All posts by Darren

Kill me I dare you, I’ll only come back stronger

Commander, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

Back at the start of July you had to endure a post of mine pontificating about plans for a future Commander deck built around big blue creatures such as leviathans, kraken, octopuses, squids etc. A blue version of the green stompy deck basically.

Well I’m still undecided about a Commander for the deck. I don’t really have any candidates yet to consider. So undecided is a bit of an exaggeration, more haven’t a bloody clue.

However I do have a card I want to include in the deck. It’s a fun card that requires the following 3 tokens.

The card I found when it dies creates the 3/3 fish token. Which snowballs up to that 9/9 Kraken token.

So what creature starts off this insane sequence of events?

This is kind of an anti-removal card. It’s not in my opponents interests to board wipe, or remove the creature because it gets replaced by something much bigger. It’s initially a bit like the Raptor Hatchling. A chump blocker that gives me something bigger. Yeah this discourages an opponent attacking too.

I like cards like this, Rekindling Phoenix, the Dragon Egg token, it makes them hard to remove, or punishes your opponents for attacking by making you stronger or giving you some benefit. The only way to stop that dying ability triggering is exile.

Plus I can kick this whole sequence of events off myself. If I have to sacrifice a creature, guess which one it will be? If I have to place a -1/-1 counter, do damage to a creature I control. The target will be this creature if it’s out. Why wouldn’t I? It’s win win for me.

Could this be my Commander?

Would give me access to the green ramp, is fairly cheap, and thematic.

The wait is nearly over

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So this hits your FLGS next week. Really looking forward to playing it. And really glad I pre-ordered it, so it will just turn up.

The Rise of Fenris is the final expansion for the already awesome Scythe. And long time sufferers will remember this is my all time favourite game.

This expansion has 12 modules if I remember correctly that get introduced while playing a replayable campaign. Which is the recommended way to try the modules I believe. Then after that you can replay the campaign or play Scythe with whichever modules you like mixed in.

But more on this once it arrives and been played.

Same ol’ thing, new location

Fenland Gamers, game night

Yesterday was the second Wednesday of the month, so yep that time of month again that sees members of Fenland Gamers get together to play some games.

Last nights monthly session was kindly hosted by Wisbech’s premier cinematic experience The Luxe Cinema. Which was a change from our regular venue (for the last couple of years) The White Lion. New owners will be taking over The White Lion at the end of the month, and apparently it’s facilities will not be open to “outsiders” (guests only?). So we have at the moment lost our free gaming location. Which means we are looking for a new forever home(s).

Part of the club ethos, nah DNA is that members should not have to pay to play. Our hobby is expensive as it is. But finding locations that are suitable and free is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack.

Luckily the great manager at The Luxe is a tabletop fan, open to trying new things, and a visionary (I hate saying nice things about him, his ego will get as big as mine, although his dress sense is worse than mine, just) and wants to see the cinema as a hub for the community. After a chat at the tail end of last week, we came up with a plan which saw us arranging a trial “date” or two. Which is how we ended up playing games at The Luxe last night.

Part of the unwritten contract we have with our hosts like The Luxe, The White Lion and Fen Rock is that because we are being allowed to use their facilities for free, that we will purchase our beverages and snacks from them. With our current heat wave, the fact I could purchase a large Tango Ice Blast at The Luxe was really nice.

When I arrived at The Luxe an area had already been cleared for me to put my folding table up. Knowing the size of the table, the number of potential people coming to play, a warning was given earlier about bringing small foot print games. Table space was going to be a premium to fit everyone in. No large games this time.

We split into 2 groups, Jonathan taught and played Pandemic the Cure with one group. While the rest of us played the latest Kickstarter hotness to be delivered to one or two of us, Mint Delivery.

With great timing both games finished within seconds of each other. I’m not sure if Jonathan and co managed to save mankind. But I suspect that they doomed mankind to a plaque ridden doom. James in our group won our game.

After replenishing our beverages, our groups changed slightly, with James joining the others to play Bohemian Villages. Which left Gavin, Katie and myself to play the other half of Gavin’s Kickstarter delivery, Mint Works. The second edition has been tweaked from the first. The tin is deeper to match that of Mint Delivery. Plus the red mints that represent 5 white mints, are now included. Before this second edition the only way to get the red mints was in the promo pack that was printed. Which also has a second edition that does not include the red mints now (they forgot about this on the Kickstarter and they are having to send out red mints separately for those backers that bought the promo who had the first edition of Mint Works and needed the red mints). I like the improvements, the game hasn’t changed, they are just tweaks really that are cosmetic. I crushed this one and was victorious.

Because Mint Works is that quick worker placement fix, we were finished well before the other group. So I broke out Love Letter: Batman. This is definitely my favourite version of Love Letter. Although The Hobbit version comes pretty close. Our game came down to a tense final round, where the game could have been won by either Katie or Gavin. I wasn’t close at that point. But luck was on Gavin’s side and he took the victory. Which meant we had finished once more as the other group were doing final scoring. No idea who won. I suspect Jonathan.

That bought us to about the right time for finishing the evening of gaming. The initial after session post-mortem with the manager was positive. But there will be more trial “dates” and more post-mortems before both parties make any final decisions/commitments.

A big big thank you to The Luxe for hosting us for the evening. You were amazing hosts.

Brains!

Game day, magic, MtG

Starting todays post with a photo Jonathan took with his latest geeky toy during our Costa coffee gaming session. Which just so happens will see him life casting pretty soon. Once we have gaffer taped the GoPro clone to the side of his head.

I am seriously rocking that dwarven Lord of the Rings/Dungeon and Dragons look. I hope Amazon are taking note here and cast me at least as a dwarf extra in their Lord of the Rings tv series.

Yesterday I got a chance to take 4 of my Commander decks out for a spin. It was long overdue, I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms.

The first of my decks hitting the table was my Angel deck. Sadly I had to mulligan down to 5 cards, and still I was borderline being mana screwed for the game. Not surprisingly I didn’t win.

The second game saw big green stompy pound the table. Although none of my ramp cards surfaced, it still managed to throw its weight around, stompying all before it.


As the above photo shows certain creatures can get rather silly if they are not handled. It won’t surprise you dear sufferers that this deck crushed its way to victory.

Our third game the Scarab God and his zombie horde rose to the table. Although the Scarab God didn’t win, I was happy he did his thing.

Game 4 saw me actually get to play the Atraxa precon (with a doubling season in it as the only change). This was the first time since getting the deck in the second Anthology that I’d played the deck. Although the deck had been played by others. Another game that I didn’t win. But it did take an early dominant position, which if it had killed one of my opponents would have probably gone on to win. Instead in a rare moment of weakness I showed mercy and paid for it later. I did enjoy playing the deck. It fired it’s thing off. I think I’ve said in an old post I don’t mind losing. If I’ve had fun, the deck has done what it’s designed to do, winning is just gravy on top.

Our fifth game saw the Angels descend from the heavens once more. It wasn’t exactly a heavenly host, but I had 3 angels out (1 of them my Commander) thanks to me hitting my land drops. My opponents were struggling for land. That was enough of window for them to do their life linked damage. I was felling pretty happy with the board state, with the cards in hand. I could control the game. My health was ridiculous, the only thing I’d have to worry about was Commander damage possibly. And I did take 8 points of it. Before turning all their creatures into 1/1 creatures with no abilities. Naturally the angels flew to victory.

“He has risen, for he is the Scarab God!” Yes our sixth and final game of the day saw the undead once more shambling over the Earth. The Scarab God was out with a couple of zombies early on, kicking off his ability each turn. A board wipe put an end to that. One of the other players managed to ultimate his Ajani Planeswalker, and had an emblem that gave him 3 1/1 cat tokens at the end of each turn. That needed dealing with somehow, otherwise it could get out of hand fast. Between myself and the third player we controlled the cat token spam. But I needed a more permanent answer. I think for the first time ever with the Scarab God I used his activated ability to get me a couple of zombies from my opponents graveyards. I then played the enchantment that gave me zombies tokens at the start of my upkeep. That should if kept on the board allow me to keep pace with the cat tokens. Luckily I got to determine the order of the upkeep triggers. Always zombie tokens first, then the Scarab Gods ability. I get to do more damage that way, and scry more. I didn’t need to attack, just generate zombies somehow. The Scarab God would do the rest. And he did. He took out the cat token spamming player. Then a couple of turns later with 26 zombies in one form or another on the table killed the remaining player. The zombie horde of the Scarab God won the day.

Out of 6 games I won 3. They were great fun. Even the ones I lost. A great day of Commander.

Rolling and a writing in Costa

coffee shop gaming, Game day

This afternoon Jonathan met up at our local Costa to play some roll and write games.

After getting our beverages (no frills hot chocolate for Jonathan, and a caramel cortado for me) we sat down to play some games.

Roll and write although not a large part of our collections, is a genre that we both enjoy. Although I don’t actually remember playing Yahtzee, but that is probably the most famous of all roll and writes, and most widely known. The basic mechanic of this genre is you roll a number of dice, and then do something with the result of those dice, usually writing the result down. Hence roll and write.

We started off the afternoon of chucking dice with learning Qwinto. Which was then followed by Rolling America, and finishing the afternoon off with Qwixx. The rules are complicated. On your turn you roll 1,2 or 3 dice, and you get one reroll. If you use the reroll you reroll all the dice you rolled that turn. No saving dice here. The resulting sum of the dice you rolled is then recorded on your sheet in a row of your choosing that matches one of the coloured dice that you rolled. When writing a number down the rules you have to remember are that on a row from left to right the numbers have to be ascending. And in columns you can’t have a number more than once. The game ends when either 2 rows have been completed or a player has 4 marks indicating that they were unable to use the dice on a turn.

It’s a nice light, quick roll and write. Deciding how many dice to roll and which colours is a nice touch. There is a little denial you can do with that, depending on what colours and numbers the other players are after. Yeah a keeper.

We played Qwinto a couple of times and shared the victories one a piece.


Rolling America hadn’t been to the table for a long time for me, and this was a first play for Jonathan. Compared to the other 2 games we played this afternoon this is more of a puzzle, thinky roll and write. And is playable as a solo game straight out of the box. It feels completely different to the other 2 games we played because of that. I took the honours with our play of this game.

We finished off the gaming with a long overdue return to the table of Qwixx. It’s still a very nice game. Plus there is a great app version of the game now days. However Jonathan took the win.

These are 3 great filler games. Fairly quick to play. Perfect for these coffee shop gaming sessions.

It was kinda fitting that after a great afternoon gaming we shared the victories evenly.

My iPad Setup

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Yesterday I was chatting briefly with some-one I’ve known on social media for a few years now, Jim Connolly. As a result of that conversation I said I’d do a photo of my current iPad setup.

The iPad is my main computing device. Except when I need to code, I can do pretty much everything else I need to do on my iPad. This blog is exclusively written on the iPad or iPhone.

My current setup is as follows:

  • iPad Pro 12.9″ 2nd Gen
  • Apple Pencil
  • UGreen Tablet Stand
  • JETech Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard
  • Lamicall Adjustable iPad Stand
  • HooToo wireless hard drive companion, wireless router, battery extender, access point
  • FiFine USB Condenser Microphone (not shown)
  • Snugg iPad case

I have 2 stands because the UGreen one (the white one) fits better in the bag that I take to work. While the metal Lamicall (which I prefer because of the height) stays at home and is used there (unless I go away then it gets put in the suitcase).

For the record the rest of my blogging makes use of an iPhone 6S, gorilla pod, a cheap tripod, and a phone holder mount that allows me to securely attach my iPhone to the tripod (it’s more robust than the flimsy one that comes with the gorilla pod).

I suppose folks might like to know what my apps are that I use the most when writing this blog.

  • wordpress app (naturally)
  • Pixelmator
  • LiveCollage+
  • Diptic
  • Percolator (for obscuring peoples faces)

Here are some of my other favourite apps:

  • GoodNotes
  • iThoughts
  • Kindle/iBooks
  • MS Office Apps
  • Dropbox
  • Outliner

I hope that has been of interest to folks.

WTF No WAY!

news

This morning while doing my morning check of channels I subscribe to on YouTube I saw this video on the IGN Channel and thought “no feckin way”.

This game was a massive hit in 2017 and I’d say also this year too when the second Kickstarter was delivered.

But I was not expecting this. Gloomhaven the video game. Here is the teaser trailer.

As you saw at the end of the trailer definitely coming to PC. It’s not clear if what we are seeing is cut scenes, or simulated game play. If gameplay then it looks more like it’s been done in an elder scrolls RPG mode. I’m hoping for cut scenes and we are getting a game more like the boardgame. It’s what fans of the game would be after.

But I’m pretty excited about this. I hope it will also hit consoles, and my beloved iOS (iPad Pro which it will look amazing on).

Graveyard Shenanigans with Muldrotha Early Look

Commander, Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

This is an early look at some of the cards I’m putting (at the moment) into my Muldrotha graveyard shenanigans Commander deck.

Naturally considering the name of the deck, Muldrotha, the Gravetide is my Commander.

Which means this deck is all about treating the graveyard as an extension of your hand. So I actually want cards in my graveyard.

So there are cards that have me discarding or sacrificing as part of their cost. Which is fine because these are cards are not gone, I can bring them back either to my hand with spells or use my commanders ability.

I’m also using cards that make use of landfall, or lands on the battlefield and graveyard.

But what’s my win condition? How am I going to win the game? I think it’s going to have to be swing in with creatures. I know at the moment I’m light on the creature front. I think I’ll aim for 25 in total. What the remaining 12 will be I’m not sure.

I know on the spell front I need some targeted removal, especially for getting rid of potential graveyard hate. Can’t have people disrupting the game plan. Because graveyard hate is a big threat to the deck. With access to blue, I can include some counter spells, black will give me access to some board wipes.

Yes Sol Ring, Field of Ruins, Evolving Wilds, and Command Tower will be in the deck. They are a given really.

I need to do more research on the card front for sure.

Ok here are the cards so far.

Creatures:13

1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 Eternal Witness
1 Isareth the Awakener
1 Gravedigger
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 World Shaper
1 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide
1 Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar
1 Protean Hulk
1 Torgaar, Famine Incarnate

Spells:11

1 Crop Rotation
1 Vessel of Nascency
1 Grisly Salvage
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Harrow
1 Krosan Grip
1 Sultai Charm
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Scapeshift
1 The Mending of Dominaria
1 Worm Harvest

Dram the Halfling Wizard

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I thought I’d give Dram his own post. This little power house wizard deserves his own post.

The top left photo is Dram after I had done some touching up of the paint work before applying a wash.

For my wash I used a watered down black grey paint.

I’m pretty happy how it ended up looking after the wash was applied. Well except for the cloak. It looks awful really. But the rest has that dirty, been adventuring, travel along lots of dusty roads look. Obviously I have some work to do on washes.

I decided not to attempt highlights by dry brushing. I thought it didn’t need it. I didn’t want to ruin the effect I’d achieved so far. Stripping back to metal and starting again was something I wanted to avoid. Although that cloak,has me tempted to do that.

This time I finished Dram off using the correct spray can, and applied a thin layer of varnish.

So overall I’m reasonably happy with the way Dram turned out. The one look I wanted to avoid was bright, loud, just walked out of the supply store in new clothes look. I think I achieved that.

I might source some green sand/grass and glue that to the base to finish it off. I’ll look into that in the future.

So now do I attempt another mini? If so which one from the many I have? I feel like doing another.

Humble Bundle Game Design Bundle

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I’m assuming that one or two of you suffers have heard of Humble Bundle. For those that haven’t it’s a website for raising funds for charity while giving you a great bargain. You pay what you want for the bundle, even deciding how that money is distributed amongst the charities the bundle is benefiting if you want to. Most of the content is also drm free.

They currently have a great offer on at the moment for those interested in Game Design. This is board game and video game design. So amazing value for me.

Included in this bundle are the 2 volumes of Board Games That Tell Stories by Ignacy Trzewiczek. I already had the first volume, and been waiting for the second to come out digitally. Although I hadn’t checked in recent months if it had. But no need to now.


The bundle also has 2 great books on game design. I use Level Up! By Scott Rogers with my students. His 10 page design document and beat chart are ideal for the level of students I teach. A Theory of Fun by Raph Koster is a classic. And one I’m always recommending to students to read.

This is a great offer, with some great books. If you are interested in game design you’d be silly not to get these books.

You can take up this great offer HERE.

Oh and while there have a look at the other bundles they have, and sign up for the email alerts so you don’t miss anything in the future.