Unexpected Tension in a Session -- A Board Game Session of "Air, Land, & Sea"
"Maneuver: Land 3. Flip an uncovered card in an adjacent theater."
"Disrupt: Land 5. Starting with you, both players choose and flip 1 of their uncovered cards."
When I was staring at these two cards in my hand, I thought, "I'm going to lose."
At this point, I'd already deployed a 5 in the Air, 4 in the Land, and both 5 and 6 in the Sea.
The two cards in my hand were giving me a headache. I didn't want to use either of them.
Both of them would involve flipping one of my deployed cards. All of my currently in-play ones had large values. If I were to flip a card right now, I would end up with a facedown card, which would only contain a value of 2, smaller than any of my current numbers.
I couldn't play either of them directly facedown either. Not when my "containment" card was in play.
I was not going to destroy my own cards.
Well, I had to play something. Considering that this round would most likely be a loss, I let myself put down "Disrupt: Land 5."
I reluctantly flipped over my only card in the Air.
My husband flipped over one of his in the Sea.
It was his turn now.
He deployed another card into the Air, facing down.
Yeah, I lost control over the Air theater.
Sighing, I played my only card left in hand, facing up.
I flipped my Air card back up. Oh!
The number "5" came back up in the Air for me.
We calculated our points.
Air: 5-8
Land: 12-8
Sea: 11-2
What a turnaround!
The unexpected tension in this session was refreshing.
We hadn't played this game in quite a while. When I pulled it off of the shelf, I couldn't remember most of the rules.
It was like visiting an old friend I hadn't seen in a long time. As our interaction went on for longer and longer, all those good old memories slowly came back. Yeah, that's what this session felt like.
