Monthly Archives: December 2016

Infecting the world

It seems that over the last two or three months that Fenland Gamers have become disciples of the ‘cult of the new’. More new games have been hitting the table than normal. This has been partially aided by some of the backed Kickstarters starting to deliver. I’m not complaining really, it’s nice to get these games to the table instead of them arriving and joining the ranks of the pile of shame.

Yesterday Jonathan called asking if I wanted to play his latest arrival Plague Inc. Like many at the tail end of last week and over the weekend, he had received his Kickstarter copy of the game, and now wanted to play it.

I was knackered, it had been a long day. I had been awake from about 4:30am that morning, and my initial plan for when I got home was sleep. But who am I to turn down a chance to play games?

Plague Inc apparently is based on a video game I haven’t played. I’m not sure if Jonathan has either. I think, and it’s always a risk making assumptions on behalf of someone else, he liked the idea of infecting the world, and killing it off. The polar opposite to most other games such as the Pandemic family. It’s competitive and not co-operative. Something that makes it different from Pandemic.

So what did I think of the game?

For those that are already thinking tl;dr, we both liked it.

So you have this player board that is double sided, but we didn’t play with the virus side of it. We played with the default infection side.

You have these slots on the player board that you use to evolve your infection with using trait cards (each trait card has a cost to install that you pay for with DNA points). Two of the slots have default abilities on, such as get one extra DNA point. So you have to weigh up just when you are going to cover up those default powers with a trait. There is some nice decision making going on here, especially when your slots are full. Do you install a trait that will allow you to go into hot countries? Which existing trait do you get rid of? Depending on the stage of the game, is it even worth spending the DNA points?

This is an area control game, where you are trying to control countries on the board so that you get DNA points at the start of your go. If a country gets totally infected, ie all it’s cities are occupied by an infection token, then the majority player at the end of their turn gets a chance to kill that country by rolling the Death Dice.

When you kill a country, you get more DNA points. You also get the card for the country (important for end game scoring, which also has a majority control element to it). Bit more importantly you get event cards. Event cards are so much fun. They add a take that element to the game. For instance, I was able to cancel one of Jonathan’s events by playing an event from my hand that allowed me to cancel an event played by another player. The event cards give you boosts to your DNA points, or allow you to move infection cubes from one country to another, they even allow you to block countries and regions. Plus there are other effects I’m sure that we didn’t get to see.

Placing country cards is a nice tactical thing. Can your opponent go into cold climates, and you can? Then you are going to place cold climate countries on the map. But do you trash that hot country card that you can’t go into, and get a new hand of trait cards instead? You can’t do both. Do you advance your opportunities to infect more places, or do you try and scupper your opponents opportunities? But they might have a trait card that they can play that allows them to go into cold climates.

This is very thematic, especially on the trait cards. They have such names as nose bleed or diarrhoea. Ok the point scoring and calling them DNA points, might be stretching it a little.

Yes I liked this area control game. It has some nice elements to it that make it interesting. There was no run away winner throughout the game amassing a huge point lead that couldn’t be caught up.

For the record books, I beat Jonathan.

And thanks to Jonathan you get another photo of me!

Meaty Game Saturday

If I can (and I’ve said this before) I like to arrive early and set up. So that once the other players (Jeff and Diego in the case of yesterday afternoon)  arrive we can start playing straight away. 

Yesterday we were playing in the function room due to a third birthday party taking over our regular spot. I don’t envy those parents having to entertain kids that age.

So safely out the way we randomly selected our player boards and faction boards for Scythe.


This was Jeffs and mine third game of Scythe, Diegos first. But our first three player game.

An hour and a half or so is all it took for Diego to win. Which is nothing for a game like this. Plus the time just flies by.

But Jeff and I still really like Scythe. And now Diego has joined the fan club. 

Our second game was Cry Havoc.


We were still referring to the rule book for our second game of this. But this was a far better experience than the first game. 

With a couple of rules now played correctly, the aid of the faction tactics advice printed off the Portal site, this felt a lot better. It seemed we were using our factions to their abilities better. 

But despite this Jeff and I still lost to Diego. 

It’s so nice to get these meatier games to the table. And I’m fortunate that I have such great folks to play these games with, and a place we can play them.

A great afternoon gaming. Despite not winning for the majority of the games I felt I was in with a shot of winning. In fact it was only in the last round and a third in Cry Havoc that Jeff took me out of the running I think.

Can’t wait until Wednesday now for our monthly meet up and Rogue One.

I’m the man!

There is a great post by Shiney Happy Meeples about inclusivity, which includes her bravely relating her personal experience.

Which got me thinking. I have no idea what she has had to experience. Frankly I won’t. 


I’m white, I think being 48 makes me middle aged-ish, male, and heterosexual. I am as the title of this post says “the man”. 

Because of the birth lottery it came up me!

I’ve not had to experience sexual abuse, harassment, discrimination because of my gender, colour, sexual preference. 

I have experienced bullying. But that’s a different story, which I will share someday.

However because I am in this position of privilege I do have responsibilities.

The first is to not let these things happen on my watch. So if I see this stuff happening it is beholden of me to step in and stop it. To speak up.

The second is for me not to be a source of this hate. But to be welcoming and include everyone.

It’s difficult to write about inclusion being from the demographic that is probably the source of the majority of the problem.

All I can hope is that when the chips are down that I am brave enough to stand up for those that are being abused. 

I think I will leave this post there. It’s a tough one, and a subject we can’t bury our heads in the sand about.

What were the hot must have games of 2016?

On my daily commute to work I like to take the scenic Fenland backroads, listen to the latest gaming podcasts or an audible book, and get lost in my own thoughts. 

This morning was no different. I worked my way across the Fenland landscape as dawn broke, with the latest Secret Cabal podcast keeping me company. 

My mental wander this morning had me thinking up ideas for posts to write over the New Year. 

One of the posts will be about what the hot games, the must have games for 2015 were. But just a list would be boring. The bit you would want to know is which ones had I played, which did I own, and further commentary on them. 

So what were the hot must have games of 2016? 

Well I know for sure Blood Rage and Scythe were. 

But what others joined them on this exclusive list? 

I remember that this years UK Games Expo that Pandemic Reign of Cthulhu had a lot of buzz. Especially considering that you were going to be able to play the game, and if you were ultra lucky walk away with a copy as well (there was a raffle to win a copy). But that seems to have all died down since then, I’ve not seen many folks talking about it since it’s release. 

The surprise must have, must be Mechs vs Minions. 

Is Pandemic Iberia also one of the hot must haves? I haven’t really seen people talking a lot about it online. 

What about Cry Havoc? It was getting a lot of buzz at the big cons. 

The second edition of Mansions of Madness also made a big splash. So should it be on the list also? 

Blood Bowl seems to be having a lot of buzz at the moment. Will Space Hulk be the same when the reprint of that happens? 

So at the moment the list of hot must have games of 2016 are: 

  • Blood Rage 
  • Scythe 
  • Mechs vs Minions 
  • Cry Havoc 
  • Blood Bowl 
  • Mansions of Madness Second Edition 

What have I missed? Have I included something by mistake?

Pandemic Iberia 

Pandemic Iberia hardly had time to be unpacked before it was hitting the table.

Jonathan, Diego and myself met up last night, just 24 hours after the game had arrived, to try and stop the spread of various diseases across Spain.

Firstly Pandemic Iberia is a lovely looking game. I really do like the design of the board, the graphic design of the cards, the tokens. It’s just beautiful. It really has that historical, Spanish feel.  It’s easily one of the best looking games of the year.

Our game last night was just a basic setup, 4 epidemic cards (or I thought there were 4, more on that later). Our logic was it’s a learning game, and we knew there were new mechanics in the game. Ok it’s Pandemic, we had a good base knowledge to work from. And having played it, we could easily have raised the difficulty level, despite the new stuff.

In the basic game of Pandemic Iberia the majority of the setup is just the same as standard Pandemic. However they do spice it up with mixing event cards into the player deck. Which seems to be the first of the ideas that have come across from Pandemic Legacy. But that isn’t even the biggest impact. Instead of everyone starting in the same city of Atlanta or the Spanish equivalent, each player gets to choose their starting city from one of the starting player cards in their hand.  Which is fantastic I really liked that.

The next idea taken from Legacy is the idea of the quarantine token. But in Iberia its called purified water, and instead of just protecting a single city, it protects the cities in an area. A nice touch.

Rail tracks are a new idea for this game, and boy do they impact it hugely. Once you have laid down some track movement between cities on the track laid becomes a single move action. So the ability to get around the board becomes very very fast indeed after a few turns.

The ports marked by an anchor also allow fast movement around the map as long as you have a card in your hand matching the colour of the port you want to go to. So with the right cards and well planned train tracks you can get around Spain very very fast indeed to take on those outbreaks.

Ok I like these touches, but they did seem to make the game easier. Would I be saying that if we had played with four or more epidemic cards? Maybe.

We were playing with three epidemic cards. When I was counting the cards out to place into the player deck, I only had five. So I assumed that I had already got one in the player deck. An assumption that was to prove wrong. At the end of the game there were only three epidemic cards in the players deck. No missing card in there. My copy of Iberia had only come with five epidemic cards not the full six. Thanks to the awesome graphic design, I can’t take one of the epidemic cards from my played copy of Legacy and use that instead.

So I do have a call raised with Z-Man for the missing epidemic card, plus a replacement red microscope token.

It is very cool that the game comes out of the box with two expansions! We definitely want to play with the patient flow rules, which sees the cubes migrate towards hospitals to get cured! Plus the historical illnesses looks interesting as well. So I like that there are options to vary the game a little, which adds to the replayability.

Graphically, and production wise I think this is miles better than ‘classic’ Pandemic.

This is a great addition to the Pandemic family, and possible gone straight to the top as my favourite version of the game.

If Z-Man hold true to their word, if you haven’t got this game already, and you want it, then be prepared to pay the eBay silly money that people will no doubt be wanting for this. Why? Z-Man said Pandemic Iberia will not be reprinted. This “limited” run was it. If you see a copy for the rrp then snap it up.

 

Plans for UK Games Expo Taking Shape

img_4317Well I “reserved” some accommodation for the UK Games Expo this morning. I’m staying about 6 miles away from the expo/con at The Stables – Deer Park Farm.

It ticks most of the things I’m looking for. Free wifi, free parking, breakfast (although it’s not a fry up, just a pastry style one I believe), and just within affordable.

That last one is an important criteria. The way I look at how much I am prepared to pay for a night is worked out by the cost of a tank of petrol. Especially for an event at the NEC. That’s two and a half hours away from where I live. So push comes to shove, I could drive there each day. I could leave the house around seven and be there traffic permitting by eleven. On the return be home for nine. I could live with that.

So with the three day pass, I’m looking at three nights accommodation. £150 is the maximum I’d be looking at. The local Travelodge and the likes to the NEC are not showing any of their “bargain” prices for the days of the event funnily enough. I suspect they have already gone, or won’t exist. The Hilton with it’s mega prices and expo discount has nothing free.

So the search for a base for the three days forced me further afield. For The Stables I am paying slightly more than I had planned but within tolerances.

The nice thing about The Stables is I believe I have a microwave and fridge in the room. So I can take my evening meals with me, and be more adventurous on what I take with me for my lunches. I always take my Aeropress, I need good coffee.

If I take my new 6ft folding table with me also, I have a playing surface I can use as well if other gamers are also at The Stables and fancy an impromptu gaming session.

Having tasted the delights of The Hilton last year, I will miss that convenience of being right in the expo. Buy some stuff and you can quickly dump it in your room. The gaming rooms are packed in the evenings, and that was an experience. But as a solo gamer hard to find a game, most people there are in groups of some kind, and want to play in those groups.

I’m hoping The Stables will be a more relaxed affair. It will most definitely be a different experience. I was at the Premier Inn the first year I attended, Hilton room sharing last year. Which both had lots of gamers at them. It will be interesting to see how many gamers are at The Stables for the duration, and what atmosphere it has.

Well at least I’m sorted at the moment. The six months or so will just fly buy, and before you know it I’ll be a solo gamer once more in a very very busy expo.

Where art tho’ commonville? 

Jonathan, one of the designers of The Streets of Commonville just put an update on the game up on a Facebook UK boardgame chat page. So below I have copied and pasted that update for none Facebook users to read:

UPDATE: THE STREETS OF COMMONVILLE

Hopefully, early next year, Rebekah and I, in conjunction with Common Man Games, will release a Print and Play version of The Streets of Commonville, so you’ll be able to try the game out with your friends and family, and provide us with valuable feedback.

Rebekah and I have had a lot of fun developing this game and we’re hoping that others will enjoy the game too, so look out for the Print and Play version next year :)

We are also hoping to get this up on Tabletopia at some point (if one of us can actually get to grips with the Tabletopia interface), which will give us a digital platform to test the game with players around the world.

For those in my local area, Fenland Gamers will once again be running some playtesting sessions for those brave officers that are interested in putting their detective skills to the test.

Stay tuned!