Monthly Archives: December 2018

Killing groots family!


Schedule conflicts, or otherwise known as life, sometimes gets in the way of things. Which meant that we had our next D&D session a week early. We will move back to a fortnightly routine again from this session. But in the mean time it means you get to read some D&D stuff earlier than usual.

And now for your reading displeasure the further dramatic retelling of Dram’s latest adventuring.

Ace went off on a supplies run while Dram and the others had breakfast. Dram had asked Ace if he could get a lump of coal for him and some bat fur. Both vital ingredients to that new spell he’d been given by the necromancer a few days ago.

After second breakfast had been polished off, and seconds and thirds followed the same way, Ace stepped back in to the inn from his little excursion. Ace had got the coal but no bat fur. Although he’d been given a hot tip for getting some.

As luck would have it Alderleaf Farm had a bat problem. Wow an excuse to see my fellow halflings thought Dram.

So after the last morsels of the fourth helping of second breakfast were polished off, Dram and the others made their way to the farm. It happened to be on the way to some other place. Dram was sure the others had said where they were going but something more interesting came up at the time that caught his attention, another plate of food.

At Alderleaf Farm his fellow halfling after exchanging pleasantries did indeed have a bat problem in her barn. And it wasn’t a euphemism either. They were real bats, in a real barn.

Ace offered to help Dram get a bat. So they both headed off to the barn.

Inside the bats were sleeping in the rafters. Too high up for Dram to get to them easily. Maybe if he cast misty steps to appear next to one, grab it, and then cast feather fall. He could get one.

While Dram was pondering over the merits of his plan, and what could be mistaken as looking up at them helplessly, Ace made his way up to get one.

Just as Ace was about to grab a bat, an arrow from nowhere struck one, killing it. The remaining two bats awoke. Saw Ace. Jumped to the wrong conclusion and attacked Ace. Ace responded by grabbing one and snapping it’s neck. The third one Dram dispatched with a magic missile. Overkill? Maybe, but it’s good to remind folks that this little guy is more than he seems.

After the little skirmish, it turned out Sarmyar had fired the arrow. Luckily there were two bats that Dram was able to clumsily skin with his little knife to get that much needed fur.

With a little spring in his step, happy he could now cast this new spell if he wanted, he joined the others outside the barn.

After getting directions, which can never be made interesting, and would explain why instead of listening Dram dug out 5 silver coins from his money pouch. By the time he’d done that they were ready to continue on with this new adventure. As they all left Dram handed the coins over to his fellow halfling.

Apparently they were heading to a place called Thundertree. Which took them by the scene of their first fight together. Oh the memories of that skirmish. Nothing like the smell of rotten horse corpses to bring them to the fore front.

A day or so later the party hit the Neverwinter River, where they decide to make their second camp before heading into their destination.

Ace decided to take a swim in the river. An evil thought for a cool practical joke went through Dram’s mind. Wouldn’t it be funny to apply a little electrical charge to the river? But Dram’s better nature got the best of him, and he resisted temptation.

While Dram was having the inner tussle, Ace had pulled Sarmyar into the river. She didn’t seem too impressed with that trick. Dram had to admit it wasn’t much of a trick. Not nearly as cool as the one he’d thought up.

Sarmyar was by the fire drying off, when a dripping wet Ace walks naked passed her.

A question entered Dram’s head, “do elves like have mating seasons?” Which was quickly followed by another question “is this what passes as sexual tension for elves?”

The next morning after breakfast the party made their way into Thundertree. As they made their way into this derelict town they passed a sign with a warning on it. It said “Danger. Plant monsters and zombies. Turn back now.” As a precaution Dram used his glass staff to cast mage armour to protect himself. You can never be too cautious.

As they all stood at the entrance to Thundertree, Ace and Grull were trying to formulate a plan. Something about checking the outer buildings first, blah, blah. There was little being decided. “That building looks interesting”, thought Dram, “and its on the outside.” So Dram went right to the building that had caught his eye. While at the same moment Grull and Ace went left!

Dram poked his head into the old building. It was an old inn. “Hey folks, matured beer might be here” he shouted. He stepped inside.

“Oops”, as Dram entered the inn, standing just inside the door way he saw four dust covered zombies. Blocking his escape was Sarmyar. So Dram did the only thing he could do. Misty Step. One moment he was standing inside the inn, the next he’s standing behind Grull in the street.

The next thing Dram sees is Grull rushing to the door and dragging Sarmyar out of the inn. She wasn’t looking in a good way, and was covered in a white powder. Dram ran over, used his healing potion on her and washed away the white powder as best he could. There was a little guilt having left Sarmyar to handle the zombies. But he would have been in the way. It was a tactical retreat, that way Sarmyar and the others could more easily fight the zombies without him blocking them. Yeah that’s why he cast Misty Step.

The zombies streamed out of the old inn attacking the gnome and the druid. The druid cast Thunderwave. It was so cute when the druid tried to be like a real magic user.

While everyone is fighting the zombies, and trying to make sure they stay down. Ace shouted something about some trees.

Trying once again to be like a real magic user the druid casts a gust of wind at a zombie.

Just to make sure nothing else was going to come out of the inn and attack them, Dram poked his head through the door and looked inside. Then the druid pushes past Dram and hides in the old inn.

While Dram was confirming no more threats were coming from the old inn. The others went to look at some bushes, that apparently they thought were moving. What weirdos.

The gnome starts going all berserk and attacking the bushes. So Dram fires off a magic missile at a couple.

For his efforts Grull shouted at him “stop dicking about and get here and help out”.

Dram felt a little hurt by that comment, and pointed out he wasn’t dicking about. He was making sure there were no more surprises coming from the inn. And who did he think cast the magic missiles?

The next thing Ace is trying to be a peace maker, and trying to talk to the bushes. But that psychotic gnome was having none of it.

Sarmyar once again collapsed to the ground. The moving bundle of twigs had put her down. Lucky for her the druid had decided to give up hiding and ran over to heal her.

In all of the excitement, and what can be only explained as combat fatigue, Ace decided to hug a tree and started talking to it. Had he need hit on the head?

But before Ace’s delusions could fully kick in the gnome turned Ace’s latest love interest into kindling.

With all the moving bushes now only good for fire wood, Grull decided to lecture us all on staying together and being more careful. “When Grull gets like this he’s no fun. All this talk is boring.” Thought Dram.

And that’s where we leave our exhausted adventurers, being told off and deciding what to do next.

December Monthly Meet up 2018


Insert my favourite cliche about time flying here. Otherwise let’s get to talking about last nights monthly meet up for Fenland Gamers. That once again was hosted by The Luxe Cinema.

I arrived as usual slightly early to get the gaming area set up. During the banter with the staff I checked on numbers for today’s afternoon Wreck-it Ralph 2 showing. There were zero bookings. I soon remedied that by booking my favourite seat in the cinema. If all goes to plan it will be like having my own private showing of the movie. Sadly a similar plan for Aquaman is unlikely to happen. The showing in Friday I was looking at had 5 people booked. Not only that my favourite seat was gone!

Gavin arrived first with his delivery of the Kickstarter edition of Dice Hospital for Jonathan, and an unexpected gift for me. Gavin had gotten a large, heavy metal D20 die that had been just sitting on his bosses desk, and asked if he could have it. The response was in the positive, and here it was, now in my possession. I instantly imagined Edmund’s table if it was made from sapian wood shedding a tear with the thought of this die. And that’s before my table breaker dice have arrived. They are due any day now.

Our first game of the evening was a game we usually end the evening with, and that was Liars Dice/Perudo. Gavin hadn’t played before and was keen to learn.

We didn’t really have any other 5 player games with us. Unusually I was the only one who had bought games, except for Gavin’s delivery.

Gavin was curious to try Keyforge. So while Gavin was learning that, the others had a 3 player learning game of Dice Hospital (using Gavin’s copy of the game). After Gavin lost 3 keys to 1, he shared his opinion of the game. It would be fair to sum that up as “meh” or it was ok. Gavin wasn’t knocked over by the game. But by his own admission Gavin isn’t a big lcg/ccg player, he doesn’t have that ability to see combos, or as I paraphrase his words “look at cards and think oh that card will go well in such and such deck”. The positive thing that comes out of this, is it has saved Gavin money. He was going to potentially buy a starter set. Now he knows not to.

After the Keyforge experience, Gavin wanted to learn/try Azul. So that’s what we did. I narrowly won the game. But this was a much more positive experience for Gavin, despite getting maximum negative points on one round.


While waiting for the Dice Hospital game to finish we chewed the fat, discussing games and the quality of the components for Dice Hospital.

I have to say overall the component quality is pretty good. The cardboard tiles are a good thickness, the meeples look fragile but cool. The plastic ambulances look impressive on the table, although the detail, finish isn’t fantastic. They have a weight to them, but easily with the finish could easily have been done on a 3D printer. I know they are used for holding the dice, but really they are a bit of table top theatrics with no real game play impact (something I believe will change in an expansion).

The score trackers for the players although cardboard versions of syringes, and fit thematically. They did let the side down. With all the other pimped out stuff added to the game, I’m surprised these weren’t also.

The card stock of the cards had a nice linen like finish, but shockingly thin. Definitely will need sleeving.

But it’s little details like the last 2 things that for me let the side down. You’ve already pimped everything else out. Why not go that little extra? Maybe Alley Cat Games should employ me as consultant.

The next thing I suppose for me is to play the game. Which I’m sure I will get the chance to do with Jonathan real soon.

A big big thank you to our hosts for once again being totally amazing. And another great club meet up.

Building A Standard Mono Blue Mill Deck Thought Process

So this will be a thinking aloud, chewing the fat, rubber ducking, showing my working out post. Choose your favourite tired cliche from that list. But basically I’m just going to waffle.

For those that have blotted out my post from the weekend (Mana Screwed II) I wrote the following about a mono blue mill deck I played a friendly game against.

Andy had come across an article about playing mill at FNM, which also happened to be a budget deck, and he had the majority of the cards. So he built the deck. And that’s what I played against here. I recognised the cards that formed the mill engine (Psychic Corrosion and Drowned Secrets) I’d seen them put to good use in a series 5 game of Spellslingers with Day 9 playing the deck. Strictly Better MtG also did a deck tech on it also. But I hadn’t come across the article Andy had mentioned.

I have to admit I like the idea of the deck. And I was tempted to build a version of the deck myself when I first saw the episode of Spellslingers. Now I know I am going to create a version too. I’ll use the same core engine. But I’d love to know why no millstone.

So here we are with me looking at building my take on this blue mill deck. I’ve deliberately not looked at the sources mentioned whilst putting this deck together. I want this to be my deck. Afterwards I will compare “notes” and see where we differ out of interest. But I won’t share that with you. I’d have bored you enough by then.

I suppose I should put my usual disclaimer here (slightly edited for Standard).

I’m not claiming these are the best decks in the world, they certainly are not top competitive decks. They are hopefully fun, affordable (subjective I know) decks. I don’t try and keep to a target price point. I try and use as many cards in my collection as possible to keep my costs down. I’m certainly not a master deck builder claiming this deck will win tournaments, if it is fun to play and does it thing then I’ll be happy.

The core of this deck is Drowned Secrets and Psychic Corrosion.

So there will be a playset of both in the deck. Ideally multiple copies of both will be out. But one of each will be enough. So the deck needs to be playing blue spells and drawing cards.

The thing I noticed about the deck Andy played was the lack of creatures. I think the only one he said he had was Fleet Swallower. So I’ve gone with 16 creatures that can act as blockers but also give me a secondary benefit that fits in with the game plan. It’s why I went Surge Mare over Wall of Mist for example.

But you will notice that there are 2 colourless creatures that won’t trigger Drowned Secrets. However Diamond Mare doubles up on the Drowned Secrets and gives what could be valuable life gain when blue spells are cast. Howling Golem will give card draw, although sadly my opponent also benefits from that. For the record there will be one Fleet Swallower in the main deck, and a second copy in the sideboard.

I know I will be playing playsets of both Opt, and Blink of an Eye.

The benefit of Blink of an Eye, it’s bouncing a creature back to hand, but kicked gives card draw. I don’t think Opt needs much explaining if any.

After the above cards I’m undecided how the remaining slots will be taken up in the main deck. Cards I’ve been looking at including are:

Fountain of Renewal, Disdainful Stroke, Essence Scatter, Expel from Orazca, Millstone, Radical Idea, Unexplained Disappearance, Befuddle, Cancel, Divination, Secrets of the Golden City, Sinister Sabotage, Unwind, Wizard’s Retort, Bone to Ash, Capture Sphere, Chemister’s Insight, Kumena’s Awakening, Sleep, Patient Rebuilding, The Mirari Conjecture and Weight of Memory

For the sideboard I’ve been considering the following cards:
Muse Drake, Fleet Swallower, Windreader Sphinx, Fountain of Renewal, Selective Snare, Time of Ice, Patient Rebuilding, Weight of Memory, and River’s Rebuke

What I have to balance with the remaining slots is card draw, removal and possibly a counter spell or two.

I’m going to play 22 lands, 20 will be basics, and 2 copies of Memorial to Genius.

With Vodalian Arcanist I also have a little ramp for casting instants and sorceries. So I’m boarder line on the land front.

So that’s my thinking so far on this mono blue mill deck. The clock is ticking because I’m considering giving it an airing at this weekends Standard Showdown. Which means the extra copies of some cards I need had better show up quickly.

Into the Wildlands

Yesterday I was once more welcomed into the home of Diego and his family to play some games.

The game we ended up playing for the afternoon was the latest Martin Wallace game published by Osprey Games, called Wildlands.

Diego and I first saw the game on the Osprey stand at Tabletop Games Live at the end of September. The slots to try the game didn’t work for us, and Osprey forgot to mention there was a copy in the rather small games library (something we found out after the show) for people to use. But the explanation we had of the game by the Osprey staff, and examining the game components convinced both of us that this was a game we’d like, and should be on our wish list.

About a month later, just after Essen, Wildlands dropped onto the shelves of stores. Somehow a copy found it’s way to mine.

Yesterday was the first time Diego and myself got to play the game.

Wildlands is a light miniatures skirmish game with a hand management element.

The game comes with a double sided board, that has a different map on each side. There are 4 unique factions included, that have very different play styles, and rather nice insert trays to organise everything. Which even just about takes sleeved cards. The miniatures in the game come with a wash applied, and look awesome. So you really don’t have to paint them. The overall component quality, and the touches mentioned is outstanding.

In about two and a half hours we played 4 games. Which is very quick really. Set up is also very quick, 5 minutes max. The longest hardest part of the setup is deciding on a faction to play. Diego and I only played 2 factions each. But each faction we chose, we played twice.

The rules are very streamlined, and quick to learn. Which means such things as combat, line of sight are very uncomplicated, and aided greatly by some nice graphic design touches. No looking up stuff on tables in rule books, and measuring stuff out.

Like Memoir 44 you have a hand of cards that determine what you can do on a turn. The hand management is crucial to being successful. Diego was far better at this than me. I think I remember one turn when he did nothing and just drew cards. I did this a few turns through out the 4 games. It’s nice that you can only have a max hand size of 7 cards, and only draw up to 3 cards at the end of your turn.

Each faction feels unique, and plays differently. But they seem fairly balanced. Or in the pairings we had they did. Which is why it was cool we played our factions twice. The first time was almost a getting to know my faction game. Ok I lost all 4 games. But none of the games were wipe outs. They were ending with scores of 5-3, or 5-4. So pretty close really.

I like the setup and the use of location cards. Each player gets 10 location cards at the start. They assign a card/location face down to each character in their team, and the remaining 5 cards get passed to your opponent on your left. You receive 5 cards back from your right. Those 5 cards are used to determine where you place your shards that you need to collect. This is a great mechanic, because you are able to control (depending on the cards) where you opponents place shards and set potential traps.

Not having to reveal the positions of your whole team at the start of the game is also pretty cool. You do have to reveal at least one of your team at the start of each turn, until they are all revealed. And you can reveal more during your turn if you so wish. This enables you to set traps, hold back until it’s the most advantageous to reveal them.

Another nice mechanic is that if one of your team is killed, then those cards aren’t dead. You can use them to claim shards.

The simplicity of combat, line of sight, and cover helps keep the game flowing. Being able to interrupt a players turn is a nice mechanic, which we did use. But not to any great extent in a 2 player game. Diego and I were both keen to try the game with more players.

One of the things that I asked Osprey about was future plans for the game. Already a new expansion is out The Undead (my copy should arrive this week due to UPS losing a delivery to the store I pre-ordered from) that adds a new team plus play mechanic. Next year we see another team plus a new map board coming to the game. Because the secret to the longevity of this game is the support of it with expansions. Where Osprey and Wallace take the game after that who knows? But Osprey did give the impression they had a bit of stuff lined up.

It was a blast playing the game with Diego. As always he was a fantastic host.

Mana Screwed II


Out in the wider MtG world it’s the weekend of the Liverpool Grand Prix. Technically I think this is the last one before the become MagicFest. These sort of events (for me) are over priced. Especially once you add in travel and accommodation. I find events like UKGE much better value.

So while all those wanna be pro players were in Liverpool, I was taking part in my FLGS Standard Showdown again.

Due to road works I nearly didn’t make the start of the Showdown on time. So a call was made to let John know I was on my way and might be 5 minutes late. On the journey over I thought I had left one of my Carnage Tyrants in my big green stompy Commander deck. And part of the journey over was working out what would replace it. A Doom Whisperer would be the obvious choice. But luck would have it when I finally arrived at the store and checked my deck, I had put it back. Phew!

Let battle commence, the first round pair ups were announced…

Round 1 Kar-fai mono red

If my deck hadn’t decided to screw me over I would have done better! Being mana screwed is one of those things you live with in MtG. It’s an aspect of the game you accept. To be fair sometimes it’s not a fun experience. But what characterises every MtG player while they are experiencing the mana draught or mana flood (too much land opposed to too little/none) is the optimism that the next card will be the one you need. That mana that enables you to start playing. But the longer the draught goes on, the harder it becomes to turn things round. Until it gets to the point of no return, and saving the game becomes impossible and the optimism ebbs away to be replaced by accepting the inevitable. Luckily at that point the suffering is soon over as your opponent puts you out of your misery.

That describes two of the three matches I had with Kar-fai. The third game (which in reality was game 2 iirc) which I won was one of those games that I managed to stabilise and grab the win.

Result: Loss 2-1

Round 2 – bye

My loss meant I got to sit back, take some photos, and spectate the games being played.

Result: Win

Round 3 – Andy red white knights

Remember me describing in-eloquently above what it’s like to be mana screwed? Work with me here, it was a couple of sentences back or so. Recent history, from as far back as 40 minutes before, decided to repeat itself. I know I have mana in the deck, I’ve seen it. But once again it decided to play hide and seek.

By the end of our first game I think I’d resigned myself to the fact it was going to be one of those days, or to use an over used cliche, “a bad day at the office”. As dad used to be fond of saying “shit happens”. Indeed it does, and how we handle things after the shit happening, defines the sort of person that we are.

I’m not going to rush out and change my deck because of a bad result or two. I think it has already proved that it can on it’s day hold it’s own. I’m happy with this version of the deck, which won’t get changed until the next set rotation.

It won’t put me off playing in more Standard Showdowns either.

What I’m basically saying is I’m picking myself up off the floor, dusting myself down, and continuing to play.

It’s that trying again. Not being put off by failure. The determination to succeed. It’s been a really useful skill that has defined me since an early age, and been crucial as a programmer.

Oh bugger this is getting deep, I better change the mood quickly. I lost both games, for reasons that have already been discussed.

Result: Loss 2-0

Friendly Game 1 – Andy’s Mono Blue Mill Deck

Andy had come across an article about playing mill at FNM, which also happened to be a budget deck, and he had the majority of the cards. So he built the deck. And that’s what I played against here. I recognised the cards that formed the mill engine (Psychic Corrosion and Drowned Secrets) I’d seen them put to good use in a series 5 game of Spellslingers with Day 9 playing the deck. Strictly Better MtG also did a deck tech on it also. But I hadn’t come across the article Andy had mentioned.

Andy got a copy of both the core cards of the deck out, and I was milling cards. Just not fast enough for it to really effect the end result. My creatures with nothing to block them swung in unopposed. And were doing damage faster than I was being milled.

I have to admit I like the idea of the deck. And I was tempted to build a version of the deck myself when I first saw the episode of Spellslingers. Now I know I am going to create a version too. I’ll use the same core engine. But I’d love to know why no millstone.

Result: Win

Friendly Game 2 – Dean Mono Green Aggro

Dean finished top 3 with his deck. So I was curious to see how my deck would do against it. Especially since we shared cards.

Taking out Dean’s Llanowar Elf early on was a very wise decision. It slowed him down. My battlefield was building up faster than his, my big hitters were coming out. But so was Dean’s. We would soon be getting to that crunch point of a reckoning. A reckoning based on the current board state I’d win, but the board would be decimated. With Vivien Reid out I was able to keep my hand full of creatures to play. Then being able to ultimate her was enough to give me the game. This was the first time I’ve ultimated Vivien. Usually if I can use her a couple of times to get a creature or remove something then I’m happy.

Result: Win

So once the dust had settled and the WotC software finished its advanced calculations my final position was…

Final Position: 5th out of 7 (Kar-fai took top spot)

Prize: 1 participation pack (took a Battlebond booster) and a Standard Showdown booster (pulled a Crucible of Worlds).

After the showdown Kar-fai played some Keyforge with me. This was Kar-fai’s first time playing, so a learning experience. We used the following two decks of mine Evie, Desperado of the Melancholic Haven vs Blindingly Fanatical Erkki. Kar-fai played Erkki, and I played my latest arrival Evie.

Our first game was a white wash for Kar-fai. The Evie deck did all the work, but I forged 3 keys before Kar-fai had forged one. I did feel a bit guilty. Had I inadvertently used an over powered deck? This new deck was a voyage of discovery for me. I liked it. It was fun, especially the 3 warped wormholes that it had. I even enjoyed the mars side of the deck, a house I’ve not really played.

Afterwards we swapped decks.


This was a completely different game. I took an early lead, Kar-fai pulled back level. This game was dragging on. Neither of us could make that break through to forge the third and final key. We’d get the ember needed, but the other player on their go would be able to do enough to stop the key being forged. Whether it was decimating the opponent’s ember supply, capturing just enough ember, or even stealing it.

In the end we called the game a draw. Mainly because John wanted to shut up shop, it was closing time.

But despite that, and the twinge of guilt from the first game. I had a blast playing the games. That back and forth in the last game was intense and a blast. Plus Kai-far enjoyed playing, and is potentially looking at grabbing a couple of decks.

Despite my deck hating me today I had a great day of MtG and Keyforge.

A light evening of gaming

I say this every time but 2 weeks already? Numbers for the evenings gaming was a nice even 4. Once again the evening was hosted by The Luxe Cinema and it’s wonderful staff.

Our evening of light gaming started off with a couple of games of Kingdomino. What more can I say about this game? Not a bloody lot. Our first play of it saw a first with Jonathan and myself sharing the honours with exactly the same score. The second game was won by new member Syringa. Which goes to show how easy this game is to pick up. Learn in first game, then wipe the floor with them in the second.

Sagrada followed to the table next. A game we hadn’t played in a while. So it was good we could get it to the table again. It clicked at the start of the game that basically Sagrada is Rolling America but with dice, instead of writing down the numbers. Nathanial walked away with the honours for this game.


Now the draw back of writing a blog, and taking photos to use on it is Jonathan can spot mistakes. After the above was shared across social media Jonathan noticed something I hadn’t I had a die placed illegally. Luckily when I corrected the scores to take it into account, instead of Jonathan beating me by a point it was 2 points. It made no difference to Nathanial winning, he was in front by a large margin.

We finished off the evening with a few games of No Thanks! I think everyone won at least one game of this.

Basically last night although not “heavy” games, they were still fun and enjoyable. There were laughs, and banter. A perfectly enjoyable gaming session. What’s more we get to do it all again in Wednesday at the monthly meetup.

Once again a big thank you to the amazing staff at The Luxe and the cinema for letting us use its facilities.

More Wingspan Spoilers

Have you had enough of the fanboying over a game that hasn’t been released yet? I haven’t. The latest spoiler looks at the player mats, and sheds some light on what a turn looks like for a player. Followed by a look at bonus cards within the game. Just like the previous posts looking at Wingspan I’ll be copying and pasting the words typed by Jamey on the Facebook group, and adding some commentary, and wildly incorrect speculation.

So let’s start with them there player mats.

“…On your turn, you select one of the four actions on your player mat. You take the action, and play progresses clockwise.

Like in other Stonemaier Games, we like to keep the core action system very simple. However, Wingspan adds several layers of complexity that increase throughout the game as you build your engine, as each habitat on your player mat is linked to a specific action.

Both layers are linked to the bird cards and where you play them. The more birds you play in a habitat, the more powerful that habitat becomes for you on future actions (though there are egg costs to playing bird cards in columns 2-5). Also, many of the birds in Wingspan have “when activated” abilities that I get to use every time I choose the habitat in which I played those birds.

This adds up to a huge amount of progression over the course of the game, with players chaining together birds and improving their core actions as they play…

The player mats are huge and sturdy, and they each fold down the middle (the outside is designed to look like a leather field guide).


So my guess about the action selection and the cards was partially correct. I got the obvious part right, but was way way off on the use of the cards.

I have to admit some games have that wow factor when you look at them on the table. Doesn’t matter what you thought of that pyramid in Camel Up! and it’s practicality, you couldn’t deny that it caught the eye and made you go wow. The same for Colt Express, it’s physical presence of the 3D train and carriages wow. I like to sometimes refer to it as table theatrics. Before you even know anything about the game, it has your attention and interest already. The photos of the table with the bird table dice tower and the eggs for me add that wow factor for Wingspan.

Ok time to look at those bonus cards within the game.

With such a wealth of options in Wingspan, we wanted to give players a few beacons to help guide them as they make choices about which birds to draw and play (and where to play them). One example of this is the set of 26 bonus cards.

Each player gets 2 bonus cards at the beginning of the game; they choose 1 to keep, and they discard the other. There are also some birds with “when played” abilities that let you draw 2 more bonus cards (keep 1, discard 1).

An interesting idea for the game. I’m assuming that the other beacon they will be using within the game will be the goals. I can see some interesting choices having to be made between cards that boost the bonus scoring and ones that drive your engine forward. I like those kind of decisions.

Oh and yes I nearly forgot the photos are copyright Stegmaier Games and I’ve used them without permission once again.

Farming and Forging

Yesterday saw some gaming taking place.

It started off with a lunchtime game of Keyforge with the two decks I traded for (Bellandini, the Ranger of Whistlecorner and HRH Threeteen, the Bizzarre Distiller). The honours were shared one game each. And we did the whole swap decks after the first game thing. So we both got to play both decks. They actually felt pretty balanced against each other. I liked the archive mechanic one of the decks had.

Like all good tcg/lcg games there has to the odd card that it’s not entirely clear how to interrupt it’s text. One such card is Bait and Switch. It’s ambiguous text can be interrupted as meaning you steal 1 ember, then if they still have more steal another. Or it can be read that you keep stealing ember until your opponent no longer has more ember than you.

After some investigation while I wrote this post, the intent is it keeps repeating, so it’s the later interruption that is correct.

But despite that uncertainty about the cards text, I like this card a lot. It’s one of those cards you’d like a couple more of in your deck. It’s a control card that’s ideal to stop that key being forged, and give you a boost to your own ember production, possibly into a forging opportunity yourself. It’s why shadows and dis are fastly becoming my favourite houses in Keyforge. I must keep an eye out for a deck that has both plus maybe brobnar or logos. I’m probably leaning more to logos as the third house in hopes of getting my favourite art on the cards at the moment Wild Wormhole (I’d love the playmat of this art, sadly it’s only available as the top prize in the current organised play kits).

In the evening Jonathan and I met up to surprisingly to play some games.

Our first game of the evening was Reykholt, which was the latest addition to Jonathan’s collection of Uwe Rosenberg games. I think, and I may be wrong on this (I’m sure Jonathan will correct me in the comments if I am), Rosenberg’s latest game, and an early copy thanks to one or two retailers bringing copies over from Essen.

So Reykholt boils down to being a fun light worker placement game that takes place over seven rounds.

Each round you get 3 actions to select, which range from building greenhouses to grow crops, seeding a crop, harvesting crops, getting certain veg types (which can be used for seeding or in the tourism stage to advance) or even destroying greenhouses to advance on the tourism track. The tourism track is how you determine the winner of the game. The player who is furthest along it wins.

So during your turn you are having to balance between getting the veg required to enable you to advance along the tourism track, growing more veg for current and future rounds, and getting greenhouses to enable you to grow more.

Despite being a light worker placement game, there are still interesting decisions to make. The round counter and limited number of actions keep the pressure on, and make you focused. I also like that you can always advance at least one position on the tourism track and gain the resources that new position has. These resources under normal circumstances for that position are the cost to move onto that space. You are also limited to doing this once per turn. But used wisely it can be used to give you the resources to advance on maybe even during the current turn, but most likely on a future one.

I did use the greenhouse destruction to great affect in the later rounds to advance me along the tourism track, to spots where I had the required resources to advance. Plus I had a blindingly good first turn that advanced me 4 or more places on the tourism track.

The history books will show that I beat Jonathan. But despite that I did enjoy the game, and would like to try it at the higher player counts.


Our second game of the evening was Keyforge.

This was Jonathan suffering a style of game he doesn’t enjoy as a way of making up for me having to play a game of his! Which wasn’t really necessary because I’m happy playing most games (except dire Rick and Morty themed games which is all of them).

This was a learning game, so after the earlier experience I used the same decks again. Yes they are a bit more advanced than the starter learning decks. But as I pointed out earlier in this post I thought they were pretty well balanced against each other.

I actually lost this game down to a massive mistake by me. We were both at two forged keys, I had six ember and ready to forge on my turn. Jonathan played a card that stopped me forging a key, by basically making me skip the forge key step. Jonathan then got to six ember himself. I just needed to name the right house, capture an ember from Jonathan, and then forge the key on my next turn. But I called the wrong house, l played two cards from hand, went to activate the creature to capture the ember, and I couldn’t. It was the wrong house. I couldn’t stop Jonathan from winning. It was such a doh! moment.

So history will record that as a win for Jonathan.

I had a great evening gaming. And a great lunchtime session too.

Birdfeeder Dice Tower and more

So I’m continuing my posts about Wingspan based on the drip drip of information that is slowly being released.

Somehow I missed the first bit of information, because it should have been in the previous post. But I’m making up for it now. Once again before I start the photos used in this post are copyright Stonemaier Games, I’m using them without permission because I’m a rebel.

We’ve never designed a cardboard dice tower, so I reached out to the experts at TowerRex. They designed the template, and Beth Sobel illustrated it. It’s a 2-piece component, and it’s designed for easy storage–simply lay the tower horizontally into the tray and place it in the box according to the storage guide on the side of the box.(I’ve exploded out that part of the image Jamey provided.) ”

First wow. Love the fact a dice tower is included, and it looks cool. Looking at the storage guide I’m not going to be too worried about wear and tear on the cardboard. And it’s great that they have actually designed the contents of the game to take into account storing of the dice tower.

But let’s look at the rest of the photo as well. The eggs look to be in the same storage containers used for the resources in Scythe. I actually like those a lot. So much so I bought a pack of ten to use with other games. I hope an extra two are included to store the cardboard tokens. The storage guide hints at there will be two provided containers of some sort.

Looking at the storage guide we can see there will be goal tiles, so I’m jumping to the conclusion that these will be randomly selected at the start of each game. And naturally there appears to be a mat for these goals to go on. Will we see players claim goals as they achieve them, and new ones get revealed. Or will they be goals that are there for the whole of the game, and can be claimed by whoever completes them? Or a combination of the two?

There will also be player mats, a score pad, and action cubes (if I’ve read the blurry text correctly). So will we be selecting actions on a turn based on our player mats and birds that make up our engine? I’m whistling in the wind here really, as I don’t have any insight into what is actually going to happen. But I’m guessing that the player mats will be basic actions you can take.

There was a bit more information given about the dice in the game and how they are used.

The food dice in Wingspan are an example of input randomness (the randomness happens first, and then you make a choice–the randomness doesn’t make the choice for you). Basically, whenever you gather food from the birdfeeder, you remove a die from the tray and gain the corresponding food token. If the tray is empty (or if all dice show the same face and you don’t want that food), you toss all of the dice back into the tower. And if you still really aren’t getting the food you want, when playing bird cards, any 2 food tokens always equals any 1 food token.”

What I like about this bit of information is that firstly Jamey explains what the technical design term is that he uses. We then get told how the dice are used. But what I like from this snippet is that there is a mechanic to mitigate bad dice rolls. That’s important. You don’t want to keep having to reroll to try and get the resource you are after. Two for one seems a pretty standard conversion rate.

Then hot off the presses yesterday some photos of the Automa – solo play side of things were released.

The Automa system uses cards to simulate an intelligent opponent (without requiring all the upkeep of actually taking turns for a player who isn’t there). Wingspan’s Automa includes a separate rulebook and a total of 16 cards, my favorite of which is the cleverly named “Automubon expert-level” card.”


As you can see it follows the same format as the other Stonemaier Games. It’s nice that it is there, but it’s not a side I’ve ever used with any of the games (so far). But these posts have peaked the interest of my friend Jonathan who does play much more solo games than me. So he will like this option for sure.

Ok that’s it for this post.

Competitive crushes casual

My FLGS The Hobbit Hole has started a Monday afternoon Commander club. It’s aimed at those at a lose end basically, like those between jobs, students, the retired, on holiday or some other reason.

I found myself at a lose end after taking mum shopping in the morning. So I thought why not?

Three decks found their way into my bag, Trostani, my mono red goblins, and the new death and taxes deck.

Once at The Hobbit Hole 3 other people for whatever reason found themselves at a lose end also, and decided to do some Commanderin’.

The good news from the afternoon of playing luxury cardboard rectangles was I got to play all 3 decks, and long story short they at least got to do their thing (to some extent) but didn’t come close to winning.

My decks weren’t bad decks in my opinion. Well I’ve admitted my death and taxes is a work in progress and needs at least it’s mana base revisiting. But they were out classed. As were the decks of 2 of the other players.

If we use the Command Zone podcasts power rating for decks (see graphic below, and a whole podcast here) which runs on a scale of 1 to 10 for the rest of this post it will help give a point of reference.

So the graphic they did maps like this. It should be noted for reference purposes the precons that WotC sell each year come in on this scale as casual decks and a power ranking of about 4 (in the opinion of The Command Zone presenters, and I wouldn’t disagree with that).


So where do my decks fall on this scale? I would rate my decks between 4 and 6 depending on the deck, so either casual/focused decks.

In yesterday’s 3 games two of us where definitely playing decks between 4 and 6 on the power scale. While one was boarderline between 6/7, and the archenemy player was definitely 8/9 on the power scale with his decks. I’m calling the player with the over powered decks the archenemy because that’s the way the games ended up. One against many.

It should be a testament to the archenemy player that despite the three of us trying to gang up and take him out, he still wiped the floor with us. His decks were way to powerful.

I did try Krenko, Mob Boss as my commander with the goblins. Partly inspired by seeing him used in Bob’s goblin deck as the commander the previous week. I hadn’t really settled on the commander for the deck. So having the chance to try this card out was good. I liked it as the commander. Much better than Squee. Although I do like the idea of using Zo-Zu as the commander also.

Funny enough Treasure Nabber came out in my death and taxes deck but not my goblin deck. Which is when I’d have loved to have used it, as the goblins were up against an artifacts deck. Apparently whispering subliminal messages of “use your sol ring” or “use your artifacts” while Treasure Nabber is out doesn’t brainwash them into using their artifacts. It did slow down the others though because they refused to use their sol rings, or other mana generating artifacts. Sadly it didn’t affect the archenemy.

Island Sanctuary did get a chance to hit the table, sadly not with the other half of the combo. It gave me a couple of turns protection, and was useless once the archenemy got a steel hellkite out.

At the end of the session thinking aloud the archenemy player suggested he might build his next deck and not optimise it as much as he normally does. Luckily I don’t play commander against this player normally. I think this was the first time I had. But to be honest I don’t think I’d play with this guy again, unless he did turn down the level of his decks. It might be “fun” for him. But for me, and I suspect the others it wasn’t much fun for us. The little fun I did get was from my decks getting to do a little of what they were meant to do. Like generate goblin tokens or lots of tokens in general.

I suppose to some extent we didn’t fully establish the social contract and the power levels of decks that everyone was going to be playing. We ruled out mass land destruction, and going infinite. But the power level got missed. So a little blame does rest on the rest of us for the way this session turned out.

I know on a Friday evening the commander sessions are promoted as mildly competitive. That’s fine. I don’t play there on a Friday. For me Commander is a casual game that is meant to be fun.

If the game is with similar powered decks, or one or two are slightly higher on the power level, then the game is going to ebb and flow. And in general the majority will be having fun. But when there is such a big gap between power levels of decks. Then we get something like this session.