It's a been a bit quiet of late, I've realized, but that does not mean there have been no games to log. I finished another game of Barbarossa which will be coming soon, and I'm knee deep in The U.S. Civil War which is a real treat to play (Oh Tennessee when shall Thy fall?)
This week, I had the good fortune to join a group, new to myself, for a dinner and game night where we played GMT's Banish the Snakes. What a fun concept of a game, if 'fun' be an appropriate word to use in this case. As someone rightly pointed out, the booklet on lore and history behind the game was actually longer than the actual rulebook itself. That was a nice surprise.
After all of these years, I hadn't ever guessed that St. Patrick's success in driving the snakes from Ireland was really a reference to Paganism? Quite the twist from my perspective. The objective in the game is for the players, acting as Christian missionaries, to convert the Island of Ireland to Christianity before Paganism can 'take hold' of the entire British Isles after the fall of Roman rule there. An interesting 'race against the clock' sort of premise, but one that I understand is no longer thought to resemble an factual basis with reality in the 5th Century British Isles; St. Patrick did not "save humanity and the future of a Christian society" in the British Isles by driving out the pagans from Ireland, but that's at least the auspices under which Banish the Snakes was designed. So, in a sense, a "fun" concept, but with some sizeable grains of salt to acknowledge at the same time.
I played Palladius, the first Bishop of Ireland along with 4 others, one of whom was St. Patrick. The game started off to a poor start as Scotland succumbed to paganism and started our race against the clock. Over the next few turns, a series of major disasters befell the Island. but thanks to our slow progress at the start, famines, war, divine intervention, etc. which would have otherwise killed off Christian converts instead thinned the pagan populations. Interestingly, Zach, who's historical character I now forget, was isolated in the north of Ireland while the rest of us began to the south, survived a record number of unrest among the chiefs and kings of Northern Ireland. While the rest of us schemed to oust a number of druids and chiefs from their positions of power in the southern and western provinces, Zach had to watch as the high king at Tara was deposed, the king of the Northern province killed by an act of God (god?), the unlikely chief of Airgíalla succeeding to the thrown of Ulster, then quickly taking the high king's seat at Tara, and his son taking over in Ulster. A wild plot that would have otherwise foiled many a conversion attempt in the North.
Fast forward a few turns later and we convert the high king at Tara, once a lowly chieftain, and with him most of the other regions are easily converted. Failed harvests, slave raids, and other calamities were surprisingly easy to overcome. We agreed at the end of the game that we likely broke some major rules, either concerning Dolmens, Druids, or our own ability to cooperate with each other, but try as we might, after little more than 3 hours play time, all pagan populations in Ireland had been converted to Christianity.
And here's a final look at the board. To win, you need not convert all Chiefs/Kings, just the people, but we found it easier to take out the Chiefs early. Who knows, they probably do -1 zeal damage per failed attempt, but we didn't see that sort of rule anywhere. Maybe Zach will find that rule later.
Anyway, a good game in total.
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