Asalto, also known as the Assault Game, German Tactics or Officers and Sepoys, is a board game for two players in which one player, playing as the off...
Asalto, also known as the Assault Game, German Tactics or Officers and Sepoys, is a board game for two players in which one player, playing as the officers, attempts to defend a fortress from their opponent's invading rebels. The game is a variant on the Fox and Geese theme, and is commonly played in Germany, France, and England.
Asalto is an asymmetric game in which the players take on two very different roles: the rebels and the officers. The rebels' objective is to capture the two officers, surround them so that they cannot move, or occupy all of the points within the "fortress". The officers' objective is to capture enough rebels that these tasks become impossible.
Asalto is played on a grid of 33 intersection points in the shape of a cross, with a specially denoted arm known as the fortress at the top of the board. The total number of pieces in an Asalto game is 26, composed of 24 rebels and two officers. Before play begins, the rebels are arranged so that they sit on the 24 intersection points outside the fortress, while the officers may be arranged at the player's discretion inside the fortress. The game begins once the rebel player takes the first turn.
VS
LOST CITIES
Lost Cities is a 60-card card game, designed in 1999 by game designer Reiner Knizia and published by several publishers. The objective of the game is...
Lost Cities is a 60-card card game, designed in 1999 by game designer Reiner Knizia and published by several publishers. The objective of the game is to mount profitable expeditions to one or more of the five lost cities (the Himalayas, the Brazilian Rain Forest, the Desert Sands, the Ancient Volcanos and Neptune's Realm). The game was originally intended as a 2-player game, but rule variants have been contributed by fans to allow 1 or 2 further players, causing Reiner Knizia himself to later provide semi-official 4-player rules.
Lost Cities is a fast-moving game, with players playing or discarding, and then replacing, a single card each turn. Cards represent progress on one of the five color-coded expeditions. Players must decide, during the course of the game, how many of these expeditions to actually embark upon. Card-play rules are quite straightforward, but because players can only move forward on an expedition (by playing cards which are higher-numbered than those already played), making the right choice in a given game situation can be quite difficult. An expedition that has been started will earn points according to how much progress has been made when the game ends, and after three rounds, the player with the highest total score wins the game. Each expedition that is started but not thoroughly charted incurs a negative point penalty (investment costs).
Interaction between players is indirect, in that one cannot directly impact another player's expeditions. However, since players can draw from the common discard piles, they are free to make use of opposing discards. Additionally, since the available cards for a given expedition are finite, progress made by an opponent in a given color can lead to difficulty making progress in that same color.
The game's board, while designed to supplement the theme, is optional and consists only of simple marked areas where players place discards. If Lost Cities had four expeditions instead of five, it could be played with a standard deck of playing cards. When doing so, the face cards would represent investment cards, with numbered cards two through ten serving as the expedition progress cards.
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!