The First Snow

A Few Acres of Snow is a game that I have been looking forward to giving a go, for some time.

 

I guess that there's an apparent hypocrisy in this, given my never ending statements rallying against the Cult of the New (too many posts to link to - see kitchens passim) and my stated desire to spend more time with the games that I already own.

But, as observed before, I am consistently inconsistent and using my own perverse logic I believe that this particular hotness is a special case.

 

My reasoning is simple. It is not that I am against new games, I am just tired of the unending tide of repackaged ideas masquerading as something different.

We really do not need a hundred different stepwise implementations of the worker placement mechanic. One is enough.

 

When Dominion came along it was like a breath of fresh air. It brought a new way of looking at deck building games and set a new milestone.

The fact that the designers have now squeezed every last drop of profit, out of the franchise, is a different story although they seem to have managed to degrade their own brand by going back to the well too many times.

 

Enter Martin Wallace with his interesting take on applying the Dominion mechanic to a war game setting.

On the face of it this seems like an odd thing to do but, actually, it makes thematic sense within the context of a Wilderness War - where the time between requesting additional troops (or supplies, or whatever) and them actually arriving can be very variable indeed.

So, with this intriguing concept, and the fact that I am rather partial to high level war games, I have been following the development of A Few Acres of Snow, with interest.

 

Grima played an early version of it, back in June, at the UK Games Expo and declared it "a bit rubbish".

This was no surprise, to me, as my hustling gaming buddy is notoriously pants at Dominion.

(No, really, he is hopeless. I'm pretty sure the youngest pikelet could beat him).

 

What was surprising was the fact I got an email from him, last week, saying he'd bought the game and now thought it was the greatest thing since small brown cubes representing sliced bread. I suspect the high BGG rating had something to do with this Volte Face but, hey ho, it would be churlish to complain when a copy of this, much sort after, game has finally arrived on the outskirts of Gormenghast.

 

So, last night, I finally sat down to play.

I took the forces of good (the British) who, not entirely coincidentally, were represented by the red pieces. Opposite me, a swarthy Frenchman, intent on robbing my glorious empire of its rightful inheritance. An undesirable often seen in the company of North American native folk. And a man with a track record of three French wins under his belt.

It was going to be tough.

 

The first play through of this game is a dizzying experience. There are so many options, open to both sides, and it's only after about an hours play that a few light bulbs start switching on in the head. The deck building element is key - which shouldn't really be a surprise - but the realisation that you can only play New York once, until you recycle through your deck again, seems a long time coming. 

I lost count of the number of times I wasted a vital card, on a lesser action, and then had to sit in frustration with limited actions in strategic corners of the board.

 

As an opening gambit, I sailed North to the Nova Scotia peninsula and rapidly spread out some settlements. My people were happy there so I built some forts to protect them. The French seemed less happy and set about sieging Halifax and Cansa, whenever the opportunity arose.

British naval superiority allowed me to hold them until game end and, better still, they seemed to act as good decoy material with the gruff French Leader concentrating the majority of his military efforts there.

 

This seemed to work well for me because, about halfway through the game, it dawned on me that I was really going nowhere in the war over there. So I took a strategic decision to switch all of my resources into a rapid expansion in the Southern wilderness. As my merry men blazed trails through the bush I built a line of settlement (which I rapidly upgraded to towns) all the way to the great lakes.

These were golden times, with the English coffers filling up quickly despite troublesome raids from the locals. This money was then rapidly spent to prop up the ongoing hostilities over on the distant peninsula.

 

The French started making moves on Albany, in an effort to come within striking distance of New York and Boston, but time ran out for them when I managed to place my last settlement and end the game. The sieges around Nova Scotia had petered out, as more and more troops arrived from England to shore up the colonies, and the French were left defeated by a single point.

 

A very close win for the British but when we write it all down, in the history books, it will probably look a little bit different.

 

So my thoughts on A Few Acres of Snow?

 

I loved it.

The card mechanic is really well integrated and leads to some really tough decisions.

I found that as the game progressed I was seeing more and more subtle nuances emerging;

driving in to work, this morning, my head was full of ideas on different strategies, I could employ, and neat tactical considerations.

 

Like War of the Ring, the game is not asymmetrical. Playing the French looks like it is a completely different challenge to playing the British.

There's a lot of depth, to be explored, and I hope to see this at the table a lot more.

 

In the meantime, I'm going to sharpen my knives by playing a few games online.

As an extra bonus, A Few Acres of Snow is now available on Yucata

 

Winter is coming.

I can't wait.