Monthly Archives: November 2022

Another 24 Hours of Father Son Gaming

father son gaming, Game day, game night

Our second whole day of gaming, and chilling.

After a relaxed start to the morning an old favourite hit the table.

I hadn’t play 7 Wonders Duel in five long years. In fact it was Nathan that I last played it with.

We only have the core game, plus the first expansion Pantheon. The second expansion never grabbed me at the time it was released, so I never got it.

It really was great to play 7 Wonders Duel again. It’s still got the magic. But like the many fantastic two player games that I own it just doesn’t get the love it deserves. Mainly because not a lot of two player gaming gets to take place.

History and the bgstat app will record that I won with a scientific victory in the third age. What it won’t show is if it had gone the distance Nathan was in a much stronger position than me to claim a points victory.

After a break it was time to introduce Nathan to an uncooperative boardgame!

Yep Portal the uncooperative cake acquisition boardgame was going to test the father son bonds!

This is a great two player game, that I really do need to try at the higher player counts.

However in this game there was a lot of incinerating each other’s cake. With the last few turns getting very tactical. It looked like I was going to win by a single slice of cake. In fact the only slice of cake that would be left on the board. However in a last desperate move Nathan managed to force a tie by incinerating his and my last pieces of cake at the same time.

Which meant the game went to the tiebreaker, and having the most test subjects on the board meant I was able to claim victory.

After a home made sweet and sour pork for tea, and some episodes of South Park it was time to visit a galaxy far, far away, and play Star Wars Outer Rim with the Unfinished Business expansion.

As the embedded Instagram picture I shared below shows the game is a bit of a table hog. Especially on Nath’s table. We’d never have got a third or even fourth player round the table.

We cherry picked the bits from Unfinished Business that we’d add to the core game. The bits that made the cut were the core worlds, and ambitions. In a two player game I didn’t see much point playing with favours.

Below you can see which characters we chose to play and the ambitions.

Jyn managed to buy a YT-1300, which had a couple of mods that gave me a critical hit in combat, plus one that meant my opponents also rolled one less die.

With out those two mods I wouldn’t have been able to take on the empire patrols to enable me to attempt my final ambition condition.

Thanks to Nathan channelling his inner Jonathan for his dice rolls, whilst he was trying to do his final ambition and failing (several times) I was able to swoop in and grab victory by completing mine. I was greatly helped by Nathan rolling for the Empire.

You’ve probably guessed I won. Ten fame points and a completed ambition board.

Jyn truly was a hero of the rebellion.

Another great day with Nath.

24 Hours of Father Son Gaming

father son gaming, Game day, game night

With a weeks holiday ahead of me I took the opportunity to visit Nathan for a couple of days.

I arrived Monday afternoon managing to avoid any of the usual traffic jam points like the M25.

The evening saw me attempting to teach Nathan how to play Brazil Imperial to very limited success.

The map I chose was an official from the publisher that I got off the bgg page for the game.

It looked an interesting two player map with the island in the middle. The chances of combat were low for this map, which I thought was perfect for a learning game. One less thing to have to absorb.

Nathan was finding it hard to follow what was going on.

I don’t think it helped with Nathan’s focus that he had consumed approximately three quarters of a bottle of 1800 tequila.

So we gave up after an hour or so of play. He wasn’t enjoying it.

There was no point playing another game so we had a film night instead watching The Batman. I’m not sure I like the look of The Riddler in the movie. But it’s a pretty solid Batman effort with a focus more on the detective side of the character. Which I like. After all he is the worlds greatest detective!

Tuesday saw Alien Fate of the Nostromo hit the table for a learning game.

I had bought this for Nathan’s birthday after he had said he regretted not getting it on his recent holiday in the US.

Wow! I love that when you open up the box you are confronted by a hissing Jonesy. It’s a lovely bit of art that does take you a little by surprise.

I played Ripley with Nathan playing Dallas.

Being brave souls we also played with Ash. Which is meant to add a further complication to the game.

I really do like the art on the player boards. It really captures the characters from the movie. The publisher could have easily gone the movie stills route. But I’m glad they didn’t. This art looks so much better.

The miniatures in the game look very nice detail wise. Just a shame they are made from a very soft plastic. Maybe a better quality would have pushed up the final cost of the game. Let’s face it, as boardgames go this is not an expensive game. There is a mass market feel to it.

It’s also a big shame that Ash isn’t also a miniature instead of the standee.

I’m not sure if we misplayed a rule or two. But this felt suspiciously easy to win. Maybe we got lucky with the mission cards we drew for the game.

It’s just weird having played other Co-ops which even on their easy settings seemed more challenging.

Of cause it could be as the designer of the game Scott Rogers said we just got real lucky. Sometimes it happens.

Our three objectives for the game and the final mission.

We had fun playing the game. I liked the basic crafting mechanic. It definitely felt like Alien. Liked the fact when you encountered the alien you take a moral hit and run away. The encounter tiles added to the suspense, and making it feel like the movie.

Later on I introduced Nathan to the flip and write Welcome to the Moon. So you know what is coming now.

The following post may or may not contain spoilers for the Welcome to the Moon campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one if you plan to play the campaign and want to experience it’s twists and turns as surprises for yourself. REMEMBER you have been warned.

As I was setting up the game I noticed on the first adventures player board that there is a Dalek that looks like it might be trying to get on the rocket!

How did I not notice this before!

Nathan noticed it straight away.

What a bloody cool little easter egg to include.

The Dalek

I decided we would work our way through the campaign. So instead of reading all the text I summarised the story so far for Nathan.

We then played Adventure 1 which obviously we chose a different route to the other campaign. Once again I was the captain for our initial efforts.

This route had us remove the number 7 card from the game, plus we are able to choose the mission cards for each adventure.

Mission cards for adventure 1 (top) and adventure 2 (bottom)

Nathan won the first adventure to become the captain for adventure 2.

Adventure 1 Chapter path taken: 109,147,169,12,7,77

Just like our experiences in the other campaign play through, this second adventure caught Nathan unawares. He too had been lulled into that false sense of security and “simplicity” of the first adventure.

All of a sudden the complexity level was dialled up a few notches.

I think Nathan didn’t enjoy this adventure as much because of this.

Our twist in adventure 2 was that we could circle plants on any of the orbiting stations regardless of where we wrote the number.

Adventure 2 Chapter path taken: 148,79,106,92

Our evening was finished off with another movie night, this time we watched the Nicolas Cage move The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

A movie in which he plays himself! Who then gets roped in by the CIA to help rescue a kidnapped girl. It’s not a bad film. The de-aging of Cage is a bit ropey. Definitely one of his better recent efforts.