Yesterday evening despite the earlier news that just shy of 52% of my fellow countrymen were gullible sheep that believed the fud of the mass media of the country and were talked into self harming, the evening of gaming at The Angel still went ahead.

Jo was at the Angel when I arrived, so after getting refreshing beverages I introduced her to the ccg/lcg experience by teaching her the gateway drug of Epic.

We used two pre-constructed decks using the suggested deck lists for the demigods (Kickstarter stretch goal cards) Riksis, Dancer of Destruction (Jo) and Shadya, the Shadow Walker (me).

As you can see the demigods also have a special ability. Did we use them? Nope! 

I like to think of these decks as the Epic version of the dueling decks for Magic. Having pre-constructed decks available other than the mono colour ones I think makes for a better experience. The mono is there if you want to play that way. But I prefer these decks. Also pre-constructed decks allow you to jump straight in and teach the game, without the overhead of explaining drafting and the other player not knowing what the cards do, combos etc. 

Without my playmats there, scoring was done using the awesome free Epic Score app. Hence no photos of the game being played.

Jo took an early lead delivering some damage to me. But after some exchanges between our champions I was able to get a wind to deliver some damage of my own, which would prove fatal and give me the win.

During our game Debbie arrived, so with Epic finished Batman Fluxx hit the table. We made reference to our last marathon game of this and the Eric Sommer house rule of stopping at the half hour mark if it went on that long. 

Our game was pretty quick, in fact it was still the basic rules of draw one, play one when I won.

Jonathan arrived at that point, so we played another game of it. 

This time it went on a little longer, and I was looking at another victory that relied on me being able to play three cards in the correct order on my go. Jonathan and Debbie took their turns,  I was still on to be able to win. To get in Jonathan’s mind and show him how he could have won, I pointed out if he had zapped Bane in front of me he would have won! Then Jo threw a spanner in the works by resetting the rules back to basic ones. I was stuffed. No way I would be able to take three turns to get the win, the game changes so much between turns. I needed a card that would allow me to play more than one card this turn. I draw my one card. OMG I’d top decked the perfect card to give me the win, Play All! I play the card, the win was mine, I just had to play the three cards in the correct order. Steal Batman from Jonathan,  get rid of Bane using his ability, play my keeper, play the goal to give me the win.

Jo abandoned us to go have a KFC with her boyfriend! Really? Choosing the abysmal local KFC over gaming with us! Wow that stung.

Batman Fluxx was followed up with intrigue, skullduggery and bluffing when we played Council of Verona. 

I thought I had a good chance of Romeo and Juliet being together because I had them both, plus I had two cards that allowed me to move cards. However my plans were thwarted by Jonathan who split them up after I had played my last card. I was scoring nothing. Debbie took the win after we explained to her how she should have used her last cards ability to swap two tokens to remove Jonathan from the scoring and give her two scoring opportunities.

We played a second time where Debbie decided to use a unique tactic of not using her tokens! This time my plans worked  and I won. 

There was a final game but using the poison expansion. This was a first for us. I liked what it added to the game of that extra bluffing. Had they just tried to poison your scoring opportunity or were they trying to jump on the bandwagon? I was in that exact situation with Jonathan on Romero. I played an antidote token to counter a possible poison one. My final placed token was to poison Jonathan’s scoring opportunity. Still Debbie didn’t play any tokens!!!! 

Once more luck was on my side and my plans were victorious.

The final game of the evening before Jonathan had to rush off to the Jolly Fryer to take a fish and chip supper home for the family, was Harbour. 

Jonathan had never played this before, despite once owning it. 

Our opening buildings to buy weren’t very good for a first game. So upon a group concensus I dealt six new buildings. 

I like Harbour, it is a nice little worker placement game. Although the changing market place isn’t to everyone’s taste, it is one of the mechanics I like. It forces you to be aware of what the other players are doing, who is close or about to build, and changing your own supplies to ready for the new market place. Plus in this game there were a couple of cards that allowed you to manipulate the market place. Which lessened the impact of some one building a building.

Having the one worker can be frustrating because you want to do more than one action. But it does force you to make hard decisions about which action you really really want to do.

Jonathan triggered the end game, and with my last go I was able to build a final building snatching me second place. However Jonathan ended up being crowned the new Harbour Master. 

We will be playing this again soon so I can win my title back. I do like these social media bragging cards.

So with the evening of gaming over. We went our separate ways, with me hitting what is fast becoming a part of the evening Jonathan’s favourite kebab shop down Norfolk street for my supper.

Another fun evening of gaming, looking forward to next weeks.