Well we finally finished a game. So far my little group has played 4 games (every time teaching new players the game). I will say, I've been pleasantly surprised how well people are picking up the game. Our Londo has learned the game very quickly and has already edited and built his own Centauri Intrigue deck (using the gambler) and I have no doubts that I'll be posting his win here very soon.
I do want to talk about the decks I built for the players (who I am giving complete freedom to edit their decks once they're ran them a few times). I made a Minbari/Vorlon deck, a Narn Defense in Depth/Military deck, a Human Diplo/soft B5 deck, a (now edited, and significantly improved) Centauri recycling Intrigue deck, and a now winning Non-Aligned Interference/B5 deck. My thought was to be sure that every deck had at least two others that could stop them from winning but each deck also was made with two ways to win (no speed decks), make sure that every deck played differently (and true to the show), and to keep them all under 100 cards so that the players would see a different selection of cards each time yet feel like the deck played the same. I was very happy with how well those goals were met. It does seem that my Human and Minbari decks are just too slow. In all humility, the Non-Aligned deck plays very well, and I think the Narn deck could do well once our G'Kar gets some more games under his belt (he played his first game today).
Let me introduce our players in this most recent game
G'Kar (first game, using the 4 card variant)
Londo (the gambler card, I just bought it for him... starts with 7 influence, no starting hand)
Sheridan (4 card variant, I'm rethinking that... this was me today)
Lethke (that's the non-aligned Brakiri ambassador, BTW, veteran player, just back into it though)
Delenn (veteran gamer, but first game... pretty sure he already has the game down in one try)
The Game (quick note, due to time we had to speed play the last two turns, so its a bit of estimate here on final influence:
No surprise, Londo game out with a big lead and kept it most the game. This deck really gets stuff into play quick. He doesn't have a starting hand, but its a slim deck (around 60 cards) and so he draws the stuff he wants pretty quickly. Truthfully, he played nice. I know he could have brutalized the new players a few time, but really didn't. I'm really impressed with this deck and player. He builds his Inner Circle and defense fleet very quickly, and its not like its just agents and aids, there's heavy hitters like Refa in the deck too. Once we start taking the gloves off (when we're no longer teaching the game), this deck is going to hurt. He built up to 12 very quickly, took a few turns building his supporting characters and such, and then has just started to Intrigue on up when the game ended... realistically I'm putting his ending influence at 17. Again, aside minor tweaks, this deck is good. I think/hope that his player is hooked.
G'Kar did well for a first game. I put Elizabeth Trent in the starting hand (yes, I know, what a troll move), but it keeps this deck from losing every intrigue support race and allows it to participate in conflicts that a Narn military deck normally has to just watch. He was a bit of a victim of my deck construction here. Its usually my deck and I had built it as a war with everyone type deck. However, I realized that for learning games this just wasn't a good idea so a made it a Defense in Depth (yes, Sakai is in here) instead. This deck requires very very aggressive play (Narn, after all) and restraint on using Trent, but doesn't need to go to war or pick on anyone in particular to do it. As a beginning player, neither of these things would be apparent, and as I was just hoping that he learn the mechanics (which he did), I just let him play it as he wish. I thinking of building this player a Narn Home Faction deck that is more of an Interference Deck, but we'll see (I do think he'd make an excellent Human Faction player too). He made a strong showing and closed at 16.
Delenn was our other new player, and I feel like this was my fault. The deck just moves too slow. I need to go through it and figure out how to have it speed to the Shadow War a bit faster without ruining all the other players' games. I didn't want to build a Minbari War deck (it'd not play out well with beginning players) nor did I want a straight Diplomacy deck (as we'd have to much of that then). Delenn definitely made her (his, of course) presence felt, but more importantly to me, seems to have fully grasped the game at a higher level. I really hope this player can make more games as he's brilliant and a true fan of the show. I'd put his influence at 14 (but I should point out that Vorlon influence was growing quickly too).
Sheridan (me) struggled. Again, the deck is just too fat. I need to shave it down a bit and allow it to be stronger in non-military conflicts. I learned another obvious lesson... don't be so eager to get the game going that you don't shuffle your cards well. Too many military, characters, and conflicts grouped together. That being said, I think this is a good RPG deck that can participate in most of the game's turns well. I just need to hone it a bit. My ending influence was a 14 too. If the game could have gone 4 or 5 more turns instead of 2, I think I could have won... but again, just too slow and I actually had very strong pulls in the final turns (and good luck) to even have a shot at that 4 turn win... not something a deck should depend on. I'd put my ending influence at a 14.
Lethke did very well. He ran a conservative build up, used Crusade appropriately, and did an excellent job supporting other people's builds while very subtly setting himself up for late game 3 influence turns (brutal). The Brakiri Chosen of god deck is such a fun one and it was honestly built well and ran better. By the time this player gets around to customizing it to his play style and thinning it down to the 70 or less card range, this will be the other deck to watch besides Londo the Gambler. 4 strong ending turns, a solid military, a large supporting row and a strong Inner Circle places this deck as our winner... obviously with 20 influence. He actually won on his back up approach, with B5 influence into the teens at end game too.
So that's it for our first full game (sort of). Londo and Lethke were the power players (one overtly and the other subtly... as it should be). G'Kar came in third with the Humans and Minbari not quite being the heavy hitters at Babylon 5 council meetings that they should be. Hopefully we'll have another game next week sometime.
Until then, in the words of G'Kar "The future isn't what it used to be."
Head to Vorlon Space for resources if you're restarting your B5 CCG adventure
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