All posts by Darren

What to play? Who goes first?

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So I was watching an old Tabletop episode on YouTube and they chose the first player using “who goes first dice”. I thought that’s a thing? So I googled them and found a UK supplier, and somehow they ended up through my letter box this morning.

So “who goes first dice” are designed so that you can’t roll the same number. No ties and rerolls. Sadly they only cater for upto four players. 

This has to be a better way of deciding first player than our usual way. Which tends to be a random player counter dropping from a gap in a closed hand. 

Sometimes we even use the suggested way of selecting the first player by the game designer in the rule book. Although some of these can be rediculous, and I’m sure there just because they are thematic. 

But this got me thinking. I also have a “solution” for the “what shall we play?” problem on game night. A solution that we have never used! That solution being What Game cards. 

Basically everyone selects a game to potentially play, with the last player or host selecting two games. They get put into a separate pile. Then a random what game card is dealt out to each person. Then in ascending order cards are played, when a person plays their card they remove a game from the pile. The game that is left at the end is the game you play. 

But this is usually not too much of an issue. Mainly because before something like FEG@WL we have discussed on the Facebook Event page for it what we will play. Or even discussed it the previous week. Which would explain why we haven’t used these yet.

So how do you decide first player or what game to play?

Gloomhaven Second Printing Kickstarter Hits $1 million on first day

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That headline says it all. I’m gobsmacked. According to the first project update yesterday it funded in 5 minutes.

There are no stretch goals for this project, or Kickstarter exclusives. It’s worth looking at the FAQ for the honest and accurate responses from the publisher about them.

However… “It is time for the start of the community-driven mini campaign!” Which supporters can play using a copy of the game (physical or virtual in Table Top Simulator), and then vote on its direction. 

“So there will be a new scenario every third day of the Kickstarter, starting today, and then a road event in between each of those, giving you a 10-scenario mini campaign over the course of the Kickstarter.”

“I don’t plan on ever releasing these scenarios in any printed form. The PDFs will always exist, but taken out of the context of the Kickstarter, it will just be an extremely linear campaign. The charm is that you as the community will get to decide what happens next, so please come on this journey with me, have a great time, and don’t worry about spoiling yourself, because this story is intended to be experienced now.”

How cool is that? That sure is a cool way to engage with the supporters during the campaign. A very unique one as well. So none of these CMoN cool extra minis stretch goals, just the original game and a handful of extras.

So with no “stretch goal tricks” fuelling it Gloomhaven has blown through the $1 million barrier in under 24 hours. 

That is incredible. Will it keep this up and smash the amount raised by Man Juice’s Rising Sun of $4 million? How close will it get to Kingdom Death Monsters $12 million? There is still 26 days of this campaign left. It will dip, it will slow down. But will it pickup again in the final week?

If the unmet demand for first printing is anything to go by (I saw the number 20,000 somewhere for pre-order, and 2,000 copies going to stores), there is at least 7,000 more potential backers to come. But also now there is a lot of buzz, word of mouth, the gaming forums were buzzing yesterday about the game, so there may now also be even more who want the game yet to pull the trigger and commit. 

This is going to be fun watching and finding out the answers. It should also be a blast playing along with the campaign during the Kickstarter. 

So if you are curious or want to get in on the Gloomhaven experience you can back the project HERE and pre-order your copy.

Gloomhaven Second Printing Kickstarter Live

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The Kickstarter for the second printing of Gloomhaven (click HERE and then come back) has just gone live. 

Don’t worry it funded in minutes. 

This nice image I stole from the Kickstarter page shows what you can get this time around.


But this other stolen image shows what comes in the box.

So why should you care? 

Apart from those that backed the original Kickstarter project (good call by the way), only a small handful were luckily enough to get a retail copy of the game. Why? I can only give my theory that the publisher grossly underestimated demand. It worked out that your and my FLGS and online retailers would only get one copy of the game. Leaving a lot of people a little sad and desperate to play the game.

You see Gloomhaven once in the hands of reviewers started getting glowing reviews. Then people started playing it, and they too loved it. So much so that Gloomhaven is sitting at number eleven on the BGG top 100 games of all time. I think once this second printing hits it will break into the top ten.

So as you can imagine copies of Gloomhaven fetch a bit more than it’s retail price of approx £120. If they go up for sale at all. The original Kickstarter backers paid $79 plus any postage. Yeah! 

So not quite as generous for this second printing on the savings, but $99 is still a nice price. Enough to allow getting the extras for not to far off the retail price.

So saving money, getting more for your hard earned cash, it also means you are going to get a copy and not have to enter a royal rumble to get one when it hits retail again (if it does). 

What more do you need?

Oh people to play with! Ok they don’t provide those with the game. But there is a solo mode for the game.

Will this beat CMoN and Rising Sun? Will it come close to Kingdom Death Monster? I think no for KDM, and possible for bodily fluids Rising Sun.

Right bugger off and back this so you get your copy. 

My Epic Long Friday!

charity, Fenland Gamers, fund raising, game night

My work day usually starts at approximately 5am, with me waking up to the days news on Radio 5 Live playing. This Friday it was 4:45am. So it was the tail end of Up All Night playing.

The dogs then get let out to answer the call of nature. I have a bath listening to my current audio book American Gods. Which I’m still listening to as I make my first coffee of the day using my Aeropress. I savour my coffee while watching the latest episode of Scandal, and eat a couple of chocolate chip brioche. 

After Mum collected the dogs I got dressed, packed my work stuff, and hit the road for work.

I’m listening to classic 8-bit chip tunes from the likes of Galway, Hubbard and Whittaker  for the Commodore 64 as I bounce around the Fenland back roads.

My second mug of coffee for the day is at work as I troll my friends with horror stories of my mums cooking. They aren’t biting today. I’m going to have to try harder.

My logic for the day is to stock up on calories for the nights endurance gaming! So I nip along to the college restaurant to buy a breakfast bap (sausage, bacon and egg). But I luck out, they are doing a full breakfast (add beans, mushrooms and fried bread to the mix) for £2.50. Fantastic value. 

The previous day the Rey starter for Star Wars Destiny had arrived. So I’d taken both starters and the playmat to work for myself and Dale to play lunchtime.

I’d been watching a lot of Destiny videos during the week to have a good idea of how to play the game.

Damn I hate you FFG. 
After our “learning” game I just want to get some boosters, crack them open, build some decks and play them.

So that may spoil how I feel about the game. But yes I liked it.

We were a bit slow playing, I think this was the first time Dale had played a game like this. But the game isn’t too complicated. There is a nice flow to the game. I take an action, you take an action, repeat.

I like the pass action, so you can wait and see. Well unless the other player also passes and that then ends the round and you are into upkeep. 

Having the base with an ability is cool. Plus all the mechanisms round it. From the roll off for who gets to select the base to use for the game (both players bring one to the table), the one selected chooses first player, and the player going second gets two shields. Then in the game claiming the base is an action, allowing you to use the bases ability, it then means you go first next round. However it also means you can not do any further actions that round. When to claim is a very tactical decision. Being first next round may be more important than still doing stuff in the current round.

What’s nice is you have that Magic/Netrunner construction element building your thirty card deck. Ok we didn’t get to do that because we were playing with starter sets. But you also have the dice element giving you that Dicemasters feel. For me this is a better Dicemasters. Which is a game I really enjoyed.

The two starters are great to play against each other. Why they only give you one Finn die I don’t know. His character can have two. Just having that bit more flexibility in the starters would have been good.

But still this game for me lives up to the hype. I’m hoping once supply issues have been solved this will be a regular thing between Dale and me.

Classes finish at 4pm. I packed my games I had at work that I thought I’d need over the Easter holidays. And then loaded my car up with my games and my gaming table that I use at work.

My drive home is a different route than in the morning. It’s still across the Fenland landscape but using the main artery. It’s not as busy in the evenings as it is in the mornings.

When I hit my home town, the Capital of the Fens, I pull into Lidls to stock up on supplies for the nights gaming. For £14 I got a lot of stuff. 

At home I quickly changed. Got a selection of games together to take with me. Loaded up the car, and headed off into the night to play games.


Earlier in the day I had promised that I would donate ten pounds of the realm if Jonathan didn’t play yellow all night. A true trial for him, because yellow is his favourite colour, and he always plays yellow if available. 

Chris had also made a commitment to pay a £1 for each game he lost. Would we be able to gang up and deny Chris wins for charity?

We knew Diego wasn’t going to arrive until between 7:30 and 8pm. So the nights gaming started off with a game of Mint Works.

It was the perfect game to start with. Quick to play, quick to teach. And the perfect duration, because Diego turned up whilst we were playing. But didn’t have long to wait because our game was near the end. 

I think this was the first time in the games I’ve played so far that’s ended with a draw. Which meant Chris and I had to go to the tie breakers to determine a winner. The first tie breaker was for the smallest neighbourhood gets the win. We drew that also. Then it went to who had the most mints left. Bugger Chris won the tie breaker, and the game.

Chris wins: 1 loses: 0

With the win stolen from me on a technicality, the only thing to console me was the amazing cake that Diego had bought with him that he’d made.

Our first big game of the night was Jonathan’s game of the year for 2016, The Voyages of Marco Polo. I totally screwed up my tactics for this game. Which was why I came last. Nearly lapped on the points front by Chris. Even now I’m disgusted at myself for how bad I did. I didn’t even have the excuse of being tired! But still another victory for Chris, another pound lost.

Chris wins: 2 loses: 0


Our second big game of the night was Great Western Trail. I got my tactics spot on in this game. I bought only two additional cows. Instead I went for station bonuses, using certificates to boost my money at the market, and maxed out on the engineer and the railroad guy, and building buildings. For me Great Western Trail played much better as a four player game than a two. Oh I won this one. Making up for my poor effort in Marco Polo. 

Chris wins: 2 loses: 1


Great Western had taken us from about half ten to gone one in the morning. We were going strong. Not a sleepy head insight! 

Saloon Tycoon was next to the table. Once again I under performed and came in a miserable last. I could possibly use the excuse I was tired to explain it away. Or I was still in shock I’d won Great Western Trail. But it was during our play of Saloon Tycoon that Diego gave us our comedic moment of the night when (and I paraphrase here) he said “feck off”. It appeared to be aimed at Chris who had just taken a card or character from him, but in reality it was Diego swearing at a poor card draw (iirc). But it was hilarious and the source of much merriment at his expense.

Chris wins: 3 loses: 1

We decided to switch it down a gear during the early hours of the night by playing Imhotep. Tactically I was awful once more. This game night seems to have a running theme of me screwing up my tactics. But at least this time Diego took the honours, denying Chris a victory.

Chris wins: 3 loses: 2

You know what’s a good idea at gone three in the morning? Having Chris teach everyone else a new game. That game being  Mission: Red Planet. I’d like to play this when I’m less tired before saying much about it. I have a thought or two on it. But I’d like to make an opinion not clouded by lack of sleep.  But the winning machine of the night Chris walked away with the win.

Chris wins: 4 loses: 2


Our final game of the night was The Castles of Mad King Ludwig. I did very well on this, surprisingly well considering. And only just lost to you guessed it Chris. 

Chris wins: 5 loses: 2

So our 7pm to 7am gaming session for the NSPCC Big Board Game Day ended. No one had any sleep. No bad tempers due to lack of sleep. Everyone had a great time playing some awesome games (none of that Hasbro stuff). We raised some money for a good cause. And I got some of Diego’s cake to take home.

There is only one way to wrap up such a trial of human endurance. Yep Jonathan and I headed off to the local Wetherspoons for their generic signature fried breakfast. Not shown the side order of black pudding I ordered.


After stuffing our faces we headed off to our respective homes.

Once home and reunited with the Wolfpack I ended my sleep deprivation trial of 28.5 hours by falling asleep (a three hour nap).

I know these posts are only worth reading so that you can get to the pictures of me at the end. So I’m not going to disappoint. Thanks Jonathan for taking them.

At time of writing we raised £130 plus the gift aid on top of that for the NSPCC Big Board Game Day. 

BTN Mar 2017

by the numbers, gaming stats


This post always creeps up on me. It shouldn’t do, I know it’s coming. But it does. I do enjoy the brief bit of reflection it gives me. What I like now is that because I’ve been doing this for over a year now, I can look back at the same period in time and compare. What was I playing this time last year? Am I still playing those games?

So last month was an epic month, it would be hard to match that, or even beat it. But I think I did pretty well.

There were six new (to me) games that I got to play in March. Plus one that was new to the stats app (Gloom). 

So here are the stats produced by the stats app I’m using.


So here is a new section to the post. Which if I can work out how to do what I want to do graphically, will be a graphic instead of a boring table of numbers. Remember I do everything for this blog on my iPhone! That includes using Numbers (the spreadsheet app) for the graph and this new bit. So sometimes I’m limited in what I can do. 

As you can see I beat the average (which ever way you want to measure it – I’m not a stats nerd, potentially a wannabe, but too lazy) for plays. But just missed on the games played for two of the measurements. 

Let’s look at the graph. Stats always look pretty when presented this way. Great for showing trends. But not great for showing the full story. 

Now it’s time for…

My Game of the Month…

So out of the six new (to me) games I played in March, which one impressed me the most to be given the title of my game of the month?

My game of the month is…

This is my current go to filler game. Portable (fits in the pocket), quick, easy to teach, fun. Mint Works really does hit the spot. Plus it is a big hit with the students that attend my Monday enrichment session.  They really do love it.  Seventeen year olds saying “this is my favourite game so far” and happy to play seven games of it back to back! I think it would have been more if we hadn’t run out of time. That’s the ultimate test passed with flying colours.

Worst Game of the Month…

The gaming world will take a deep sigh of relief this month, because none of the games I played qualified for this infamous award. 

Hopefully hitting the table in April…

Didn’t do too well with last months list. Mint Works was the only one to hit the table. And we know how I felt about that. But going to put the ones from the last month back on for April.

  • Star Wars Rebellion – really want to play this now. Even came close to buying once or twice also in the last month.
  • Broom Service – I think a special learning session needs setting up for this.
  • Mech vs Minions – need to arrange a big session for this I think.

Fenland Gamer Events for April (so far)…

  • The monthly meetup (second Wednesday of the month, 12/4/17)
  • The weekly Friday Evening Gaming at The White Lion (or FEG@WL as I call it)
  • T.I.M.E. Stories – life events stopped us completing The Prophecy of Dragons in March. So hopefully our party of time travellers will be able to save the day this time!
  • International Tabletop Day – 29/4/17 – details to be announced 

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.

Big Board Game Night Tonite!

charity, Fenland Gamers, fund raising

Tonight’s the night.

Yep tonight a few members of The Fenland Gamers board gaming group will gather together to play games and raise money for the NSPCC, as our part of their Hasbro sponsored Big Board Game Day.

We will be rolling dice, moving tokens and drafting cards from between 7pm tonight and 7am Saturday morning. 

Yep that’s 12 whole hours of cardboard inspired fun. Which is something I haven’t done before.

If you’d like to donate money to the NSPCC to show support for our mad plan, we have a Just Giving page set up HERE.

There will be photos from throughout the night on my Instagram account, which you should be able to see HERE. I might even do the odd live stream as well! But no promises on that.

Getting windy in Scythe

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Fans of the game Scythe (my game of 2016) will be very excited by this image.

What does this image mean? Why are we wetting our pants (that’s English pants not American ones) over this?

This image is the teaser for the second expansion for Scythe. But to go along with it Jamey Stegmaier has written a blog post that reveals more details about what to expect in this expansion.

So in summary (I don’t want to just copy and paste, you can go read Jamey’s words for yourself – link at the end), there will be two expansions in the box. The first originally designed by a fan adds airships to the game. Hey we are getting new miniatures for these as well. 

The second half of the expansion adds a resolution tile that adds a twist to the end of the game, and effects your decisions during the game!

Personally I didn’t think Scythe needed another expansion. If there had not been another one announced I’d have been more than happy with what I have. 

But I’m not going to turn new stuff away. I’ve just got to work out how everything is going to fit into one box. It’s tight now. I may have to make an insert.

It would be fair to say Scythe has been a hit. I think it was said that by April 100,000 copies sold. Which for a “hobby” game is massive. And it still appears to be selling out whenever stock hits the shelves of stores. Plus what’s even more incredible is that the extras like the metal coins are also selling like hot cakes.

The game walked away with a truck load of awards at the recent BGG awards, voted for by the game buying/playing public.

So this new expansion when it comes out later in the year, is I’m suspecting going to be flying off the shelf in to the grubby mits of gamers faster than me after free cake. So you have been warned. 

Read the full post by Jamey Stegmaier HERE. 

On the outside looking in

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I’ve kind of spent the weekend doing the gaming equivalent of standing outside the restaurant window looking in, while everyone is inside enjoying themselves.

Or that’s how it feels watching YouTube videos by the likes of Team Covenant for the collectable dice and card game Star Wars Destiny.

Because I’ve come late to the party I’ve missed the first wave of the game. It sold like hot cakes 

All I have at the moment is the Kylo starter. I’ve not played a game yet. Well I can’t play with my friend who would also like to get into the game. He can’t buy a starter. Let alone any boosters. I was extremely lucky that I managed to get the Kylo second hand for the price I did.

But this weekend I’m hoping that the Rey starter I’ve got off eBay is legit. I know the awesome play mat that FFG do, and seen in some of the Team Covenant videos is on its way. But that was optimistic of me. It’s assuming my friend and I can get product to play with. Mind you it’s an awesome mat I can use with other games.

I did via a Facebook group for the game hear that there might be starters and boosters in some lgs in New Zealand! Being on the opposite side of the planet would normally be an obstacle. But luckily I have family down there, and an aunt and uncle on holiday there. So a cunning plan is a foot.

May is meant to be seeing the release of the second set for Destiny, with a one off reprint of the first set hitting June. But expect both to be cleared off the shelves by eager gamers quicker than a plague of locusts hitting a field of crops. Yes FFG have said that these print runs are going to be much larger than the initial one. But… we will see. I’m expecting things to be equally as crazy and hard to get.

I’m so so glad I decided to cave and get into this madness (where is that sarcasm font when you need it?)

Woe is me!

charity, fund raising

We are fast approaching the Easter holidays. One more week and schools and colleges are closed for two weeks.

So inbetween preparing for the last term of the academic year there are opportunities to play some games in that break.

But there is a catch to this. Hardly anyone else is free to play anything. The majority of people are not working in education, so unless they book holiday, they are working for the man.

I know one or two of our gaming group are also in education. But sadly the universe has conspired to make life hard for them at the moment (that’s putting it mildly, and my thoughts are with them and their families).

But I suppose before I start worrying about what I’m playing over Easter, I should worry about surviving next weekend! It’s manic. 

My killer weekend starts next Friday with work! We then have our NSPCC Big Board Game Day All Nighter. Twelve hours of gaming running from 7pm that Friday to 7am Saturday morning. I then have to be in Cambridge by 10am for PiWars where some of my students are entering a Raspberry Pi controlled robot.

So potentially I’m home by 6pm on the Saturday. If I’m really lucky a bit earlier than that. 

I think it’s fair to say I may be a tad tired by that point, and ready to drop.

If you’d like to show your support for our charity effort for the NSPCC by throwing money at us (doesn’t matter how large or small the donation is, every little helps) we have a Just Giving page for our fund raising. Thank you in advance for any generosity you show. 

I know it’s hard, especially after just being hit also by Red Nose Day, and it’s the last week before payday (if you are paid monthly). So if it’s not possible to make a donation that’s cool. We totally understand. But if you could spread the word to your friends and family instead that would help us just as much, and we’d really appreciate it.

I’d also like to thank you for taking the time to read the above. Your support means a lot to me. Thank you. 

Then I’m going to close this post off with a picture from the past of the original wolf pack and me, that Facebook decided to remind me of.