Board Game BREAKDOWN alright!

These next two boardgames were simple, and overal entertaining to play.

The first one I played was a game called Sword and Sail. It reminded me a lot of RISK, as each player commanded armies across the Mediterranean and battled for control over entire countries...

Goal of Game: To fill each region of a single country with an army. Regions are designated by borders. Countries are designated by color. 

Core Mechanic: To fill each region of a single (colored) country with the same player's armies. Each player has three action points a turn. Players can choose to pull/use a card (1 pt), move an army (1 pt), or enter battle with an assisting army (3 pts). An army can be converted to a navy (card), if this happens, that piece can now move on both water and ground (water is blue).

Space of Game: The space of this game is a 2 Dimensional discrete square covered with regions of various sizes, ranging from 1x1 to 4x6. There are approximately 38 land regions, each holding the same value, and 17 sea regions where only navies can travel. 

Pieces: The required pieces for this game are simple. 30 soldier (army) pieces for each player (color). 10 ship (navy) pieces for each player (color). The map (board). And the action cards. Every player begins the game by drawing three cards. They have no pieces on the board yet. The cards will tell the player where they can plant their army.

Action Points: Each player has three action points per turn. Action points are used to draw cards, play cards, discard cards, move armies, and to attack armies.

Action Cards: There are 16 action cards. There are only two categories. Placement cards, and navy cards. Placement cards are strictly used to place new armies in particular countries, but not specified regions. Navy cards allow an already existing army (next to sea) to convert into a Navy, allowing them to move across the sea as well. It takes one action point to draw a card, and another to play a card.

Rules: The rules of Sword and Sail are simple. Do not talk about sword and sail. Do not go over three points per turn. Do not attack an opposing army unless you have another army with you. Do not take an army out to sea that does not have the ship (navy) as its piece. And most importantly, do not talk about sword and sail!

Skills the Player Learns: This is a tactical game where every move counts. Whether you waste time drawing too many cards or simply get outnumbered by your opponent, the mistakes you make in the beginning of the game with come back to haunt you. Each army a player has is extremely valuable, but what are more valuable are the regions they control. The best tactic is to find a country to call all of your armies/navies to. This is a very defensive style of playing the game, but it works. An agressive strategy may work, but only early in the game when army numbers aren't as valued.

Alternative Rules: One rule we changed the second time we played was the number of countries you had to keep control over. I felt the game went too fast when it was simply one country, so we changed it to two. This made it a bit more interesting, but I was soon outnumbered by the Yellow Knights of Scandia. 

Issues with Gameplay: The game overall was enjoyable, however, I did have an issue with the combat system when two armies fought. In order for a single army to fight another single army, the attacker needed to have a secondary army with him, basically to sacrifice. It's like a trade, I kill his army with another one of my armies. So for every army i killed of his, i killed off one of mine. This put me at a distinct disadvantage against my opponent when I grew slightly outnumbered early in the game. It seemed like a very broken way of resolving a battle. I would have hoped to see more "chance" in these kinds of conflicts. Maybe two die could determine the victor. 

NEXT GAME...not so enjoyable

The game we played after was Snake Pit, which could have been a very simple game, if not for all that damn math...

Goal of the Game: To finish each snake before an opposing player does. Finish a snake by adding a head or a tail (usually). The longer the snake, the more points the player receives for finishing it. The player with the most points at the end wins.

Core Mechanic: to fill the entire 54 tile graph with matching snake tiles. Everything has to fit together. Only certain snake colors and patterns match up. Players constantly have 5 snake pieces (cards) picked at random in their hands (until the end of the game). Points are dependent on length of snake for bonus points. If the tile length is only 2, the player only gets 3 points. However, if the snake is by chance 10 tiles long, their score will be 55.

Space of Game: Some may argue that this game is a 2D constant square, but it eventually will come to an end. Snake Pit is a 2D discrete square (invisible in the beginning of the game). The whole square is composed of 54 snake tiles that will all be placed once the game is finally over. Each tile is roughly 2x2.

Pieces: The pieces are strictly the snake tiles and 4 2x2 snake color counters (for reference).

Rules: The rules of Snake Pit are even simpler. Wait your turn. Place two snake tiles per turn. Constantly have 5 tiles in your hand. Don't show them to your opponents. Tally your score at the end of each turn (optional).

Skills the Player Learns: This is also a tactical game. More tactical than Sword and Sail in some ways. The winner is patient, waiting for his/her time to strike. If your a noob like me, you go for the quick cash. Every snake i could finish, I did without hesitation. However, my bastard opponent  John waited in the tall grass... like a snake. I had 3 points at the end of the game, Steve had 6, John had 68.

Issues with Gameplay: The game did not have any mechanical issues. We played it for as long as we could last. It became very boring, almost grueling. I had fun during the first couple minutes, till i started getting my ass beat... It's very discouraging to have 3 points while the person your supposed to beat all of sudden has 50. If i could change anything, I'd change the point system to something a bit less intimidating for the underdog.

Those were my two print-and-play games, hope you enjoyed my analysis.