Of Zebras & Empires

I had one of those sweet gaming nights where, despite playing a game with the "wrong" number of people, I had an absolute blast. So, you kids get a little actual gaming content this time around.

Monday night gaming started with Braeden (my 5 year old son) playing Booby-Trap (my old wooden copy) and Break the Safe (we won with 2 minutes left!). Next David joined us for the ye olde Parker Brothers game, Pushover (man, those white hulking pawn guys creep me out.)

The final "appetizer" game was Droles de Zebres, a splendid little Bruno Cathala game that I taught David (and beat him - but it's one of those games you need to play once to see how things are going to work). BTW, I can't recommend Droles highly enough - it's a placement game with perfect information & a whimsical theme (creating a wild animal park for tourists) that plays in 20 minutes. (Also nice - the animal pieces have "special powers" that mirror their real-life roles, making it very easy to teach.)

Finally, we got to the "main event" of the night. Jim had just purchased the FF edition of Britannia, but I hadn't had time to read the rules & get ready to teach it. (Yes, you read that correctly - Jim bought the game & gave it to me to learn so I could teach it to him.) David & Jim both wanted something meat-y... and decided they were willing to learn History of the World. (I own & love the H/AHedition.)

Now, I realize that 3 players isn't the best number to show off HOTW... you can play with 2 colors each, but that's monstrously confusing for newbies to the game. Still, I don't get to play it much and it's a game I really enjoy, so... we managed to have an epic battles in a game about epic battles.

My early forays into China were overun by David's green horde - and by the late game, David had managed to pretty much overtake the entire Far East. Jim's early victories in the Middle East & N. Africa dwindled way in the late game. I managed to take S. Europe early - and then maintained a strong presences in N. Europe & the Americas. In fact, I had the Epoch 6-7 "one-two" punch of Portugal (w/Reallocation) andGermany (w/Leader) to put me back in contention.

The final scores (pre-Preminence markers) were:

• David 200
• Mark 200
• Jim 190

And after adding the markers in:

• David 209 (2 markers)
• Jim 207 (4 markers)
• Mark 200 (zero markers - my tie at the end of Epoch 7 kept David & I both from getting a marker)

Wowsa - we finished the game hooting & hollering... what a delightful way to spend an evening.