Thieving Vampire Knights from Hell

I had a great time at my game group last night - I got drunk and had lots of fun talking to my friends. But unfortunately the gaming side of things sucked.

I bought Fury of Dracula (the GW edition). There were four people playing, including me and I'd played it against all of them before but only in 2-player games. Two of those games had been great, really showcasing the games' strength. But the other player got an abortive 20-minute game in which hew drew an early stake, caught Dracula during the day, won initiative and with it, the game.  So afterward I apologised and explained it really was a great game and that what happened was pretty unusual and  we should play again sometime. That "sometime" turned out to be last night - and guess what happened? That's right - an abortive 20 minute game ending in a hunter stake-day-initiative combo win. Unfortunatey it was so crap that it soured everyone else on the game as well, including me. I'm really going to have to get the FFG edition and give it another try. The GW edition is going in the closet until then.

See,  I'm doubly-pissed at Dracula because the early end meant we had lots of time to play another game. And that game was Robber Knights.

Robber Knights  is an unholy marriage between Carcassonne, Othello and the tower mechanic from Genoa. Basically you lay tiles and sometimes you get to march a tower of wooden disks over them, leaving one or more behind in each tile.  There can be a maximum of four discs to a tile and the topmost colour (i.e. the one last placed) owns the tile. Tiles are worth different points depending on what's on them.  So it's actually quite a mean little game in which other players are constantly striving to walk all over your territory. Sounds great!

Well, you may recall me complaining about Analysis Paralysis in Tikal recently?Tikal has nothing on this. Turns in Robber Knights are like getting slowly sucked down into a tar pit because you can't plan in advance at all - each play makes the board completely different.  I also found it a complete headfuck game in which the "agonising" decision making really was "agonising" rather than the more usual use of the phrase to denote a fun challenge.  A couple of turns in the feeling crept over me that this was a game I could play for a hundred years and still not be any good at it. 

So I blame the shortcomings of Fury for making me play it. I'm off to see what it's worth in trade.