game was intriguing on it’s own because: I like dice, world building, worker placement and only minor attacking/screwage. I just finished a play with my 16-year old. Easy game to learn, and I enjoyed it (my teen hates all non-video games so his opinion is moot).

I didn’t think it was too random as you can mitigate your dice rolls via a “reassign” option as well as by making sure you have a lot of dice to play with. When you explore, you have the option of abandoning world/development tiles you no longer want to build so you can pull X+1 tiles to explore (X = number you abandon). Thus you can change your strategy on the fly if your dice rolls just ain’t working.

I like that you secretly roll and assign (and reassign) your dice. You never know what phases will be available this turn (depends on what each person selects), but you *can* ensure at least one phase (explore/build/produce/ship) of your choice will happen.

Box says 45 min, and that is about right after 1st (learning ) game. We finished in a little over an hour. Plus, the back of the player screens is a summary of all the rules, so…

Now, my son beat me handily by sitting on a world and simply using all his dice to produce one round and ship them all the next. I was not paying attention to this as I didn’t have any worlds to produce (he started with one (dealt randomly). This net him anywhere from 2-4 VP per shipment (i.e. every other round). In a 2-player game, it ends when 24 VP markers are used up. He was at 13 (to my 5) when I noticed!

BUT I reread the rules after the game, and we played WRONG: you can only produce ONE good per world, not X! So no way he would have racked up so many VP to end the game and win, at max 1VP per round (if good dice). 1VP every 2 rounds with bad dice. There are worlds/dice combos that let you earn up to 3 VP per shipment, but…Lesson learned.

All actions are taken simultaneously by all players, so it should be about the same amount of time 3-5 players. The only area for analysis paralysis would be dice allocation (and maybe choosing a tile if you pulled more than one or two).

I will definitely be playing again. You deal each player a starting tile and a homeworld at random (from one of 9 of each, so like 81 possible starting combos). Then there are over 50 double-sided tiles (development on one side, world on the other) you can Explore. Lots of variability/replay.

Me: Olivia, did you have a bath last night?
O: “yep
Me: No you didn’t, you were in your PJs when I left.

(Pause)
O: Then why did you ask me if you already knew the answer?
Me: I remembered after I asked you.
(Pause)
O: Next time take some time to think about it before you ask me.

Sigh

Our old garbage disposal was leaking and really reeking (I think it corroded to the point where garbage was festering in parts it shouldn’t be in). I picked up a new Insinkerator Badger 15ss – 3/4 hp with stainless steel grinders at the local Lowes.

I wasn’t expecting this to be a very difficult install as it was replacing an existing disposal and same brand. Well, it took about 1.5 hours. I had neglected to figure in my 5 and 8 year-old helpers.

My helpers spent most of the time arguing over who would hold the flashlight. This was even less useful when one of them discovered it had a strobe setting. There were also a number of “discussions” about the correct (i.e. prettiest color) wire nuts to use. We also discovered that plumbers putty is just as much fun as play dough and that the dog won’t eat it. That later bit was surprising.

All in all a good install; my first disposal replacement. Now to replace the batteries in my flashlight…

Games with the kids tonight- Olivia’s choice was CooCoo; she was thrilled to win by placing last cylinder on CooCoo without causing him to topple!

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