Tattersail_, on 13 June 2018 - 09:31 AM, said:
Khellendros, on 13 June 2018 - 09:22 AM, said:
A real 'new world order' feel to this round.
My predicted struggle to the finish line has become even harder than I could have imagined. The resource shortage which has been present all game for me is finally going to bite hard I think.
Twelve's seeming invincibility has been shattered.
All of Blend's deal and profit-making amounted to little when Tapper came calling.
IH waited like a patient snake in the grass for everyone else to make their moves before feeding on the delicious scraps.
Gnaw rolled dice like a champ and now looks poised to take the mantle of Mecatol ownership. I doubt Tatts will bother taking Imperial from him next strategy phase. May the crown rest heavy.
Morgoth is veritably hounding Twelve and probably has the most powerful fleets now. I wonder if there's some secret objective at play there.
Tapper is also looking very strong, although I think Blend's counterattack did more damage than was expected. Positionally, though, it looks like he could pick up VPs all over the place.
Nico...continues to exist. He does have all those resources though, so one day we may see that manifest into an avenging fleet.
Tatts is in a similar situation to me in that he has a bit of a move and resource shortage on his hands. In a way, I think it would really benefit him to take control over his own wormhole placement rather than selling it every round.
Good Luck to Gnaw in his Mecatol Rex campaign. From this stage, at this point, Morgoth, IH and Tapper are looking like they could challenge you, but you're in the best spot currently. We'll see during the status stage where everyone is at.
I am going to have a hard time scoring most other 2 VP objectives - but then, I think it will be so for most of us, actually.
At the start of the game, I thought "first to 4 1-pointers, 3 2-pointers, 1x secret objective = win".
Now I think it is much more likely that people will fulfill 5x 1-point, 2x 2-point, 2x secret objective (and/or Custodian token/Imperial) for winning, or the winner being whomever is at 10 (maybe even just 9) points and has the highest initiative in the final round.
With regards to my own position: Blend
did more damage than I figured he would - but the first round of combat was always going to be really, really rough: the combination of Warfare's +1 and the flagship is really strong. I was always going to have to destroy at the least 1 Exotrireme to take care of the Flagship and his dread after the first round, even if his rolls were less good.
I also think you're a bit unkind to Blend in your one-sentence recap, Khell. His main problem all game long has been gaining Strategy tokens, as a result, he has had to make difficult choices on where to allocate them.
I also think Tatts is in a better position than most on the board. Nico collapsed, Twelve has different fish to fry and Gnaw is likely going for Mecatol.
Also, this being our first game, it is going to be very interesting what lessons we all learned and what we do differently in a new game!
Everyone is entitled to his own wrong opinion. - Lizrad