All posts by Darren

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

Uncategorized

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

news

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.

WotC start more drama!

magic, MtG

What a surprise. But what have they been up to?

Well it’s Commander 2019. To start with WotC raised the rrp of each deck. This year the price of a single Commander deck is £34.99, up from £29.99 in 2017.

That’s a pretty big price hike in relative terms. Would we see the estimated value of the decks increase, or more importantly the power level to match the price increase?

After the deck lists were put up the answer was no.

And that set the internet echo chamber into an uproar. Price increase and underwhelming deck lists was all the fuel they needed. It didn’t help when you have the YouTube “shills” or chosen ones (aka bought channels either with free product or hard cold sponsorship cash) that seemed to ignore these short falls and talk about the decks as if they were the best thing since sliced bread, or the last WotC product, just adding oil to the fire.

I can see the point of view of the online lynch mob. And to some extent I agree with them.

I have to admit I was underwhelmed by the Planeswalker commanders. From the spoilers there were some cards of interest for other decks. But no high(ish) value reprints like Sensei’s Divining Top, which people were hoping for. I’m not sure I’ll be buying extra copies to break up for deck building (sometimes the cheaper way to get the cards) or to upgrade. Which is ok. I’m happy with that. I’ll buy the singles that I need.

From the other point of view I have on these decks, the most important thing for me is “are these decks fun to play?” I think I may have mentioned it once or twice before, but for Commander I like to keep a copy of the decks in pristine condition, unchanged, ready to pull out at a moments notice so my MtG playing friends and I can play a game with out worrying if they have a deck or not. Just choose a deck they like the look of and away we go. I won’t know the answer naturally to my question for this point of view until I get my grubby hands on the decks and play some games with them.

It will be interesting to see if this years decks get a second printing like last years. The deciding factor will be has the online echo chamber captured the mood and opinion of the silent majority. And it is a silent majority who vote with their wallets. If they are representative then there will be product left unsold on the shelves, and no demand.

Oh btw we haven’t seen the end of the drama. Come the next set, WotC have increased the price of booster boxes to distributors but not the rrp, so naturally we expect that increase to be passed on to the FLGS. Which means their margins either have to take a hit, or they won’t be able to discount from the rrp. So the increase gets passed on to us. Expect to see a similar online shit storm to hit depending on reprints, and the estimated value of a booster box.

There is other ongoing drama and I may comment on that at some point, but at the moment I’ll give commenting a miss. Which most of you will be glad to hear.

Conjuring New Tricks

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

Here we are with the threatened blog post from yesterday (well I wrote this a while back apparently and only just discovered the post in my drafts folder, so not quiet the next day as I say here). Where I shared with those remotely interested the current Wizard Commander deck that I am playing based on last years Arcane Wizardry precon and a $20 upgrade (as created by MTGGoldfish) that was applied to it, which I then changed by a couple of cards.

Since I did that upgrade earlier in the year new cards have come out in the form of new sets like Rivals of Ixalan, BattleBond, Dominaria, and now Core Set 2019. Plus my adventures amongst the planes of the MtG universe have bought me into contact with old cards that are new to me, or ones I knew about and hadn’t considered until now.

It’s the nature of the game, new cards come out, and often the first thought that goes through your head is “this card will go nicely into my xxxx deck”. And that may be so but then you are left with which card does it replace? Sometimes it’s really obvious because the new card is a better version of one that you currently use. But then you have to evaluate the card, does it weaken or strengthen my decks game plan?

First up for consideration and putting pressure on the existing cards are these four creature cards. Torrential Gearhulk and Vampire Charmseeker double down on the game plan of being able to use the graveyard as an extension of my hand, and play instants and sorcery spells from there. While Spellseeker allows me to go fetch a 2 CMC or less instant to sorcery from my library. That ability alone to go fetch the spell I need is powerful. I just got to make sure I have spells that I can fetch that way.

Timestream Navigator would along with two of the other cards introduce a new tactic to the deck. That being the extra turn. I’m not a fan of the infinite loop (I have built decks that have gone infinite in the past to illustrate the mechanic to my students), they are not fun to play against, and in a casual group fun format like Commander I feel they are against the experience of the format. I don’t mind an extra turn/combat phase, but not infinite. So there is nothing in here to make these extra turns infinite. I suppose Timestream Navigator has the potential to go infinite if you are down to your last card. But I’ve not seen a game of Commander go through 98 cards yet to get to that state.

These 3 enchantments are potentially evil. As Foretold the longer it stays out on the battlefield is going to give me so much value. Rhystic Study potentially going to give me insane card draw. Omniscience although expensive if I can cheat it out will like As Foretold give me such value. But for both I need lots of cards in hand, which the likes of Rhystic Study and one or two of the cards below would hopefully do.

Search for Azcanta is probably the easiest one to put in. Even though it’s a legendary enchantment it could replace a basic land. If I don’t flip it, I have a scry effect each turn, but if I do it taps for a mana or allows me to go looking for an answer in my top 4 cards. It’s the flipped side I’m more interested in.

Only 2 Sorceries, Game Plan is a chaotic card that is just a (potentially) fun card to play in a multiplayer format. While Time Warp is the second of the cards that give that extra turn.

I have 9 potential instants to include. The first is that controversial buy-a-box promo Nexus of Fate. The third and final card that gives me an extra turn. Like Timestream Navigator this one goes back into the library and not the graveyard.

Then we have card draw, that digging for the right card at the right time. Having answers when the questions are being asked. These are cards that hopefully help me get to those answers quicker. Then we have some targeted spells to control what’s going on. The fact that all these spells can be played more than once is just extra gravy.


So those are the cards pushing on the door wanting to claim a slot. What do they replace? Do they fit in with the game plan?

Remember the Alamo

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night Chris hosted a game of Mansions of Madness: Second Edition at his humble abode.

Real long time sufferers of this blog (hence known as the suffering) will remember the last time I played this game. That ending was running through my mind and bringing a smile to my face as I drove to Chris’s Pad.

I do like the game. But for me the thing that still stops me adding the game to my collection is the app. However I do appreciate the app also makes the game!

There were some nice touches to the scenario we played last night. I liked the changing board state. Rooms would disappear and get replaced by something else. Rooms would move around the board too.

That was pretty cool. And I can’t see how that could be done so seamlessly and quickly without using an app.

We ended up in a basement with a moving library room connected to it, holding a valiant last stand against wave after wave of horrors, before losing the game.

Somehow mine was the only character that didn’t go insane! Which compared to my only other play was a miracle and minor win in itself.

We had a great evening, and it was generous of Chris and his fiancé Jordan for inviting us into their home. Amazingly I didn’t steal their 2 lovely well behaved dogs.

As the following photo shows I’m getting back on track with the halfling wizard. Ok seeing as my character in our intro D&D campaign is called Dram, I might as well call the mini Dram.

Felt better doing the painting a second time. Still going for the full,worn, weathered feel to the look.