Category Archives: game night

game night

Bottom Action!

game night, Scythe

Friday evening saw me get my favourite game of all time Scythe to the table with two good friends. What more could you want of an evening?

Whilst I was setting up Colin arrived. So I gave him the tough decision of which of the three Triumph tracks to use. Yes I had forgotten the fourth option of the random set up. But it was probably for the best. The other three are a lot easier to explain. You can see which way Colin went in the setup section below.

Once Marcin arrived we went straight into randomly choosing a player mat, followed by choosing our faction.

Whilst making our choices we enforced the banned combo rule for player and faction mats.

So this is how after randomly selecting a player board and then choosing a faction things ended up:

  • Saxony/Patriotic (Colin)
  • Rusviet/Innovative (Marcin)
  • Fenris/Industrial (Me)

I’m sure Marcin hate drafted my beloved Rusviets to spite me. There was a cheeky grin from him when I bought the subject up. It looked like I had no choice but go to my other favourite faction, Fenris.

One day I should branch out and play some of the others. But haven’t I already by choosing Fenris?

The rest of our set up…

We used the Modular board that once the home base tiles had been randomly placed had two tiles removed. Giving us a much more enclosed map encouraging interaction. No turtling here.

Obviously we used Airships. Plus any additional tiles or cards that the expansions added, along with all the promo cards.

Triumph Track: War

Resolution Tile: Factory Explosion

Airship Tiles: Hero/Bounty

Structure Bonus: Number of structures not adjacent to other buildings (your buildings or opponents’ buildings).

Poorly written summary of the game

I got off to a blinding start. Which was helped greatly by having an encounter token so close to my home base. Turn two I had my first mech out giving me leap. A handy ability to have as I was able to avoid the first conflict and blockade by Marcin.

I had all my mechs out so early. I was moping up encounter tokens to fuel my engine.

Sadly Marcin beat me to the factory and held it for a good time. I wasn’t in a position to challenge him.

I was using my factions tokens to pen Marcin in. I didn’t think it was fair to pick on Colin so early on in the game.

Eventually my engine just ran out of juice and I wasn’t able to stop Marcin stealing what little resources I had or amassing forces on and around the factory tile.

Without the resources I wasn’t able to use my factory card that I’d finally got. Even my plan to get the final encounter token and also use a resource on that tile controlled by Colin. Failed. Colin spent the resource before I got there, and also nabbed the token.

I did trigger the end of the game. But the first of my final two turns was a none turn as I couldn’t do anything. But I did end up with a couple of battles to try and cut down on the territory Marcin controlled. I was fifty percent successful on that front.

Final scores

It was a fantastic evening of gaming.

Oh why the blog post title? Well as Marcin was explaining/helping Colin throughout the game he kept saying “bottom action”. Which had my childish, mind in the gutter side in stitches.

Brief club night report

Fenland Gamers, game night

I made a second club night last night.

It looked like there was going to be seven of us for the evening. However two turned up who hadn’t indicated they were coming. It also didn’t help that they came in and went out without saying a word! Turns out they went to get something to eat first. Would have been nice to know.

Whilst that was going on Marcin, Diego, and myself played Apiary.

The following is how the faction and hive mats went.

  • Sime & The Warre (Me)
  • Jemit & The Poppleton (Diego)
  • Iber & The Skep (Marcin)

I had a blinder of a game. I wasn’t sure if I’d done enough to overcome the early lead on the score track that Diego had taken.

But once again getting a lot of seed cards, playing combos, getting three planted, plus three honey comb tiles meant I had enough end game scoring going on. Plus I barely explored once again.

As the final scores show I did really well. Even improving on my previous 100+ score.

Diego’s score was better than my first time playing.

Our next and final game Vaalbara was played with now two well fed members. Diego rocked this one and easily won the game.

Whilst we got two games in, the other table managed to play one four player game of Amun-Ra.

It was a great evening.

A two player evening

dice masters, Dice Masters Cube, Dicemasters, game night, lcg/ccg/tcg game night

Last night I met up with Marcin to play some games. Which meant this was a third night this week that I’d done some gaming. Something that hasn’t happened in a long long time.

We started off with a game of 51st State. A game I haven’t played in a few years. I think the last time I played this was at a UKGE with my friend Scott.

We were playing Marcin’s copy of the game that is the Ultimate edition. Which is a pretty cool edition that replaces the Master edition. It has all the expansions, “upgraded” components, insert, etc. I was almost envious and regretting I hadn’t got this edition myself. But at the time it was announced and added to GameFound or whatever it used to be called I couldn’t justify the expense.

After a brief refresh on the rules we were ready to play.

I was off to a slower start than Marcin unable to get anything going resource wise until it was too late to stop or catch up.

By the time the game ended I had only gained 3 victory points to Marcin’s 25!

Next I introduced Marcin to the dark draft format for Dice Masters using my pauper cube.

The teams we ended up drafting were the following:

My Team

  • Gambit: Ace in the Hole
  • Green Goblin: Goblin Lord
  • Mystique: Ageless
  • Hawkeye: Longbow
  • Psylocke: Betsy Braddock
  • Wolverine: Wildboy
  • Professor X: Recruiting Young Mutants
  • Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme

Basic Actions

  • Rally!
  • Gearing Up

Marcin’s Team

  • Black Widow: Natural
  • Falcon: Samuel Wilson
  • Iron Man: Upright
  • Punisher: McRook
  • Loki: Trickster
  • Sabretooth: Something to Prove
  • Pyro: Saint-John Allerdyce
  • Doctor Doom: Reed Richards‘ Rival

Basic Actions

  • Smash!
  • Ambush

Game one saw Marcin use the Punisher to great effect. It kept chipping away at my health whilst I failed to really get a solution in place to deal with its threat.

Game two saw me do much better. A mixed attack of two Green Goblins, a couple of sidekicks, and a Gambit swung in to grab me a victory.

Our third and final game was over very quickly. This was the Green Goblin and sidekicks showcase. Which saw me swinging in with an unopposed 18 attack made up of five sidekicks, a Green Goblin, and a Gambit iirc.

The two games I won Marcin did get a Punisher out. But it was used less effectively. For some reason Marcin preferred Falcon over Black Widow.

In all the games I was using the crap out of Professor X’s global to move sidekicks into the prep area. In the first game I needed to do that to buff up Mystique. With the side benefit of it allowing me to ramp into a Professor X or Doctor Strange.

Marcin enjoyed the dark draft format. Which means the two people I’ve played it with it’s been a hit. Marcin also liked the cards in the cube more than the modern cube. They were less complicated. Easier for a new player to understand.

So a great evening of gaming.

Icarus I can see your…

game night

Tuesday I got to do some overtime during the afternoon. But I was finished in time to be able to play some Vampire the Masquerade Rivals with Diego.

I had none of my Rivals stuff with me. So was reliant on Diego providing everything. For this session we used the Justice & Mercy expansion that Diego had for the game.

This expansion has the Banu Haqim and Salubri clans. Our first game had Diego playing Banu Haqim, and myself Salubri.

Salubri is an interesting clan to play out of the box. For starters you get an agenda point at the start of each turn. So already the game starts with a 13 turn timer. Add in an attachment that allows you to tap your vampire for an agenda point that timer gets shorter.

Next interesting thing and probably more so than the first, is the fact Salubri can only have one vamp out at a time! When that vamp gets taken out you don’t loose the game, you get a chance to play one from hand first.

It’s actually a fun clan to play. I could see myself building a deck around this clan.

After Diego narrowly won we swapped decks.

Banu Haqim is a rituals deck with diablerie thrown in. Sadly for me, unlike Diego in the first game, I didn’t draw the ritual that allowed me to steal agenda points.

Which meant I wasn’t able to slow that 13 turn timer, or take out enough Salubri. So Diego got a second win.

I think this is the first Rivals expansion where both clans have been fun to play. I’ll have to get this expansion.

Wednesday saw me round Ben’s to play Apiary with him and Charlene.

Once again I lost. But my score was improved. I even got to the end of the Queen’s Favour track.

I still had a blast playing the game. I love that whilst playing you feel like you are doing cool stuff.

Ben’s amazing final flight

Our second game of the evening was First in Flight. A game about the early days of powered flight.

This has a cool mixture of mechanics. There is deck building and push your luck, a rondel with turn order. The later working similar to Tokaido or Glen More.

I love games that have asymmetrical variable player powers. And I played into mine of getting to look at extra cards whilst looking at cards from your deck to great affect.

In our game I was allowed to get several trick cards that allowed me to look at the top of my card and manipulate card order. Which allowed me on my final flight to get a winning distance of 48.

That final flight was funny because Ben had been getting all these powerful cards to improve his distance, had a more powerful descent card, and had mentioned this more than once during the game.

Sadly as you can see in the gallery above his final flight was very disappointing and very very funny.

I enjoyed First in Flight.

So Wednesday was a great evening of gaming.

The post title?

Back in my teenage years Iron Maiden released a single Flight of Icarus.

I was reading the heavy metal magazine Kerrang! at the time. Naturally they reviewed the single and there was one line that has stuck with me all these years later.

Which I thought would be appropriate for a post where I talked about playing a board game about man’s early attempts at powered flight.

Hive Mind

Fenland Gamers, first look, game night

After what can only be described as a disappointing month for gaming (I played a grand total of four games). I’m hoping November improves.

However this new month has got off to a good start with me able to attend my first club night for two months.

Sadly it wasn’t a well attended club night with only four of us making it. However that was the perfect number for a first play of my latest addition to the collection, Apiary from Stonemaier Games.

So not only were we playing the latest hotness (or one of them) but it was also a chance to play a game with Jonathan. Something we haven’t done for a long time.

Does it really need to be said about the production values of the game? I think by now it should be taken for granted that Stonemaier Games have produced yet another high quality game. For me considering the hive tiles and other tiles are cardboard a more durable solution to the hive mat and frames would have been nice. They seem too flimsy. I can see why they are this thin. And frankly I can’t think of a solution that’d work as well.

I love that included in the box is a new addition to a Stonemaier Games game a teach the game sheet. If I count the Swift pack included in Wingspan this is the second time such a thing has been included in the box. Granted they work differently. With the Swift pack taking players through their first few turns, and the teach sheet aimed at helping a player teach the game to new players. But it’s nice to see this sort of thing in the box.

The player aids are really useful as well, and hit the sweet spot with the amount of information on them.

We played using randomly chosen hive mats, and randomly chosen hive tiles from the marked starter hive tiles.

I love this game.

Apiary plays very fast. We learnt the game, and played the game in just short of two hours. A turn is amazingly fast.

The bump mechanic is great. I love how it increases the strength of the bumped bee.

You have a small bit of area majority going on with the hibernation mechanic and section of the board for end game scoring.

The various tiles you can add to your hive do allow some combos to kick off when you go to various spots on the board. For instance every time I did the grow action I got a free bee back from the pool (if I had any there) and a free frame.

I know there will be the usual criticism of this latest entry in the Stonemaier catalog of its “not balanced” blah blah blah. And to be fair to some of those making that comment depending on the game have a valid point. However Stonemaier Games actually listen and make adjustments based on player feedback, such as in Tapestry and the civilisation adjustments, or not allowing certain faction and mat combos in Scythe.

I’m not sure anyone can make that comment about Apiary at the moment because you’d have played a lot of games to see if that is the case. But I’m sure there will be a broken combo between the hive mats and faction tiles.

The handicap system used for getting over first player advantage is not bad with players getting a higher start on the score track.

The multi use seed cards are fun. Either being able to be discarded first one of the basic resources, played for the ability on it, or finally planted for an end of game scoring bonus.

Ok I didn’t do well on my final score coming in last. However I did do cool stuff (see my comment about tile combos above).

This is a fun game. Everyone enjoyed it. And that’s two players who coming into it had reservations about an aspect or two of the game.

I had a blast playing the game. It was a great game to share with Jonathan again. Oh and Marcin won.

It was a dark dark draft of a night

dice masters, Dice Masters Cube, Dicemasters, game night, lcg/ccg/tcg game night

After missing last weeks lcg/ccg/tcg game night (I think it didn’t happen in the end) due to me doing some overtime at work. I was glad to be getting some gaming in again.

This week it was going to be just Dave and myself. So I arranged to play test the dark draft format in Dice Masters with him. Commander would have to wait for another evening with more players.

When I play Epic the card game (usually the app version of the game, did I say the app is free? You only pay for online competitions or cosmetic stuff) I only play dark draft. It’s my favourite two player format of the game. Especially for a draft experience.

I love that decision space you have with the initial hand of cards. You can only have one but which? Which do you really not want your opponent to have? Which one do you really want or need? Which of the two decisions is the stronger? Is it more important that your opponent doesn’t have that card? Or do you really really need that card more?

Add on top the incomplete information of what your opponent has drafted it really does add up to some very difficult decisions.

We drafted using the Marvel Pauper Cube I created (you can get the list of cards I used here).

Draft 1

My First Drafted Team

  • Black Widow: Natural
  • Gambit: Ace in the Hole
  • Green Goblin: Goblin Lord
  • Punisher: McRook
  • Psylocke: Betsy Braddock
  • Wolverine: Wildboy
  • Rogue: Anna Raven
  • Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme

Basic Actions

  • Rally!
  • Transfer Power

Dave’s First Drafted Team

  • Captain America: Special Ops
  • Falcon: Samuel Wilson
  • Black Panther: Wakanda Chief
  • Vision: Density Control
  • Spider-Man: Hero for Hire
  • Mr. Fantastic: Brilliant Scientist
  • Professor X: Recruiting Young Mutants
  • Nick Fury: Mr. Anger

Basic Actions

  • Teamwork
  • Focus Power

I was happy with the curve I had. The only character I never bought was Rogue in the two games we played.

Doctor Strange was a really cool dice to have out. Getting free basic action die was super helpful. But it seemed like I could never roll them when I had sidekicks they could affect in the used area.

But my team worked a bit better than Dave’s to get me two wins.

Draft 2

My Second Drafted Team

  • Black Widow: Natural
  • Punisher: McRook
  • Rogue: Anna Raven
  • Deadpool: Assassin
  • Hawkeye: Longbow
  • Namor: The Sub Mariner
  • Wolverine: Wildboy
  • Marvel Girl: Telekinetic

Basic Actions

  • Rally!
  • Invulnerability

Dave’s Second Drafted Team

  • Toad: Tongue Lashing
  • Pyro: Saint-John Allerdyce
  • Green Goblin: Goblin Lord
  • Mystique: Ageless
  • Professor X: Recruiting Young Mutants
  • Colossus: Unstoppable
  • Gambit: Ace in the Hole
  • Magik: Illyana Rasputina

Basic Actions

  • Gearing Up
  • Transfer Power

It was a clean sweep on the victory front. Although game one of the second draft I thought Dave had me. He got me down to seven health before I was able to stabilise and make a dramatic comeback to snatch victory. The basic action dice for Invulnerability was the secret source for my victory here. Being able to swing in with everything and still have characters left on the field was a life saver. Especially against a heavily buffed Mystique.

The second game of draft two was just not kind to Dave. The dice were just not rolling kindly for him. He kept getting energy. So much energy.

For the record I never bought Rogue in these two games either!

So how was it?

Wow! This worked so well.

Dave said he preferred it for two players. This is now my preferred two player draft format too.

It delivered everything I enjoyed about the format in Epic the Card Game. And worked so well using the cube.

I highly recommend that if you are playing a two player draft then this is the only way to go about it.

A multiplayer experience

dice masters, Dicemasters, game night, lcg/ccg/tcg game night

Last night was our weekly lcg/ccg/tcg night at Fenland Gamers.

We would once again be drafting Dice Masters. But this time using the Dark Phoenix Saga display box (contains 8 draft boosters) that I picked up for £40 off eBay.

The Dark Phoenix Saga Display Box

Which was a bloody bargain. These retail at £80 plus usually. So being able to pick one up so cheaply was not an opportunity I would be turning down.

Hopefully I can get a bargain Secret Wars to draft in the future.

Our session was attended by Dave, his friend Zack, and myself.

Zack had not played the game before but was familiar with MtG. So we had a learning game where I cracked open a draft booster (I’d not included the two origin packs this time). I chose a couple of basic action cards, and a couple characters for each of us to learn with. With Dave helping/advising him, Zack and I played a greatly cut down game of Dice Masters.

Zack picked the game up quickly, helped by his MtG experience.

After the game we cracked open three draft boosters and commenced to draft our cards.

The teams lined up as follows:

My Team

  • Psylocke: Telepath
  • Kitty Pryde: Right of Passage
  • Lilandra: Politician
  • Corsair: Recruiting a Crew
  • Mister Sinister: Biologist
  • Professor X: Uncanny Leadership
  • Storm: Cloud Cover
  • Rogue: Mrs. X

Zack’s Team

  • Professor X: House of X
  • Wolverine: Pure of Heart
  • Iceman: Frozen Fists of Fury
  • Storm: Extreme Weather
  • Angel: Wings Over the World
  • Bishop: Tortured Timeline
  • Blink: Skilled Combatant
  • Cable: I’ll Do This All Day

Dave’s Team

  • Corsair: Criminal Record
  • Toad: Looking for Comradery
  • Gladiator: Psi Resistance
  • Colossus: Skilled Painter
  • Blob: Depowered from M-Day
  • Master Mold: Targeting Mutants
  • Bishop: I’m Back!
  • Lilandra: Politician

Basic Action Cards

  • Mutation (randomly selected from discarded cards)
  • Making the Team (Zack’s choice)
  • Power Bolt (my choice)
  • Lab Test (Dave’s choice)

Which Multiplayer format did we go with?

The multiplayer format we went with was Hunter (see yesterday’s post for a description of it and others). I thought this would be the easier format to go with having a new player with us.

Each of us chose a basic action card from the ones we drafted to go in the middle as a common pool, plus a fourth was chosen randomly from the remaining discarded basic action cards.

We also went with the first player handicap for everyone but the last player on their first turn.

I really liked this format. I hadn’t played Hunter before in Star Realms. So had no idea what to expect!

My new dice tower

This format does force some hard decisions on you. You want to swing in and hit your opponent on the left. But at the same time not wanting to leave yourself wide open to an attack from the person on your right.

It was a delicate balancing act that was not easy to pull off.

In our game I did get an initial free hit at Dave who was on my left. And then after that chipped him away with a Power Bolt. Which was how I knocked him out. Freeing my attack phase up for getting in a sneaky unblockable attack on Zack.

But in the later half of the game I started making purchases that’d allow me to deal with Zack’s scary team. Wolverine and Ice Man were not a nice pairing.

That planning may have been for nothing if Zack had rolled better and been a bit more aggressive.

But in the end I ended up victorious.

Yeah I thought Dice Masters worked as a multiplayer game. Can’t wait to try the other variants that I covered.

Testing the TMNT teams

dice masters, Dicemasters, game night

As well as testing the Marvel Pauper Cube I also got to test the two Turtles teams I built from the TMNT set I have.

Dave and I played two games with the two teams I had constructed.

Dave as per usual chose the forces of evil ie the Shredder deck. Whilst I used the Turtles deck.

The decks seemed to work fairly well.

However I still don’t like having to use Fugitoid in the Turtles team. But you can’t have two Splinters going by the team building rules. However I think that’s what they want you to do!

But in this game I’m obeying the team building rules. And only had one die on Fugitoid. Whilst Dave had the other two on his copy of the character.

We both won a game each.

I’ll definitely use these teams again.

What teams did you build with the set?

Testing my first pauper cube

dice masters, Dice Masters Cube, Dicemasters, game night

If you remember I wrote some thoughts on creating a cube for drafting in Dice Masters. Since then I created two cubes.

The first being a mashup of four draft packs I bought. Which will need some tweaking. It was fun to play. But it can be improved.

However I have created a second cube.

The cards for this cube were from the following two sets that I have.

I also just chose common cards from those two sets. Making this a Marvel pauper cube.

From those common cards I tried to make sure that only a small number were factionless, and that there were a variety of factions. So we have Villians, X-Men, Avengers, and Fantastic Four as our factions.

Here are the cards for this Marvel Pauper Cube:

Character Cards

  • Cyclops:Slim
  • Ant-Man:Biophysicist
  • Thing:Ever-Loving Blue-Eyed
  • Nick Fury:Mr. Anger
  • Sentinel:Mutant Hunter
  • Mystique:Unknown
  • Punisher:McRook
  • Pyro:Saint-John Allerdyce
  • Loki:Trickster
  • Hawkeye:Longbow
  • Storm:Weather Witch
  • Mister Sinister:Archvillian
  • Magik:Illyana Rasputina
  • Professor X:Recruiting Young Mutants
  • Doctor Octopus:Megalomaniac
  • Iron Man:Upright
  • Deadpool:Assassin
  • Bishop:Omega Squad
  • Magneto:Former Comrade
  • Phoenix:Ms. Psyche
  • Black Panther:Wakanda Chief
  • Vision:Density Control
  • Black Widow:Natural
  • Colossus:Unstoppable
  • Red Hulk:Thunderbolt Ross
  • She-Hulk:Jennifer Walters
  • Apocalypse:Awakened
  • Scarlet Witch:Wanda Maximoff
  • Namor:The Sub-Mariner
  • Nova:Quasar
  • Green Goblin:Goblin Lord
  • Doctor Doom:Reed Richards’ Rival
  • Doctor Strange:Sorcerer Supreme
  • Toad:Tongue Lashing
  • Rogue:Anna Raven
  • Emma Frost:Archvillain
  • Marvel Girl:Telekinetic
  • Captain America:Special Ops
  • Sabretooth:Something to Prove
  • Spider-Man:Hero for Hire
  • Falcon:Samuel Wilson
  • Mr. Fantastic:Brilliant Scientist
  • Mystique:Ageless
  • Psylocke:Betsy Braddock
  • Professor X:Principal
  • Wolverine:Wildboy
  • Venom:Eddie Brock
  • Gambit:Ace in the Hole

Basic Actions

  • Gearing Up
  • Teleport
  • Ambush
  • Teamwork
  • Smash!
  • Rally!
  • Focus Power
  • Take That, Villian!
  • Selective Shield
  • Transfer Power
  • Invulnerability
  • Distraction

Remember: This is a 48 card cube that should support up to 4 players.

So how did it play?

I thought it worked just as well as using two draft packs.

These are the two teams that we drafted.

Dave’s Team

  • Nova: Quasar
  • Phoenix:Ms. Psyche
  • Pyro:Saint-John Allerdyce
  • Cyclops:Slim
  • Rogue: Anna Raven
  • Magik:Illyana Rasputina
  • Gambit:Ace in the Hole
  • Mr. Fantastic

Basic Actions

  • Gearing Up
  • Smash!

My Team

  • Falcon:Samuel Wilson
  • Nick Fury:Mr. Anger
  • Black Widow:Natural
  • Hawkeye:Longbow
  • Iron Man:Upright
  • Punisher:McRook
  • Spider-Man:Hero for Hire
  • Red Hulk:Thunderbolt Ross

Basic Actions

  • Focus Power
  • Selective Shield

From the draft we built teams that had some synergy and despite Dave dominating me with two wins to my one. They were fun games.

They were also three games where we both bought basic action dice. More so than any other games we’ve played in the past.

I want to see how this goes with four or three players.

I also had an idea to come up with a Dice Masters version of the Epic the Card Game Dark Draft format.

It’s a draft format that works really well for two players. But I’ll write more about it and how it might work in another post. I need to sleep on it and get it right in my head first before sharing.

Laters.

It’s cold outside

game night, lcg/ccg/tcg game night

It was that one evening a week when I currently manage to get some gaming in once again.

This week finally (since I bought the game back in 2015) saw Arctic Scavengers hit the table. The edition I have comes with the base game, plus two expansions HQ and Recon.

Setting up a game

I had spent some time Monday configuring my copy of the game as an all in setup. Afterwards on the Fenland Gamers Discord channel for lcg/ccg/tcg games (I know Artic Scavengers is a deckbuilder) I asked Diego to bring his copy of the game so we could quickly and easily play a base game only.

When you look through the rulebooks (there are two in the box, one covers the base game and HQ expansion, the other just the Recon expansion) you are presented with the premise that the expansions are module and told which cards to add to include for the module. They then suggest the market has a particular unit plus 9 others to make up to 10 units to buy from. That gives you the impression that you can choose any other units etc. However if you go all in on the modules. You do not have that freedom of choice. You are basically not using any of the base games units.

But I do really like this kind of a la carte module choice during setup. Plus there are two or three modules that do not actually add cards to the game but change rules.

I also like that scattered through out the modules there are suggested setups for things like the contested resource deck, and suggestions on tweaking things.

A final word about setup of the game. The game comes with an insert that organises the cards and helps speed up the process of setting up. However it also means that cards warp/bend when stored this way as I found out Monday. A better solution would have been labelled card dividers but hindsight is a marvellous thing, especially some 8 years later.

Onto the game

Set in the near future of 2097 in an arctic post-apocalyptic world when humanity is struggling to survive and attract new tribal members from survivors. The theme of the game made me think of post-apocalyptic movies such as The Colony, and Snowpiercer, and even the board game Dead of Winter (without the zombies naturally). But did the theme come through as we played the game?

Diego, Marcin, Dave, and myself played the base game plus the gangs, leaders, and buildings modules thrown in.

The leaders each of us chose are below:

Our leaders

I liked the art it had the right tone for the theme. But did it help get the theme across?

On your turn you can go hunting which allows you to recruit new tribe members. You can go scavenging that allows you to go looking for useful items in the junkyard. Or you can take part in a fight with the other tribes for contested items like bigger groups of tribe members or more powerful items than can be found in the junkyard. But do these mechanics help get the theme across?

Now I’ve asked that question three times about theme without answering it. For me the theme seems paper thin. It’s hard to get the theme across in a deckbuilder. Without being told what the theme was you might guess it’s post-apocalyptic from the art.

The combat phase at the end of each round that took place from the third round onwards felt very Dune Imperium like. But I did like the combat. It gave you an interesting choice to make with your hand of five cards. How many did you save for the combat and how many did you use to do one or two of the other actions? Was that contested resource worth going all in for? Something only you knew when you became the initiator for the round. There is the bluffing element also, where you could save two cards that are useless in combat. But it makes the other players think about how many they commit. Maybe forcing them to do less action wise trying to beat you in combat.

The game itself is 16 rounds. With the contested items deck acting as the game timer. I like clever touches like this.

I liked the asymmetry that the leaders added to the game. We went with the default way of choosing our leader of being dealt two, pick one and discard the other. However in one of the two rulebooks there are a couple of alternate rules for picking them.

At the end of the game after the gangs went to the appropriate tribe, the dust settled and Marcin had amassed the most tribe members.

Final scores

I did enjoy Artic Scavengers. It was a fun experience. Just sad that it has taken so long to get to the table.

Another great evening gaming.

Next week Marvel Champions hits the table.