Category Archives: flash point

flash point

Half Term Gaming

Fenland Gamers, flash point, game night, new arrivals, tabletop

So yesterday my order from BGG arrived. The order consisted of the promo character cards for Pandemic, plastic brains counters and the Joker promo cad for the DC Deckbuilding game.

The Pandemic character cards behave “slighty” differently from the regular character cards for the game. Here is the description of the cards from the BGG store:

“Each card is double-sided, meaning there are four roles included, two of which you can use in any given game.

Card 1: Epidemiologist and Operations Expert

Card 2: Generalist and Medic

The key difference with these promo characters is they lose health when cubes are added to the city they are in, or if the city they are in outbreaks. If all four health of a promo character is ever exhausted, the players lose the game. This increases the difficulty of the game.“

It seems an interesting twist for playing the game. I look forward to playing with them.

Now the Joker promo is interesting! Because I don't have the DC Deckbuilding game, and I have no intention of buying it. When I tried the game I didn't like it at all, it is far far inferior to the Marvel Legendary game. So why get this promo? I'm a fan of the Joker. So had to get it really.

So the brains were bought for one reason. That was to pimp out Zombie Dice. So instead of using a scrap of paper or the official score pad to track players scores, I will now use these brains instead. Which I think is really thematic for the game and a lot more fun.

Fenland Gamer Open Gaming Evening

Last night saw another Fenland Gamer mid week get together. While waiting for Mat to turn up, the evening started off with four of us playing…

Bang The Dice Game

I've been wanting to play this game for a while. I have three copies of the game! Ok there is a reason for this, but I'll get to that in a minute or two.

With four players, Bang the Dice Game has a sherif, two outlaws and a renegade. I've pimped out the game with the Lego Minifig Sherif figure that goes to whoever has the sherif card. This is the only known role in the game, the others are all hidden, and each has their own win condition.

So as one of the hidden roles you have to work out who is on your side and who isn't. While the sherif knows everyone is out to get them, they have the “easier” task, stay alive, kill the others.

We played the game that whoever was the sherif last got to shuffle and deal out the four role cards next game. Which meant somehow Debbie kept getting the sherif card from the second game onwards. But to be fair Debbie did win as the sherif.

Most of the games I was an outlaw, and as an outlaw won a couple of games with my fellow outlaw. The one game I was a renegade I was eliminated very quickly. But boy when you have to chose between two players to shoot, not sure if they are on your side or not. Wow! Tense.

I really enjoyed playing this game, the others enjoyed it also. Now this is a quick game to teach, learn and play. Although with more players (up to eight) it would take a little longer to play. But the important part for me was how easy it was to teach and learn, plus the number of players it supports.

As regular long time readers will know I use board games with my students in induction week, and at other special times. Student favourites are games such as Love Letter, Munchkin and Resistance. My class size can be upto twenty four students. So I need multiple copies of a game for use in class. With Bang the Dice game supporting three to eight players, it means I only need three copies of the game to use in class. And definitely this game will be seeing some class time.

It would have been nice to have got the Walking Dead themed version of the game (especially for Saturday), however it seems out of print at the moment and more expensive than its rrp. So I'm going to have to wait for it hopefully to get reprinted. I think my students would enjoy the Walking Dead theme a lot.

With Mat arriving we finished our current game of Bang the Dice Game, and the girls got to choose the next game we played.

Flash Point

 

At last I have finally got to play this game. It is part of my collection, but something I've not gotten to play yet. This evening we were playing with Jonathan's copy. The hardest decision was which map/scenario to play, mainly because Jonathan has all the expansions. It was decided by the girls (I think) to do the submarine scenario, and with advanced rules (which iirc none of the others had played before, well we know I hadn't).

Jo started off the game by going first, so by the time it got to my turn I had a good idea of what I was doing. Our tactics for the scenario had us split into two, one team taking the left side of the sub (sorry no nautical terminology here) and the other the right side of the sub.

It seemed to be a semi successful tactic, we rescued victims, some lucky rolls of the dice put one or two victims straight in the safe zone, but the rolls for fire didn't go our way.

We ultimately lost the game, but it came close to the wire, we nearly completed the scenario by rescuing seven victims. It was a damaged piece of machinery from the fire that ultimately cost us the game.

I enjoyed my first game a lot, and can't wait to play more games and scenarios. Maybe Lego Minifig firemen next time?

It was the boys turn to choose…

Tiny Epic Galaxies

So a game of TEG with its maximum number of players, it was going to be interesting to see how the game went.

This was Mats first time playing the game, so a quick explanation of the game was given. Maybe too quick. However I started the game so Mat could observe a couple of goes before his.

Jo was as usual making head way on developing her empire, and colonising planets. I think I was the last player to upgrade their empire. Which definitely put me at a disadvantage on the available actions front for a few turns.

Jo could have triggered the end game and maybe have won the game, but a wrong decision on what was to be her last turn, gave Mat the window to get to twenty one points and trigger the end of the game. Debbie and Jonathan took their last goes. This was to prove a game winning last go for Jonathan, who managed to colonise a final planet and get enough points to get the win.

Mat was unsure of his first game, and thought he needs another game to decide. I partially blame myself being a poor teacher for this.

I enjoyed playing TEG with five players, there is more competition for planets. With the ability to follow another players action, you are semi engaged when it's another players turn. Which cuts down on the downtime a little between turns.

The evening finished off with a quick, light game of…

Zombie Dice

I don't think I've won a game of zombie dice yet, and last nights game kept that losing streak going. The brains as scoring tokens added to the game I thought. And was a nice light, fun way to end an enjoyable evening of gaming with great company.

So Brew Crafters to look forward to playing for the first time on Friday, followed by an open gaming session on Saturday (which will have cake!).

 

More Firefighters

flash point, lego minifigs

Today saw the arrival of some more firefighter lego minifigs.

So white helmets instead of black (which the other firemen had). Just a single axe, not an issue I can pick fire fighting equipment up easily enough from the usual sites I get custom minifig bits from. I like the flames a lot. I'm glad they are there. They look cool, and the fact there is a sum one has given me an idea. These could replace the fire bits in Flash Point. The smaller flame the heat spot, and the bigger flame the actual fire. And I think I've an idea for the smoke,based on the way Lego did smoke on the mountain hut set I have. I think this would/will add a cool 3D element to the games playing area.
Oh wait I can use regular minifig characters to represent the victims being rescued once they have been located in the burning building.
Flash Point: Fire Rescue Lego Edition has a nice ring to it. If they ever bring this out you saw the idea here first.

 

Firehouse Baby

flash point, game night, lego minifigs, new arrivals, tabletop

“Get the firehouse

'Cause she sets my soul afire

Get the firehouse

And the flames keep gettin' higher”

KISS – Firehouse

As part of my expanding lego minifig collection four lego minifig firemen arrived. Luckily these can be picked up relatively cheaply on eBay. So why have I got firemen? The photo above kind of gives it away really. It's mainly to use in playing the game Flash Point instead of the little plastic figures that come with the game (the blue figure in the photos is one of them). And also for when I do posts about the game I'll use them for a little photo shoot to illustrate the post.
I'm not claiming using lego minifigs as replacement game counters as my original idea. I had been thinking about it since getting Imperial Assault ( and ruled out because Star Wars minifigs aren't as cheap as firefighters). However over Christmas I did see a post on the UK Imperial Assault Facebook page where some-one had done exactly that and used Star Wars lego minifigs instead of the provided miniatures. It looked pretty cool.
In fact I'm half tempted to use the scientists I have in Pandemic games also. One thing I'll have to do is get a female minifig head or two to convert one or two of the firefighters into female ones. Why? Well it's the right thing to do, plus there are female characters in the game already. So to be true to the game I think some of the player counters should also be female.
I kind of like the idea of using lego minifigs as game counters. For me it adds an additional fun element to the game. It means I can create personalised minifigs that represent the person playing the game. So it can add that personal touch and be used as a cool memento of the evening (although that could get expensive – unless they bring the minifig back with them for subsequent games). Before I start doing this for my gaming evenings I must find a cheaper supply of minifig parts and accessories. eBay and the sites I use online aren't suitable for this as a long term project. Nice thing is if I can source a cheap supply of parts for my own projects, I can use them also with students in induction weeks (I mentioned this idea in a previous post).
Who would of thought I'd find a cross over between lego minifigs and boardgames. It was pretty dam obvious really.