Hey there! Hi there! Ho there!
In case you missed it, Saturday was International Tabletop Day. I hope you all a little gaming in over the weekend. I did. And on the right day even though it wasn’t planned that way.
Normally, I have game time with my mom on Fridays. However, I was in training all last week and I didn’t think I would be up for any brain activity on Friday evening so I asked to push our gaming to Saturday. That worked out quite nicely. We got in a couple of our usual games: Dark Gothic and Lords of Waterdeep, but also a couple of new ones.
The Hare and the Tortoise is in the same series as the Three Little Pigs game I talked about last time. In this one, players are assigned one card (two in a 2-player game) showing one of five participants in the race, the hare, the tortoise, the wolf, the fox and the sheep. That’s the animal they want to win the race. They also choose one animal as a secondary bet (tertiary bet in a 2-player game) though they may choose to double down on a racer. These cards remain hidden until the end of the game, though clever players may be able to deduce which animal the other player(s) have based on card play. During a round, players will take turns playing between 1 and 4 cards of the same animal. When either 8 cards have been played or there are 4 cards of the same animal on the table, the round ends and the racers move depending on the number of cards played for them. The cleverness is in how each animal moves.
As long as at least one hare card has been played, the hare will move two spaces…UNLESS he’s in the lead and four hare cards have been played. Then he shows his overconfidence and takes a nap, moving NO spaces.
The tortoise always move one space, even if no tortoise cards have been played. The exception is if four tortoise cards have been played, then he moves two spaces. Slow and steady wins the race.
As long as least one wolf card has been played, the wolf will move the number of wolf cards minus 1 to a minimum of 1. If one of the special “howler” wolf cards have been played, the wolf moves the same way BUT all the other animals are scared by his howl and move NO spaces.
The fox moves a number of spaces equal to the number of fox cards played.
The sheep moves a number of spaces equal to the number of sheep cards played + 1 BUT the sheep MUST stop when he reaches a stream to take a drink.
So each round players must try to play cards that will most advantage the racers they’re betting on while trying to limit the number of spaces the other racers can move. At the end, players receive a number of points based on where their racers finished. First place earns 5 points for each bet, second gets 3 points while third place gets 2 points. In a 2-player game, the most points a player can get is 13 (5 + 5 if they doubled down on the animal who went on to win the race + 3 if their other bet was on the animal who finished second). In a 3 to 5 player game, the maximum score is 10 points (doubling down on the eventual winner).
It’s a simple game with a surprising amount of strategy/tactics. If you’ve bet on the tortoise, you’re better off holding on to your tortoise cards until you have four in hand since he’ll still move one space even if you don’t play any. Though you may incite other players to play more of THEIR tortoise cards if you play one. If the sheep is close to a stream, it’s a good time to dump those sheep cards you’re stuck with since he has to stop for a drink. You’ll want to hold on to a howler card until other players have committed a lot of cards to other racers, but then you run the risk of not being able to play it in time. Conversely, if a howler card has been played, you’ll want to dump cards for the racers you don’t care about and save the cards for your racers for the next turn. All in all the game plays quickly and is fun. The downside is the cost. The Tale and Games series looks great, but at double the price of what a game of its ilk should cost…though you can probably find them cheaper online.
The other new game was Speedy Words, which I discovered while playing at La Crique o Jeux. Each turn a player flips over the top card of the deck to reveal three letters (one orange, one green and one blue). The first player to name a word that starts with the letter whose colour matches the category shown on the back of the next card of the deck wins the card that was flipped. At the end of the game, the player who’s won the most cards wins. Again, it’s a really simple game that plays well with multiple players.
In site news, I’ve started the new series of mash-ups AND a new storyline for the Funnies. I (again) didn’t draw a Bandit Baby strip. It seems like the closer I get to finishing the story, the less motivated I am to draw it. I think I’m going to take a little break before starting a new Friday feature to replace Bandit Baby when it concludes. Two Funnies and a mash-up is about all I can handle right now.
That’s it for this week! Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.