Monthly Archives: April 2015

Halflings vs Elves

tabletop

Yesterday we squeezed in another game of Age of War which I won. So that's a 50% win rate at the game so far against Duncan.

Duncan and I also got to play Tiny Epic Kingdom which saw the Halflings of Brysue (me) go toe to toe with the Elves of Galson (Duncan).

Tiny Epic Kingdom is a 4x game. What does that mean? Well I had heard it explained recently in reviews for this very game. However I am old and my memory isn't as good as it used to be, so I found this explanation for you.

“4X is a genre of strategy-based video and board games in which players control an empire and “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate”.” (Source Wikipedia link)

The expansionist plans of both our kingdoms over spilled into the lost kingdom of Ahlfors. This is a slight rule change for two players, one of a couple specific for two players. The high and mighty Elves had decided to go off on a quest to far away lands and came across the lands of the lost kingdom of Ahlfors, where they found a strange race of humanoids stopping their expansionist plans to colonise this newly discovered kingdom.

The Elves taking inspiration from US history engaged in a war with the indigenous population to steal their stone producing land to use in their own resource hungry master plan. The indigenous people gave little resistance to the superior invading forces. The Elves had been victorious and now controlled the valuable resource producing land. But not for long. No sooner had the surviving rightful people of this region of Ahlfors fled their homes from the marauding Elven armies, than a fleet carrying the liberating armies of the halfling armies of Brysue arrived to free the people of Ahlfors from the tyrannical yoke of the elves. Naturally the liberators had to stay behind and make sure that the indigenous people were exploited for the right cause.

Or in none fancy words I let Duncan take one of the Lost Kingdoms lands, depleting his resources that could be used in combat, then stepped in and took the land off him using just enough resources to defeat him. A cunning tactic on my behalf ^_^

What is amazing thing about Tiny Epic Kingdoms is that for such a small box, there is an amazing amount of game play, and good quality components. They really have captured a game that would come in a much larger box with tonnes more components and take many hours to play into a tiny box that plays much quicker.

Even though there are only six actions to choose from, there is a lot of tactical decisions to be made. Play an action at the wrong time and it could screw up your opponent easily that round. At one point I had the decision of questing or patrolling. If I quested I could of invaded an area on the Elven kingdom and won (I had more resources for fighting) and cut off the mana source Duncan needed to do research. Basically be a complete git. Or I could patrol and make a move towards a capital to give me a victory point at the end.

There really are some nice mechanics in this game from the selecting actions, sharing actions, end conditions, to the combat.

Naturally the forces of good depicted by the Halflings defeated the forces of chaos depicted by the Elves. Or put another way I beat Duncan.

I know Roll For It, Age of War etc have been out for a while. But there does seem to be a much welcomed new wave of small games punching well above their weight, Tiny Epic Kingdoms, Star Realms, Harbour. Games that can easily be taken around in a bag and whipped out at a moments notice. I'm loath to call these filler games, although they certain can fill that role at a games night. I think calling them such deminishes the games from what they are. I hate to call them micro or pocket games. I think these games are like the transformers of the games world, more than meets the eye. Whatever the tag you want to put on these types of games they are at the end of the day great games, with lots of replayability, and lots of fun.

 

 

The Bank Holiday Weekend

tabletop

Saturday saw the arrival of Duncan, who had travelled down from the semi-free people's Republic of Scotland. Thinking about it that gives the impression that those north of the border have more of a resemblance of democracy than we do down here in the oppressed Englandshire. But in reality they are ruled by just as corrupt politicians who seem in some areas more destructive than our temporarily out of power Establishment overlords. The ruling Scottish version of UKIP or SNP as they like to call themselves (dispute that? well you can't. You can take a speech from either party replace England/Parliament with EU and vice versa and you have the same speech, they are the same bigoted party) seem to have come up with a cunning plan that allows them to please their local branch of the Establishment, whilst ruining a national treasure that attracts the hated English oppressors. What is this Bond Villianesq plan? Why to build Windfarms in all the remote wild places, ruin the views and landscape. That way those nasty tourists and their money that gets spent in local rural communities will go elsewhere like the cities, and the landowners won't be inconvienced by unwanted visitors and can enjoy hunting protected species in happy bliss.

Anyway Saturday evening Duncan and I spent a little time playing Star Realms! Yes a chance to play the physical game once more. So these were learning games for Duncan as I taught him the game, and he started to,learn some of the cards.

Yesterday saw me introduce Duncan to Roll For It which he wasn't too impressed with. However I still enjoy the game.

We then had a game of Age of War which Duncan did enjoy. This was the first time I'd gotten to play the game since buying. It's a “simple” game to play using the same mechanic as Roll For It. For me Age of War is the natural game to move on to for those that like Roll For It. It's a bit more tactical, has the chance to steal cards from another player. If I could get it (it is proving hard at the moment) Elder Signs would be the game to play after Age of War, because it still uses the same core mechanic, but adds even more onto it. Once I've played a few more games I'll go into it in more detail.

For me these three games would give a smooth path for taking a non gamer from a simple quick filler game to playing a more substantial game using a simple core mechanic of rolling dice to complete cards.

Yesterday I did give Duncan a guided tour rounded the Capital of the Fens, Centre of the Known Universe on foot. The tour was bought to life with memories from my youth of terrorising the town and ruling it with an iron fist.

Above a picture of me impersonating a well known ex outdoor magazine editor. In the distance you can make out the monument to Thomas Clarkson the true unsung hero behind freeing the slaves. Sadly the public and history books have fallen for the better publicity machine of Wilberforce.

 

Lego and Playmats

lego minifigs, tabletop

Ok we know I have a Lego minifig problem, but obviously it can't be that big of a problem because an intervention hasn't been held for me yet.

So having not been abducted and deprogrammed from the cult of Lego, I feel I'm pretty safe in talking to you my fellow addicts about my new arrivals.

As you can see in the photo I have a minifig boxer now, I'm on the hunt for the 2012 GB Olympic boxing figure at the moment. Why would I want these figures? I'm not exactly a big boxing fan. Well for those of you that have insomnia or have gotten bored with life will know when I write about games of Star Realms I usually end up comparing them to boxing matches. So the little clogs in my brain turned and turned and came up with the idea of using two minifigs boxing to illustrate the posts.
The other new arrivals were four more Stormtroopers. No guns with them, but I can source them easily enough. I also have one or two other Star Wars figures coming, but I'm not going to ruin the surprise by telling you which ones they are now.

Custom Playmats

In a previous post I mentioned about some custom playmats I had ordered a couple from a place in the US, then a couple of days later found out about a place in the UK that does them called Patriot Games. So from them I ordered custom playmats for Marvel Legendary and for Splendor. Using my advanced Google skills I found a couple of amazing designs to use and upload.
This morning the postie also delivered the two playmats from Patriot Games.
I have to say I was really impressed with the two mats. The quality seems really good, the finish is good. I'm looking forward to playing the games using the mats. This will definitely be my go to place for custom playmats I think.
While I'm talking playmats I did notice on the FFG website for Android:Netrunner that they are developing (what's to develop?) four playmats for the game. None of the designs they have up have the play areas marked out, which is a shame. The play areas are great for us noobs to the game. They act as a great aid memoir for layout out the cards. There are some great custom designs out there that are corp/runner specific, but also some great designs that are duel use. So it's definitely possible to make a mat that us noobs can use.

 

A Tuesday Night Games Night

tabletop

Just an idea I'm throwing out there. But anyone in the Wisbech area (or further if you can make it) want to play any of the above games on a Tuesday between 7:30pm and 10pm at The Kings Head (on the Old Market).

I don't play Magic The Gathering but if people want to play that I'm up for a game if you don't mind teaching someone and lending me a deck to play with.

I thought it might be fun to play one of these games whilst enjoying a beverage or two. I've not asked permission to do this (at the moment if it gets a lot of interest I will), because I can't see a problem with two or three people playing games while enjoying a pint.

Was thinking of starting this on the 14th April. If you are interested leave a comment below or sign up using the event page I've set up on Eventbrite.

Hope to see you there

 

Easter Thursday Night Games Night

game night, star realms, tabletop

Last night saw another Thursday Night Games Night at a new venue.

The evening started off meeting at the old location to go in convoy to the new location. But due to the length of the journey the convoy had to stop at Morrisons for supplies. They are cunning people at Morrisons placing “better than half price” (their words not mine) Jaffa Cakes right next to the entrance of the store as the first thing you hit before having to walk through that evil guilt inducing fruit and veg isle. Mind you it's rare that I feel guilty that I should eat more fruit and veg. Now cake I do feel guilty I'm not eating enough of.

It was a major display of will power on my part not to just buy a shit load of Jaffa Cakes. Sadly I was strong and didn't crumble and only bought two packets. Oh and a trifle for a quid to use as a dip for them! Hey what can I say I'm a creative genius.

Now stocked up with supplies to finish the long trek to the new venue we headed off across the border into the wildes of Norfolk, for about thirty seconds before crossing back into the civilised lands of Cambridgeshire. That was the most dangerous part of our trek over with. We had survived unscathed the badlands of Norfolk.

The convoy arrived at the new venue. We hadn't had to touch the supplies after all, oh well they will do for the game night.

The new venue was none other than the secret headquarters of the infamous pirate podcast Lolocaust Tubeblockers. We even had a guided tour of the actual recording studio used to create these acts against humanity and good taste. I will apologise because this would of been the perfect time to strike back for mankind and deliver a blow for freedom against this tyranny. However Bouncy had more security than a Bond villian round his recording studio. Yep that's right it was blocked off with “Police Line Do Not Cross” tape. Security does not get harder to crack than that. It's uncrackable. An opportunistic chance to strike back for freedom and democracy had been foiled by impenetrable security.

Our first game of the evening once there collective had decided to make a decision was King of New York. Yep the game I got only the other day, hadn't been opened and none of us knew how to play. So while I was getting the components ready to play with, Gav read the rules. I think I was the only one listening as Gav read the rules out. The others decided who needs to know the rules, what we need is banter! Was this a tactical decision that was part of some new cunning planning at winning a game you'd never played before? After a slow start as we got used to the rules and what dice symbol did what etc. we started to play. We even had Bouncy live streaming a bit of the game at the start. The game lived up to my expectations. It manages to capture the japanese monster movie trope of giant monsters fighting in the middle of a metropolis trashing buildings, fighting each other and the army really well. I enjoy the japanese monster movie which most will of experienced in the form of the Godzilla series. I wouldn't call myself a fan, unlike Bouncy who is. But still I enjoyed the movies a lot as I watched them as a teenager late at night on one of the four terrestrial TV channels we had at the time. I want to say it was Channel 4 but my fading memory could be wrong on this. I even enjoyed the 1998 Hollywood attempt at doing a Godzilla movie. Which may be an unpopular opinion. But hey I haven't said it was a great movie, just an enjoyable one. Ok the Godzilla reboot by Hollywood last year was much much better, and Pacific Rim also was a good Hollywood monster vs giant robots movie. Which I believe at some point we may see a crossover between Godzilla and Pacific Rim, which could be very very cool. But if you love these types of movie you are going to love this game. In the end the game was won by Gav, who was accused of shenanigans because he had the rule book!
The next game was another game we hadn't played and was one of mine that had been bought recently and unplayed! The game being Batman Love Letter.
The above photo shows us reading the rules!

A word of advice if Bouncy does his bum note joke and you have your back to him. Do not turn round and look. I stumbled across this useful hint last night, I was busy playing my go at the time, Bouncy had come down with just a Guitar Hero/Rock Band guitar covering his lower naked half. That image alone was disturbing enough. Then he turns round to leave the room and does the bum note joke. The rest of the group now for ever more have the image of Bouncy's bare bum etched in their memory. I dodged a bullet here. It's a bit like Rick waking up in hospital at the start of The Walking Dead, everyone else is dead or a zombie, he survived whatever “event” happened to turn the world upside down. And here I escaped what can only be assumed a horrific image that even horror porn can not even come close to matching. Then it dawned on all of us “OMG that guitar has touched his junk, never ever play Guitar Hero with Bouncy and use his guitar”.

Batman Love Letter is a great fun game. It helps to stay focused while playing (see the above Bouncy story), which Luke seemed to have a hard time doing. But Luke ended up winning. So that's a tactic I'm going to try next time I play the game. This game was really a hoot. It helps that if you play the Robin card when someone selects you to reveal your card to not reveal your card and then remember you didn't have to because you were exempt. Hands up I did this a couple of times. The last time I did this I basically gave Luke the win on a plate.

Gav wanted to have a game of Star Realms, so while we played that. The others went off to play Smash Up! I really want to give this game a try sometime, maybe another game night. The Star Realms game Gav and I played worked out with me getting some combos, not massive ones but enough to win. But that wasn't the point of the game. It was to teach the basics, and give Gav a taste of playing. Gav enjoyed the game and will be getting it electronically I think/ possibly physically as well. As a first game Gav did well. It helped that he had played Marvel Legendary before so was used to the mechanics.

It was hitting midnight and being the little Cinderella that I am I had to rush back home, hoping that the mutants roving the wastelands of Norfolk didnt waylay me as I crossed into their lands briefly.

This morning also found out that the guys also had a game of Spyfall too after I left. Another game I want to try, I think this could be a student favourite.

I had a great evening, many laughs, avoid something that could never be unseen, and as always great company.

Can't wait for the Marvel Games Night planned for the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron. That will be a Marvel Legendary night.

 

 

Second of April

dice masters, lego minifigs, tabletop

Two new minifigs out of five isn't too bad.

As I'm always saying though doubles in minifigs isn't a problem when you also make custom minifigs. It helps build up a library of spare parts to use in your own figures.
I have some others on the way, a boxer, some storm troopers, Obi Wan,Emperor, and Jedi Luke. Well you know now that when they arrive I'll share pictures of them with you.
Talking of stuff on its way, how much did I enjoy the Harbour game yesterday? I enjoyed it so much that I have a copy on its way to me. Who knows I may just have a second copy coming to give as a prize for a competition. I've not done one of those in a long long time.
This little beauty arrived today. Normally I binge open all the packets. But I've decided to take my time and savour the experience. So just five packets today, then some more tomorrow. As long as I'm ready to play Freddy over the weekend.

 

I Am The Harbour Master

netrunner, star realms, tabletop
Yes the above photo is the photographic evidence that I am truly the Harbour Master! But we will get to that part of the story later.
As I blogged yesterday the planned day of playing tabletops had to be rearranged for today. The plan was to be round Jamie's for around 10:30. I was hoping nah praying that the postman would arrive before I left with the First Contact data pack. I needed one card from this data pack for my planned Anarch deck to play against Jamie.
The courier arrived not long after 8am with one delivery consisting of King of New York and Perudo. As I was about to drive off with the car loaded up my Netrunner cards, Star Realms, Tiny Epic Kingdoms, and Age of War the postman walked past my car. In his hands were a couple of small Amazon packages. “By any chance are those two Amazon packages for number 4?” I enquired hopefully of the postman. The postman responded in the positive and handed over my deliveries. The postal gods had been kind to me and had delivered the data pack to me just in time. I had the card I needed (if I had identified the correct data pack it was in that is).

The full order was the Android:Netrunner First Contact data pack, Roll For It and a set of extra dice for Star Wars Imperial Assault.
In total Jamie and I played four games of Netrunner, and I didn't win a single one of them. The first two games I played as the heroic Anarch runner Noise fighting against the man. I did manage to steal some agendas, and the deck I came up with worked roughly how I thought it would. The first game I attacked Jamie's R&D a lot, and some of the remote servers. Second game I switched tactics, avoided R&D for runs. Jamie had put more ice in front of HQ and R&D leaving his Archives less guarded. I kept trashing R&D by installing viruses, did a run on Archives and installed a Hades Shard? That would allow me to access the whole of Archives at a time of my choosing irrespective of how much ice Jamie installed. I got two agendas out of this tactic when I pulled the trigger. So I was very pleased that this worked. The final two games I played as the corporate scum Weyland. I wasn't expecting much from this deck as it was made up on the spot. I do need to look more into what I want the corp deck to do, and I need to put my hate for the man to one side and get better at being the corp. but I do find playing the runner a lot easier. I'll put up the two decks I played in another post for ripping apart.
But even though I lost I had a blast playing. I'm just going to get better the more I play. I'm lucky Jamie is patient with me as we play. Sometimes I wasn't able to ask Jamie a question as it would of given away what I was going to do, so I had to quickly look up an answer in the rule book.
After Android:Netrunner we played Star Realms. It was just a single game that I was able to get multiple outposts out and allowed me to sit behind a Great Wall of bases and outposts, that stopped Jamie doing any serious damage to me. I was racking up authority, getting combos, it was really hard and I know from having been on the other end of this tactic just a little frustrating. What made it worse for Jamie was that none of the big hitters came out, or the base destroyers. That really did make the Jamie's job of getting through the Great Wall a lot harder. But he did well getting combos together to knock down the wall, but it would be back up next go, and fully built within a couple of turns. Still the inevitable with this strategy happened I won!
Sometimes I do think that maybe Star Realms might be a little bit biased towards a bases strategy.
After Star Realms we moved on to a game I've got but not played Takenoko. Cute hungry pandas, grumpy gardeners growing bamboo, and another game that I bought after seeing it on Tabletop. Now I'm not saying this because I won, but this is a fun game.
What turned out to be the penultimate game was Jamie and I learning to play Roll for It. It literally takes a minute to read the rules to learn to play. This was a fun little game to play. It's rolling dice, what isn't there to enjoy about doing that? What I like about this game is you have to manage your dice, it's possible to steal cards from other players by completing them first. It really is a great little filler game. Plus I won this game.
The last game we played was Harbour By Tasty Minstrel Games. When Jamie bought the game out it hadn't rung any bells. But once I saw market card and the player cards it clicked I had seen these before in a recent video YouTube. I think it was the Crits Happen Top 5 mini games or something like that. No wait it was a Watch It Played video.

Harbour is a worker placement game with a dynamic marketplace and a hint of set collection. The dynamic marketplace is a nice mechanic which basically means after a player buys a property the values you get for each of the four resource types changes. Which means you could just be about to buy a property based on the values currently on the marketplace, another player jumps in before you, buys a property and the values change, all of a sudden you can't get enough for your goods to buy a property. I love that. It's a touch of genius.

For most of the game Jamie had the lead and was always a property ahead of me, well he was the first to two buildings. Always buying a building a move before me. But I thought I was about to pull of a stunning win by buying two properties. I went to execute the coup de grace, but fell on my face, I had misread the building cards. I had misread the cards point value as the cards cost! I couldn't buy both buildings in one go. But I could buy one and in a couple of turns be able to buy the second. All the time I was expecting Jamie to movie to his building to buy his final building to win. But he didn't I was able to complete the two turns and buy the final required building. Even with a final turn Jamie wasn't able to buy a final building. It was time to add up our points. Just as a final act of dumbassery (is that even a word?) I miss read the cost for points and ended up with a score less than Jamie's! Once the points were correctly added up I had won. Now it was photo time. There is a card with the game that the game creators suggest you take a selfie with to allow you to boast about your victory. Hence the photo at the start of this blog post and the title of this post. They also suggest that if you tweet the picture to include them in the tweet. Which I have done as I shared with the world that I am THE HARBOUR MASTER!

I've had a totally awesome day playing games with Jamie. Thank you to Allie for being such an amazing hostess and the really delish chocolate brownie.