All posts by Darren

A Night on the Town in New Angeles

android, RPG

Finally FFG have released the Gencon and Pax Unplugged Genesys Android adventures that they ran. Along with the pre-made characters that they used with the adventures.

Now that I’m able to read the adventures I can decide whether they fit into the planning I’ve been doing.

After an initial skim reading of the adventure I think considering how I’ve planned to start the campaign (read an early look of the player handout here) this is something I could use later in the campaign.

I really like that not only have FFG released these two adventures but that they have tweaked them so that they can be played with your own characters, and that they have advice for starting the second part if your players made different decisions.

It was worth the wait.

You can read the full FFG press release with links here.

Wisbech: Made in Minecraft – The Movie!

Uncategorized

In a rush to write the earlier post I couldn’t wait for the YouTube release of the movie that was showed at The Luxe as part of the Wisbech; Made in Minecraft launch.

I was in too much of a hurry to share with the world my I’ll thought out thoughts on the matter.

But better late than never. All good things come to those that wait (which will be a bloody long time for readers of the this blog waiting for something good to appear on here).

So here for your viewing pleasure is the Wisbech: Made in Minecraft movie.

Wisbech: Made in Minecraft

Uncategorized

The afternoons plan was to a) post a package, b) maybe go collect my copy of The Judge Dredd RPG.

I achieved the first part of the plan. And I was still undecided on the second and final part. Whilst making my mind up I thought I’d pop my head in The Luxe and ask my friend Nathan if he could get the link for the data that was used to make up the Minecraft model of Wisbech. Why would he have that?

Heck The Luxe was only being used to host the launch of Wisbech: Made in Minecraft project this afternoon.

But somehow I ended up watching the whole presentation instead of doing the second part of the plan.


From a technical stand point it was interesting how they did things. They even had an art teacher from the local secondary school there showing off their Minecraft creation that was the school fully modelled in the educational version of the game. It even had some educational use built in. The bit they showed was a ‘who done it’ murder mystery that was in fact a maths lesson!

The short movie of clips from within Minecraft of the Wisbech model with voice overs from interviews of citizens of the town, was interesting. And I think as a proof of concept was good. But I think something that expanded on that idea and used more interviews of a wider selection of the town, more memories of the older members of our community. Maybe even model some of those historical buildings no longer here (like the gas works). It also struct me a bit Aardman animation like with the animation and voice over.

I know they were pushing the education and intergeneration thing. But for me my real interest lies in using the world created for use with the The End of the World: Zombie Apocalypse RPG. Instead of using a small A5 size street map of Wisbech. I could have the survivors navigating their way round the zombie apocalypse using the Wisbech Minecraft map.

Read the Official Announcement with out The Wisbech Standard copying and pasting it and passing it off as their words.

Hoist the Jolly Roger

Game day, magic, MtG

The weekends gaming was a weekend of playing MtG.

Naturally Saturday was Standard Showdown at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole. Usually I write the whole thing with a round by round summary. With a deck list tagged to the end if I played a new deck or tweaked the deck.

But I thought I’d change it up a little in this post.

I’d taken the new pirates deck with me for John’s daughter to play if she wanted to. However she was not feeling well. So I decided I’d change things up and play it myself.

Knowing John’s merfolk deck was a bad match up for the pirates (it negates the copies of Walk the Plank) I still tested the deck against his. The games were not complete walk overs, but still it lost.

I got off to a flying start to Standard Showdown with back to back wins. Although the games against Andy were made a lot easier with him getting mana screwed both games. In one of the games he mulliganed down to three cards. There was a bit of guilt during those games. An unusual feeling for me. But sometimes that’s the way the cards fall. As an MtG player it’s something you come to accept is part of the game. It’s not fun when you are experiencing it. A hint of optimism is always helpful. You just hope it’s a temporary blip. Or that any moment you will start getting the land and that it’s not too late to turn things round. But there is also an element of inevitability in the current game as your opponent plays lands, get their eggs in a row and finally puts you out of your misery.

Apart from my games against Mr Hall (one of the stores elite four) the ones I lost against Michael were pretty close. But even then with Mr H it wasn’t that I didn’t have answers in my deck, and my deck needed tweaking. I had answers just didn’t get them.

In the friendly games I played with the pirates deck it lost. The mono blue mill also lost in a friendly game. If I was able to mill once more for two cards it would have won. Naturally the Simic deck won it’s friendly game.


Standard Showdown Stats

Standard Showdown Participants: 10

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Simon (Gates Deck) Win 2-0

Round 2: Andy Win 2-0

Round 3: Andy Hall Loss 0-2

Round 4: Michael Loss 0-2

Record: 2-2

Final position: 5th

Sunday morning saw me being messaged by Dale to see if I wanted to meet up. So we did that afternoon at The Luxe. I took along the three standard decks I have currently for us to play with.

Dale and I spent the afternoon chatting and playing MtG. I had a great afternoon. But I’m sure Dale must have been bored with the MtG chat.

Deck plans:

Before Standard Showdown started Saturday John showed me a card he pulled during FNM the night before that did really well for him. It was Twilight Panther.

I immediately took a liking to it. It needs a swamp to activate its ability. But it’s a white version of Skittering Heartstopper. A card I like. Opponents are not keen to block a card like this with big creatures because with the mana open it takes that blocker out.

I like the idea of playing a deck with both of those cards in it. So that makes it Orzhov or white/black.

Looks like I have some card research to do know for a new standard deck.

A couple of gaming sessions last week

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last Wednesday stood out from the other Wednesdays that occur during March by being the second Wednesday of the month.

That was an important distinction, because the second Wednesday of each month just so happens to be the monthly meet up for our gaming group Fenland Gamers.

Games that hit the table that night were Reykholt, Wingspan and Perudo/Liars Dice.

It was great to have a good turn out (for us) of 7. On the whole our monthly meet ups tend to be our best attended meet ups. With the Friday fortnightly meet up usually getting three or four people turning up.

According to the Facebook club page we have 107 members. But as the above paragraph implies very few active/participating members.

We’ve tried different days for the sessions, based on feed back from members. But they have seen lower attendance. Often with the members who suggested the particular day not attending.

I think if my maths is correct our current home for playing is our fourth since the clubs birth. We’ve been lucky and found generous hosts that have allowed us to game for free. The locations have been a school, pub, hotel and currently a cinema. All with free parking, and no charge to attend (it’s part of the groups dna not to charge for attending).

So it makes us wonder just exactly how do we improve engagement/attendance?

Anyway last week was a good week for gaming. Not only was it the monthly meet up, but there was also a Friday evening gaming session.

The evening started off with a game of Via Nebula. This time we played with the more advanced side of the board. Still a quick, fun game.

But the big story of the evening a new member turned up with their copy of Tokyo Highway. Jonathan had been keen on playing this game. The name hadn’t rung any bells with me. But when he described it, the penny dropped. I’d seen photos/posts of Facebook but not really paid attention to them or the name of the game.

As the amount of photos I took shows visually this game is great table top theatrics. It looks fun and chaotic at the same time.

I may be wrong, but I think this might be the first dexterity game to hit the table at a game night.

I liked this a lot. It was a blast to play. The rules are pretty simple. But there is a bit of depth involved. You are planning your turn and adjusting your plans before your turn based on the actions of those before you. Trying to optimise that scoring opportunity.

The fact you basically have two modes to the game as well is also nice. The basic set up and the more advanced that uses obstacles as well.

Plus I won the first game, and was first loser in our second.

A very big thank you to The Luxe Cinema and it’s amazing staff for once hosting us last week.

A hoy there my hearties

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building


Before I present the deck list and my “analysis” of the deck here is my get out of jail disclaimer about these decks.

“I’m not claiming these are the best decks in the world, they certainly are not top competitive decks. They are hopefully fun, affordable (subjective I know) decks. I don’t try and keep to a target price point. I try and use as many cards in my collection as possible to keep my costs down. I’m certainly not a master deck builder claiming this deck will win tournaments, if it is fun to play and does it thing then I’ll be happy.“

Sufferer’s of this blog will remember not too long ago, a couple of Standard Showdowns back, I played the daughter of the owner of the FLGS in one of the rounds. She had constructed a pirate deck the evening before that needed some work. There were a few one of’ s, which meant it wasn’t consistent.

I liked the idea/theme of the deck. It just needed some tinkering. So I’ve done some tinkering and come up with a Dimir Pirate Aggro deck.

Like my friends daughter I will be using Hostage Taker and Forerunner of the Coalition. Although if memory serves me rightly she only had one copy of Hostage Taker. I can’t remember the other cards she had in her deck. Which is probably best. Starting with a clean slate so to speak.

So I went through the stack of cards digging out all my pirates. I’m not splashing red, so those pirate cards are out. Which was a great way to eliminate a load of cards. It was hard enough getting down to the 75 for this deck as it was from the two colours.

So this is an aggro deck. It needs to hit the ground running. Sadly none of the cards have haste. So it needs to be swinging in for damage turn 2 the latest. Turn one is play a land, and a one drop. Turn two play a land, play a duress, and hit for damage and drop another one drop. Turn three is hopefully another land and the first Forerunner of the Coalition. And so on. That’s the prefect start.


I thought the Timestream Navigator will provide a useful distraction to the opponent, and if allowed to be used that all important extra turn. Who needs Nexus of Fate?

Between Hostage Taker and Kitesail Freebooter there is removal to take care of the creatures Walk the Plank can’t deal with (basically her dad’s merfolk deck).

Naturally the sideboard has a plan to take out those nasty Carnage Tyrants and Ghalta’s that one or two players are using in our local meta in the form of Dino Hunter. And the sideboard has more removal and hopefully a way to get rid of token spam.

So I’m excited to play this deck in a few test games now. The lands could be better. I’d like the Dimir shock land and check land in this deck. But that’s an expense I’m not going to splash out on. I definitely don’t want guild gates in here they would slow the deck down. It was hard enough using the two Submerged Boneyards. Maybe I could put in a couple of Evolving wilds. The ratio of the basics also needs tweaking to be more in favour of swamps.

Ok here is mana curve for the deck.

I’m happy with that. The CMC is about what I want for this type of deck.

Ok here is the deck list I have come up with for this initial Dimir Pirate Aggro deck.

Creatures:30

4 Grasping Scoundrel
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Dire Fleet Poisoner
4 Kitesail Freebooter
4 Timestream Navigator
4 Forerunner of the Coalition
3 Slippery Scoundrel
3 Hostage Taker

Spells:8

4 Duress
4 Walk the Plank

Lands:22

10 Island
2 Submerged Boneyard
10 Swamp

Sideboard:15

4 Dinosaur Hunter
1 Warkite Marauder
4 Deadeye Rig-Hauler
3 Golden Demise
3 Vraska’s Contempt

What would you change?

There be treasure

D&D, RPG

I know it’s been quiet on here for a couple of days. Much to the relief of everyone I would imagine.

So what have I been doing? Not much really, hence the lack of posts. I did hit the video by Colville talking about the West Marches format for running D&D.

It’s an interesting idea for running D&D for a large group of players interested in playing the game.

The problem with the majority of Colville’s videos are that they make you want to go and try it for yourself. Which I suppose is the whole purpose of them.

Although I like the sound of running a version of a West Marches style game assuming that enough players are interested, in reality it’s not likely to happen in the foreseeable future. I’ve still to DM my first game (it’s getting closer).

However I did like the idea of a treasure map to give to the players at the start of the West Marches campaign. I think it’s something that could be utilised elsewhere.

So using Adobe Sketchbook I’ve decided to attempt to create a treasure map, and develop my rather poor drawing skills. It’s also working on my Sketchbook skills. An app that has been on my iPad for a long time, but I’ve not used. So there is a learning curve there too.

The plan would be to have two versions of the map. The initial basic map (minus the hexes) showing the general locale and maybe the location of one or two known landmarks/dungeons. It would then be up to the players to keep the map updated as they progress further out into the world. If they make mistakes on the map, the idea is not to correct them.

The second version of the map would be for me the DM. Naturally this will be more informative, have notes, and the hexes. The hexes will allow me to judge distance, set up zones/areas. It would also be the accurate map naturally.

The nice thing about this is it can be used in not just a West Marches game but also in a “regular campaign” at the start. It’s interesting that none of our party in the game I am a player has bothered to create a map. The first map we have was given to us!

Close but no cigar

Game day, magic, MtG


The postman broke the morning routine with a delivery that I wrote about in yesterday’s post. Otherwise there was no other deviation from my routine. My viewing whilst enjoying my morning caffeine fix was Northern Rescue on Netflix.

You also read about the 3D stuff I picked up on the way to my FLGS The Hobbit Hole yesterday. So nothing extra to report on that. Except I got soaked.

Whilst waiting for Standard Showdown to start I managed to play some friendly games with Kar-Fai who was there for Pokemon this week. Before his tournament started we managed to squeeze in three games. Two of which were with my mono blue mill deck, and the third was my Simic deck.

Friendly result: Win 2-1

In this weeks Standard Showdown there were 9 participants, which meant 4 rounds.

Round 1 Dean’s Nephew

I thought my day was off to a bad start when I rolled a 2 for who would go first. But Dean’s nephew rolled a 1! I wasn’t expecting that. I’d go first.

My opening hand was 6 lands and a counter spell. I decided to risk it. At least I’d hit my land drops. I drew into a second counter spell on my turn 2. If nothing else I could delay things a little.

The cards were kind to me, I was able to frustrate whilst getting my pieces into play. And the inevitable happened, and I took the first win.

Game 2 saw me win comfortably also. Helped a little by my opponent not getting all their land drops.

Result: Win 2-0

Round 2 Rob (blue/white mill?)

I think this was a first time playing Rob. I had no idea what to expect. But that’s the fun of the game. Does your deck have the answers for whatever your opponent has in their deck?

It was an interesting match up. There was little pressure on me early on in our games as Rob was playing walls. They only became a problem once he played the enchantment that switched off the defender, and allowed them in combat to do damage based on their toughness. Mix in a little control and mill and it was an interesting deck.

However if my deck is given that time to get its eggs in a row then it’s game over. And Rob’s game plan gave me that time.

Result: Win 2-1


Round 3 John (merfolk)

Once more John and I end up playing each other during a Showdown. During this season John’s deck has had the better of mine. Because of the nature of Standard Showdown between Saturday’s you tweak your deck based on the local meta. John had removed his Simic Ascendancy from his deck. Not sure what he replaced it with. He commented that he hasn’t seen the replacement card since adding it! My deck at the moment is fairly stable. If there are going to be any tweaks now it’ll be to the sideboard I think.

I took the first game comfortably. John sideboarded some cards in. He needed to be quicker off the mark he said. And he was in game 2, and took that one easily.

Game 3 the decider. Back to being frustrating while getting my Ooze and Krasis into place, before swinging in with massive damage.

I thought the games would be close based on previous experience. But these were not as close as our previous games had been. Which surprised me a little.

Result: Win 2-1

Pay attention to your opponents Planeswalker That’s the lesson from this friendly game. Especially when it’s about to ultimate and kill you. My excuse is I was distracted trying to end the game quickly to get on with the next round.

Friendly game: Loss

Round 4 Andy Hall (Blue/Black)

I nearly had a bye. Andy had gone off to collect his daughter and wasn’t back to start the round. But he did eventually turn up. Andy was sitting on a 2-1 record at this point to my 3-0. Boy was I feeling the pressure. Andy is one of the stores top players. I’d played him once in the previous season of Standard Showdown, and had my butt handed to me.

Game 1 was a back and forth, but I got some pieces out and got the win. I was happy I had won a game. Achievement unlocked.

Game 2 was evenly matched until Andy got out his 6/6 flyer that I had no answer for and didn’t draw into one. Andy got the win.

These were intense games. Both control decks. Hardly exciting to watch. Play a land, and pass turn. Waiting to react to whatever the other player did. A battle of the minds, waiting for the other person to blink first.

It was going to happen at some point in the day, and the deciding game was when I finally got mana screwed. It was quick and one sided. The lack of mana, particularly blue was enough of an advantage for Andy to execute his plan.

Result: Loss 2-1

As the dust settled there were four of use on 9 points. Andy and I were offered a play off for top spot. But I was happy to take second place based on the WotC algorithm.

Final position: Second with a 3-1 record

Prize: 1 participation pack, 1 pack for second place, and 1 Standard Showdown pack (had a baby Karn in it – I have 3 of these now so tempted to build a deck round him).

Final pieces falling into place

D&D, RPG

So the negotiations begin to find a mutually agreeable date amongst the interested parties. A date has been suggested. Now the wait to see if people can make it. And if not the bit that’s more complex than the current Brexit negotiations, finding a suitable alternate date.

In the meantime preparations continue for whatever date is finally settled on.

You already know the scenario/adventure I’ll be using (thank you Matthew Colville for your services to DM’s everywhere).

So I thought I’d get some bits together to bring the map of the dungeon to life.

I managed to get some goblin figures, plus a goblin mage that will double as a goblin druid for this scenario. Plus I decided on the undead creature I’d use for one of the rooms, so I got a couple of minis for them. Luckily the Wizkids pack comes with two of them in a pack. Which is all I need.

I also made the decision that the reason for the adventures to be in this dungeon would be held in a cage. Once again Wizkids do a nice one of these.

I already had the big bad. Luckily for me I only need one of those. The other in the pack was broken (I wrote all about that last year). As I write this post I’m trying to fix the broken one. Just in case.

I wasn’t able to find a brazier that I liked. The ones that Wizkids did were with flames coming out of them. I wanted something that looked empty or it held water. In my travels I came across a scrying pool. But it was a 3D model only. I needed a 3D printer. The same modeller also had some loot markers that would be really nice to have also.


But the problem was I didn’t have a 3D printer. Luckily after a post on Facebook a friend offered to print them both for.

I picked those up today just before Standard Showdown (you’ll be hearing about that tomorrow).

It would have been nice to have a plinth and statue of a knight on it. But unlike the other stuff I have it’s pretty situational and it’s reusability is low. Although the plinth part with swappable statues would be cool and reusable.

A number of plain sarcophagus would be handy and reusable, plus a more fancy one with a swappable top. The top would have a figure on it, like a resting knight, or king. But I can live without these.

As you can see I’m looking at stuff that I can reuse, and trying to avoid spending money on stuff that I can only use once. Getting the maximum bang for my buck.

Sadly I don’t have a massive mini collection. I barely have any. So I’m going to have to cobble together something from what I have for the players. So I’ll check my two D&D boardgames and see what figures I can borrow for the session. To be fair, if this was going to be an on going campaign then I’d hope that the players would get their own figure to represent their character. Just like we have in the D&D game I take part in on a Tuesday.

I’ve sprayed the 3D printed stuff with primer, and some of the creatures. I may be lazy and just apply a wash. We’ll see how the mood takes me. Motivation to get painting again has been a hard thing to come by the past few months.

For those interested below are links to the 3D models that were printed for me.

Link to the Scrying Pool 3D Model

Link to the Loot Markers 3D Models

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen

game night

“Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men
Feared by the bad, loved by the good
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood”

And that quote shows my age. But even as I write this post that song is playing in my head. I suppose I could easily have also made reference to Robin Hood: Men in Tights or that Bryan Adams song that blighted my younger years and the music charts (when they actually mattered) from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

Wednesday evening saw Jeff, Diego, Jonathan and myself meet up for a rare gaming session together. Life had been throwing barriers to the band getting together since we had to put a break on playing Charterstone together. But this session could be the start that means we can continue our journey and that campaign.

Earlier in the day I dropped a less than subtle hint that maybe we could learn Diego’s latest addition to his collection Robin Hood and the Merry Men. This was a game that Diego had backed on kickstarter and got just before Christmas.

I have to say the production values of this game are amazing. I’m not sure how much of this is in the edition you’d get from your FLGS or online. But certainly as a kickstarter edition with the metal coins, the painted character meeples, metal first player token, extra heroes (which I hope are available out side of the kickstarter) and the player boards that are a nice thickness with recesses in for the traps and barricades.

This was a traditional learning game for us. Meaning we were reading from the rule book as we went along.


We did have a time constraint on our game. Our hosts for the evening needed us finished by 9pm for reasons. Starting at 7pm meant we had 2 hours to learn and play the game.

It took us about 30 mins to set up and go through the rules. Which felt a long time, even for us. There is a lot going on in this game.

But that meant we had approximately one and a half hours to play the game.

Now this was a learning game, so play was slower than if we knew what we were doing. The rule book was being referred to regularly, points being clarified etc.

In that time we had, we only managed to complete two full rounds.

There is a hell of a lot going on in this game. It’s a semi co-operative competitive worker placement game! I think that summarises the game play. You definitely can all lose the game. However there can only be one winner. But you are all working together to stop the game winning.

I don’t think considering the circumstances it’s fair to pass judgement on the game. There was definitely enough there to warrant playing the game again. The session we had can really be looked on as a taster. The sort of thing you’d get at an expo.

It was great to spend time playing with my friends. Our hosts were great as usual.