SFR, Inc.

[deputyfife]

This isn't a themed game summary in the proper sense. However, I couldn't think of a better place to put this. (Chuck or Cliff can dump it wherever they want, just please not in the garbage.)

Here's the rundown: I'm asking any of the DD players here to just post a quick summary of the results I'm after in this thread, whenever they play a game according to a standardized ruleset. I don't care if you used the TSR Revised Rules, the DCM rules, or SFR's rules.

All I'm asking for are the following:

How many players were in your game?
Did the person who won the initial maneuver (IM) roll win the game?
After the terrains have been rolled during game setup, did each player feel that both, either, or none of their home and the frontier rolled to a number that helped/hurt them?
[This last one is easier than it sounds--basically, if you had an Amazon army that was built for missile, but you rolled a 6 on your home Flatland, and the frontier was a 1 on a Highland, you would probably feel these both hurt you. A 3 on your home Flatland, though, would probably be viewed as just about an optimal setup. However, this question is only aimed at what number(and icon) the terrain rolled, not what kind of terrain.]

A summary *might* look like this, but you could post it whatever way you want.

3p
IM roll winner did NOT win
Winner felt neutral on home & frontier
2nd player felt home helped, frontier neutral
3rd player felt home hurt, frontier hurt.

The more steamlined, the better. I appreciate any responses to this, especially if anyone has any feedback on the questions themselves. For example, I tried to come up with questions that would test an idea I have about the game setup, but if anyone feels that the questions themselves are geared toward producing a certain skewed result, please let me know. The more people who participate in this survey, the better I can answer my own question about game setup (and stop bothering you all in that other thread. )

[chuckpint]

I moved this to Game Strategy. I think that a lot closer to what you're looking for - what are good strategies for starting the game?

The Windy City Bone Rollers meet once a month at Games Plus! in Mount Prospect, IL. We're always looking for new players. But shameless plug aside, it seems that we usually have either 4 or 5 player in one game each month. The group seems to have one general strategy: stop Chuck! Ok, so I get ganged up on more often that not. But, as I humbly point out, because I win more often than most of the rest of the people there. Not overwhelming, but a bit more.

But after that bit of strategy, I'd have to say that we all play a bit different styles. The most common style is still about 1/2 mages in campaign, and 1/2 calavry at horde, with a lone common at home. If someone decides to bring something other that calavry, then generally the setup is a lone common at the horde, and the rest at home. Why the mages in the campaign army? Simply because when you know you're playing in a 4-5 player game, you want the flexibility to put your mages wherever they would be saftest. You don't really want them at home, because someone else is going to put their horde army there. And if you go first it doesn't matter as much where you put your mages, you can always retreat to reserves if they are in the wrong place.

Generally it's not the person that goes first that wins, it's the person that takes the second eighth face that wins. Why? The person that takes the first eighth face is suddenly a big target. So quite often they get beat on, while the person that's quietly taking the second eighth, doesn't get all the unwanted attention. So they're not the ones facing 6+ dragons (it happens quite often in our games). Also, Path to Victory is one of the most common methods that is used in our games to win. So everyone is watching for the person that takes the first eighth, and doing everything to cut down their magic.

[deputyfife]

Chuck,

Thanks -- I knew there would be somewhere better, but for some reason was stuck on putting the post in Themed.
For whatever reason, I had the impression from your website that you were out in California, and I can't figure out why. It says right under your forum name Evanston. (As in where Northwestern is, correct?) I remember looking up your group, but they are just a little too far away. I think 1-1.5 hours is the max. I would drive for a monthly DD session, especially just to get my butt kicked.
Whenever I play boardgames with friends and family, sometimes they get into "Stop Scott!" mode, but usually they seem too nice to do that. I'd rather they all go after me a couple times.

Well, hopefully some people wouldn't mind still posting their results, just for statistical purposes.
Just because all of you have DD figured out doesn't mean I know diddly-squat.

[deputyfife]

Okay, here's my first reply to myself. Unfortunately, I only got one game in this weekend, and I'm not sure I even want to count the results, since my brother in law wanted to include a few of everything in his army (except magic), which didn't make for a very good army, I have to say. (Sorry, Karl, if you are reading this.)

2p, winner won IM roll, chose terrain, and felt good about terrain rolls. Didn't ask opponent, but at best his home was good for him, frontier was negative.

I'm not sure I'll count this one, though, because of two things:
My opponent decided to bring in a minor terrain when I couldn't see much he had to gain from it(we are both still in the early learning stages), and rolled a flood immediatly, wiping out the bulk of his forces. (He had amassed them at one terrain almost entirely, I think to get a very strong missile attack on my frontier, and half his army was commons.)
Second, because we are in the learning stages, we are both just trying out things for fun. (the minor terrain was one example, but the fact I used an all-goblin common army, except one troll for fun, and that he had about 6 races mixed in his army, means niether of us will be confused for Sun Tzu.)