Monthly Archives: February 2018

Gloomhaven – Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Once more the merry band of adventurers gathered one Sunday afternoon to head off to seek fame and fortune. Oh yeah, there may be spoilers ahead. So if you want to avoid them please head off and read some of my other posts, or something more interesting elsewhere (which is more likely).

Our band of brothers and sisters had decided to help the merchant make an “example” of some caravan raiders. We arrived at the Inox Encampment in the Dagger Forest where these caravan raiders were camped.

My secret objective for this scenario was simple kill three or less enemies. I could do that I thought. I’ll just deliver the finishing blow to an enemy once one of the others had done all the work. I’ll sit back then, do some damage, heal the others, and hopefully stay alive long enough to see the end of the mission.

To get our reward from the merchant all we had to do was kill 20 Inox. Yeah we were making that sort of “example”. Would the metaphorical 30 pieces of silver we would receive upon completing the mission be enough to ease our conscience?


Charlie and Justin went to the left and took on the Inox guards and archers that side. While Edmund and myself went right to deal with the threat that side. We had started our mission with 3 damage already. So my first action was to heal myself with a healing potion. I think my Glamdalf is the weakest health wise of the party. So I needed to make sure I was able to survive a hit or two.

I did manage to kill an Inox guard, went invisible with my invisibility cloak, hid behind our Inox brawler that was Edmunds character. I can’t imagine how that big brute felt killing his own kind for money. But picking up the extra money left behind by their fallen corpses must of made it easier. While we were ducking and diving, stabbing and slashing. Justin was busy letting Charlie take the slings and arrows thrown at them on the left. Which eventually left to Charlie becoming exhausted and out of this mission, midway through.

If we were going to succeed I needed to abandon my secret objective and step up and get my magic ridden hands even bloodier than they were. By the time the body count had reached the target needed to set an “example” to these caravan raiding Inox I had killed 5. But more importantly I was just short of reaching enough experience Glamdalf to get to level 2 and those 2 spells I could add in.

On return to Gloomhaven we got into a bar fight that pushed me over the line to get my hands on those level 2 spell parchments. Now we have to decide if we are going to do more dirty work for this merchant. Or help the city watch take down this apparently up to no good merchant.

Through out this hack and slash mission I definitely was managing my cards better. At no point did I feel that I was going to be exhausted or getting close to that point. So Iflix was a lot happier with that side of things.

This mission was very much a kill everything in sight. No emphasise on exploring, or getting a particular item. I have to admit this mission kind of reminded me of the US Cavalry and the American Indians. Were we really the good guys in this? I think morally it was ambiguous at best. Were we the cavalry riding into that native village, killing anything that moved? Am I reading too much into this mission, or am I right to feel a little uncomfortable with it?

Netflix/Amazon Prime Recommendations


Netflix and Amazon knocked it out of the park this weekend with two new releases. You want a great cyberpunk sci-fi series to watch? Go watch the amazing Altered Carbon. Want a gritty, suspenseful mystery, that leads you down several plot dead ends before the big reveal then watch Absentia.

I really enjoyed both of these series. Very different, but also very similar in many ways to. Just watch both you won’t regret it.

Istanbul going digital


The tail end of last week saw the announcement that the board game Istanbul is going digital. No eta or pricing info in this initial press release apart from it will be available on all the usual suspects when it comes to platforms. The developer Acrum is responsible for the digital version of 8 Minute Empire (which to my shame I own but not fired up). But if my fading memory doesn’t fail me got good reviews at the time of its release. I’m hoping that it’s not just the base game we get but the expansions too. Or that they release an update with the expansions (at an extra cost naturally) not long after. Istanbul is a great game, which came in at number 7 in my Top 100 games last year. And I love the game with the expansions. In fact unless I’m introducing the game to a new player, I only want to play it with the expansions. They just take the base game to a new level.

Naturally it has the normal functionality you’d expect from a digital version of a board game. Although in the past one or two developers have released versions with some core features (as I would consider them) missing, and not always promised for a future update. So at the moment I’m giving the developer the benefit of doubt and assuming this following list is going to be there from day one.

• play with AI, with friends or both

• pass and play mode

• online multiplayer with asynchronous mode option

• modular board

• official rules plus extra additions

You can read the full unedited press release HERE, or sign up for email alerts HERE with the developer.

With Scythe hitting Steam soon (well this year) with hopefully the iOS version not far behind its a great time to be playing digital versions of board games.

Angels crash to earth

We started a MtG Tournament at work this week. Four rounds of swiss, over 4 weeks with 12 competitors. Each round is the best of 3 games, with the whole thing being run on the Challonge.com website. At the moment there is no prize support, we are currently playing for honour.

I’m playing an angel deck in this tournament. Which I didn’t do too well with in my first round match I lost 2-1. The first game I won, things went to plan. Which in the second game they didn’t. Things went down hill in that game when Overwhelming Splendor was removed from my hand just before I could play it. Sadly at the moment I only have the one copy (Yes more are on the way). But it’s a funny card to play.

It does a good job of buying time for the Angels in my deck to come out, and shutting down planeswalkers that my students like to play. But with the card discarded from my hand my “Great Wall of Darren” as I call it (I have 12 walls in this deck) managed to only delay the inevitable in this game. I just wasn’t hitting my Angels.

In the third and final deciding game things just got worse for me. I just wasn’t hitting land. I was stuck on 2 or 3 mana for a long time, unable to play most things except my walls, cycle the odd card in the hope of hitting land. It was a quick death luckily for me. And a poor start to the tournament.

On a brighter note in a “friendly” game earlier in the day I did get to transform Bruna, The Fading Light and Gisela, The Broken Blade into Brisela, Voice of Nightmares.

This does look really cool on the battlefield.

All booked

In a shocking display of being organised I’m all booked up for the two big expos this year. Long time sufferers of this blog will recall that I’d already booked my accommodation for both expos before Christmas. Which was a rarity for me. Normally the accommodation is left to March time or nearer when all the cheap rooms are gone, and I have to hunt around for something I can afford. So I really did surprise myself when I booked rooms early at the cheap rate. I blame Jonathan for that when he booked his room for the UKGE, and talked about going to the TTG:Live one.

So with payday injecting much needed funds into the bank account I’ve decided I better secure my tickets as well. So that’s it, apart from getting there and having a good time I’m all paid up.

3D Tokens


So I finally have some 3D printed versions of the crate and terminal tokens for Imperial Assault. You saw the test one that was done last week. Naturally so that the test crate stands out the others have been printed in a completely different colour.

However these do look pretty cool, and with the newish app for the game, and these I so want to get the game to the table to play through the campaign side of the game. Although these 3D tokens are going to look super cool when playing the skirmish side also. But basically the take home from all this I just need to get the game back to the table.