Monthly Archives: December 2018

It’s time to show you some bird cards!

news

Ok Jamey Stegmaier has been releasing more info on the Facebook group about the up and coming release of his game, Wingspan. So without permission, because I’m an unscrupulous rebel like that, let’s look at the information released and the photos.

So what is the theme of the game exactly? Well from what we have seen so far, you wouldn’t be far wrong deducing it had something to do with birds. However Jamey has given us the overall theme now, “In Wingspan, you play as bird enthusiasts who are populating your aviary with birds.” Naturally looking at the info below about the cards the person with the most victory points will win.

“Wingspan includes 170 uniquely illustrated bird cards, each with a different ability.” Which according to Jamey from the times he’s played the game led to “very different strategies and engines each time” due the variety in the cards. I like the sound of that, adds to replay ability, and having to adapt strategies. Plus it means you have to play the game a few times to truly learn what all the cards do (unless you sit down and read each card). Plus there will be that element of discovery as you come across combos etc. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest these bird cards for the basis of your engine. So I’m willing to bet that at least one of any possible future expansions will be just more bird cards.

The art on these cards (see below – once again I’ve “borrowed” these photos from the Facebook page and the copyright is all Stonemaier Games) looks amazingly realistic and wouldn’t be out of place in one of those Observer pocket guides.

But what exactly are we looking at on these cards? Use the close up of the Peregrine Falcon card and this description by Jamey explains it all. “In the upper left of each bird card is the habitat(s) it can be played into, as well as the food cost to play it. End-game VP is the number near the feather, followed by the nest type and the number of eggs the bird can hold. The bird’s wingspan is noted on the right, and finally there is the bird’s core ability.” It also looks like we get the latin name of the bird plus an interesting fact about it also on the card. Will we be learning stuff as we play? Will the game be fun and educational?

Mechs vs Minions was not only a great game. But it had a great insert also. It’s a nice trend that some publishers have picked the mantel up and continued. A recent example I can think of illustrating this is Wildlands by Martin Wallace and published by Osprey Games. The only draw back of some of these inserts is they don’t work with sleeved cards. Which is disappointing when that happens.

“…we partnered with Game Trayz… I had a very specific vision for a two-part tray: The tray itself would hold cards (yes, sleeved or unsleeved) for storage purposes, and the lid of the tray would serve as a card mat during the game.”

“Pictured here is the tray included in every copy of Wingspan.”

Yep every copy of the game will have this insert. I’m assuming cards will be standard MtG size so I can use my favourite clear sleeves, Mayday Premium. It’s nice to see that sleeved cards have been taken into account. I remain to be convinced the depth is deep enough on the insert. But width looks fine.

Well that’s all the new stuff I’ve seen, if anything else gets released I’ll save it up and do a combined post. I hope that this is proving of interest to folks. It certainly is for me.

A new combatant in the crucible

Game day, keyforge

Friday evening some plans were made (in pencil) to possibly play some Keyforge Saturday afternoon. However those plans fell through. Well they were in pencil so not guaranteed. But I have to admit I was a little disappointed that the plans had fallen through. I’d been looking forward to it, especially since my mood had been a bit on the low side for a day or two. I was needing some gaming in my life to distract and attempt to change things.

Out of the blue Justin called saying that a couple of Keyforge decks had arrived and he fancied playing some Keyforge. Naturally I jumped at the chance to play me some Keyforge.

Once at Justin’s and setup. I ran through the basic rules of the game, and the turn structure. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming when rules are being explained and it’s easier to just jump in and ask questions along the way. Justin felt this way.

For our first game I used my Blindingly Fanatical Erkki deck (Brobnar, Dis, Logos). Now you folks will hate me but I forgot to make a note of the decks I played against. But Justin’s deck took off and before I knew it he’d forged two keys, and done a damn fine job of denying me ember, and from forging a key myself.

For some reason I thought this was my four horsemen deck. And for a while thought I’d be drawing one of them any minute, it’s why I didn’t play a particular brobnar card that dumped cards from the deck into the discard pile until you ran out of deck or drew a brobnar creature. I hadn’t wanted to miss those cards. I was down to the last four cards in the deck when it clicked the horsemen deck was one of the other decks.

It was looking like this game was going to be a whitewash, I needed to at least get a key forged to prevent that. And that was the only real thought going through my head.

I was using the ability to archive cards to set up one or two big turns with my logos cards.

Eventually I broke through and forged my first key. Phew the pressure was off. I was expecting Justin to forge his third and final key imminently. But I was frustrating his ember production.

Then a fatal mistake was made by Justin. He allowed me to get a board state of mostly Dis cards in place. Suddenly I was able to exhaust two creatures to reap and get Justin to discard two random cards from hand. Plus I could steal ember from him. I also continued to put logos cards into the archive setting up that mega turn. Waiting for my battlefield to destroyed and replaced by logos cards.

But that moment never came. I was controlling the game. All of a sudden I had my second key forged, and in a turns time the ability to win the game. Justin was not able to stop the inevitable.

Somehow I had gone from trying not to get whitewashed to winning. This had been a long game 40-50 minutes I think. But it was intense, with ups and downs. A great game.


Our second game saw me try The Underhanded Captain (Dis, Brobnar, Sanctum). This was my four horsemen deck. Justin played his other new deck.

This was a very one sided game and much quicker.

It was interesting to play, and went off to a flying start. Although Justin’s deck did well keeping the number of big creatures down on my side.

I’m not taking this game as any indication of how good this horsemen deck is. Justin’s new deck had archiving and the potential to get some power turns played.

This game had more going on that affected the other players turn, like not being able to play a house, or having to play a chosen house. Justin chose Sanctum for my turn at one point which totally screwed me over because I had no Sanctum cards in hand. But my only creature out was a Sanctum one so all I could do was reap.

Justin enjoyed his first experience of Keyforge. I had a great afternoon playing. The socialising had had the desired affect. I was certainly feeling better than I was before going out.

We now have four Keyforge players in town now that I know of. Is this a Keyforge community forming?

NEWS: Yesterday also saw FFG announce that in the Master Vault it has hit over 200k decks registered. That’s phenomenal. Naturally it doesn’t give us any clue to the actual number of players of the game or actual number of decks sold. Mainly because a lot of players have multiple decks, not all decks bought have been registered (for whatever reason), and some of those decks will be from the starter set. But still I don’t think FFG will be unhappy with the numbers they are seeing for the game. What we need to see now is more organised play events being held at more stores, and the nurturing and growth of a community. But I’ll expand on that idea in another post (if I remember too, I am old and forgetful don’t forget, you may have to remind me in the comments).

If you want to see my decks etc, you should be able to scan the QR code below or search for my unoriginal account name.

By royal decree

D&D, game night, RPG


Somehow I missed being in the crowd for the royal visit to Wisbech on Tuesday. Despite having a holiday home not an hour away in Sandringham, we rarely see them or get invites. But us serfs of Wisbech on Tuesday were spoilt by having Charles and Camilla visiting.

Frankly I wish they would visit more often. Since the announcement last week of the impending visit the town has actually seen a police presence on the streets. The teen cycle gang that has been terrorising the centre of the town the last few weeks has been finally tackled by the folks in blue at the weekend. The stone steps and path by St Peters Church and the museum has been cleaned. Coincidence? Apparently the homeless in Wisbech had disappeared for the day. Large sections of the town centre (including car parks) were restricted access. Wisbech for a day only, had become some sort of utopia. Just once I wish the royals got to see the real town, and not some sanitised version that papers over the cracks and flaws.

For weeks (at least a couple) locals have been terrorised by that teen gang. Complaints seemingly falling on the deaf ears of the police. And now as I pointed out all of a sudden the man power has been found to do something about the gang! Let’s see if this high police presence and conviction to tackle the gang continues after the visit.

Wow where did that soap box rant come from? Not exactly the best start to a blog post about D&D.

Ok, time for the dramatic retelling of the latest adventures of Dram and that motley crew. Who if you remember were just about to fight 12 zombies after the necromancer Ace was talking to just disappeared. Shit was about to get real…
Grull rushed in swinging axe at the nearest zombies, that little gnome managed to take out a zombie all by himself. So while the others were going hand to hand with the undead, Dram started firing off one of his cantrips, Ray of Frost at the zombies.

All of a sudden a skeletal hand appears from nowhere and grabs Dram. It squeezes hard around Dram’s chest, getting ever tighter and pushing the air out of his lungs. As suddenly as it appears, the skeletal hand disappeared. Severely winded, it took a moment or two for Dram to get his breathe back. Then realising he was vulnerable Dram decided he needed to relocate quickly. So he quickly cast Misty Step.

One moment Dram was near Sarmyar and Nick who were fighting zombies the next he was gone. The others didn’t see Dram reappear out of sight at the side of the tent. Before he could decide what to do next, black magic missiles hit the others.

“Lay prone, weapons down, and we can talk”, boomed a voice.

Still reeling from that skeletal hand attack, and the casting of his own spell, Dram decided to crawl into the tent and hide. Inside the tent Dram saw a wooden chest. “Look at the craftsmanship on that chest. Like wow.” Thought Dram.

Once again the voice boomed it’s command.

Deciding the only way to appreciate such fine wood work was to sit on it and rest, Dram sat on the chest.

“Can I get up yet?” Shouted Dram.

The next thing Dram heard was Ace’s voice “drop your weapons and give up.”

Suddenly two zombies appeared in the door way and just stood there. Followed by that booming voice once again issuing a command, “leave or he dies”.

“That doesn’t sound good” thought Dram, followed by “I wonder who will die?”

The zombies moved aside and let Dram out of the tent as he made his way to leave. Right next to the necromancer was Ace just standing there not moving. As Dram went passed the necromancer he tipped his hat and complimented him on his magical skills. Dram could have learnt a lot from him he thought.

After joining the others of the group outside the walls of the ruined tower, Dram noticed Grull was missing. ‘Oh well he’ll turn up, something that big never stays lost for long.” thought Dram.

As if from nowhere the necromancer appeared next to Dram and says “if you ever want to join the dark side” and handed Dram a small bone tube.

Before anyone notices Ace also disappears. Maybe Ace and Grull have gone ahead. So Dram and the rest of the group head off back to Phandalin. The depleted group decide to make camp at a previous camping spot.

After setting up camp Dram and Sarmyar took the first watch. This gave Dram the opportunity to examine that small bone tube he’d been given. Wow it was a scroll of Darkness. Dram couldn’t wait to copy that spell into his spellbook back in Phandalin.

The rest of the watch went relatively quietly. That is until Grull suddenly appeared and ran up and grabbed Dram. Sweeping him off his feet, and in a vice like grip, Dram’s natural instinct was to grab Grull and cast Shocking Grasp.

The electric shock got Grull to let go of Dram.

Grull angrily asked “Why did you not fight?” Dram then spent the next few minutes explaining to Grull in little words what happened to him during the recent battle with the necromancer and his zombies. Grull seemed happy with the events and reason it appeared Dram had done nothing in the skirmish.

Nick and the gnome were still sleeping through all of this. They must have been really tired from the days excitement. They even missed Ace trying to convince Grull to drink perfume! Which he goes and does anyway, well a watered down perfume.

Once the hilarity was over. The rest of the night passed away without any incidents. After breakfast the group continued their journey to Phandalin. The following two days of traveling were pretty uneventful, and saw everyone arrive back in good time for the evening meal.

Dram was feeling particularly generous and bought a meal for himself, Grull and the gnome. Do you know how the gnome repaid that act of kindness? By boring Dram to death with a story of how he had come to meet up with this rag tag band of adventurers. Talk about snooze fest. Dram was gobsmacked that Grull was finding the story interesting. Dram was struggling to stay awake. This gnome just didn’t know how to tell a story. ‘Blah blah, betrayed, blah, blah killed son”. So Dram made an excuse needing go to the toilet, and disappeared up to his room.

Back in the room, Dram copied the Darkness spell from the scroll to his spellbook. Dram had only just finished this intricate activity there was a knock on the door. When Dram answered, there was Ace who handed him a healing potion. It was the potion that Dram had paid for before their little visit to see the banshee, and get their butt kicked.

And so dear reader, well done for making it through that dramatic retelling of Dram’s latest escapades. Join us next time when Dram will once more astound you with his magical powers, and reviews of the funniest eating establishments.