Gamesreport: 22-Oct-12 Ascension:Storm Of Souls

In a slight change of direction from the proposed game Michael, Chris and GaryB played Ascension: Storm of Souls on Sunday evening at Whitehead Primary School. The previously announced Paths of Glory was perused but postponed due to the limited time available. We are still keen to play this game at the KoffeeKlub though we may schedule all day Saturday game to tackle it in the near future.

I was very interested to play Ascension having read positive reviews about it and also about the iOS version of the game. So Michael ran a learning game for Chris and myself and gave us a solid insight into the strategy of the game. AndyB was very kind to provide the eponymous coffee for which michael and I were very grateful. Chris was there to prove the point that you do not need to be a coffee drinker to be welcome at Koffeeklub.

Ascension is a deck building game which reminds me of Thunderstone though perhaps it is not so tightly themed. The purpose of the game is to amass honour by defeating monster and to defeat more powerful monsters by buying heroes and constructs whilst keeping your deck from bloating out of control. Standard deck-building fare by all accounts. There are multiple factions, and styles of play and with more than the two games that we got through under my belt I think I could get to the subtleties of the game.

The game plays well and feels lighter and faster than other similar type games I have played lately. The first game went very much Michael's way. He knew the cards that could damage his style of play and banished them (removed from the game) as soon as they came out. He amassed a large number of constructs which worked extremely well together whilst Chris and I, basically, played the cards as they came up mostly without any deep strategy and the result was that Michael won handsomely 110(Michael)-73(GaryB)-72(Chris)

The playing board is not really required

Chris had to bow out early and the second game was a two player match between Michael and myself. This time I played much better clearing out my weaker cards from my deck early and replacing these with stronger cards. By the middle of the game I was comfortably in the lead with and efficient deck and Michael was chasing a little. His experience showed through as he gradually clawed back the lead and finally we finished the game with a score of 78-77 honour, with the victory going to Michael.

Thank you for Michael for bringing down the game and introducing it to us. I really enjoyed Ascension and would definitely play the game again. I will be checking out the iOS version though I am a little worried that playing the electronic version of the game with its automation and ease of play could take away from the enjoyment of the physical version. I will have to see.