Category Archives: Game day

Floating in the air like a dandelion seed

Yesterday Diego and I got to play some games.

We started off the afternoon playing a two player game of Dune Imperium Uprising with the House Haggle deck as the third player. Ok technically it was the Dire Wolf app replacing the deck but still it was the digital version of those cards.

This was a strange game. For starters I never bought my third agent. Something I always do as early as possible! I just wasn’t getting much solari in this game.

The game also went the full 10 rounds. Neither Diego or myself were close to triggering the end of the game. And until the last combat it was looking like the run away winner was going to be the AI!

The last combat was a power play by myself. And was crucial to me coming from behind and seizing victory. With a worm in the combat if I won I was going to be able to claim my rewards twice. That meant victory was worth 4 victory points for me.

During that final round I was the clear leader with the committed forces to that final battle. But Diego had intrigue cards he could play. There was the potential to turn the tide of war in his favour.

But that fear was for nought. When it came to resolving the combat Diego had no tricks to play to steal the victory.

I had my 4 points and shot up to 9 points and the lead.

Did Diego have end of game intrigue cards then? Sadly for him nope. My last gasp power play was enough to snatch victory.

We followed up Dune Imperium Uprising with learning to play the dice game Dandelions.

This is an unusual game in my collection. It is very specific on the number of players it supports. Dandelions only plays two or three players.

Dandelions plays very fast. We played three games in less than 40 minutes.

I think Dandelions appears deceptively simple. Roll your dice, select one to use, move that number of spaces, put dice on card you finish on. Doesn’t sound very complicated. However that glosses over the area control element, where to move opponents dice to, etc.

So yes the basic game play may be extremely simple. However although not TI4 level of decision making, there are some deeper decisions to make.

I love the dry erase score sheet. That’s a very nice touch.

The fact that we played three games back to back should tell you all you need to know. This is another small box game that makes it easy to just leave in the game bag ready to play at a club night.

Our final game of the afternoon was Senso Battle for Japan.

I like trick taking games. My teenage years were spent playing knock out whist. Having one of my grand parents run a pub for part of my childhood, and two pubs (now long closed and turned into rental properties) literally next to my nans. Where many a time was spent with nan and locals playing pub games like dominoes. So the old traditional pub games are in my dna so to speak.

Thinking about it maybe my years playing knock out whist, and Top Trumps is why I like card games like MtG. That competitive duel.

Anyway Senso adds in an area control mechanic to this trick taking game.

The art on the cards is gorgeous and thematic. Setup is the same no matter the player count. Which is nice. The only thing that changes based on player count is the number of cards dealt each round after the first.

I like how the number of tricks you win each round determines your action that you take after all the cards have been played. As the rounds progress the number cards in your opening hand goes up, and the more tricks to be won. This opens up the possibility of being able to do more powerful actions.

As a two player game I thought it worked well. I get the feeling at higher player counts it gets a lot more cut throat. Not only on taking tricks, but on the area control part.

Definitely a game I need to try with more players.

I am enjoying these Sunday afternoon gaming sessions. Hopefully lots more to come.

New stuff on the way or arrived

So yes it wouldn’t be a just after payday week without some new stuff on the way.

First up are the three latest promo packs for Rolling Realms, Wyrmspan, Obsession, and Crusaders. I can’t wait for Rolling Realms Redux with the larger box. To say there is a storage issue currently if you have all the promo packs, or a large proportion of them, is an understatement.

Next I pulled the trigger on the second expansion for Parks called Wildlife. This is described as the “more” expansion. So more cards for the various decks. Plus a “minor” game play addition that I’ll go over once it arrives and gets to the table.

Finally I bought three roll and write print and plays! I forget which YouTube video I watched that put me onto these. But I bought Voyages, Waypoints, and Aquamarine from Postmark Games. They were dirt cheap at £4 each. I just need to print out four copies of each and laminate them (so I don’t have to keep printing and wasting ink) before I get them to the table.

It’s the bants

This afternoon gaming with Jeff, Charlene, and Annabelle (Charlene’s daughter) was such fun.

We started off playing Wyrmspan.

A second play of the latest game from the Stonemaier Games stable. I’m loving it. I love how I can do combos in the game. On one turn I was able to combo it so I played two cave cards from the trade row for free. A couple turns later in the same round I got three dragons out for free on one action.

At this point I didn’t care if I won or lost. I’d done a couple of cool things. I’d got that MtG feel.

In the end I didn’t win. I came last by a massive single point. The lore books will show that Jeff was the dragon lord.

We followed up Wyrmspan with a game of Can’t Stop. This was so much fun at the full player count. Lots of going bust. Lots of banter. Lots of fake sympathy when some-one went bust on their turn. It was a hoot.

And amidst all this banter and laughter Jeff claimed the win.

Our final game of the afternoon was Sea Salt and Paper. I’d only played this two players previously. But I really liked it at the higher player count. This will be staying in the game bag I think as a nice little filler game. Oh Jeff won getting the clean sweep of wins for the afternoon.

After a busy week it was great to have an afternoon gaming with my friends. Plus Liverpool won their first trophy of the season. An amazing day.

Here be dragons!

At last I got to play some games. It seems so long since I last played anything. But in reality it’s only been since Tuesday.

I did open Wyrmspan yesterday. And although I’m excited to play the game. I can’t help feeling a little disappointed with the box and lack of insert. Two nice sized game trays for tokens and eggs. That’s it. Nothing to organise the cards etc.

I would also add that if you bought the deluxe upgrade kit like I did that replaces the cardboard resource tokens and metallic cardboard coins with wooden resource tokens and metal coins. The game trays don’t hold the wooden tokens. I used them for the metal coins and eggs.

To organise the cards and to stop them getting damaged in the box I used some old MtG cardboard deck boxes.

But that aside I did get Wyrmspan to the table today.

This afternoon Charlene, her daughter, and Colin joined me to play Wyrmspan.

I love the theme of Wyrmspan. Why wouldn’t I? How Connie Vogelmann came up with 175 wyrms aka dragons I don’t know. Even more impressive is the imagination and art of Clementine Campardou.

I really love the art in Wyrmspan. Yes it’s subjective, and there are those out there that don’t like the art. Which is cool. We are allowed to have a difference of opinion.

The changes made to Wyrmspan from Wingspan really work for me. They make the game more thinky, and more gamer oriented.

Although Wingspan had the awesome table presence with the bird feeder dice tower. I don’t miss it or the dice for resources. I love being able to chose which of the four resources I need. Although getting resources or eggs is a bit more challenging.

I love being able to squeeze out more actions on a turn by gaining more coins or even carrying coins over to the next round.

The guilds are a lovely touch. Something you can’t ignore because moving round the guild track gets you much needed resources.

But there are other touches that are quality of life improvements such as the built in player aid on the player boards. Or the larger end of round bonus tiles, easier to read.

Also a major change is the limitation on the number of times you can run your “engine” on each of the cave complexes. And that the cost to rerun them gets more expensive. It stops that Wingspan last round where all you did was run the grass lands and just laying eggs every turn.

That’s not all of the changes to Wyrmspan. There are some great content creators out there that cover this stuff way better than I could. For me the sum of these changes elevate the game to another level that would appeal to more hardcore/experienced gamers.

For the record Charlene thought she liked Wyrmspan more than Wingspan. In fact it was posing her a difficult question. Did she keep Wingspan and all of its expansions? Why would she need to keep Wingspan?

I can see where Charlene is coming from. I think I too prefer Wyrmspan over Wingspan. Although I think there is space for both (just) in my collection. Hear me out. I think the theme is more attractive to none gamers. Plus it’s a bit more accessible as well.

Don’t get either of us wrong. We still like Wingspan and would happily play it. It’s just we like Wyrmspan more.

History will record I won my first game of Wyrmspan with a score of 106.

We followed Wyrmspan with a game of Parks.

Up until this afternoon my only other plays of Parks was as a two player with Diego. Which it works as really well. And will be one of the many games I will take with me next time I visit Nathan.

But wow!

I really liked Parks at the higher player count. That added competition for spaces and the harder decision of when to use your camp fire was exactly as I thought it’d be.

Apparently the history books show Charlene won this game by 2 points.

A big thank you to Charlene, her daughter, and Colin for taking the time out to play these games with me.

Myths and trains

Friday morning was the last morning of my visit with Nathan.

Usually I get a whole morning with him before setting off after lunch. But this time I had to leave before lunch so I was back in time for a Teams call.

Leaving earlier meant I was back in time to attend the Fenland Gamers club night. But more importantly able to try Cyclades.

It’s been on my wish list for yonks. I even backed the Kickstarter for the second edition (granted at the $1 level to get me access to the backerkit) last year.

So what did I think of Cyclades?

I enjoyed it.

I liked the bidding mechanic for the gods and your place in turn order for taking your turn. Which then determined where you were next round in the bidding order.

But did I like it enough to buy the second edition?

Now that is a tough question.

I have Kemet (first edition plus expansions), Cry Havoc, and Scythe. Those three were good enough to fight off Inis taking one of their spots. And I did like Inis just not as much as the others.

And I think Cyclades is falling into that same situation. I like it but enough to get rid of one of the three already mentioned? If you asked me to play one of them right now, I think I’d still go with one of the three over Cyclades.

So it looks like I’ll leave it to Ben to buy the new edition of Cyclades and play that when it arrives (Q4 of this year?)

Saturday saw Jeff and myself meet up to try the 18xx roll and write Arabella. Which had arrived that morning.

I’d only heard about Arabella days earlier via a tweet on X/Twitter. It intrigued me. However nowhere seemed to be selling it. Unless I wanted to import it. Luckily there was a copy in the UK going on the bgg marketplace. Which I snapped up.

When it arrived it was still in shrink.

When I read the rulebook I thought wow this is going to be on the heavier side of roll and writes.

There was one hiccup to playing Arabella. When I told Jeff it was an 18xx inspired game he was apprehensive about it. He is not a fan of 18xx games.

I’d never played an 18xx game before. So this was going to be a way for me to dip my toe in to the 18xx water.

For this first game I went against the advice of the rulebook and didn’t use the AI to add a third player. I want to be able to just focus on the game and not have the overhead and distraction of running the AI.

It is interesting that there are no setup adjustments for player count. Well not if you discount the placement of cubes during setup.

Arabella didn’t disappoint.

It is on the heavier side of the roll and writes.

I really enjoyed it and surprisingly so did Jeff.

It had the feel of an 18xx but not the drawback(s) according to him. Particularly the share side.

We both agreed the wooden dice are ok, but would it have hurt to use plastic ones?

The rulebook is ok. Slight grammar errors. Plus it was not clear that the white dice are your starting dice. But I’m giving a little leeway as the designers are east European I believe, and it could just be a translation issue.

The game does start slow as you start to build your railway, but boy does it ramp towards the end.

Arabella is also a very mathy game! Especially when running your trains or calculating the share dividends.

I definitely need to play this with more players. I think it’s going to be a very different experience.

We followed up with a game of one of Jeff’s Christmas presents Star Trek Away Missions.

This is a fun two player Star Trek game. I played the Federation with a ST:TNG crew, whilst Jeff played the Borg.

It was the intro scenario we played.

So basically I needed to complete at least five mission cards over the three rounds to get my objective points at the end.

This is a skirmish like game or shares some of the mechanics. Players take turns activating a character in their squad/team. The game that comes to kind with that activating mechanic is Star Wars Imperial Assault or Last Days.

There is hand management as well to consider not only for your mission cards, but also for m

Because the game is played over three rounds it is very quick.

I liked it and would play again.

Did you cheat?

Not much gaming got done on our last full day together.

We played two new games that I wanted to try with Nathan. Those being High Score and Viva Java the coffee game the dice game.

I’m not going to go into much detail about them here. I’ll save my discussion about them for my game dev posts.

Nathan won High Score. Although I think he may have manipulated the dice once or twice!

Viva Java I won.

After the games I finished off our tea of roast lamb. The gravy was amazing. And I thought the lamb went really well with my 5 or 6 bean stew that I made. Sadly a combo Nathan did not get to enjoy as he doesn’t like beans.

Our lunch has been curry wurst a German street food I belief. Basically it’s bratwurst with a curry sauce, with some chips. The origins of the curry sauce recipe goes back to after the Second World War where legend goes a German lady was challenged by a US soldier to come up with a recipe/sauce using ketchup.

After tea was spent watching season one of Reacher. Which Nathan hadn’t seen before, followed by the start of season one of Jack Ryan.

It was a chill day with my son. Just what I needed.

I’ll do anything for money but I won’t do that!

My first full day with Nathan saw a favourite of his (and mine) Star Wars Outer Rim with the Unfinished Business expansion hit the table.

I think the last couple of visits we’ve not managed to get Outer Rim to the table. So it was nice to get this to the table again.

Nathan started setting it up. And by that I mean he put the outer rim segments together before asking me to finish off the setup.

Setup and tear down is a doddle for me. I have seperate deck boxes for the various decks, baggies for the tokens and standees.

Nathan chose Boba Fett (again, as a Renowned Smuggler) and I went with Doctor Aphra (Living Legend).

Through out the game I felt Nathan had the credit advantage, and he did manage to upgrade his ship twice. Whilst for the whole game I never upgraded my ship.

Play was interrupted for a roast chicken thigh and Yorkshire pudding tea.

After the food break I seemed to edge ahead by completing two of my three ambition objectives before Nathan had completed one of his. But a late surge from Nathan meant we were both racing to complete our final objective and win the game.

Sadly a good dice roll by Nathan on a final job I needed to complete to get me the funds to trigger my final objective denied me that one more turn I needed, as he finished his final objective on his next turn after I completed the job.

It was a fun afternoon and evening spent with Nathan in the Outer Rim.

Meet the maker!

Another Friday write off.

However thanks to Dave Saturday was saved.

We met up at the community centre to play Dune Imperium Uprising.

Yes it was a two player game. So we used the Dire Wolf app to act as the second player. It’s a quicker and easier to run version of the House Hagal deck. And also why there are no photos in this post.

Naturally we played with the optional CHOAM module. I can’t see why you wouldn’t. It adds no overhead to the game play. Just a little to the setup. Which is shuffling the contract tiles, and adding four cards to the Imperium deck.

We also carried over the house atomics token as a house rule.

Usually I like to make a note of our leaders and share them here. But I forgot to do that yesterday.

Our rival that the House Hagal deck was driving was Rabban Harkonnen. He was one of the recommended streamlined leaders. Which means in a two player game the players have less to do running the rival. Something I thought was ideal for our first play.

This was only the second time I’ve played a two player game of Dune Imperium. It’s fine with the House Hagal “third player”. But I’d much prefer real players.

Also during setup each player gets a random objective card (a new addition to the game which I’ll talk about later).

Playing Uprising had a feeling of both being familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

The flow of the game, of a turn, were the familiar bits. That hasn’t changed at all.

The game board had that dual feeling of looking familiar but not. The board spaces have had a major overhaul. Water is even harder to get. There are more spaces on the board that require two influence in a particular faction before they can be used. Plus the cost of using one or two of the spaces has gone up or been added. Naturally the benefits have been adjusted/tweaked on some, or even changed totally to support some of the additions to the game. We also have

The mentat has gone. It has been replaced by being able to recall an agent from one of your other spaces on the board.

Other board changes I like are the space for buying the swordsman (aka third agent) once a player has bought a swordsman it then becomes slightly cheaper for all the other players. I think of this as a little catch up mechanism. They also tweaked the high council space. Once you have claimed your seat at the table you can now revisit the space on subsequent turns and get a benefit instead (I forget what it is exactly). I like this as it’s turned a space that once visited is then dead on the board to one that can be useful later on.

I like the addition of the makers/worms, and the shield wall. Having a worm (in your forces) in a combat that you win gains you double benefits. I also like that the shield wall negates their use in combat until it has been destroyed.

I also felt it was harder to gain influence with the various factions because there were less cards with their icons on. Those cards were a premium and ones I tried to but to increase my chances of using those spaces.

The spies are an interesting new addition. They also seem very powerful allowing you to use a space regardless of if an opponents agent is on it. Or you can draw a card.

Although I didn’t get or complete any CHOAM contracts (Dave did) which cost me a victory point at the end for an end game scoring on an intrigue card. I did like their addition.

The objectives and completing them by matching symbols on combat cards you win gains you a victory point is a nice new source of rare victory points. Well the first time. But after that pairs of combat cards with matching symbols gain you a victory point. So combat becomes a way to gain additional victory points, and a way to deny opponents. Obviously knowing that you need to win a combat to deny an opponent that cards symbol adds new tension to combat.

Overall I loved the new bits that Uprising adds to the game.

I want to play the game a few more times before adding in the expansions or using some of the base game cards. That’s a nice thing about Uprising that the expansions can be used with it.

Sadly Dave beat me by a point in the end.

It looks like my only gaming for December was this session with Dave. A big thank you to Dave.

Third time lucky

The original plan for today was to play a four player game of Memoir 44. But for reasons (I say reasons because we have no idea why the fourth player never turned up) we only had three players.

Luckily I had decided to grab a back up plan for such a situation. Which we decided to go with.

So instead of Memoir we set up to play Apiary.

Below are the faction and hive mats that each of us used.

  • Utel – The Log (Jeff)
  • Iber – The Warre (John)
  • Carpa – The Langstroth (me)

I actually planted seed cards! The first game I’ve managed to plant any and I do four.

I completed my hive mat, and a frame. Plus upgraded my faction tile.

I think I explored twice during the game, and did one retrieval. After I got a tile that allowed me to retrieve a worker and activate a farm every time I did a research action I was researching a lot. It was getting me a seed card and victory points.

There was a moment early on when I did hate buy a tile to stop Jeff having it. If he’d been allowed to get it, along with his faction ability he’d have gotten two basic resources of his choice every explore action on top of everything else.

I triggered the end of the game, and below is how the scores stood after all the smoke had cleared.

Final scores

I have to say if Jeff or John had those scores in my previous two games they would have won. And Jeff did so much better than I did in my first play.

I’m just taken aback by how high my score was. Especially considering my first two plays.

A great afternoon though despite our original plan falling through.

A Very Tired Gaming Session!

Sunday was a work day.

Which was going well right up until the moment my head came into contact with some fibreglass sheeting at force as I stood up. You can see the results of said impact in the photos below.

Lots of paper work for the shift leader and additional plasters to stop bleeding later the shift ended.

After the shift I had arranged with Ben and his wife Allie to play new arrival Grail Cup.

Very tired I arrived at their house having never had a chance earlier in the day to read the rules. A flaw in my plan. I never really had a break during the 9 hour shift.

Although this was a minor hurdle to overcome, luckily the rulebook is very quick to pick up and learn from.

The thing that attracted me to Grail Cup was that it shared the card drafting mechanic from Citadels by Bruno Faidutti. Which isn’t a surprise because he designed Grail Cup too.

The art for Grail Cup is by the awesome John Kovalic. He of Munchkin and Dork Tower fame.

We played a couple of three player games and a four player game. The main difference being the number of cards you get to play in a round. In the three player game you get to play two cards and four players or more just one card.

Otherwise each round starts with players drafting the card from the ones available they wish to play that round to move their standee along the race track.

Then the second half of the round has players playing their card and carrying out the instructions on the card.

First player to get their standee to the finish line wins.

This is light, and quick to play. Which I love. It’s easily a game a family could play together.

I like the addition of the dragon that can be moved by players to slow or stop other players in their tracks. The clover spaces with the random clover token that can be either a really useful boost or a boon that has a negative effect. The farm spaces get you rolling a die that can see first player change. Or a bonus of some kind.

Deciding starting positions on the board is based on the card you draw during setup. The person furthest back becomes first player.

I think that we played three games back to back shows how much we enjoyed it.

Next up Ben introduced me to his hard to get, not released over here yet Oink Games new game Tiger & Dragon.

Tiger & Dragon

I want a play or two more of this game.

I enjoyed playing it.

But by the time we started playing tiredness and the head injury were starting to take their toll.

I don’t think I was getting as much out of the game as I could.

As an Oink game this is not one of their famous small box games. But that hasn’t got in the way of it being highly sorted after in the West.

I can see why. It is a nice game. One that may end up in my collection when it becomes more easily available.

I had an enjoyable couple of hours with friends that kindly hosted. Hopefully we can do this on a semi regular basis.

Bad Guys two, Good guys nil

I think one of my gaming highlights of the year has to be the annual gaming day that Jeff hosts to celebrate another year going round the sun. For the record the other is going to the UKGE.

This year like the previous one saw Memoir 44 hit the table with an overlord map.

Our first conflict from World War 2 saw the British forces of Montgomery’s 8th Army go up against the German forces of Rommel’s African Corp at Alam Haifa.

Dave (German General/Commander), Diego, and Katie (a friend and colleague of Jeff’s) were the German forces aka the bad guys.

Whilst Jonas (British General/Commander), Gavin, and myself were the British forces aka the good guys.

Wait Jeff wasn’t playing? I hear you say. Kind of. Whilst we were engaged in bloody conflict he was finishing off the curries for lunch. Then at opportune moments in the cooking process joining us to “consult” with the German forces. Which is a fancy way to say he offered advice to Katie because she hadn’t played Memoir 44 before.

There was lots of good natured banter, lots aimed at me. But when your own side are cheering on your opposite number on the battlefield. I rely on one of my favourite quotes.

Again, right in the ears, straight to the feelings.” Wil Wheaton Big Bang Theory

Sadly for my “team mates” my opposite number with the aid of outside advice, great cards from her Commander, and really good dice rolls, was kicking the butt of the units under my control.

My team mates were getting what they had been calling for earlier in the game. What’s the say “be careful for what you wish for”?

It was getting so dire Jonas our Commander had to move some tank units to my sector to shore up our forces.

Around midday play was interrupted for lunch. Which was a welcome relief from the whooping we were getting.

Lunch was a selection of four home made curries by Jeff. These are always a delicious treat that everyone attending looks forward to.

Fully fed, the German forces went against history and pulled off the inevitable a points victory.

Game two for the day saw a change in the conflict to the from the North African theatre to the Pacific theatre of war. It also saw a personnel change as well.

With the food all consumed Jeff was able to join in the action replacing Katie who had to leave.

That meant that the American forces aka the good guys at Guadalcanal were being represented by Dave, Jeff (General/Commander), and Diego.

Which meant the Japanese forces aka the bad guys were unchanged from the first game members and role wise.

There was a Sudden Death victory condition for the Japanese. All we had to do was get a unit to an exit marker and leave the area of play through it.

Early on I got a behind enemy lines card that allowed me to make a dash for that exit marker. I was three hexes from the exit marker. A great distraction for the opposition forcing them to attempt to stop the unit. They had one turn to stop the unit or lose in spectacular fashion.

Luckily despite a little shenanigans from Jonas weakening the American attacks to take out my unit. They did indeed stop my lone unit. But it did divert their attention and force them to burn up some cards.

We were in a strong position I was getting control of my sector whilst Jonas and Gavin inched forward in theirs.

We were getting some great cards, and dice rolls. Whilst the opposite was true for the American forces.

Points wise we were inching closer to victory. Although it was pretty close still.

And then Jonas played one two knockout combo. He started with an arial bombardment to clear the exit space, followed by a behind enemy lines card allowing his unit to make a dash for the space and grab the win.

After our glorious victory defying history once more, we chewed the fat whilst enjoying Jeff’s salty tears over the manner of the win.

This was a great day. They always are. Great food, great company. An amazing way to celebrate Jeff getting a year older. I’m lucky he invited me. A big thank you to Jeff for being such an incredible host.

Another cunning plan with an old favourite…

I did pick up from Gavin his Dicemasters stuff (which was originally mine before we did some wheeling and dealing a few years back). And Jeff very generously gave me what bits of Dicemasters he had.

I really liked Dicemasters back when it came out. But sadly Wizkids really fumbled the ball with it. Which is a shame it’s a great game.

However I had been thinking recently I’d like to get back playing it, especially with Nathan. I think he’d like it.

I know it’s a “dead” game. But that just means we can use what I have, and anything I can get cheaply to build “teams” and play. It doesn’t mean we can’t play it or have fun.

What I do need to do is try and remember how to play the game again!