All posts by Darren

Penguins and Mutants

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night an unadvertised session at the White Lion took place. I hadn’t got round to setting an event up on the Facebook page for it. Only two people yesterday morning asked if anything was going on. So arrangements were made to play some games.

Earlier in the day Dale and I had successfully avoided a crappy Summer by getting our students work and our marking passed by an external verifier from the awarding body we were using. Which was my excuse for a nice cold pint of Thatchers. I was also happy how my eHan/eRay deck was holding up against Dales eMaz/ePoe deck. I’ll do a post soon with the initial deck list and my thoughts about it. 

Back to last night and the games I played. Once Edmund had arrived I introduced him to 51st State Master Set with the new expansion Scavengers (which I bought at the expo).

Scavengers plays with the discard pile, so now each player has a personal discard pile. During lookup the discarded card goes into the first players discard pile. You now due to card abilities have the chance to take the top card from an opponents discard pile. There is also more to stuff there to do with ruins but we didn’t really hit any of those cards. A third connections deck has been added also.

I like 51st State, it works well with 2 players. But unless you play it a lot you won’t see all the cards. So with the base game cards plus the expansion I think that’s a 120 cards roughly for the common deck. So we were not going to see everything this expansion had to offer.

The future history books will see that my post apocalyptic group of survivors were the stronger. 

Our final game was one that had been on my radar for a long time, Hey That’s My Fish. Every time I visited my FLGS The Hobbit Hole and saw the box on display. I’d be curious but never pulling the trigger and buying it. But then a friend I was selling Inis to was planning on selling his copy at the bring n buy at the expo. Saw it was in the original small square box that I preferred to the current rectangle box. So I bought it from him.

It’s a very light game. Plays quickly. Well our 2 player game of it did. But it had something Barenpark doesn’t (apart from being fun) player interaction. You are trying to get the high value fish, while trying to cut off/isolate your opponent. 

I lost both games (Edmunds revenge for 51st State) but enjoyed both games.

A great evenings gaming. 

Fenland Gamers July 17 Monthly Meet Up

Fenland Gamers, game night

What a busy week at work so far. Staff training (I need to keep my thoughts about some of that to myself else I’ll get in trouble), team meetings and planning for next year. Life in the under funded and forgotten FE sector.

So the monthly Fenland Gamers meet up at its temporary home of the White Lion Hotel last night provided much needed respite.

Diego, Justin and myself played Scythe. Which for those that wisely avoided my recent Top 100 games will not know, is my number 1 game. According to the BG Stats app that I’m recording all plays with, it has been 5 months since I last played Scythe.

This was Justin’s first time playing this epic game.

I was playing the Nordic Kingdom for the first time. I have to admit I did like the factions special ability of having my workers being able to swim across rivers right from the start. Justin was playing Crimean Khanate, and Diego had Albion from the Invaders from Afar expansion.

Justin did well and got to the Factory first, with me quickly following. Much of my game plan then revolved around trying to abuse my chosen factory card which allowed me to either get a mech or building for the trivial cost of one popularity. So I was flipping mainly between my factory card and bolster which on my player board gave me a popularity after I had built my monument.

I did trigger the end of the game, but that was more out of self defense. Justin was hovering on 5 objective points, and Diego was on 4. I needed to win one combat to do that. Up until my go I had been eyeing up attacking Diego, but he drew two combat cards on his go. So he had the possibility of winning a battle. On the other hand Justin had no combat cards and zero bolster points. Perfect. So I built my last mech, and took the move action to attack Justin for the foregone victory.

Both Diego and I had zero or 1 popularity so were not going to get lots of points that way. I had zip resources at the end. After the dust had settled with Justin into the next scoring zone on the popularity track, he took first place. Whilst I managed to pip Diego to second. I suppose a better player would have worked out the optimal time to pull the trigger to end the game. They would have worked out every ones relative points, and maybe strung out the game for a turn or two more to maneuver the situation to their advantage and victory.

I really did enjoy getting Scythe back to the table. I had a blast playing it. Another great monthly meet up.

Playing in the Sandbox

Game day

Back in the day. Oh how I fecking hate that saying. Look back in 1984 I was like 16, studying at the Isle of Ely College. And this game Elite was somehow on the Beeb micros there, along with Frakk, and clones of popular arcade games of the time. I was programming in BASIC on the Beeb, my Commodore 64 and any other platform in front of me. It wasn’t until it came out on the Commodore 64 that I got to spend real anytime on this open world sandbox game. I remember enjoying the game but not exactly being any good at it. 

It’s that memory of Elite from my teenage years that attracted me to Xia: Legends of a Drift System and it’s expansion Embers of a Forsaken Star. It looked and sounded like Elite the boardgame. 

Luckily Edmund gave me the chance to get Xia to the table yesterday when he invited me to an afternoons gaming.

We played without the NPC ships, but with everything else from the base game and expansion. We set the fame point target to achieve to the suggested first game target of five.

Neither of us took weapon upgrades for our initial ships. Edmund was flying wildly doing blind jumps into sectors, while I spent the energy to scan first. 

Both Edmund and I ended up with bounty on our heads when we traded in the wrong part of the galaxy. Guilt by association.

Edmund did manage to complete a mission and earn enough credits to upgrade to a tier 2 ship and get rid of his bounty. He was also better at trading than me and earns a couple of fame points that way too. 

Me I was bumbling around space going “lalala”, “oh look pretty star”. Pretty much no different to when I was playing Elite way back.

We didn’t even get close to scratching the surface of Xia. With more players and the NPC’s thrown in the experience would be different again. There is so much to explore with this game. Each game will be familiar, yet different due to the modular nature of the tiles. 

Xia takes up a massive amount of table space. The quality of everything is really high. Metal coins, pre-painted minis.

This is an impressive game. It’s epic in scope. I love it. I can’t wait to play it again.

I am the Overlord

Fenland Gamers, game night

Yesterday evening Justin invited me and his brother Jason to go seeking adventure and great treasures in a game of Descent.

This game was a recent addition to his collection. So naturally this was a first play for all of us. I’d tried watching Rodney’s Watch It Played! videos for the game. But the heat of the day had been making me drowsy along with a bit of a headache. Luckily much of what I saw was familiar from my little experience of skirmish plays of Star Wars: Imperial Assault. Which is itself an updated version of Descent set in the Star Wars universe.

I was asked if I didn’t mind being the Overlord. Which I didn’t. 

We played the introductory scenario. Which is there really to introduce you to the game and it’s mechanics. A job that it does really well.

I knew before we played I’d like Descent. I like Imperial Assault. I like fantasy, the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing. So it’s a no brainer for me. I generally like to play magic users, Gandalf types casting fire balls all over the place. But most people type cast me as a halfling/hobbit or dwarf!

This introductory scenario is nicely balanced. I felt it could have gone either way. Despite me winning, I think that Justin and Jason could have won if they had a bit more experience at this type of game, and a change of tactic that would deny my goblin archers camping in the scoring zone for my objective.

Definitely after playing this scenario we are keen to start the campaign. I did point out there is an app (iOS link) that acted as the Overlord. Jason and Justin both downloaded it there and then to look at. Which will be cool if we use this for the campaign because I can play as an adventurer.

So I’m definitely looking forward to the campaign starting once the logistics of it are all sorted out.

Thanks Justin for inviting me along for the evening of gaming. I really enjoyed myself. And somehow I still left your dog with you!

Egg meet face

rant

I’ve had to cancel this evenings kickoff event for a Magic the Gathering League at our gaming group due to lack of interest.

I’m kind of feeling a little disappointed.

A while back I tried to get something going for Ashes at my FLGS. I bought an OP Kit from Plaid Hat (two actually) out of my own pocket. Tried to get a tournament going, and attract interest locally for the game. It was myself and one other. I wasn’t looking to make money out of it, that wasn’t the reason I was doing it. At best I was hoping to break even and kickstart a local meta for the game. That day for the one kit cost me £40. I eventually sold the second kit on at a loss for me. Happy to get something back.

That experience didn’t put me off. After seeing the Magic the Gathering league format. I thought that’s a great format for new and seasoned players. It doesn’t rely on having lots of cards. Decks are 30 cards built from the cards you get from purchasing 3 booster packs, and adding in any extra lands that you need. Then strengthening your deck once a week by purchasing an additional booster pack. If you got three loses in a row I think it was, you could also buy an additional booster pack to strengthen your deck with. This kind of put everyone on an even playing ground. Plus not going to break the bank. I think at my FLGS prices the initial 3 packs would cost £10, and £2.95 (?) a booster after that.

So I sounded out the group for interest in playing Magic the Gathering using these rules. I think there were five or six that showed interest. Enough to warrant setting up an event and getting in booster box.

Which I did. Sadly, at best tonight there would have been 3 of us. So it looks like I’ve taken another hit in the wallet.

If I run something like this again, I’m going to ask for money up front. But at the moment, I’m not feeling like I want to put the effort in. Feeling a bit bruised.

But feeling that way about organising stuff for the club for other games too. Maybe disheartened is a better word to use. maybe it’s me! I know, you find that hard to believe. But I am an acquired taste.

Oh well maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow after spending an evening watching videos about games I won’t get to the table soon. Oh wait no I won’t because an event to find people to play Xia, has 1 possible, and that’s it. So I might find myself going to see the new Spider-Man movie again.

Yep that’s right, again! I saw it Wednesday evening. Bloody brilliant movie. Easily the best Spider-Man movie so far. Refreshing to have a reboot that doesn’t cover the origins of Spider-Man again. I think as a superhero movie it’s in the top 25% I would say.

Right later folks

My Top Ten Variable Player Power Games

TopXX Games

We have now reached my third favourite game mechanic (by number of times it appears in games in my collection).

Variable player powers. I certainly do like this mechanic. For starters it adds much needed replay-ability to a game. Unless you are going out of your way to play the same character/faction with the same abilities each game (assuming that is an option) then each game is different and requires different tactics. I also think having different characters/factions with that have different abilities makes the game better, and reinforce the theme of the game. If you look at Nations the Dice Game, it’s a great game, but despite each player being a different civilization, you really don’t feel that you are that civilization there is nothing unique about them to make you think “oh I’m the Egyptians”. To some extent I also think that about Kemet which I love. You don’t really feel that you are follows of a particular god.

So here are my Top 10 Games with the Variable Player Powers…

  1. (Top 100 position – 1) Scythe
  2. (Top 100 position – 2 ) T.I.M.E Stories
  3. (Top 100 position – 3 ) Star Wars: Destiny
  4. (Top 100 position – 8 ) Santorini
  5. (Top 100 position – 10) Neuroshima Hex!
  6. (Top 100 position – 12) Mechs vs. Minions
  7. (Top 100 position – 13) Android: Netrunner
  8. (Top 100 position – 18) Imperial Settlers
  9. (Top 100 position – 20) Zombicide
  10. (Top 100 position – 21) Run, Fight, or Die!

Ultra Rare Costa Gaming Session 

coffee shop gaming

A very very long over due Costa Gaming was held Sunday between Jonathan and myself. Jonathan wanted to try Caverna: Cave vs Cave as a two player game (he had only tried it solo that morning). Plus he had Le Havre: Inland Port he wanted to do a learning game of.

Between the car park and Costa lies The Works, well its a lot nearer to Costa than the car park. But it qualifies as between so I will stick to that description of its location. I thought you know what I’ll quickly pop in on the off chance that they might have a board game bargain in. I mean they did sell Sun Tzu which at the time was a bargain for this nice little two player game. Mind you they also sold the awfully bland deckbuilder built around the online game World of Tanks.  I didn’t see any games there but I did see some jigsaw puzzles that looked more challenging than Barenpark. I ended up buying a couple of childrens Lego Star Wars story books for their Lego minifigs on the cover. £2.50 each for an R2 and Rebel Snowtrooper was a good deal I thought. Whilst paying I saw two home made cakes by the till. This was enough of an in for the shop assistant to up sell me into buying raffle tickets to win them. It was for charity and five tickets for a quid wasn’t going to break the bank. So I bought five tickets and won a sponge cake with a lemon curd filling.
Jonathan was already at Costa when I strolled in with my purchases and winnings.

We started off with Caverna: Cave vs Cave. I really am liking this as a light-ish two player game. I ended up with a nice little engine that got me lots of gold (which are worth points at the end of the game). By the end scoring I maxed out on 19 gold. While Jonathan had built more rooms in his cave than me. Which when we added up everything meant that we actually tied on points.

Oh another reason for me liking this game. Shortest person is the starting player! Thematically it should be the most dwarven looking but I’ll take this.

Next up was  Le Havre: Inland Port. I have to admit I have been close to getting this since playing  Caverna: Cave vs Cave. But luckily I hadn’t done anything about it. We actually gave up on this game, with the intention of watching tutorials on line, and trying to work out what we were missing about the game. We were reading the rules and it didn’t make sense how we could buy stuff, and take all of our actions, especially the first player. It was a very frustrating experience. I think we have worked out those misunderstandings since Sunday. I don’t think that the rule book is as clear as it could or should be.

So with that frustrating experience lingering around, we chatted away, righting the wrongs of the word, catching up on life events, etc. By the time we had finished it was closing time at Costa. Thanks Jonathan for a great afternoon of gaming and chat. We must do this more often. We once did. Lets male it a thing again.

And finally a big thank you to Jonathan for providing me with photos of me in board gaming action.

BTN June 17

by the numbers, gaming stats

June started off with the UK Games Expo. I played some games there but not as many as the majority who attended I would imagine.

Dale and I are playing Star Wars:Destiny a LOT! Which has really pushed up the number of plays this month. With playing it so much is it no wonder it was number 3 in my Top 100 Games (that I own and have played)?

I am surprised how few actual games I have played this month. I know that I was unable to attend one FEG@WL this month, and a couple of weekend sessions fell through. But still I’m shocked at how low this was. Probably one of the lowest months on that front.

Let’s look at some other measures. Still no attractive graph. So you are stuck with plain raw data.

The final section as usual presents the data graphically so we can try and see trends.

My Game of the Month…

Out of the new games to me that I played this month, only one really warrants this prestigious award, and that’s Orleans . The other new games for the month were on the whole good, but not game of the month material. Ok Kanagawa may have got it otherwise.  

Worst Game of the Month…

This won’t come as any surprise to anyone, but we do have a candidate for this infamous award this month. Do bears shit in the woods? Well they have and it contained this game. Yep Barenpark is my Worst Game of the Month for June. I’m not going to say anything else about this horrendous game. I’ve already said enough about it through out the month.

Hopefully hitting the table in July…

But going to put the ones from the last month back on for July.

  • Magic the Gathering – hoping to get a league running for the Summer.
  • Broom Service – final month on this list.
  • Mech vs Minions – no movement on this either.

  • The weekly Friday Evening Gaming at The White Lion (or FEG@WL as I call it)
  • Every second Wednesday of the month we have our monthly meet up. This month that second Wednesday is 12th, and will be at The White Lion.

If you are in the area and want to attend one of the events, please visit the Fenland Gamers Facebook page for further details about the event. Hope to see you there.

Pandemic Iberia Standees 

Uncategorized

Like Pandemic Iberia? Well I do. So does my friend Duncan (described as the Scottish version of me but likeable!)

Duncan has done some amazing work for the game by creating standees for it to replace the pawns.

I’ve stolen one of his photos of them below. Because that’s the sort of person I am. Take, take, take.

Not only that he’s shared them with the gaming community by putting the file up on bgg for others to do the same.

Obviously this shows just how much nicer than me he is.

You can get the file HERE

Infamy, infamy, they all have it in for me!

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game of thrones

It wasn’t planned this way, but yesterdays and the game in two weeks time are a brilliant way to celebrate the start of the much anticipated new series of The Game of Thrones this month. In fact I think the next game is the same weekend. It’s also that weekend I can start taking holiday also. An exciting weekend indeed. 
Yesterday the people rose up with the aim to over throw the current incumbent of the Iron Throne Jakub.


Four players again meant that we were playing with the Feast for Crows expansion. Justin was playing for the first time, and drew the Starks. I drew the Baratheons, which was a first for me. Chris got the Lannisters and reigning tyrant Jakub was once again Arrayn.

Chris was the first one scoring, his House objective automatically kicked in. I had to attack Chris because we both needed Kings Landing. I wanted it more! 

And I managed to hold on to it for a large chunk of the game. Chris and Jakub formed an unholy alliance and ganged up on me. Whilst Justin was doing a good job of being a distraction to them. Sadly not enough for me to sneak the victory.

Chris took back Kings Landing with me one round away from winning. I was left with two ships as my only forces left on the board. I desperately needed a mustering to ocurr.

That unholy alliance wouldn’t hold out, I was sure of it. Both thought they were able to grab the win. Sadly for Chris Jakub was in a better position than he was.  Jakub completed an objective for the final point he needed to get the win and strengthen his hold on the Iron Throne.

We had alliances, deals, no betrayals that I remember. 

So well done to Jakub for successfully defending your throne.  Sadly for you, but luckily for the rest of us you are unable to defend it next game. So enjoy your short extended reign.