Archive for the 'Battle Line' Category

After being away for 3 weeks, Metagames reviews will resume next week.  But, where have I been all this time?  Well, I was on an 11-day trek in the Himalayas in Nepal – a very out of character trip for me and an incredible experience.  The trek took us all the way up to and through Thorung La – the world’s longest/biggest pass – at an altitude of 5,416 metres (17,769 feet)!  That’s higher than the 3rd highest peak in the USA and higher than the 2nd highest peak in Europe if you include Russia.  (The highest peak in Europe excluding Russia is Mont Blanc at only 4,807 meters.)

Of course, I took the opportunity to get in some gaming with several portable games like Cockroach Poker, For Sale, No Thanks, Mow and Battle Line.  However, I also I decided to start 2 new boardgaming world records which will be hosted 0n this site which anyone can enter and compete for.

The first record is the Metagames World’s Highest Meeple record which is for the highest (land-based) meeple.  I have started this record at 5,416 metres (17,769 feet).  Check out the photos below:

Red wins! The meeple at 5,416 meters. Macro lens took a great photo.

Me with the meeple. I don’t usually have a beard – it was just during the trek.

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Battle Line is one of my favourite portable 2-player games.  Consisting of a deck of cards and a few wooden pawns (and even the pawns aren’t totally necessary), it packs lots of punch by posing constant difficult choices and the potential for clever tactical game play.

THE GAME
The basic game consists of 60 troop cards (values 1 to 10 in 6 different colours) and there are 9 flags laid out in a row between the players.  On their turn, a player places one card next to any of the flags from their hand of 7 cards, then draws a new card.  Each player can only place a total of 3 cards next to any one flag.  When there are 3 cards on both sides of a flag, the player with the strongest set of 3 cards wins the flag and moves it to their side.  The cards are compared similar to poker hands: a straight in a single colour is the best, then 3 cards of the same value, then 3 cards of the same colour, then a straight in any mix of colours and finally the total value of the 3 cards.  A player wins the game as soon as they win 3 adjacent flags, or a total of 5 flags. Read the rest of this entry »