Fancy scoresheet FTW!
What you see above is a sample scorecard for the first (cue trumpets, please … )
Stately Play Neuroshima Hex Solo Challenge.
Here’s how it works, in a series of bullet points:
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You’ll play nine games of N. Hex against the AI — three apiece at the easy, medium, and hard difficulty settings. Set the AI at “random army” (the question mark).
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You’ll note your final scores, eventually arriving at sub-totals for each of the settings, and — ultimate goal — at a grand total after having played all nine games.
Example: You score a total of 3,000 points for your three easy games, 4,000 for your three medium games, and 5,000 for your three hard games. Your final score for the event would be 12,000.
(2A. Obviously, any score sheet will do. Scratch paper is fine. The actual scoresheet above is not mandatory; it’s just used for illustration purposes).
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You get one mulligan, if desired. One game can be either abandoned with no penalty, or else finished but not recorded.
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Play your games in any order; play your games at any pace. Just play exactly nine, divided up by 3/3/3.
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Feel free to report progress, post funny screen shots, etc. But be sure to post your grand total at some point.
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Although I don’t think it will take us nearly this long, let’s play it safe and allow 1.5 days per finished game. So we’ll use two weeks total (again, I think we’ll finish sooner). And if this turns out to be a format people enjoy, we can always turn around and do it again.
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SP owner @Neumannium has graciously allowed our winner to become “SP guest editor for a week.”*
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Challenge yourself! Try to use different armies. In fact, I’m trying to think of possible bonuses for anyone who plays with nine different armies …
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The competition begins on Saturday, Sept. 19 at noon (Pacific) and ends on Saturday, Oct. 3 at noon (Pacific).
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I suppose it goes without saying … but this whole thing depends on a 100 percent honor system.
TL;DR: Play nine games in two weeks; tell us your scores.
`*This is totally not true
2 Likes
I suppose there’s no real need to “sign up,” like we usually do. We won’t need to make a schedule or finalize any brackets, etc.
But, if you feel like it, go ahead and post something quick if you plan on completing this challenge.
Good idea, and thanks for getting this going. This kind of thing I am onboard with.
I usually play(ed) this game with 3, which worked well for my friends and I. The thing is, different armies play very differently at different player counts. I may use this challenge as an opportunity to play some of the armies that don’t work as well in a 3-player game - Dancer, Doomsday, NeoJungle here I come!
I’ll give it the old college try … what’s the lowest possible score one can get? 
You get no points at all if your HQ is destroyed … so 0. Nine times.
If it makes anyone feel any better, I’ve been doing some totally random AI games since Wednesday or so. I’ve been winning maybe one out of three. It’s embarrassing.
I haven’t played the app in ages but I just played the physical game last weekend. I played Sand Runners and had no idea how to play effectively. I may be right there with you all, struggling against the AI.
Okay, I’ll start us off.
I played Steel Police (probably my favorite) and faced New York. And, in one of the most baffling AI performances ever, I got a pretty easy win.
This was on Easy — I doubt I’ll score this high again.
So mark me down for 4,400.
I’m in. Haven’t played this since the mp worked… so this should be interesting!
faced (easy) Vegas with Steel Police (not my favorite) and had some problems with all these Vegas trick plays (bribery and many movements). low score 
definitely a mulligan candidate!
many mistakes and errors after years of NH inactivity.
i had encircled enemy HQ with reflection units (jugde) for dealing reflection damage (“Reflects enemy tile attack in opposite direction at distance of one field. Reflection can harm enemy Unit, Module or HQ.”)
but d’oh. HQ couldn’t damage the Judges, but no reflection damage dealt to HQ 
attacks by HQ no “tile attacks”?
I would have fallen for that mistake, too. I took a deep dive to an 8-year-old BGG thread to look at that. The claim is that in NS Hex, HQs cannot attack each other. The reflected attack is an HQ attack which, per that rule, can’t damage the HQ. The thread that I read does say that the iOS app tries to clarify that somewhere. Makes sense, I guess, but like I said, I would have done exactly that.
I’ve been re-reading everything, too. Coincidentally, I just got through the passage about HQs never harming each other.
Okay, second one done at Easy. Again, some poor play by the AI.
I am going to get killed on Hard.
Put me down for 2,000, playing SMART and beating Uranopolis.
My first game in easy was an absolute massacre. I was NeoJungle and the e random AI was Doomsday. His HQ was in that location on the bottom left and as you can see, I was hitting him for at least 8-10 per battle with the net to keep me safe. It was over very quickly.
Edit: Why can I upload the score, but the image of the board is saying the file is too big? They were both screenshots of the same game…
Just cropped it a bit…
NeoJungle has long been one of my favorites, though it’s effectiveness is greatly diminished in 3+ player games.
and i thought the reflection would convert the “HQ damage” to “Judge damage”. but obviously not so.
so only range damage by another unit (“passing through” its own HQ) can trigger a reflection damage effect.
that “Reflection can harm…enemy HQ” rules info on the Judge’s ability lured me into the “HQ encircled by reflection units” maneuver in the first place. grummel brummel…
the app just wanted me to give a review on appstore.
ROFL
Ha!