TL;dr: Ghosts rock. Women CAN play TI4!

As evidenced by the trophy date, my crew has been playing for about 3 years. We are mostly guys and mathy analytic types, but I am the outlier. I am female, a historian, and the oldest in the group. We play as close to monthly as possible but this last year has been iffy because Frosthaven has taken two of out of weekend games. 

I have won about 5-6 times, but one game with the Ghosts a few years ago haunted me. We were playing in a hot basement. I had a good map and was playing well but one of the Newbs gave me something to push me over edge. He was not playing well and it was hot as fuck on wee tables in a basement with 5 large dudes and me. I won and everyone was relieved to be freed from the inferno, but our game leader (by virtue of his TI4 obsession and owning the game with many enhancements), has mocked me for that win for years. 

I chose Ghosts of Creuss for our 6p game on Sunday thinking “This will be fun which is good since I am not prepared and will lose.” I had a slow start but collected a nice array of planets in a corner of the galaxy far from Mec Rex. One objective made my planets interesting, but the logjam around MR was too great to get to me. I had Malice with the new Plenary Orbital on it. Mirage appeared in my special wormhole. Boy that sounds dirty. It kinda was. 

At VP 7, one of the guys, who had no idea how sneaky I can be, swapped Support with me, thinking it would do little but make his end score more palatable. 

I got imperial after the 2 point objective that requires 16 resources was revealed. I had ships and troops on all my planets. I tried to pop imperial but was thwarted by one of the leaders with an action card. He then went on to take one of my planets to reduce my resources. Then the guy who gave me his support took my last tactical token. I was out of schlitz. But I remembered I had the new Codex card from a relic. I fished through the action card discards obtaining Mining Initiative and two sabotage cards (just in case). No one was paying attention to me. I had been neutralized in their minds. My tableau was in view. One of the guys who was out of the race texted me “I see what you did there” but stayed shtum. 

On my turn, I turned on my sad eyes and said “Ok can I pop imperial now?” With my best Vanna White impersonation, “Here are my 18 resources.” 

I have redeemed myself with the Ghosts. I have stood tall for liberal arts women who want to play the crunchy games. The trophy is now displayed proudly for game night at my house. Victory IS mine. 

Thank you for getting this far. 

Ghosts rock. Please share the joy I found in slaying my foes.